SEN. Hillary Clinton has bought an hour in prime time on the women’s-oriented Hallmark Channel the night before next week’s Super Tuesday primary election.
The cost of the unusual block-time purchase is about $500,000, according to industry sources.
Hallmark will air Clinton’s national “town hall” TV event, linking 22 cities in primary election states by 21 satellites.
Before the TV deal, the event was basically a massive, closed-circuit campaign rally.
The unusual purchase – which gives Clinton an unprecedented national platform at 9 p.m. (NYT) the night before the election – was kept secret until yesterday.
Clinton’s media people did not even approachHallmark officials about buying the time until Monday afternoon, said Hallmark Channel honcho Henry Schleiff.
Details of the deal were not finalized until Wednesday night, he said.
Clinton will take questions from supporters in New York and – over the satellite – from the cities where primaries will be held on Tuesday.
“I don’t think there’s any argument that this is 60 minutes of paid advertising,” Schleiff told The Post last night.
Hallmark is available in 84 million homes in the US, though its usual prime-time audience for entertainment programs is only around 3 million – on a good night.
The channel’s carriage of the event was not a political endorsement for Clinton, Schleiff said – and added that the channel has made itself available to “the other leading candidates.”
Clinton, who is locked in a neck-and-neck campaign against Sen. Barack Obama, is also slated to appear on the David Letterman show later that night. Schleiff said that it is not uncommon for a single sponsor to buy an entire program on Hallmark, although this is the first political event to be purchased in the same manner as an infomercial – and on such short notice.
He said Hallmark officials will be measuring the event’s ratings, but may elect not to release the numbers.
The Clinton forum, called “Voices Across America,” will air from New York, with Bill Clinton, daughter Chelsea and major supporters serving as “hosts” in the 21 other cities.
“Our aim is to have the largest, most interactive town hall in political history,” Clinton said in a statement.