A FIRST REPORT

on Constituency Television in a General Election

 

 

Granada’s Election Marathon was an experiment.

Its aim was to give every voter in Granada’s Northern region the chance to see and hear, in his own home, all the candidates for his constituency.

Marathon presented 229 parliamentary candidates contesting 100 Northern constituencies. Many thousands of the electors in those 100 constituences never saw any of their candidates except in Marathon. For the candidates it was an opportunity to speak directly to the electors whose votes they were seeking, and to reply to points made by their opponents, who appeared with them. Of the 229 candidates taking part, 98 were Conservative, 100 Labour, 25 Liberal, 3 were Welsh Nationalists, 2 Communists and 1 Lancastrian; for the minority candidates, it was a rare opportunity of equality in political broadcasting.

Here is the story of this unprecedented experiment in constituency television.