Opinion: What if you held a Sunday chat show but nobody came?

Perhaps even more revealing of the campaigns’ growing desire for control is their bipartisan caution about dealing with the broadcast networks — which, as Pew found, maintain substantial audiences in both parties. Candidates from both parties are making themselves available for interviews on the morning news programs — which provide broad exposure while subjecting the candidates to relatively brief questioning — and, to some extent, the evening news broadcasts as well. But with the exceptions of Democrat John Edwards and Republican John McCain, the leading contenders so far have ducked the Sunday interview shows traditionally considered a rite of passage for presidential candidates. Clinton and Giuliani have not yet appeared on ‘Face the Nation,’ ‘Meet the Press’ or ‘This Week with George Stephanopoulos,’ while Romney has only submitted to one of Stephanopoulos’ somewhat more informal ‘on the trail’ interview segments. [...] Jim Dyke, who was the communications director of the Republican National Committee and is now advising Giuliani, says the relative blackout reflects a straightforward cost-and-benefit calculation by the candidates as their options for reaching the public expand. ‘If you do a Sunday show and you get through it unscathed...then nobody cares,’ Dyke said. ‘Maybe the inside-the-Beltway types notice a little bit, but it’s not going to change the narrative of what you’re doing...that week. But let’s say you go on and you have to face all this ‘gotcha’ stuff and you don’t get through it very well, you have at least a day’s worth of stories about how you’re...not ready for prime time. They used to be big because they defined the commentary and punditry so much. I’m not sure they do that anymore. Plus it was an opportunity to reach so many people, which you have so many ways of doing now.’