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What you don't see backstage is what really controls the show.

I think people are smart enough to sort it out. They know when they're watching one of these food fight shows where journalists sit around and yell and scream at each other, versus serious issue reporting.

What hasn't surprised me is that audiences, as we found starting with box sets, want control, to decide how they watch it. Appointment viewing is slowly being put slightly behind.

Obviously with the Internet and increased access to other means of watching shows, the audience has dispersed and is all over the place and that is a challenge.

There's a way in which these guys all think absolutely media, day and night. Access is what it's all about, so they spin 24 hours a day and that's a problem.

Sometimes it's like watching a train wreck. You're uncomfortable, but you just can't help yourself. Some of those so-called bad interviews actually turned into compelling television.

Almost every media organization is doing something with live events now, and that's because they feel they can break through that way.

You turn on the TV, and you see very bland interviews. Journalists in the United States are very cozy with power, very close to those in power.

One of the reasons a strategist never sits in a stadium and gets caught up in the crowds - and never sits watching a debate in person - is because the vast majority of American voters watch these political events on television.