can kind of take it away. Well I guess let's start kind of broadly tell me what
it's like to be in Green Bay during election season with the number of ads
and being in the television business. Do you hear from people? Like do they say
something like can you stop the ads or what's that? Yeah of course they want us
to stop the ads but we actually have an obligation to run the ads right. You
know it's probably no different than any other major metropolitan in the state of
Wisconsin because Wisconsin is so tight. Northeast Wisconsin in particular you
know it's really purple up here. There's a not one side or the other has a huge
advantage so so yeah it's pretty crazy. And how does your station handle some of
the conflicts that come up over ads? I mean actually we saw just recently
Wisconsin I put out a statement saying Tammy Baldwin inappropriately is using
some of our old video taking out of context. Every cycle it seems there's
someone saying we call on this station to take this ad out. How do you hear?
It's pretty easy the way we handle it and really what happens is I'll get a
letter right as the general manager I'll get a letter and they'll demand that we
take the spot down. I take that letter I send it to our gentleman who handles the
political for our entire company in Washington DC. He'll turn around and send
that letter to the other side. Demand documentation on how they came up with
whatever they said. They send the documentation to him we send the other
side campaign usually what happens if it's a problem they've already taken the
spot down and changed it out or or the documentation is sufficient for them to
understand why they put that in there. What I'll never do is I'll never pull
and add myself because number one I would rather the other side if there's
falsehoods in an ad the other side has ever been a right to actually answer
those by buying more ads right and the other thing too is that I'm not going to
be the arbiter of what's the truth because I might enter my own bias into
that and and I think it's just fair that somebody else decides that. Especially
in modern campaign environment these ads are always right on the border if not
well over the border. Yeah I mean you act surprised when there's a potential
untruth in a political ad you know they are they are pushing the lines
different interpretations of you know slicing words in half and things like
that. Yeah it is but I think the public is aware of that too right I mean that
the public is out there if they're doing their research right well let's be
honest the majority of the public has already decided the way that they're
going to vote and these ads are just over that little fringe five to seven
percent of undecideds really undecideds in the middle and maybe they are less
informed voters who haven't made up their minds yet so that one little nugget of
information in an ad could flip them to one way or the other and I think there
will be people that will flip back and forth you know in the presidential
campaign but truth be told some of the other important campaigns in the state
is the Senate state assembly state Senate the US Senate state Senate which you
know we've seen a whole lot more activity in the state Senate because of
redistricting. Yeah let's talk about that for a second because we spent a good
decade where most of those seats were locked up and impossible to switch no
point in spending money right not only is it new maps fresh maps but a lot of new
and there's no incumbents. Yeah I mean many of the people who are incumbents
deciding that you know it's time to get out new people and new markets the
lines of I have to be truthful Zach I don't even I have to do a little
research to figure out who I'm voting for where I live right and that's that
that's reality because like my district could have flipped and some people won't
do that those show up at the polling place and they won't even know who they're
voting for so that's me personally. So does that add to the pressure of all
the all the ads you're dealing with or is that does that not factor into it
whether it's all presidential all the way down. No it adds to the pressure I
mean you know we don't we're in the time business right we can't create any more
time we don't have any more newscasts they tend to advertise in newscasts right
you don't have any more newscasts they you know political occupy a large
percentage of our available inventory between now and the election and have
for many months right to answer your question yeah I think every time you
add another competitive race it adds one or two more candidates who want to
buy time and you know it's not only our television station but every
television station in the market it's having that same issue there's only a
finite number of spots of it exactly there's only so much time between now
and the election day right and the other interesting thing that's happened is
it really been a compressed race right with everything that happened on the
Democratic side you know with determining who their candidate was really kind of
pushed that candidate to have to inform the public in a shorter amount of time
rather than if Biden had continued as the candidate on the Democratic side and
truth be told you know President Trump or you know Trump as a candidate he
didn't spend till the last till after the after the RNC so it's really a
compressed race on the presidential side and then the Senate side you know with
the incumbent Tammy Baldwin had a pretty good war chest and ended up with a
competitor that was a self-fungor right and and contributed a lot of his own
money as contributing a lot of his own money into that race which will be a
competitive race and a Wisconsin will be close for Senate for president I can
guarantee you that so one of the things that's happened in the last year is
there's been a concern over AI advertising Wisconsin passed a law how
does that impact you as a television station and the ads that you there well
I guess as I understand the law anytime they're using any type of AI they're
supposed to disclose it so since that law passed in March which by the way had
an amendment in it that basically said that television stations shouldn't be
the arbiter of whether AI was used I believe that's the federal other state
elections Commission that determines that but since that law went into place I
have not seen or heard an ad that has used that disclaimer yet so either it's
if it's being used nobody's disclosing it or they've determined that that the
penalties are so high that they're just not going to use AI to determine it what
is your sense of how the public feels about AI I mean it you go out you live
here you talk to people okay is AI still a scary terms obviously that's part of
why it was putting there yeah I think I guess I'm only speaking for myself I
can't say from you know from our perspective from our station's
perspective but I think people are getting more and more used AI they're
using it in their daily life wouldn't you agree maybe they've been using AI
for a long time I think if you ask Siri something isn't that AI giving you the
answer right so I think they're becoming less and less scared of it I think where
becomes an issue is when there's the deep fakes that are out there particularly
in digital advertising and things like that so I think that was the intent of
the law is to avoid that and again I trust that it's worked okay and I guess
one of the things that kind of jumps out on me about that law is it deals
specifically with television stations and these kind of advertising but it
doesn't talk about digital like the dark side of the web YouTube and those
I think it does yeah I think it does we could stop the tape I can check
but I mean that's almost a completely wild west it is really the wild west and
the digital side yeah I don't know the answer to that in terms of the
difference between AI you you mentioned like deep fakes was one of the fears of
higher elections and but versus just general misinformation how much of this
is just going to come down to the individual voter and having to kind of
sift through all I think that is the reality I mean there is so much
disinformation out there whether it's in social media that could be in these
campaigns could be sprints writing disinformation I think it's up to the
individual voter to determine what's actually the truth and do you see a
difference in the ads between third-party groups versus the actual campaigns and
the candidates themselves in terms of how they approach it is this or I do I
think from my perspective the third-party issue ads tend to be a lot more
digging deep and punching a little harder maybe pushing the envelope out to the
sides as far as you know what's actually the truth candidates candidates will
do spots that just talk about them positively right I mean I think you're
seeing Harris ads right on right now that's just her introducing herself to
the perspective undecideds out there by sharing what she believes in right I
mean because people don't know they've never had the opportunity then the
presidential she never went through the primary process there was no primary
process that stuff wasn't vetted she's got an opportunity to actually get that
information out there for people to make that decision or on the Republican side
you know I guess you know we've we've had president Trump already we kind of
know what's there right in in sense of the you know of enthusiasm that's out
there mm-hmm do you pick up on that night can your crews pick up on that or
do you know I think you know any of that would be my own perspective right and my
own perspective as just a voter or just an observer would be is that I don't
think there was too much enthusiasm for the presidential because of the two
candidates between Trump and Biden I think once Harris entered the race there's
somebody new you know whether it was age or ability or whatever that maybe
people on the on the Democratic side weren't enthused I think they're
they're truly enthused about somebody besides the president President Biden
mm-hmm and how much do you do you dip into any news meetings ever to talk about
what you guys are covering or how you're put this with the whole gamut of the
ballot yeah all races and this is such a key area of state for that I think I do
I do participate in the news meetings and in reality as a local
broadcaster we basically just have to cover the facts I mean the example would
be if there's a rally or a political campaign event where they're to cover
the facts we might talk to people on but we'll talk to people on both sides that
might share their opinions but we're not sharing our opinions we're just
out there getting the facts you know that's our job as a local broadcaster is
just to inform the public people then can decide on their own based on the
information that they get and what they get from television will probably be a
large portion of the information that they get that's I mean that's the reality
where most people are still today is local news is still one of the most
important places yeah it really is and if you think of it 15 20 years ago you
know the local newspapers could dig a lot deeper will that their business model
got broken you know there was a day and age where I think the fresco's that
maybe had 60 or 70 reporters in Green Bay which meant Appleton had that many
and Oshkosh had some and now there aren't that many people in that business it's
really to me as somebody who's you know that it's up to the media to keep the
public informed it's disheartening that there are fewer and fewer people in the
local news business which really puts the burden on local broadcasters you know
TV and radio radio not so much but television because there's fewer of us
chasing more information that's out there and the public still depends on us to
actually get the facts yeah and campaign ads are part of the way that you can
actually fund that and make sure that there's no doubt there's no doubt I mean
listen campaign you know political advertising is is good revenue for
local broadcasters both radio and television there's no doubt and frankly
it keeps us a viable medium even though it's every other year it is it is a
significant amount of advertising revenue that comes in and helps feed
families and you guys are part of the WBA is is there a communication that
goes out around this time of year from the from members to members or is this
mostly the relationships you built I think it's the relationships not the
Wisconsin broadcasters will be involved particularly when it comes to any
legislation where we may maybe involved in lobbying on behalf of the
broadcasters and you had mentioned the AI bill well when that bill came out we
wanted to make sure as local broadcasters we weren't we weren't going to be the
arbiters of what was AI or we just didn't want to do that so they wrote the bill
in such a way that basically I don't know how harmless but broadcasters really
can't be fined it's really up to the campaigns and and the ethics commission
that determines whether it's an issue or anything else yeah my name is Steve
Lavon Steve the regular nate way spell Lavon LAVIN and the Vice President
General Manager of WBA and Green Bay thank you so much appreciate it anything
you missed I don't think so those good you this could part of I mean I I'm
doing multiple I'm doing one of the legislature and doing what I'm you know
AI the modern misinformation agent I'll be doing a story later on like
enthusiasm I mean focus on Green Bay any importance there right yeah I can't
really speak to the enthusiasm that's fair you know I mean it's I mean that's
I'm gonna have to I have to separate myself whether I'm enthused or not versus
what I think the public is right yeah it's it's it's one of those gauges where
it's it's either you're like I'm not I don't have fair way to measure it or
you say it's but this feels different than last time yeah I don't have even
covered 2016 this is obviously different 2020 was during a COVID year it was
hard to measure any of that it really wasn't because they weren't out yeah this
tapes no