Fox Corporation has relocated its political coverage into the stadiums of the FIFA World Cup, and from this week viewers who wish to cast a ballot must do so during halftime, at the concession stand, under the supervision of a Fox producer with a clipboard and a headset.
The decision follows a fiscal first quarter in which the company's advertising income rose sharply, driven by the multi-week World Cup telecast and by a surge in political spots. Network executives concluded that the audience already present in the seats represented an untapped electorate, and they moved the polling booths accordingly. Eleven hundred temporary booths have been installed along the concourses of the host cities, each one painted in the network's blue and equipped with a live camera feed.
« We are not interrupting the match to talk about politics, » said a spokesman for the company's news division. « We are interrupting politics to show the match. » Voters are asked to select a candidate after each substitution, and the results are read aloud by the stadium announcer before the restart.
Stadium staff have been retrained as election officials. Ushers now check seat numbers against a voter roll printed on the back of the matchday programme, and vendors are required to keep a tally of their sales of hot dogs in the same column as the votes. Several host cities have reported that the queues at the booths now stretch longer than the queues for the restrooms, which has prompted the network to add a second bank of booths beside each gate.
Next week the company will extend the arrangement to its cable channels, where a studio panel will rule on which candidate has won the penalty shootout of the evening debate.