Obama's Ad 'Roadblock' Gets Traction

Univision, BET and TV One are joining CBS, NBC and Fox to carry Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's paid half-hour TV address tonight -- just six days before the election.

And while MSNBC also will join in the fun, CNN reports that it took a pass, and Fox News Channel confirms it wasn't even asked to the party.

ABC, the only major broadcaster not carrying the infomercial after the network hemmed and hawed so long the Obama camp moved on, is weirdly being rewarded with a Wednesday one-on-one with the candidate for its evening newscast, which will air shortly before "The Barack Obama Show" takes over prime time at 8 p.m.

But, if watching Charlie Gibson peer over his skinny glasses to ask Obama what the Bush Doctrine means is your idea of some kind of not fun, you can instead catch Obama's infomercial postmortem at 11 p.m. on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," where he will appear via satellite as a giant talking head.

In between "The Barack Obama Show" and the Comedy Central postmortem, Obama's GOP rival, John McCain, also will have a chance to spin the infomercial -- on CNN's "Larry King Live."

CNN was approached by Obama's campaign about taking tonight's time buy, but unlike MSNBC took a pass. "We'd rather use our air to continue to cover the campaign, candidates and issues like we always do from all points of view with the best political team on television," CNN said in a statement. Whatev.

In other Barack Obama Is Taking Over Wednesday news, Mother Nature cast her vote Monday, when she not only rained out Game 5 of the World Series after 5 1/2 innings -- the first time a World Series game wasn't played to completion on the same day -- but kept up the downpour so long it forced Major League Baseball to announce that Game 5 would not be wrapped up until tonight.

What's expected to be a very short night of baseball -- maybe just a three-inning "game" -- pretty much ensures Obama's speech will air on the three major broadcast networks at the start of prime time on the West Coast as well as the East Coast, shoring up the desired "roadblock" programming effect.

Originally, the Fox broadcast network accepted the time buy only after Major League Baseball agreed to postpone the first pitch of Game 6 of the World Series by about 15 minutes to enable Fox to air the 30-minute time buy at 8. Fox told Obama's camp it could run the speech at 8 in the Eastern time zone but had to wait until after the game to air the message on the West Coast because of its contractual obligations to Major League Baseball.

Fox execs expect Game 5 Part Deux to end well before 8 p.m. Pacific time, which means they can run the Obama buy at 8 in that time zone.

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The World Series face-off between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Tampa Bay Rays on Fox couldn't distract enough viewers from CBS's procedural crime dramas, keeping the eye network at the top of the ratings heap for a fourth consecutive week.