Viewers don't seem to tune out overkill

When it comes to watching political conventions on TV, the most telling artifact is the crowd shot. The coverage of this year's Democratic National Convention is full of delegates dancing, wiping away tears, decked either in their party best or in crazy ensembles of red, white, and blue. And then there's the headgear: sequined visors, sparkling cowboy hats, hats shaped like donkeys and deer. Or was that a moose?

Politics is serious business, activists are hard-working and usually heartfelt, and yet, what these conventions really are, besides free commercials for the presidential campaigns, are loud and rarefied gathering places for hobbyists.

So it's fair to argue that an hour of coverage every night - as NBC, CBS, and ABC have been providing - is more than adequate to give the parties their due, acknowledge the pomp and strategy, and avoid veering into pointless speculation. But this is the age of overkill, and viewership seems to confirm a growing interest in the whole loud package.

The Nielsen Co. estimates that, across the broadcast and cable networks, nearly 26 million people watched the Tuesday-night hour that contained Hillary Clinton's speech. (PBS's coverage drew 2.8 million more.) In 2004, a similar hour of prime-time coverage drew 18.5 million viewers - though not on the convention's second night, when ABC, CBS, and NBC didn't bother with coverage at all. Many, too, have tuned into analysis surrounding the headline speeches, briefly on the broadcast networks, or at great lengths on cable.

Compared with 2004, the cable channels' prime-time viewership has risen sharply. But how enlightened this makes the audience is an open question. Countless hours of speculation about Hillary Clinton's intentions - unity? sabotage? - were rendered meaningless within the first two minutes of her speech.

The sheer volume of punditry is exhausting, and the conclusions vary widely - and largely predictably - by network. Was Michelle Obama's speech brilliant and nearly tear-inducing (CBS's Bob Schieffer, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann) or a missed opportunity of epic proportions (Fox News Channel's Bill Kristol and Karl Rove)? On Fox, the Michelle Obama pile-on grew so relentless that Fred Barnes, of the conservative Weekly Standard, nearly shouted his contrarian faint praise: "She didn't give the Gettysburg Address, OK, but she did what she needed to do!"

Still, curmudgeons can be entertaining, and the most fun meta-coverage comes from Fox's Brit Hume, who gave a weary overview of the cumulative Democratic speeches. "You'd think by the end of one of these litanies that we've been living in Belarus or something like that, where everything is terrible," he growled.

There are places to go for far-more-unfiltered coverage. CSPAN airs raw camera feeds, as do many of the network websites. PBS tends to linger longer on the speeches, and Mark Shields's commentary tends more toward history and inside knowledge than gut reaction. But for the most part, the networks and cable channels seem so eager to offer play-by-play that they ignore all but the most-hyped speeches.

As for those delegates on the floor? They get to speak from time to time, though they often make the best case for the meaninglessness of this whole affair. On Tuesday, CNN's Suzanne Malveaux conducted a long back-and-forth with a tearful Clinton delegate, who sounded as if she needed psychological intervention, or at least some time away from the convention hall.

We could all use that. But then we sometimes get reminders that journalism - as opposed to straight analysis - has merit. Toward the tail end of MSNBC's late-night coverage Tuesday, Brian Williams and three NBC correspondents relaxed on chairs in the mostly-empty hall and casually rehashed the day. They didn't sound like talking heads so much as seasoned reporters, emptying their notebooks. And for a while, they seemed to be talking about something interesting, after all.

Joanna Weiss can be reached at weiss@globe.com.