"Economic Choices 2008"-The TV Ad Boom
Tuesday, June 24, 2008PAUL KANGAS: By now, we all know the primary election results are in and the real winners are television broadcasters. Political races from dog catcher to president have spent $650 million on media campaigns so far this year, most of it on TV commercials. As we continue our "Economic Choices '08" coverage, as Darren Gersh reports, there is more, much more, to come.
DARREN GERSH, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: Call it D-day for the general election air campaign. John McCain has launched television ads in 11 states, Barack Obama in 18. At the Campaign Media Analysis Group, Evan Tracey tracks the electronic competition. Tracey figures political ad spending in this election will hit $3 billion.
EVAN TRACEY, COO, TNS MEDIA INTELLIGENCE/CMAG: You have industries pulling back like automotives and airlines and nothing to fill in that gap right now except for politics and right now this is a big election year. There's a lot of competitive races in the country. Obviously, an historical presidential race, in turn there is going to be a lot of money sort of flowing to these TV stations, probably just in the nick of time in the third and fourth quarter of this year.
GERSH: In the primaries, stations in Iowa were the biggest winners, taking in more than $40 million, followed by $20 million in Massachusetts, $17 million in Pennsylvania and $16 million in Texas. By November, Tracey expects Iowa TV stations will have swept up more than $100 million in political spending, stations in California, which has active ballot initiatives, up to half a billion dollars. The Obama campaign is raising so much money, it may buy spots during the Olympics and still have money left over to buy more ads in all 50 states. Analyst Edward Atorino says station groups like Gannett will get up to 14 percent of their revenue this year from campaigns.
EDWARD ATORINO, MEDIA ANALYST, BENCHMARK COMPANY: Lots of money will be poured into these smaller markets. And for some of the smaller broadcasters, it's manna from heaven.
GERSH: While much of that manna has been raised over the Internet, the ad spending hasn't trickled down to websites. At Democratic think tank NDN, Simon Rosenberg estimates the campaigns will set aside less than 2 percent of their ad budget for the Internet.
SIMON ROSENBERG, PRESIDENT, NDN: It's too low, it should be higher, but politics tends to lag behind the commercial advertising trends.
GERSH: Control is a concern. No campaign wants to see the candidate's banner ad pop up next to something obscene. Even so, this campaign has proven the power of online social networks to raise voter interest and money.
ROSENBERG: It's exciting because what it's doing, more than anything else, is allowing average people to play a meaningful role in the life of their democracy. That's a healthy thing.
GERSH: The old joke that imitation is the sincerest form of television also applies to politics where a successful campaign strategy is quickly copied, which is why campaign consultants expect Internet spending will get a much bigger share of the campaign cash in 2010 and 2012. Darren Gersh, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, Washington.
