Ken Goldstein

TVB’s political ad guru Jack Poor says there’s good news and bad news for TV stations in this election year. The good news is that their four-fifths share of total TV spend will be up 20% to around a record $2.5 billion, and no other medium seems positioned to cut into stations’ share. The bad news is that the total take will be suppressed due to the lack of any major gubernatorial contest that swelled the coffers in 2010.

News will always be the first choice of political advertisers because they know they can reach more likely voters there. But when the dollars begin flooding in next year, experts say, more will be going into non-news programming because news inventory will be tapped out and because some advertisers want to target certain types of voters.

Media advertising analysts Ken Goldstein of Kantar says that should be a record take for local TV next year, driven by the proliferation of Super PACs spawned by last year’s Citizens United Supreme Court ruling.