political advertising

Advocates say lack of enforcement of campaign finance laws means groups can push the envelope with little fear of reprecussions.

The Democrat’s campaign is placing the eye-popping advertising reservation as a contentious primary plays out on the Republican side.

Biden and his top aides say the road to reelection isn’t only through the national television and print outlets, where many of the viewers and readers are familiar with his record. As they begin the general election, a core part of their media strategy will be done at the local level, especially in an effort to move the ball forward with critical swing voters. Pictured: President Joe Biden visits his Wisconsin election campaign office in Milwaukee on March 13. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

Political spending in 2024 is forecast to be $11.1 billion; increasing $2.2 billion (+24%) over 2022, and $1.5 billion (+15.5%) over 2020 political ad spending. Political will be the top spending vertical category in 2024 for many of the media channels in BIA’s forecast, including TV OTA, TV digital, Cable TV, Radio OTA and CTV/OTT. While local ad spending on digital is growing, traditional advertising is forecast to account for 70.2% of political ad spend in 2024, down from 77.9% in 2020. As with past presidential elections, in 2024 over-the-air TV will get the largest share of political ad dollars in local with an estimated $4.6 billion in forecast spending

Faith & Freedom, a conservative-leaning evangelical advocacy organization, intends to spend $62 million registering and turning out evangelical voters, texting and calling supporters, and door-knocking — $10 million more than it spent four years ago. The group is expected to, among other things, hand out 30 million pieces of literature in 125,000 churches — many of them in battleground states.

Campaigns and PACs are also spending on down-ballot races and issues, say executives from NBCUniversal Local, E.W. Scripps, Sage Media Planning and WideOrbit during a TVNewsCheck webinar last week. Pictured (clockwise from top left): moderator Paige Albiniak, TVNewsCheck; Bobby Mushroe, Sage Media Planning; Will Hildebrandt, NBCU Local & Telemundo; Samantha Osborne, E.W. Scripps; and Sean Harrington, WideOrbit. Watch the full video here.

A super PAC backing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for president ran a Super Bowl ad on Sunday in support of the independent candidate, an unexpected move for the long-shot campaign. American Values 2024 ran a 30-second spot leaning on the legacy of former President John F. Kennedy, repeating clips, slogans and images from his 1960 presidential campaign.

Anyone who has followed the fate of the TV business in recent years could not be blamed for thinking the medium is dying. Consumers have been shifting away from traditional or linear TV viewing that is watched in real time to streaming video, where they can watch what they want on demand. In 2023, streaming surpassed broadcast and cable TV viewing for the first time, according to Nielsen. But in the current presidential election cycle of 2024, the mantra is: long live TV. That’s thanks to political advertising, a regular shot of adrenaline for the TV business every two years.

Republican presidential campaigns have poured more than an unprecedented $124 million into video and TV advertising in Iowa, according to estimates from AdImpact. It says as last Friday, 46% of all Republican presidential primary video ad spend ($270 million) had been spent trying to pursue Iowa voters.

The campaign said that it raised more than $97 million for the campaign and the Democratic party during the October to December time frame, helped in part by a huge haul during a Los Angeles fundraising swing in December. That trip raised more than $15 million, according to Jeffrey Katzenberg, who is serving as campaign co-chair.

A prominent Democratic super PAC announced Friday that it plans to spend $200 million on the 2024 election cycle, including $140 million on television, digital, streaming, radio and mail advertisements. American Bridge 21st Century intends to focus much of its firepower on winning over women voters in key swing states, a nod to the importance of that voting bloc in the outcome of November’s elections. (Evan Vucci/AP)

U.S. political advertising spend will likely jump by nearly a third in 2024 over the previous U.S. presidential election year, with TV media again taking a lion’s share of the dollars, according to a report by research firm Insider Intelligence. The figure is expected to rise by about 30% from 2020 to $12.32 billion this year, the report said. Ad spend on traditional media, most of which is TV, will rise 7.9% and account for 71.9% of all spend.

With the Iowa Republican Caucus happening in mid-January and dozens of additional primaries and caucuses to follow before the 2024 general election, broadcasters need to be aware of the use of artificial intelligence, deepfakes and synthetic media in political advertising and the various laws at play when such content is used. These laws seek to ensure that viewers and listeners are made aware that the person they are seeing or the voice they are hearing in political advertising may not be who it looks like or sounds like.

Sam Liccardo (center) reports raising $1.65 million in the fourth quarter, just weeks after announcing his entry into a crowded field in a rare open Bay Area seat. (SusanWalsh/AP)

Vivek Ramaswamy’s presidential campaign has ceased spending on television advertising ahead of next month’s Republican presidential contests, NBC News reported Tuesday. The Republican biotech entrepreneur’s campaign reduced TV ad spending from $200,000 during the first week of December to $6,000 last week, according to AdImpact, a website that tracks advertising spending, NBC reported. (Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP)

Experts are warning that the spread of misinformation could get worse in the coming presidential election contest. The safeguards that attempted to counter the bogus claims the last time are eroding, while the tools and systems that create and spread them are only getting stronger.

The billionaire Koch family and its network of like-minded donors are tiptoeing back into presidential politics, putting money behind their opposition to former President Donald Trump and backing an alternative candidate in the 2024 Republican primary, Nikki Haley.

It’s the latest change for the organization, which now says it is “laser focused” on its ground game in early states.

TVNewsCheck Editor at Large Harry Jessell and Editor Michael Depp look back over an eventful year in broadcast business news and ahead to the steepest challenges it will confront in 2024. A full transcript of the conversation is included. [Ed. note: Jessell erroneously noted Nexstar stock took a 32% hit, when it actually lost 32 points. Since this episode was recorded, its stock rebounded to 155 yesterday.]

Democratic candidates, including Elon Musk’s most vocal critics, have spent over a million dollars to run thousands of political ads on X.

Campaigns on the state and federal level will be required to clearly say which political advertisements airing in Michigan were created using artificial intelligence under legislation expected to be signed in the coming days by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat. It also would prohibit use of AI-generated deepfakes within 90 days of an election without a separate disclosure identifying the media as manipulated. (Alex Brandon/AP)

Media fragmentation, challenges in reaching younger audiences and a danger of alienating some voters with overly repetitive ads mean that political campaigns will need to be both omniscreen and more targeted than ever in 2024. That’s the key takeaway from a guide to 2024 political advertising from Samba TV, based on its smart-TV ACR data and two surveys with HarrisX: one among 2,507 U.S. adults in August and one among 1,004 voters in November.

Details of the advertising plans, which represent the Haley campaign’s first official advertising reservation, were obtained by The Associated Press ahead of a public announcement expected Monday. Haley’s planned investment, as of now, is more than five times larger than DeSantis’ current advertising reserves for the same time period, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact. (Rebecca Blackwell/AP)

One month after rolling out various generative artificial intelligence tools to advertisers, Meta is restricting political campaigns and advertisers in other regulated industries from using these very products — due to concerns that these tools could be used to intensify the spread of election misinformation. 

While federal efforts to require labeling of political ads using AI have yet to result in any such regulation, a few states have stepped into the void and adopted their own requirements. Even without regulation, media companies still need to be wary of the use of AI being used to generate false images of candidates for use in attack ads.  While broadcasters and local cable companies are insulated from liability for the content of ads from legally qualified candidates and their authorized committees, they can have liability for ads from non-candidate groups. Even non-regulated companies, such as streaming companies that are not subject to the Communications Act requirements that candidate ads not be censored, may have liability for the content of candidate ads.

Executives from NBCUniversal Local, Disney Advertising Sales Local, E.W. Scripps, Tegna and Ticker News shared their insights and experiences in maximizing streaming revenue and the most promising pathways to growth at a TV2025 session. Despite the expected election year bonanza, there are challenges. Among them: the lack of consensus about what currency should be used for transactions.

With a big ad spending election year around the corner, Magnite said it hired Erik Brydges as head of political demand, a new position at the company. Brydges was previously with Microsoft Advertising’s Xandr unit, responsible for Xandr’s political sales strategy as head of political. In his new post, Brydges will oversee Magnite’s political demand facilitation team, leading the company’s effort to connect political advertisers to key voters and constituents.

Demand-side platform/DSP The Trade Desk has integrated a new suite of AI-powered audience segments from Proximic by Comscore that allow for capturing TV ad exposure down to the local level for political campaign audience targeting.

In a memo to donors, Trust in the Mission PAC said, “we aren’t going to waste our money when the electorate isn’t focused or ready for a Trump alternative.”

Musk’s volatile leadership of the social-media platform has pushed down its prices — which might give it an edge.

If current polls are to be believed, American voters are looking with a sense of dread at a rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump in 2024. Yet, widely anticipating the most expensive election in the nation’s history, another cycle of bitter and polarized politics perversely may be exactly the bottom-line boost TV broadcasters and cable networks need.

Stations expect to reap $5-plus billion from political spending on linear and CTV platforms next year.

The sales veteran will oversee the Tegna unit’s political sales efforts, drive new business development and manage relationships with political agencies and consultants.

X, the social media company formerly known as Twitter, said Tuesday it would now allow political advertising in the U.S. from candidates and political parties and expand its safety and elections team ahead of the 2024 presidential election. Before billionaire Elon Musk acquired the company last October, Twitter had banned all political ads globally since 2019. In January, Twitter lifted the ban and began allowing “cause-based ads” in the U.S. that raise awareness of issues such as voter registration, and said it planned to expand the types of political ads it would allow on the platform.

Republicans have waged a decades-long battle to blow up the campaign-finance laws that rein in big-money spending. Now, they are making a play that could end in their biggest victory since the Citizens United ruling in 2010. The GOP is growing increasingly optimistic about their prospects in a little-noticed lawsuit that would allow official party committees and candidates to coordinate freely by removing current spending restrictions. If successful, it would represent a seismic shift in how tens of millions of campaign dollars are spent and upend a well-established political ecosystem for TV advertising.