political advertising

The battleground state landscape is shifting rapidly. Previously, Colorado topped the ranking of swing states that saw the biggest month-over-month increase in ad spending (rising 616% from May to June), while Wisconsin was No. 2 (with a 403% increase from May to June). Now, Colorado has gone cold (with a 6% decrease from June to July), while Wisconsin shifts into the top spot (rising 187% from June to July).

Local TV news viewership is falling, but broadcasters are adding hours anyway to chase campaign ad revenue.

During an exclusive gathering with some of the nation’s most powerful Republican donors Sunday, 80-year-old conservative icon Charles Koch and his chief lieutenants openly refused to support the Republican presidential nominee, focusing their tremendous resources instead on helping the GOP win competitive Senate contests in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

With four days of wall-to-wall cable news coverage and major-network primetime coverage of the Republican National Convention, spending zilch on ads and relying on so-called earned media made sense. But will that approach work going forward? Pro-Hillary Clinton PACs have an entirely different strategy:

With a political trifecta that includes close races for president, U.S. senator and governor, TV stations in the state, especially in markets west of I-95, could see record political ad revenue this year after a slow-ish start. Kantar Media’s Steve Passwaiter, says predictions of $100 million-plus aren’t crazy. Above, President Barack Obama and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton greet people on the tarmac after arriving at the North Carolina Air National Guard Base in Charlotte, N.C. (AP photo/Susan Walsh)

In the earliest phase of her air war against Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton has placed her biggest bets on Orlando, Denver and Raleigh. Those three markets in battleground states are where the Democratic presidential candidate has most heavily run her first wave of general-election broadcast television ads, a Bloomberg Politics analysis of Kantar Media/CMAG data shows.

On Sunday, four weeks before Clinton will officially be recognized as the Democratic nominee at her party’s convention, she rolled out her first ad on a national Spanish-language broadcast, buying time in the final of the Copa America Centenario, which aired on Univision. The game between Argentina and Chile, a thriller that Chile won on penalty kicks, was expected to draw huge numbers, as the rest of the tournament has.

Despite all the hype about this year’s campaign being a turning point for digital ad dollars, it’s still a very good time to be a traditional broadcast media owner …  in certain markets (until now, generally states with early, influential primaries or caucuses).

Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign rolled out a multimillion-dollar ad campaign this week in eight battleground states — Colorado, Florida, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, Nevada, Iowa and New Hampshire — offering an early glimpse of what’s likely to be an unprecedented advertising war leading up to the November election.

Over the past few weeks, Sanders has diminished his presence on TV. From June 3 to 12, Bernie Sanders For President ran 560 TV ads in the top 60 DMAs, according to Media Monitors. This is compared to a much more robust 7,060 spots run between April 8 and April 17 in the same DMAs.

Is it acceptable for stations to air ads from a political candidate that do not feature the voice or, for TV, the image, of the candidate? Ads from federal candidates should almost never be missing the recognizable voice or image. But sometimes ads from state or local candidates, in states where the federal requirements have not been extended to local elections by the state legislature, may be missing the voice or image of the candidate. What are the implications for stations in airing such ads?

Nevada congressional candidate Danny Tarkanian’s leading opponent, state Sen. Michael Roberson, launched a recent TV-only ad attacking Tarkanian’s involvement with a telemarketing scheme and his role as a registered agent for companies that acted as fronts for fraudulent charities. Tarkanian’s attorney sent a cease-and-desist letter to Las Vegas television stations Tuesday demanding they stop airing the ad, which was paid for by a Roberson campaign committee.

A day after rival Sen. Bernie Sanders launched a $1.5 million TV ad buy in California, Hillary Clinton’s campaign responded with what the campaign called a “six-figure” buy beginning Friday.

Television executives worried about potential lost revenue if Donald Trump doesn’t advertise as much as past presidential candidates can take solace in this: There are likely to be at least a half dozen competitive U.S. Senate races in mostly big states where it’s expensive to buy airtime.

Sen. Rob Portman is reserving $15 million in advertising for his reelection campaign, by far the largest sum of money committed to a single Senate race in this year’s contest for Senate control. The Ohio Republican is launching a shock and awe campaign that plows $14 million into statewide television advertising and $1 million into YouTube programming.

WMSN Madison and WLUK and WGBA Green Bay have pulled an ad criticizing former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold over the over-prescription scandal at the Tomah VA Medical Center, according to lawyers for Feingold’s campaign.

Lots of stories I cover in media make me angry. But few leave me actually disheartened about the role media play in our lives. I have long been decrying the role of dark money, hidden persuaders and stealth media efforts to win votes and shape election outcomes. But I mainly thought about the problem as a national one, focusing on presidential and congressional races. This spring, it got local and personal for me.

Despite landslide victories on Tuesday, Donald Trump still needs to win Indiana — and he’s starting to act like it. The frugal Manhattan mogul has begun opening his wallet for the air war, spending more than $900,000 on TV and radio ads.

Donors who spent big early in the cycle are feeling exhausted and unhappy with their options.

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ broadcast expenditures top those of competitor Hillary Clinton, who has spent $52.5 million. That said, the amount spent on TV and radio by pro-Hillary PACs and advocacy groups ($64.7 million) far outpaces the amount spent on TV and radio by pro-Bernie PACs and advocacy groups ($471,539).

Donald Trump has emerged as the candidate to beat while spending far less than his rivals — a potentially troubling development for local TV stations, which rely heavily on revenue from political ads.

Look for Hillary Clinton ads to start appearing on WJZ and WBAL Wednesday or Thursday. The Democratic frontrunner’s campaign bought airtime Tuesday on the two top-rated Baltimore stations for an ad that is expected to show the candidate’s relationship to the African-American community.

Almost $70 million of the record $132 million spent so far on negative advertising has been directed at Donald Trump, and the ads appear to be having an effect.

About $1 billion is headed to digital for the 2016 campaign, some analysts predict, though most of it will end up in the coffers of Alphabet ($400 million) and Facebook ($350 million).

Following the release of recalculated political advertising forecasts for 2016, Borrell Associates is offering a free 30-minute webinar on Thursday, April 7. Corey Elliott, VP of research, and Kip Cassino, EVP, will provide additional insights on the paper and political advertising. Click here to register. The full report can be downloaded here. Radio and digital get the biggest increase from the recast. State and local media expenditures are adjusted upward and by 2020 a vastly different political landscape will have been forged. 

During the first three months of this year, $280 million was spent on the 2016 presidential election advertising. That deluge of spending prompted Borrell Associates  to bump up its forecast for political ad spending this year by 3.1%, representing an extra $357 million. What’s interesting is that Borrell says only half of that money will go to local TV. The rest will go to cable, online and radio. Corey Elliott, director of research at Borrell, talks about why interest is shifting slightly away from TV, the Donald Trump effect and what type of ads newspapers will see.

The combined spending on TV and radio by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and pro-Hillary PACs has been trailing the combined spending on TV and radio by Bernie Sanders and pro-Bernie PACs. But pro-Hillary PAC ad spending has since surged — from a total to date last time of $1.6 million to a new total to date this time of $11.5 million.

New data from Borrell Associates predicts political ad spending in 2016 will be $357 million (or 3%) greater than it predicted earlier, increasing to $11.7 billion. It says that when the candidate with the most delegates (Donald Trump) has spent the least on advertising and gets twice as much earned media as all of his opponents combined, there’s something unusual at play.

The long-running game show is the biggest beneficiary of this year’s record campaign spending spree. This cycle’s campaign spending on airtime during Wheel will easily exceed the $57 million it earned in 2012, more than any other TV show that election. So far, it’s brought in seven times more than at this point in 2012, according to estimates by Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group.

Donald Trump is far better than any other candidate — maybe any candidate ever — at drawing attention without having to advertise for it. But Trump is hardly absent from the airwaves. Like all candidates, he benefits from what is known as earned media: news and commentary about his campaign on television, in newspapers and magazines, and on social media.

In this newly created position, Trevor Heaton will oversee the political vertical across all of Katz Television Group divisions and regions. He will focus on advocating local broadcast’s unique capabilities to key political ad decision makers.

Radio hasn’t historically been the first stop for candidates seeking voters. But for the 2016 election cycle, iHeartMedia is looking to get a bigger chunk of political ad dollars by stealing share from TV, leaning on data and targeting to drive spending its way.

Marco Rubio — and his super PAC — have spent more on national TV media than all presidential candidates. Since December 2015, “Marco Rubio for President” has placed $675,825, while his political action committee, “Conservative Solutions PAC,” has spent $966,021, according to iSpot.tv.

Political advertisers are buying more cable TV than ever — on pace to spend $850 million during this election — but not necessarily in primetime or on the networks you’d expect. Channels that haven’t historically seemed like obvious buys for political advertisers, including Food Network and HGTV, have sold more than three times the amount of TV spots to political buyers this election cycle compared to 2012.

It’s no wonder the bulk of political ads’ spending goes to TV — it remains the most influential medium when it comes to voting behavior among all age groups and political affiliations. That’s according to a political marketing study from Kelly Scott Madison, which asked respondents to weigh in on how effective various media are in influencing their voting behavior.

Digital sales veteran Andrea Duggan says local media are well positioned to win a healthy share of 2016’s election spend, provided they can meet four key criteria. They must tout their engaged civic audience to campaigns, price to reflect the premium value of their inventory, work in an agile manner with fast-moving campaigns — who have also embraced scale through programmatic — and confront potential viewability problems directly.

Ted Cruz’s campaign sent a letter to TV stations across South Carolina and Georgia on Tuesday, demanding that they stop airing what it calls “a false attack ad” from the conservative super PAC American Future Fund that goes after the Texas senator on national security.