Television attack ads targeting Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown and his Republican opponent, Josh Mandel, are bringing big money into the Cleveland television market.WASHINGTON, D.C. - They know you're watching, Cleveland, and they're paying to make their pitch.
Political candidates and groups that support or oppose their election are spending so heavily, and so early, to get your attention that Cleveland has become the nation's second biggest television market for political ads in 2012.
Some $17.7 million has been spent through June 24 to buy air time for political commercials on Cleveland television stations. That trails political ad spending in only one other American city, Los Angeles, where candidates and outside groups have spent $20.2 million.
Columbus comes in eighth, with $10.6 million spent on political television commercials so far this year.
The numbers come from a July 6 Wells Fargo analysis of political ad spending. Cleveland is a big city, to be sure, but the money being spent on political ads is disproportionate to its size, the Wells Fargo report notes. Its television market is normally the nation's 18th largest, not the second.
If you were measuring only the size of markets, New York would be first, followed by Los Angeles. But when it comes to political advertising, New York TV revenue trails that of Cleveland, with New York's $12.69 million placing it third.
Likewise, Columbus is normally the 34th largest TV market, despite its 8th-place rank in TV political revenue this year.
Ohioans this summer are seeing an intensity of advertising normally reserved for the fall, says Elizabeth Wilner, a vice president with Kantar Media's Campaign Media Analysis Group, a Washington, D.C. company that tracks spending on ads.
"You're getting hit right now as if it were after Labor Day," Wilner said.
It's no mystery why political advertising is tipping the normal order. It's the same reason President Barack Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney see more of Ohio than they see some of their own relatives (distant ones, at least). Ohio in November could make or break either candidate's shot at White House residency next Jan. 20, inauguration day.
Ohio is also home to an intense barrage of advertising in the U.S. Senate race pitting state Treasurer Josh Mandel, a Republican, against incumbent Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. Outside groups that oppose Brown have spent $10.5 million in Ohio already, nearly all of it on advertising, according to Ohio Democrats.
Some of these groups are known as Super PACs, unbound by spending and fund-raising limits that the Federal Election Commission sets for candidates. The influx of money is massive. Of $3.1 billion raised so far nationally in this election cycle, 29 percent has come from PACs, according to the Wells Fargo report.
In Ohio, Crossroads GPS, a conservative group affiliated with President George W. Bush's political strategist, Karl Rove, has spent $9.9 million, said Nate Hodson, director of state and regional media relations for the related group American Crossroads. That includes advertising already committed through early August, which is why its numbers are not perfectly aligned with those of the Wells Fargo study through late June.
Of that, $7.1 million was for commercials critical of Obama, and $2.8 million on ads criticizing Brown. These figures don't include another $7.1 million that American Crossroads has reserved in Ohio in the fall for ads in the presidential race and $6.7 million more for Crossroads GPS ads focusing on Brown, Hodson said.
For TV stations, the influx of political ads has several implications. Political ads air so frequently that they have accounted for 8.1 percent of advertising revenue in the Cleveland TV market so far this year, according to the Wells Fargo analysis.
Broadcasters acknowledge that they enjoy the income, especially with it coming so early in the political season. Federal rules require them to provide discounts of about 30 percent for political campaigns 60 days before the November election, and "there's almost a Bible of advertising rules that make Washington lawyers very rich this time of year," says Dennis Wharton, executive vice president of the National Association of Broadcasters.
But that 60-day period will not begin until September. And Super PACs are not the same as candidate campaigns and need not be given the same consideration, offering a promise of prosperity in the months ahead.
Assuming the ad pace continues, a busy fall ad schedule carries the risk that political ads will bump ads from department stores and car dealers. It is a season when ad sales representatives must demonstrate their skills at pleasing competing interests and advertisers, from giant retailers with long histories in the market to politicians who could have a say in television regulation. But the current third quarter is not such a time.
Rather, Cleveland TV stations are having a boom time, without all the fall hassles.
"I think it's fair to say that when you put $17 million into one market, that's a significant chunk of change for all stations," said Lou Schottelkotte, director of sales for WEWS Channel 5 in Cleveland.
Asked whether this was a plus or a negative for Ohio, Brown, the senator, said, "Well it's good if you own a TV station. It's not so good if you are sitting at home and having to watch attack ads paid for, we figure, by oil companies and drug companies and insurance companies and companies that benefit by outsourcing our jobs to China."
Brown was referring to the ads attacking his policies and record. Hodson, of American Crossroads, said his organization is using ads to "make the case to Ohioans that Sherrod Brown's record is out-of-touch with his constituents. What we cannot do is make up the votes Brown took, which are far to the left of the state he represents."
You'll hear more from both sides in the coming months. Just keep your TV on.