Broadcast Political Ads Up, but Share of Pie Will Decline, Analysts Say

The 2018 midterms contain more seats that are hotly contested than 2014's, in Congress and for some gubernatorial races, said Fratrik. Opportunities for the Democrats to pick up seats are attracting large ad buys, Fratrik said. Senate contests seen as possible Democratic pickups, such as in Arizona, are generating the most broadcast ads, Fratrik said. Close House races such as 10th district of Virginia are also drawing massive spending, he said. “Political advertising is back,” said Wells Fargo analyst Davis Hebert at the The Radio Show 2018. He called the midterm elections a “much needed shot in the arm,” for broadcasters.

Broadcast political spots are higher than 2014 because political ad spending across the board is up, said Kip Cassino, executive vice president at research firm Borrell Associates. In actuality, the broadcast share of the political ad pie is declining compared with digital, but the spending for the 2018 midterms is massive enough for TV to still see an increase, he said. Cassino expects over $8.9 billion to be spent on total election commercials for 2018. Broadcasting’s share “has been dropping for the last couple of cycles,” Cassino said. Digital political ads were still relatively new in 2014, so it makes sense that they wouldn’t have been employed in midterm races as heavily, said Anna Massoglia, researcher at the Center for Responsive Politics.

Commercials for the 2018 midterms went negative sooner than in previous years, and that could be an advantage to broadcasting, Cassino said. Usually, campaigns concentrate at first on introductory ads and don’t go negative until closer to the election, but he found a sharp increase for 2018 in negative spots starting in September. Negative ones are intended to discourage an opponent’s base from voting rather than galvanize one’s own voters, Cassino said. That means they don’t require the precision targeting available through digital ads, and broadcasting is a good venue for them, he said. “You want to demoralize the other guy’s base,” and mass media is the best way to get the message to a wide swath of voters, Cassino said.

One side effect of the uptick in broadcast political ads is what it does to other advertisers, Fratrik said. Since equal time rules mean a broadcaster can end up devoting a large part of its inventory to political ads, other advertisers can get bumped, especially as advertising intensifies closer to Election Day. That can mean they need to seek another venue, and sometimes stations find it hard to win them back, he said.

Cassino expects broadcast's share of political ad money to continue to decline in favor of digital. In many cases, broadcast ad content is already doing double duty, providing the footage used in digital ads that play in front of online video, he said. Proffitt said his stations have been actively courting political ad dollars.

Outside groups -- entities that aren’t candidates or political parties -- are spending 85 percent more on the 2018 midterms than in 2014, Massoglia said. Forty-eight percent of those groups don’t disclose their funding source, Massoglia said. Outside groups spend the most on the most-competitive races, she said. Spending is expected to increase as Election Day gets closer, and then dries up completely the day after, Fratrik said. “The whole focus of an electoral campaign is to spend every dime you get by Election Day,” Cassino said.