Just looking at the election spending in the swing states is insane. How does this skew the media landscape and are there networks who make all their profit during election time (like a store that only makes its profits before Christmas)?
For reference:
According to this article, $600m is being spent in just six states this election cycle.
Mods: if this is not a GQ topic please move it but I’m hoping for a discussion without political sniping.
I don’t have access to actual numbers, but the way it works is like this.
Stations and networks are required to sell advertising to political candidates at the “lowest unit cost” for that time period in the previous 60 days. That means a candidate for city council who scrapes up the money can buy a single commercial on the 6:00 News for the same price the area’s biggest car dealer pays for advertising there 365 days a year.
Once a candidate buys time, the station or network is required to make equal time available to the candidate’s opponents at the same time and cost. I’m not sure how this is codified in law, but when I worked in broadcasting our station had to move higher paying sponsors out to make room for lower paid political advertising - and discount the sponsors’ rates accordingly.
Many years that means a station actually gets its hair cut on cheap political advertising, particularly in the fall, when holiday advertising is starting to crank up and prices for good time periods are starting to increase.
But this year is different. First, because of Covid, broadcast advertising, especially in local media, has been down, so stations might have blocks of commercial time that wouldn’t go for much more than the minimum anyway. Second, political action committees aren’t subject to the same rules. That means the stations can charge those groups higher rates.
In St. Louis, where both Missouri and Illinois candidates advertise, I’ve seen PAC ads running on the digital subchannels like MyTV, MeTV, H&I, etc. Those stations NEVER had any advertising beyond low priced cellphone carriers, old people’s life insurance, and amazing cookware that never sticks. My guess is that the PACs are literally throwing money at the stations, begging them for airtime somewhere, anywhere.
Thanks for replying