Media economy
Political ads wall to wall to wall to wall
By Diego Vasquez
Nov 3, 2006, 10:06

In San Francisco, buying media was long a matter of shopping for the best deal, and there were many in a city whose ad economy had been savaged in the dot.com bust and slow to revive.

Then came Arnold, or better then returned Arnold. Back in May, Schwarzenegger began dumping dollars into local media for his reelection bid. The political spending has not stopped since, and little else sees air time. As one local buyer put it recently, “It’s wreaking havoc on the inventory."

With the midterm election next week, similar reports are coming from markets all around the country. Pricing has been up 20 percent or more in some areas for certain dayparts.

It's no surprise 2006 election spending will surpass 2002's numbers, or even 2004. What is surprising is by how much. The latest forecast, from TNS Media Intelligence's Campaign Media Analysis Group, has spending reaching $2 billion, having already passed the $1.7 billion spent in 2004, and that does not including money spent on local cable.

Another forecast, from PQ Media relying on different data, has spending on political advertising and marketing reaching $3.14 billion, easily ahead of the $2.7 billion spent in 2004, by 14 percent, and nearly twice the $1.6 billion spent in 2002.
 
Most of those dollars, $1.58 billion, will be spent on broadcast television, up from $1.45 billion two years ago. Direct mail is the second-largest category at $707 million, followed by radio at $256 million.
 
Outdoor, at $55 million, and online, at $40 million, both had big jumps over 2004. Web spending has grown more than 700 percent since 2002.
 
One major factor driving the increase is a kick-up in spending on gubernatorial races, which PQ projects will spend a record $1.11 billion this year. There are 36 states holding gubernatorial elections.
 
Spending by House of Representatives candidates will rise 38 percent, to $744 million, and spending for Senate candidates will jump 40 percent, to $705 million.

And there are still days to go. Today's Washington Post reports that candidates this week were preparing some 600 new ads in time to begin airing this weekend.

According to Nielsen Monitor-Plus, in a report released yesterday, the number of TV spots that ran between Aug. 1 and Oct. 15 was up 31 percent over the same period in 2002. 

A good part of that seems to be coming from Democrats, who this election ran nearly as many spots as the Republicans, 54,000 versus 56,000. In 2002, the Democratic National Committee ran only 19,197 spots to the Republican National Committee's 29,338 units, according to Nielsen.

The busiest markets were Tampa-St. Pete (19,730), followed by Los Angeles (17,257) and San Francisco (15,768). Boston (15,556), Providence (15,217) and Columbus (14,681) followed.