“On Points: Local Broadcast TV Ad Spend: Starting to Settle?”

Cook Political Report:

Rumors of local TV’s aging and eventual demise as the leading medium for political advertising have abounded this year, but are greatly exaggerated. It simply has comprised too large a share of campaign ad budgets for too long to dissipate significantly within a few cycles. And if TV’s audienceis aging, well, seniors are a pretty key voting demographic.

But its heyday is ending. We’re not putting forth any projections for 2016 yet—too many X factors remain at this point—but the spectacular cycle-over-cycle growth we’re so used to seeing is going to slow. Local broadcast ad spend surely will spike again for the presidential race, but we don’t see it shooting upward by another $900 million, as we saw between 2010 and 2012.

 

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