99 Days And It’s All Different
There are now 99 days until the November general election. What an amazing two weeks or so in history. Not sure I’ll live long enough for the full truth to come out about assassination attempts, an internal coup leading to a change in major party candidates, etc.
But in real time, we do know that as of this moment…Republicans hold an advantage in future scheduled TV advertising.
In theory, there is a limit to how many ads run on radio and TV in a single program or hour; I say “in theory” because it’s going to soon enough seem like that’s all there is, political ads…and because the old rules about limiting the number of commercial minutes any station can run in an hour were tossed to the side long ago.
Any ads placed—and therefore, slots reserved—by the Biden campaign went away when he left the race. Through September 1, Donald Trump and groups aligned with him have made advertising reservations worth $68 million. Harris and her aligned groups, by contrast, have less than $3 million reserved. But that’s also not a surprise since the Democrat convention is in August, and there’s no sense in that party spending money when they get the free coverage during convention week.
But that’s bound to change with the change in candidates. Previously, pro-Biden groups had reserved $134 million in ad time for the fall…dwarfing the pro-Trump slots, at only $26 million worth. You can expect virtually all of those groups will hold their slots.
And again, the first to hold the spots with money attached gets them…which, if it’s a finite pie means there may be cash left on the sidelines.
With a change at the top of the ticket, AdImpact has now revised its political ad spending projections upward for this cycle…they thought it might be $10.2 billion, but now that’s closer to $10.7 billion…a 19 percent increase from just four years ago.
As a viewer and listener, we certainly don’t need that kind of inflation, too.
