TV, Radio, Print Play Politics As Usual.

Results of the previous elections this month are in, but analysts are still fighting over the advertising returns. Which medium was the 2005 political kingmaker: radio, TV, or print? It was probably a combination of all three media that played key roles in this year’s elections, and reaped record political ad dollars in the process.

For example, it’s no secret that Michael Bloomberg spent a lot on his New York City mayoral campaign, ponying up $64 million of his own cash to fend off challenger Fernando Ferrer. That money bought a deluge of radio and TV ads–far outmatching Ferrer in both fields. According to a study released by Media Monitors, LLC, an independent watchdog group covering advertising, Bloomberg was the second biggest buyer of radio ad time during the week of Nov. 1st (the last week before the election). Bloomberg purchased 996 ad spots versus only 143 for Ferrer–stats that bring the disparity in spending between the two campaigns into sharper focus.
As the Media Monitors study notes, neither party dominated radio ad buys nationally for the November 8th elections. Instead, buys were dominated by winning candidates, whatever their political affiliation. Thus, Democrat Jon Corzine vastly outspent Republican opponent Doug Forrester to secure victory in New Jersey’s gubernatorial campaign, with 504 radio spots versus Forrester’s 164.

The single biggest ad buy came in California, where voters humbled Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger by rejecting all four of his propositions after a radio onslaught of 1,713 ad spots urging them to vote “no.” In another sharp contrast, the Gubernator’s allies bought only 468.

It’s the same story with TV: in New York, Bloomberg spent an astonishing $30 million on TV ads versus Ferrer’s $6 million, according to a study by TNS Media Intelligence/CMAG, and in the New Jersey gubernatorial race Corzine spent $25 million on TV spots against Forrester’s $15 million, according to the same study (a more than 100 percent spending increase over the 2001 New Jersey race). Meanwhile, in California, Schwarzenegger’s foes spent $63 million on TV spots to defeat his propositions versus $30 million of buys from the beleaguered governor’s allies.

Stats from Nielsen Monitor-Plus confirm this picture of a massive upswing in spending on political TV ads in 2005–especially remarkable given that these were “off year” elections. According to Nielsen, from August 1 to October 16th 107,171 political TV ad spots appeared nationwide, with over half–57,682–airing in the 10 biggest markets alone.

by Erik Sass
Courtesy of http://www.mediapost.com