Midterm TV spending to rival last presidential election

Author

Michael Beach
October 02, 2018

Political TV spend according to Magna:
1) 2014 — $2.4B
2) 2018 — $2.9B (↑ 21%)

Competitive races according to The Cook Political Report:
1) House — 95
2) Senate — 8

YoY growth for local TV spend:
1) Including political — ↑ 9%
2) Excluding political — ↓ 5%

Political advertising revenue for E.W. Scripps:
1) 2014 — $75M
2) 2016 — $101M
3) 2018P — $112M

Digital is the fastest growing platform in politics but still trails TV spend.

2018 spend share according to Kantar CMAG:
1) Local broadcast — 62%
2) Local cable — 22%
3) Digital (all types) — 16%

2018 spending growth compared to 2014:
1) Digital (all types) — ↑ 140%
2) Local cable — ↑ 42%
3) Local broadcast — ↑ 14%
4) Total — ↑ 31%

Local broadcast station revenue by year (TV only):
1) 2010 — $19.4b
2) 2011 — $17.9b
3) 2012 — $20.3b
4) 2013 — $18.4b
5) 2014 — $20.0b
6) 2015 — $18.5b
7) 2016 — $20.6b
8) 2017 — $19.8b*
9) 2018 — $21.1b*

Politics is the trailblazer in targeted TV and digital advertising.

Key quote from Vincent Letang — EVP, Global Market Intelligence @ Magna:“Political campaigns have been pioneering those new capabilities within the industry, because they are incentivized to take advantage of as much niche targeting as possible.”

Quote from Brent McGoldrick — CEO @ Deep Root Analytics.“Political campaigns will always know more about the audience they’re trying to target than the broadcasters do. In the data arms race between buyers and sellers, the sellers have to catch up.”

Quick math:
1) 80% of adults are registered to vote
2) 50% of registered voters will vote this fall
3) ≈ 10–20% of voters are persuadable
4) ≈ 4–8% of adults in battleground districts are persuadable and will vote this fall

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