Political TV Ads Uneven, Backloaded

All ships are not rising with the tide of political TV advertising. The reason: Election-cycle spending is uneven so far. The entire TV medium is still in line to be awash with $3 billion in 2008 political advertising, which is up from $2.4 billion in 2006 and $1.7 billion in 2004, according to political ad spend researcher TNS-CMAG (the latter acronym is for Campaign Media Analysis Group). But behind that happy 2008 total are two unsettling wrinkles for TV stations: Geographic distribution is uneven and the big spending may arrive weeks later than the traditional mid-summer. This election season's quirks stem from the lengthy race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. In past presidential races, the two main party nominees had emerged weeks earlier. The uncertainty holds back ad spending in the presidential race because even the Republicans, which have a presumptive nominee, aren't sure which Democrat to target. More significantly, there's other political spending for Congress, state, local and advocacy groups, which take their cues from the two party standard-bearers. Any late arrival of political ads—meaning a backloading phenomenon—looks to hurt TV stations because the real economic boon is tightening up commercial inventory, which indirectly drives up TV ad prices for other classes of advertisers. Federal Election Commission rules guarantee candidates the lowest unit price for airtime, so candidate ads alone aren't gushers. If the political ads are late in arriving, the general tightening of TV commercial inventory will be limited.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6553031.html