Borrell: $4.2 Billion In 2010 Political Spend

Declaring the birth of "the endless campaign," Borrell Associates predicts that the growth of issue advertising and a recent Supreme Court ruling have changed the pattern of political ad spending in the U.S., erasing the peaks and valleys of the on- and off-year forecasts of the recent past and replacing them with a more even, continuous outlay. This year, candidates and issue advertisers will spend a record $4.2 billion on advertising, with TV stations commanding "the lion's share" and the Internet garnering only 1% of outlays, according to a new Borrell report. Almost three-fourths of the total will be spent locally, the report says.