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November 2015

Jeb Bush loses TV ad edge to Marco Rubio

Down in the polls, Jeb Bush was supposed to find refuge in his financial superiority. But just as his campaign enters the critical primary phase, the fallen front-runner is about to get outgunned on the airwaves by the man his campaign views as its chief rival: Sen Marco Rubio (R-FL). According to media buyers and a Politco review of TV ad purchase data, Bush and his allies are on pace to spend $5 million more than Team Rubio on broadcast, cable and radio ads through the first four voting states – but for that sum, they will put fewer ads on the airwaves. That’s because the vast majority of Bush’s ads are paid for by his super PAC -- roughly 85 percent for Bush versus only 40 percent for Sen Rubio – and super PACs get far less bang for their buck.

“A dollar is not a dollar,” explained Evan Tracey, a veteran political ad buyer at National Media, a Republican media firm. “Candidate dollars go much farther than super PAC dollars go.” In Iowa and New Hampshire, for example, super PACs are confronting ad rates that can soar to nearly 1,000 percent more than the rates charged of candidates -- an enormous markup that is sapping much of the punch from the $103 million Bush and his allies had amassed by mid-2015.

Comcast’s Latest Zero-Rating Plan Threatens Video Choice

[Commentary] Comcast's exemption of Stream TV from data caps presents a straightforward example of the anticompetitive problems zero-rating can raise, and provides little consumer benefit. Comcast is attempting to frame its self-serving, discriminatory actions in a way designed to slip through real or imagined loopholes or exceptions to both the Open Internet rules or its merger commitments, but none of these attempts work. Over and above the legal and technical issues are the competitive issues. Comcast is the nation's most dominant video distributor and the largest broadband provider. Because (unlike T-Mobile) it has a legacy video business to protect, it is easier to see how it might have an anticompetitive motive. Because it is so large, its actions will have a disproportionate effect. Also, most of Comcast's customers do not have other choices of truly high-speed (25 Mbps and up) broadband. That means that if competing video services are disadvantaged on Comcast's network, it's not like they can encourage Comcast's customers to switch to another provider.

Although some network neutrality advocates might have a different take on T-Mobile’s zero-rating, Comcast’s program raises a host of issues under the Open Internet rules, the consent decree, and -- most importantly -- general principles of competition.

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