Toni Fitzgerald

President-elect Donald Trump’s nontraditional political ad spending plan worked because he focused on targeted over mass media. He spent way less than his opponent but achieved the results he needed. Going forward, we may see more campaigns run in this matter.

What’s that mean on a practical level? That targeted media such as digital, cable and direct mail will see political spending gains. Television and newspaper, the mass media, will not. That’s what happened in this election, according to final data on the 2016 election released this week by Borrell Associates, the Williamsburg (VA) ad tracking firm. Total political ad spending hit $9.8 billion, up slightly from $9.4 billion four years ago. The numbers include a huge shift in where money was spent. Broadcast TV made up 57.9 percent of spending four years ago but just 44.7 percent this year. Digital spending, meanwhile, increased almost eightfold, from a 1.7 percent share to a 14.4 percent share. “The changes noted reflect more than tactical shifts by an unorthodox candidate. They point to a new ascendancy in both spending and attention for digital in future elections,” notes the report.

When you think of cord cutting, you undoubtedly think of people giving up their subscriptions to pay TV in order to save money. But it may be time to broaden that definition. There’s new evidence that people are cutting the cord on something else as well – broadband Internet.

The finding comes in a new report from Ovum, a media and telecom research firm, which notes that several companies have seen more than one quarter of decline in broadband. It notes that most US telecom providers have been losing landline or cable subscribers for years. But now that’s expanded to include broadband. “Cord-cutting started in landlines and gave way to cord-cutting in pay TV in the US. We are now entering the realm of triple cord-cutting,” says Kristin Paulin, a senior analyst at Ovum. During third quarter, AT&T and Windstream saw declines in all three services they offer (broadband, cable and landlines), while Frontier suffered losses in phone and Internet. Still, Ovum forecasts that broadband decreases will increase over the next few years.

New shows have struggled and returning shows have seen ratings slide this summer. That’s led to a 10 percent adults 18-49 ratings decline among the top seven broadcast networks.

All but one network, the CW, are down from last summer, and the Big Four have combined for a 13 percent dip. Together, ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, the CW, Univision and Telemundo have averaged a 7.1 rating this summer, according to Nielsen, compared to a 7.9 at the same point in 2013.

The Big Four have combined for a 4.9, off from a 5.6 this time last summer.

Univision remains the No. 1 network among Hispanics by far and the No. 5 broadcast network overall, but ratings are down sharply this season, for the first time in years.

In its upfront presentation to media buyers, Univision plans to emphasize influence over ratings, pushing its broad platform including cable and digital and its radio stations. The message: If you want to connect with Hispanics, we should be your first stop.

Among 18-34s, the sweet spot for Spanish-language programming with a huge US population of Hispanic Millennials, Univision is off 23 percent from last season, to a 1.0. But the network points out that it ranks ahead of at least one of the Big Four most nights in primetime in that demo.

Its pitch to media buyers emphasizes the breadth of its influence across platforms. Univision’s other broadcast network, UniMás, which rebranded in 2013 to target Millennials, was up 25 percent in 2014 among 18-49s compared to first quarter of the previous year. Univision Deportes Network was the fastest-growing cable network in terms of distribution in first quarter, and this summer’s World Cup will undoubtedly lift ratings. And its online and radio properties both have high engagement among Hispanics.

Newspaper circulation isn’t what it used to be. And neither are the tools used to measure it.

The latest batch of circulation numbers from the Alliance for Audited Media came out, and it’s difficult to cull any significant meaning from them because of all the changes that have been made to the means by which circulation is measured.

Many of the changes reflect the new way people read papers, both in print and digitally. But they also provide some loopholes that help certain papers claim big circulation gains that, when you look more closely at them, don’t always hold up.

The most significant example during the six months ended March 31, the data comes from USA Today. The paper saw an incredible 94 percent gain in Monday through Friday circulation, to 3,255,157. But that surge includes 668,054 branded editions, which AAM defines as a publication that publishes at least weekly, publishes on the same paper stock as the newspaper, contains editorial content and represents itself as a newspaper. Branded editions might include a weekly Spanish-language edition or a coupon supplement.

In USA Today’s case, it’s a condensed edition of the paper, dubbed a butterfly edition, that’s distributed in dozens of Gannett publications across the country each day. USA Today’s gains also include more digital non-replica editions, or users of the paper’s apps.

The New York Times saw big gains during the March 31 reporting period as well, also thanks to branded editions. Its Monday through Friday circulation jumped 15 percent, but again, it included 126,162 branded editions for the first time. The Times counted the international edition of the paper as a branded edition in its figures. Still, even without the branded editions, circulation would be up 8 percent, with digital accounting for the bulk of those gains.

Indeed, nearly every paper that reported improvements during the reporting period got them from a bump in branded editions.

Internet advertising has hit another major milestone. During 2013 spending on online ads surpassed spending on broadcast television for the first time ever, according to data by the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

TV remains ahead of the web when you include other forms of television advertising, such as cable. But based on national network, spot TV and syndication, broadcast dropped behind online in 2013. Digital ad spending hit $42.8 billion in 2013, according to IAB, up 17 percent over 2012′s $36.6 billion.

By comparison, IAB puts broadcast TV spending at $40.1 billion in 2013. TV has long brought in more dollars than any other form of media. Though online spending has been growing at a much faster pace than television for years, TV had such a huge lead that it maintained a bigger share of dollars as well. It will still be a few years before digital spending will surpass the combined total of broadcast and cable TV, which brought in more than $10 billion in 2013, according to the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau.