Local TV Stations Ready to PAC in Cash as Election Season Gears Up

On Oct 15, executives from Tribune Broadcasting’s 42 TV stations around the country gathered at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington (DC), for a day of workshops, seminars and insights from guest speakers on the biggest money-making opportunity for many local TV stations over the next 12 months: political advertising.

Television’s quadrennial gold rush is on, and promises to be fiercer and richer than ever. A perfect storm of conditions is driving a leap in TV spending that is projected to hit $4.4 billion for the 2016 election cycle, encompassing federal and state races, up from $3.8 billion in 2012, according to Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group. This political spending surge has helped drive the burst of mergers and acquisitions activity among TV station owners during the past three years. With billions of dollars up for grabs over a short period of time, broadcasters like Tribune and others are intensifying their sales efforts, and in some cases centralizing the process, in order to make the most effective pitches possible to the political class.