Outlook for Campaign Ad Revenue 2008

OUTLOOK FOR CAMPAIGN AD REVENUE 2008
Will 2008 be a winning campaign year for ... newspapers? For the first time since John Kennedy beat Richard Nixon in a presidential race that, by a landslide, anointed television as the medium of choice for political advertising, newspapers are daring to believe they and their Web sites will get more than their usual minuscule share of candidates' media buys. Depending on who's counting, total political ad spending — including everything from local and state races to the presidential election -- is expected to come in at anywhere from $3 to $5 billion by the time polls close on Nov. 4. TV will likely capture nearly three-quarters of that spending, with the other 25% divided among other media, estimates Evan Tracey, COO of TNS Media Intelligence/ CMAG. But newspapers shouldn't get their hopes up too much, Tracey cautions. "You know the weapon of choice is always broadcast TV, cable after that, and radio after that," he says. "It's a gift and curse of geography. Not to throw cold water on print. We have seen success in public affairs and on the issue advocacy-side. The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post are very well-positioned." As are some state and local papers that have congressional races, he adds. On the other hand, the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) believes that the industry will carve out a bigger piece of that pie than outsiders think -- and do much better than the medium has done in the past four or five decades. "I bet our industry can capture between 12 to 15%" of the total campaign spend, says Jack Brady, the NAA's director of marketing and advertising. "I think in the last cycle we captured maybe 5%." In the '08 campaign, NAA thinks print alone will capture a 5% share of candidates' spend.
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