Political Ads Flow To Local Cable

Analysts are scratching their heads over why political advertising on TV has been light so far in measured national and spot broadcast TV business. Local cable ad sales executives say they've solved the mystery -- the missing money is going into their pockets. If spending trends continue, local cable advertising executives estimate they will finish with several hundred million dollars in political advertising by Election Day, versus the tens of millions they accrued in the 2004 presidential election. With local cable ad volume not measured due to its fragmentation, the boomlet has gone under the radar of traditional ad data services. Some guess that local cable is getting approximately 15% of the political TV ad spend, versus 4% in 2004 when cable interconnects were less developed. Taking into account TNS Media's Campaign Media Analysis Group (CMAG) estimate of $3 billion in political TV ads in 2008 -- versus $1.7 billion in 2004 -- this percentage could translate into a roughly fivefold increase. CMAG doesn't measure local cable.