Political Ads: TV's Last Bonanza

Brace yourself for attack ads by the boatload. Shadowy advocacy groups will crawl out of the woodwork solely to fund vicious takedowns. The starting guns have just sounded for marathons of spin and counterspin on crucial issues, like how much the candidates' houses are worth. Soon, most pundits will express outrage. Soon, most citizens will express exhaustion. Just about the only happy folk, besides seriously degenerate political junkies, will be the owners of local TV stations. They stand poised to grab 70%, or more, of the $2 billion that could be spent between Labor Day and Election Day. But it has been such a lousy year for local TV that not even a billion bucks will stop stations from scoring less revenue than they did in '07. A down '08 will follow a revenue decline in '07. Politics is the last major ad category that slavishly worships TV, and this raises its own issues. "The calendar could run out before the money does," says Evan Tracey, who tracks political ads for TNS. "If you're going to try to get a TV spot in central Florida or Ohio, be prepared to pay through the nose to get [an ad on] the equivalent of Wayne's World." There are some situations, though, that not even a roller-coaster, cash-crazed election cycle can salvage. The viewers, as always, will suffer deeply throughout all of it. But this year, once the election's over, the station owners will, too. The Internet may be the up-and-coming medium for political advertising, but it's not yet a replacement for television, some experts in politics and advertising suggested during a forum at the Democratic National Convention. "It's not quite there yet," Joe Trippi told a forum sponsored by Democratic group NDN. "It's moving exponentially but it's not TV.