THE WHO, WHAT AND HOW MUCH OF CAMPAIGN 2008

At the TVB Forecast Conference in New York earlier this month, there was a lot of talk about various major advertising categories and their interest in spending on national spot. Much of it was discouraging for the assembled TV broadcasters.

But the broadcasters could take heart from the report they heard on the every-other-year political category. Spending would likely set another record next year and most of it would go to TV stations.

Providing the heartening report was Evan Tracey, of TNS Media Intelligence, who has made a career of tracking the campaigns and their spending.

In Part I of this interview with TVNewsCheck Editor Harry A. Jessell, Tracey elaborates on his TVB report, discussing not only how much will be spent (as much as $3 billion), but where it will be spent.

In Part II next Tuesday, Tracey talks about other media, notably cable and the Internet, that are clamoring for a larger share of the political dollars, and the likelihood of their getting it.

An edited transcript follows:

At TVB, you said that you expected political spending to be at a minimum between $2.4 billion and $2.6 billion in 2008. Break that down for me.

Sure. Right now, I would say that you’re probably looking at close to $800 million directly attributable to the presidential campaigns. You’re probably looking at a number in the $300 million range for the Senate campaigns, probably a little higher than that for House campaigns. Ballot measures are likely to be in the $200-million-to-$300-million range. Judges again could total another $100 million. The rest is going to be tied up in state and local races—everything from governor down to dogcatcher.

Are we talking only 2008?

Most of that’s going to be ’08, but some of it will start in third and fourth quarter of ’07.

How much political spending will there be in 2007?

If you factor in issue ad spending, it’s going to be somewhere in the $700 million dollar range. On Labor Day we were at about $50 million spent on campaigns this year. Usually, about 20 percent of the total is spent before Labor Day.

Now you also said at TVB that the 2008 number could push $3 billion, depending on what actually happens next year.

If events make things look more competitive, that’s usually good news for fundraising. Again, the other factor you’ve got with the presidential campaign is we’re kind of going into uncharted waters.

It looks like both candidates, whoever wins the Democratic and Republican nominations, will be off the public financing system, which means they will be able to continually raise and spend. In the past, they’ve only done that for the primary and then gone back under the public financing. That meant a lull in spending between the primaries and the convention when they could get their matching funds.

What kind of events are we talking about here? Are we talking about campaign gaffes or real world events?

God forbid I’d ever be right on this, but, say, for example, there was another terrorist attack. That’s an event obviously that’s out of the control of any one political party, but certainly would swing the dialogue back on to national security, which would potentially favor Republicans.

The other example would be if there were another scandal that is tied back to one party or another, like a Mark Foley or a Jack Abramoff or anything of that level. That adds to the public perception of one party or another. In other words, what will add money to the process would be anything that makes the race more competitive. What would subtract from the equation would be anything that makes the race less competitive.

So if you get to the end of next summer and both parties have had their conventions and one candidate has a double digit lead in the national polls and also in the battleground polls, that could shift some money around. It may be harder to get out and fund raise. It may be harder for groups to get motivated, to spend. That could take away from both the party spending as well as the interest group spending.

But that would tend to drive your $800 million figure down. Didn’t you say [at TVB] that these unforeseen circumstances historically drive spending up?

As things stand today, there seems to be more things that would indicate a more competitive environment as opposed to a less competitive environment.

So, it’s really not about events. It’s about tight races.

Yeah. We’ve been somewhat of a fifty/fifty nation really going back to the 2000 election. You could probably even trace it back into the 1990s. But, generally, we’ve been in this situation where there’s not a party that is firmly in control right now. Even if you look at the turnout by the congressional districts in the 2006 election, you’ll find that there are still not that many votes that separate Democrats and the Republicans. In other words, you had a lot of very close congressional races last year where Democrats came out on top. So, a few percentage points swing nationally is more likely to make things more competitive.