LOCAL CABLE AIMS FOR MORE POLITICAL DOLLARS

Last week, in Part I of this interview with TNS Media’s political advertising maven Evan Tracey, he said that spending by candidate, parties and interest groups could exceed $2.6 billion and go as high as $3 billion in 2008 and that TV stations, particularly those the presidential “battleground” states, will reap most of it.

Here, in Part II, Tracey confirms that stations will remain at the head of the line for the political lucre, but notes that the cable operators have been doing a better job of selling local cable as an increasingly convenient alternative.

It’s no cause for broadcasters to be alarmed, he says, as long as overall political spending keeps growing. And there are good reasons to believe it will.

How much of a candidate’s money goes into TV these days?

It’s not one percentage because every race in every state is different. In a presidential race, probably close to 50% or 55% of the money that gets raised goes into some form of paid media. On a congressional level, again, it depends a lot on the state and what media markets the candidates are in. So it’s really hard to sit here and give you an apples-to-apples comparison.

Some states are all media. A statewide race in California is going to be all media, but a race in Fresno is going to be more person-to-person contact. There will be more radio in a place like New York. Like I said, there’s no one formula number, but it is generally the largest line item in any campaign budget.

Are TV news and news adjacencies still the places every candidate wants his ads to run?

Yes. Political campaigns love to buy the news. That’s sort of what they buy first with the idea being that, if you watch the news, you’re more likely to be interested in politics and be a likely voter. Demographically, any sort of news programming fits political buying.

One of the broadcasters’ problems is that they don’t have enough news to fill this demand. What advice do you have for them?

In states where there’s a lot of inventory pressure, a lot of times the stations will actually limit the number of spots that they’ll sell candidates in the news. They might say they’re only going to sell one spot an hour to each candidate so they don’t get everybody in there and turn their local news into a bunch of political spots.

Where there is inventory pressure, the dollars will get spread out across the dayparts. The candidates need the time. They’ll take what they can get in the news, but they’ll also take what they can get, period.

What’s there second choice?

Prime access has always been considered sort of the poor man’s primetime in politics. Certainly, the morning shows are targeted because you get a lot of the off-to-work types. You get the moms getting the kids out. Sports is a very good demographic for politics because it trends to young males and they tend to vote.

Let’s talk about the competition for the political ad dollars. You were at the big NCC conference in Washington where they pitched the political consultants on buying spot cable rather than broadcast spot. How did that go?

I thought it went very well. The cable guys have done a remarkable job marketing themselves to the political community. They certainly have a good story to tell and I do think that they’re right, that a lot of their programming fits with political needs. The questions have always been, how much inventory is actually available in local cable, how quickly can you change traffic, just how deep does the audience go. Those are things that they’re doing a very good job of addressing.

So, the logistics of buying cable has been a problem.

In the past, that’s always been somewhat of a knock, but they’re doing the right thing by being proactive in getting out and saying that they’re aware of the problems, they’re addressing them

I do think that cable will get its share. It may even get an increased share with all the inventory pressure. But, you know, there are a lot of old habits when it comes to political buying. It’s not the kind of business where you’ve got a lot of risk takers.

What would you say cable’s share is today?

I think it’s probably somewhere in 10%-to-18% range depending on the market. Like I said, there’s some places where they do better than others. I don’t know for sure. We don’t have our hands on the local cable data

If you’re running congressional races in places like New York and Los Angeles, cable probably does better than broadcast on some races. In other races, cable doesn’t do as well. One of the problems, certainly in the context of the presidential race, is that national cable becomes more economical than local cable. It may be more cost effective just to go ahead and buy it nationally and then supplement it in some of the real key states or demographic areas. Also, you can’t ignore things like satellite penetration, especially in some of the more rural states.