Report: Radio To Get Less Than 6 Percent Of Political Dollars

A new Borrell Report Finds Political Advertising On The Rise, But No Big Growth Ahead For Radio.

According to the report, politics in this country has become an endless campaign, with TV and cable outlets the chief beneficiaries. There are 30,000 elections being held across the U.S. this year, injecting what we
estimate will be $8.3 billion into the advertising ecosystem. The spending runs from $47,000 for the average town  council race up to $23 million for a Senate campaign or $27 million for a gubernatorial race. Close to two-thirds of that money will be spent between July 1 and Election Day.

Today, politicians and political organizations spend $37 per eligible voter to sway opinion via media advertising, up 9% from the last mid-term election year. That will zoom to $51 in 2016, a Presidential election year. That’s 21% more than the last Presidential election year in 2012.

So where does digital media stand in this upward spiral? It certainly plays a role, but not so much on the “advertising” side of the digital equation. Spending on online ads is definitely growing – and poised to explode in two years. But even at a forecast rate of a threefold increase between 2012 and 2016, digital media would still be less than $1 billion, accounting for less than 8% of all political advertising. Most of the activity, it seems, is by digital marketing managers  working within the campaigns, managing social media and email communications directly with the electorate.

As for radio, Borrell finds:

The report notes Pandora will continue to take share from radio station digital efforts. Using information about a listener’s musical preferences and aligning them by zip code to past voting results, Pandora can supply targetable groups of listeners tagged by their inferred political inclination.