Radio, TV Broadcasters Vying For More Political Ads

TV still gets the bulk of political spending during any election cycle. But, reports AdAge, with an eye toward the growth of digital and cable advertising in the political world, the nation's broadcasters have kicked off a campaign to sell themselves as the most influential.

Television Bureau of Advertising CEO Steve Lanzano said his group will begin to air 15-second spots, first in Washington D.C, then in the early primary states of New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, then in most other states to remind political consultants and candidates that old-school broadcast ads reach more voters than other media.

"There are a lot of shiny new objects out there, especially digital shiny new objects," that have captivated the attention of political campaigns, but broadcast delivers, Mr. Lanzano said.

With 5 hours a day on average for broadcast TV viewing, "no other media comes close," he said.



TVB has set up a new website, www.WeGetVoters.com, that says Americans trust local news more than cable and that broadcast has a far greater reach than cable nationally and locally.

Last week, the New York Times wrote a story about why politicians are turning to radio ads to target voters, and they summarized that radio is "the closest thing to a captive audience for political commercials." Radio is a cost-effective way to reach voters in an environment less cluttered than TV.

Meanwhile, in his latest blog posting, Pierre Bouvard, CMO for Cumulus Media/Westwood One, notes that radio now offers sophisticated new targeting tools from Nielsen to help politicians reach the right voters on the right format, station, and time period. Nielsen has introduced "Nielsen Voter Ratings," a political segmentation tool to the 48 Portable People Meter local markets. This week, Nielsen will be sending our 18 local PPM markets their first set of Nielsen Voter Ratings based on the Spring 2015 survey.

Here are two key takeaways:

• Radio reaches the most voters in America, including the 100 million Americans who do not watch local TV news. 
• Radio reaches voters through both music and spoken word programming formats.