POLITICAL ADVERTISING: WHO’S SPENDING WHAT—AND WHERE

As of August 2, Democrats have spent nearly  twice as much as Republicans on Presidential campaign ads this year ($325M vs. $181M).  Around one-third of Democratic spending has been on digital platforms, compared to just 15% for Republicans. For their part, the GOP has invested 44% ($80M) of its budget in Broadcast TV, versus 32% ($105M) for Democrats.  A final note:  Both parties have spent record sums on CTV, taking advantage of its ability to target more specifically-defined audiences. (Axios: Aug 6, 2024)

BUT WHAT ABOUT NEXT YEAR’S LOCAL AD SPENDING?

Without political advertising filling the stations’ coffers, what will 2025 look like for local ad spending?  Still pretty good, according to BIA Advisory Services.  They predict that non-political local advertising will increase by 5.5% to $171B next year.  The top growth categories are expected to be restaurants (+9.5%), real estate (+6.7%), and retail (+5.5%).  These apples-to-apples comparisons are an important metric as political spending fluctuates greatly from year to year. (BIA: Aug 7, 2024)

HOT TAKE:  PEOPLE LIKE WATCHING THE OLYMPICS

If you watched TV last week, there’s a good chance you were watching the Summer Olympics.  In part because there’s been so much of it across the NBCU networks and Peacock, coverage of the events in Paris represented one-quarter of last week’s TV viewing minutes.  This provided a boost to other NBC programming like Nightly News, which had the fifth-highest share, up from #13 the week before.  Where will people get their sports fix after the Closing Ceremony on August 11?  The NFL season right is around the corner, and pre-season games have already started (apologies for the reminder that summer is almost over). (TVRev: Aug 6, 2024)

BACK-TO-SCHOOL SPENDING EXPECTED TO DIP

Now that we’ve pointed out that summer will wrap up soon, we might as well talk about back-to-school spending.  The National Retail Federation predicts that overall spending will be $39B, down from $41.5B last year.  A similar decrease is expected for back-to-college spending, with $87B projected this year versus $94B in 2023.  A big reason for this is electronics; it’ll still be the largest area of spending, but a third of shoppers expect to use the tech they bought in previous years.  Households will spend about $875 on back-to-school and $1,365 on back-to-college. Good luck, parents!  (NRF: Aug 6, 2024)

THIS WEEK IN VIDEO HISTORY

August 8, 2017 – The Walt Disney Company cancels its ties with Netflix and announces plans to create its own streaming service. Launched just over two years later, Disney+ now has over 150 million subscribers.