BIA Projects Where Local Political Ad Money Will Be Spent

Getting Political

Media outlets throughout AMERICA are chomping at the bit in anticipation of political ad revenue, but as the BIA Advisory Service notes in its latest study, not everyone will benefit equally from the $6.55 billion in local political advertising that is predicted to be spent in 2020. 

In terms of the media pie, over-the-air (OTA) TV will gobble up almost half the ad pie at $3.08 billion. Online/digital outlets will receive $1.37 billion (21%), while $919 million (14%) will be spent on multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) and just over $312 million (4.8%) for Radio. The rest will go to other media.

“It’s going to be a very interesting political year where some very large markets will not see much in political advertising while some small markets will see an extraordinary amount of advertising due to competitive Gubernatorial, Senate and House races along with the Presidential election,” BIA ADVISORY SERVICES Chief Economist/SVP MARK FRATRIK said. “Campaigns will continue to rely on TV as a dominant platform for advertising while supplementing with digital advertising across mobile and desktop.”

BIA’s forecast also notes that the amount of political advertising will vary significantly from market to market, depending on the size of the market and specifics of local elections. The three top local political revenue generating markets will be LOS ANGELES, PHOENIX and PHILADELPHIA. In each market, TV OTA will receive more than $130 million in advertising with online/digital ad spend getting over 25% of the total spend. Direct mail, normally a dominant medium in other categories, will only capture a small percentage of market spend.

“In some of the smaller markets, one thing to keep an eye on is how the huge volume of political advertising could crowd out other local advertisers during primary and general election seasons," FRATRIK said. "That may have an impact on advertisers and media companies, and we’ll certainly factor that into our forecasting as we go through the fall.” 

BIA’s new in-depth, local market level political advertising estimates will be provided to the firm’s BIA ADVantage clients, who receive local market advertising intelligence for 94 business categories, including political, for every TV and radio market in the nation. For information on how to subscribe to BIA ADVantage, e-mail sales@bia.com. To purchase the 2020 political forecast separately, visit our online store here.

« see more Net News