by Wayne Friedman
Source: www.mediapost.com, July 2020
With the Presidential election four months away, national TV airings of political advertising are sharply higher over the last 30 days, with President Trump’s campaign easily outspending other political marketers.
The most recent month — June 10 to July 9 — pulled in $5.2 million in total political advertising from all marketers — with 1,979 airings and 1.7 billion impressions, according to iSpot.tv. Over the previous month period — May 10 to June 9 — $1.95 million was spent for 599 airings, yielding 867 million impressions.
The Donald J. Trump for President campaign posted the bulk of national TV airings — at 1,641, with an estimated $4.6 million in spending. Democratic Presidential contender Joe Biden came in at 38 airings and $145,714 in spending.
Fox News Channel pulled in the most impressions for national political advertising with 288.5 million. CNN came in at second place with 94.8 million impressions, followed by MSNBC at 77.7 million.
The best non-news networks in terms of impressions was History (44.8 million), followed by HGTV (44.2 million), Food Network (31 million), NBC (29.3 million) and TVLand (26.1 million).
The Weather Channel at 233 had the most political airings during the most recent month — regardless of the type of TV network, followed by Fox News with 192; NBA TV at 165; WGN America with 165; and TVLand at 143.
While national TV political spending is rising, local media will remain the dominant player for political marketing.
For this big election season, BIA Advisory Services estimates a total $7.1 billion in political advertising to be spent on all local media — a record amount. Over-the-air TV will get a projected 45.8% share of local political ad spend.
