{"id":6598,"date":"2016-04-26T10:00:03","date_gmt":"2016-04-26T14:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=6598"},"modified":"2016-04-26T01:18:10","modified_gmt":"2016-04-26T05:18:10","slug":"updated-broadcast-tv-spending-in-cd8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=6598","title":{"rendered":"Updated: Broadcast TV Spending in CD8"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following is a guest post by Adam Pagnucco.<\/em><\/p>\n

We are now at the end of a record-breaking, historic and extremely expensive Democratic primary for Congress in District 8.\u00a0 The leading category of spending in the race is television advertising.\u00a0 Broadcast TV contracts for political ads are available on the Federal Communications Commission\u2019s website<\/a>, but they are not readily searchable or crunchable.\u00a0 We tracked and broke down candidate spending<\/a> on 127 contracts through noon, April 4 three weeks ago.\u00a0 The updated data below pertains to 218 contracts uploaded as of Saturday afternoon, April 23, and should cover almost all broadcast TV spending in the primary.<\/p>\n

First, let\u2019s look at the number of spots and gross spending for each broadcaster.\u00a0 This data does not include production costs for the ads, only payments to broadcasters to run them.<\/p>\n

\"Broadcast<\/p>\n

WRC-TV, the Washington NBC affiliate, has been the leading network here for years and accounts for roughly a third of spots and more than 40% of gross spending.\u00a0 Its news programs, including the Today Show, the local news shows and NBC Nightly News, are among the most desirable \u2013 and most expensive \u2013 programs for political advertisers.\u00a0 Three Baltimore broadcasters appear in our dataset because Total Wine co-owner David Trone is advertising on them to reach Carroll County voters.<\/p>\n

Television spending has increased steadily since January 26, when Trone kicked off the CD8 2016 ad season.\u00a0 Former WJLA anchor Kathleen Matthews began advertising on February 8.\u00a0 Senator Jamie Raskin joined in on March 24 and Delegate Kumar Barve followed on April 6.\u00a0 April has been a lucrative month for Washington broadcasters, especially WRC.<\/p>\n

\"Broadcast<\/p>\n

David Trone is the king of TV spending, accounting for the majority of spots and 75% of gross payments.\u00a0 Trone heavily targets national and local news programs for his ads, considered by many to be solid places to reach voters.\u00a0 Barve prefers these programs too.\u00a0 Matthews keeps her costs down by mixing in cheaper daytime television like The Meredith Viera Show, Days of Our Lives, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, CBS Soaps and The Insider.\u00a0 Raskin runs 15-second spots, half the length of his competitors, and that\u2019s why he has the lowest cost per spot.<\/p>\n

\"Candidate<\/p>\n

Trone has been on TV the longest and has spent the most money by far, but the entrance of other candidates has cut into his dominance a bit.\u00a0 Still, even in April when all spigots were opened, Trone had a 68% market share.\u00a0 Trone spent almost as much on April broadcast TV as Matthews has spent on all items in her entire campaign, and more than Raskin has spent in total.<\/p>\n

\"Candidate<\/p>\n

Despite his unprecedented TV spending, Trone\u2019s campaign is not the most TV-intensive as a proportion of total funds.\u00a0 That distinction belongs to Matthews.\u00a0 Her broadcast TV spending accounts for 48% of the money she raised through April 6.\u00a0 Trone\u2019s TV spending accounts for 43% of his resources (including two late contributions through April 15).\u00a0 Barve and Raskin trail on this measure.\u00a0 Matthews is able to put more of her money into TV, an area in which she excels, because Emily\u2019s List has basically taken over her mail program.\u00a0 This is a significant advantage for Matthews.\u00a0 Aside from the authority line, voters likely cannot distinguish between Emily\u2019s List mailers and anything they have seen from the Matthews campaign.<\/p>\n

\"Percent<\/p>\n

If spending alone determines the outcome of the race, Trone is going to win.\u00a0 However, about sixty percent of the electorate is female<\/a> and that will help Matthews.\u00a0 And Raskin\u2019s grass-roots support has been second to none.\u00a0 We are headed towards an exciting finish!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following is a guest post by Adam Pagnucco. We are now at the end of a record-breaking, historic and extremely expensive Democratic primary for Congress in District 8.\u00a0 The leading category of spending in the race is television advertising.\u00a0 Broadcast TV contracts for political ads are available on the Federal Communications Commission\u2019s website, but … Continue reading Updated: Broadcast TV Spending in CD8<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[151],"tags":[1301,1545,1778,1502,1308,1473],"class_list":["post-6598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","tag-mdcd8","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-david-trone","tag-jamie-raskin","tag-kathleen-matthews","tag-kumar-barve"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-1Iq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6598"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6604,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6598\/revisions\/6604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}