Daily Research News Online no. 3532 - Boom in US Political Ad Spend

Boom in US Political Ad Spend

November 3 2004

With the election seemingly all over bar the legal challenges, Republican and Democrat parties may have to pay attention to their overdrafts. US political advertising spend for 2004 reached historic heights - more than $1.45 billion - and will set the precedent for future campaigns, according to TNS Media Intelligence/CMR.

Presidential election spending across select TNS Media Intelligence/CMR measured media from Jan to October inclusive reached $601m, 42% of the total dollars spent on political advertising. The remaining $847m went on Federal, State and Local election messages, along with ballot issue advertising.

Steven Fredericks, President and CEO of TNS Media Intelligence/CMR, says the charged political environment of election year 'resulted in an infusion of spending in national and local media as interested parties tried to communicate their messages to the voting public'.

'Political advertising in Election 2004 has been a watershed event and will change how future election campaigns are implemented' according to Evan Tracey, COO of TNS Media Intelligence/CMAG, a company within TNSMI/CMR which is dedicated to tracking and analyzing political ad spending. 'Advertising for both the presidential and other down ballot races was historic in size. For example, targeting undecided voters in swing states made local and cable advertising an especially important part of both campaigns' strategies and resulted in record spending in these media. Some of these voters have seen ads since last year, whereas historically ad wars were waged between June and Election Day'.

Political Ad Spending: January to October 2004
Estimates are in $m and do not include public service announcement (PSA) data.
Type	Spot TV	Network Cable TV	Local Radio	Newspaper (Nat'l & Local)	Internet	% of Total Dollars
Presidential	546.6	24.5	25.5	0.2	4.2	41.5%
Federal (Senate, House, Fed Issue)	379.4	0	10.5	1.0	1.0	27.1%
State & Local (Excludes Ballot Issue)	173.6	0	18.4	17.2	0.1	14.4%
State & Local - Ballot Issue	176.7	0	34.6	32.5	1.9	17.0%
Grand Total	1,276.3	24.5	89.0	51.0	7.1	100%

Source: TNS Media Intelligence/CMR

Notes:
1. Figures are based on the TNS Media Intelligence/CMR Stradegy2 multimedia ad expenditure database across the measured media noted in the chart.
2. Presidential spending reflects the period of 3/3/04 through 10/28/04.

Web sites are at www.tnsmi-cmr.com , www.tnsmi-cmag.com and www.tns-global.com

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.