Latest in Political Advertising

As Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden pledged $280 million in TV advertising through the fall, local station owners Nexstar and Sinclair Broadcast Group told Wall Street they expect a record political ad haul. In separate conference calls with Wall Street analysts to discuss second-quarter results, the top two…

Snap founder and CEO Evan Spiegel said Tuesday that it's been really “interesting to watch the U.S. government grapple with the success of a consumer tech company that is headquartered in China," referring to social media powerhouse TikTok, owned by Chinese giant ByteDance. "It's a free market question," Spiegel said…

Fox revenue looked a bit like a fairy tale last quarter – a 44% jump in ad sales even with the coronavirus nipping – but the page turns in the current quarter as company executives anticipate local station advertising will fall 50% year-on-year. The fiscal fourth quarter ending in June will see dips in local auto…

New York Attorney General Letitia James said 46 other attorneys general have joined her antitrust investigation into Facebook, adding more legal firepower to a potential lawsuit. The Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice have already opened antitrust investigations. At a Wall Street Journal…

Sinclair Broadcast Group cruised past Wall Street estimates for the political advertising-rich fourth quarter. The company posted total revenue of $893.3 million, up more than 25% from the year-earlier quarter and better than the consensus outlook of analysts, which was a shade less than $880 million. Earnings per…

Nexstar, which has grown from a single radio station 23 years ago into what will soon be the No. 1 owner of local TV stations in the U.S., reported record revenue of $798 million in the fourth quarter. Boosted by political ad spending, which was more than triple the level of the 2014 mid-term elections, total revenue…

Political TV advertising ahead of this fall’s mid-term elections is starting to kick into gear, with local TV stations on track to take in revenue of $2.4 billion, up 14% from $2.1 billion in the 2014 mid-terms. Nevada, Arizona and Florida are all surging, with gains also noted in Illinois, Missouri and Minnesota. The…

Broadcast TV investors are finally resigning themselves to the likelihood that stations won’t see the bonanza they’d expected this year from political ads — mostly due to lower than anticipated outlays by Donald Trump. Sinclair Broadcasting shares fell 9.4% yesterday after it lowered its guidance for political…

TV station owners, and their investors, couldn’t wait for the 2016 election campaign to kick off. This would be “the first ever without an incumbent [presidential candidate] or limits on campaign funding,” Moody’s Investors Service said in April. It projected that $3.4 billion could go to stations, helping to lift…

That $4 billion to be spent on TV in the 2016 election cycle is up 18% vs 2012, and could result in a windfall for station owners E.W. Scripps and Gray Television, according to a widely watched business estimate out this morning. Wells Fargo Securities’ Marci Ryvicker tracks political spending more closely than just…

It’s OK to market stuff to captive movie theater audiences. But potentially enlightening or disturbing political and campaign pitches will be off limits this year on more than 20,100 screens at 1,600 theaters served by National CineMedia. The No. 1 exhibition ad sales company says today that it won’t accept political…

Here’s the good news for station owners and networks in an analysis of this year’s political media spending out today from ad forecasting firm Borrell Associates: Cash will continue to flood most markets, with broadcasters seeing $4.6B, an 11.5% increase over 2010, the previous midterm election year. The problem…