While the 2024 presidential ad market hasn’t been as robust as many expected, both TV and radio can still expect the lion’s share of political ad spending during this election season.
According to a report from research firm Insider Intelligence, 2024 campaign advertising is expected to eclipse $12 billion, representing an increase of 30% compared to 2020. $9 billion — roughly 72% of that figure — will go to broadcast media.
“We still tend to see a lot of broadcast spending,” said Sage Media Planning partner Bobby Mushroe during a webinar with TVNewsCheck last week. “There really is no other medium that can move numbers with the kind of speed that you need for a political campaign. So, broadcast is still getting the lion’s share of the spending except in some of these very expensive markets with tiny districts.”
While the uncompetitive Republican primary put a damper on some analyst’s expectations of eclipsing $16 billion in spending, many in the advertising industry expect the bulk of revenue to come in during the third quarter.
“Presidential spending has been lackluster so far this year, definitely not where we expected it to be,” added NBCUniversal Local Vice President of Political Will Hildebrandt. “But [Trump and Biden] historically have some of the highest negatives when it comes to polling. They’re going to have to spend to combat that. I think we’re going to see a healthy amount of presidential spending, but not yet.”
