Money and Political Advertising

Think about it - $100 Million will be spent on TV advertising in New Hampshire by the primary election on Tuesday Feb. 9. $100 Million!! I don't know that particular media market well but I think there are only a few local stations that cover all of New Hampshire and then there are the stations from Boston that cover the southern portion of the state. Now that $100 Million is just New Hampshire and t's only this week. Millions more have been spent in Iowa and will be spent in So. Carolina, Nevada, etc. I even heard that Jeb Bush's Super Pac will be advertising during the Super Bowl. Think about that cost alone.

Of course this happens every Presidential election cycle and every political party and candidate takes part. In addition there's all that money spent on polling, brochures, buttons, flyers, t-shirts, etc. But I understand those dollars and their economic impact a little more clearly. Someone prints the brochures, does the polling, screen prints the shirts. These things equate into jobs done by real people and materials that need to be produced and purchased so I get that. My question is, what happens or what is produced by those millions, or more realistically billions of dollars spent on TV advertising? Producing the ads is one thing. There are real costs there. Again, people doing work and being paid for it. Those again are costs to the campaign. But what's the deal with millions to run an ad that are paid to the station?

I assume TV stations would say that those advertising charges go toward the cost of producing programing, affiliate fees, etc. Have you seen local programing recently? And who does the cost analysis on all of this? Maybe these revenues are just thrown in to a big pile and allocated over the next four years until the cycle begins all over again.

I saw something recently that indicated one of the candidates paid $500 for a short spot but a Super Pac then paid $5000 for the exact same spot. Makes you wonder if perhaps a studio upgrade is in order or if the Weather person will get a new wardrobe and perhaps some on air coaching to learn how to use that damn weather map mouse. Maybe an engineer working on the weekends would be possible instead of a co-anchor trying to bring up local news videos and failing miserably. Jewelry and makeup, haircuts and fashionable ties, all of these things could use a bit of an upgrade on my local stations. But I doubt that's where the campaign dollars go. Which leads me back to my original query. Where the heck does all that money go?