It’s a new age for political advertisers in southwest Missouri, and it’s starting with a down year for demand. Two years into television ratings tracker Rentrak entering the market to challenge Nielsen Co., the political advertising landscape has turned soft in Missouri.
“It’s an even year, so it’s typically a big year. But we don’t have any big races,” said Mary Chalender, general sales manager for KY3 Inc.
Chalender, who oversees operations for KY3-TV, Ozarks CW, KY3 24/7 and KSPR-TV, said it’s common for local advertisers to get bumped from some slots in a political year, but 2014 appears to be an exception.
According to Washington, D.C.-based Center for Public Integrity, TV ads for seven political candidates in Missouri this year have totaled just $335,800, a 59 percent dip from the same period in the midterm year of 2010. By comparison, 31 states secured TV ad spends over $1 million, positioning Missouri 35th in political spending for TV ads through Sept. 8 – ahead of the general election season.
Local TV managers interviewed by Springfield Business Journal declined to disclose the value of political ad spends at their stations, but they echoed the statewide trend.
“There’s not a lot of races in southwest Missouri that are highly contested,” said Leo Henning, vice president and general manager for Nexstar Broadcasting, which manages KOLR-TV and runs KOZL-TV. “We’ve seen some activity out of Arkansas, but the volume is nowhere near where it’s been for midterm or general elections before.”
By comparison, Arkansas ranked No. 12 in the political spending survey, pulling in nearly 20 times Show-Me State sales with $6.1 million in 2014 TV ads. Henning said Nexstar has several stations serving Arkansas, and the picture is a stark contrast to Missouri. “Arkansas is red hot,” he said.
Of the seven Missouri races, Rep. Jeff Messenger, R-Battlefield, is the only local candidate the Center for Public Integrity shows having run political ads in the area in the 2014 election cycle. Henning said in his nearly 42-year media career, he can’t recall an election year with so few races of local interest.
With no state Senate races, no gubernatorial race and a trend toward Missouri becoming more ideologically conservative, political ad revenue this fall at KY3, the historical market leader, is expected to be less than half of volumes two years ago.
“It’s just so soft this year. In a robust political season, there are a lot of pre-emptions of your typical advertisers. We’re just not seeing that,” Chalender said.
That is an upside to the political situation.
“A light year for political ads is generally a plus for our clients,” ADsmith Marketing & Advertising owner Angela Smith said via email. “Our media department certainly has extra work during political years, trying to ensure that our clients receive equitable ‘makegoods’ if their commercials are pre-empted. However, this is simply the nature of the business and something that factors into annual planning for each client.”
Chalender expects ad placements to pick up in the run-up to the Nov. 4 general election, but not enough to make 2014 look like a typical election year.
When it comes to ad placements and rates, ratings are key. While Nielsen Co. traditionally has been synonymous with TV ratings, a Portland, Ore.-based tech-based challenger Rentrak has burst on the scene locally. In 2012, Springfield became the first market with all major television stations subscribing to the ratings service.
Steve Walsh, Rentrak senior vice president of local sales, said the company now is pulling demographic information from more than 52,000 satellite-service televisions in southwest Missouri, giving advertisers more data to make marketing decisions.
“Rentrak matches the viewing of the home with the political registration of the home at the individual household level. It’s all anonymous, and it’s all aggregated,” Walsh said of the passive data.
By cross-referencing household voter data against household viewing habits, Walsh said advertisers can know more than ever about what kinds of programs those with political leanings – and those without – watch.
“Conservative Republicans aren’t really the target for Republican candidates or issues because they’re going to vote Republican. The same goes for Democrats,” Walsh said. “You want to find the swing voter.”
He stressed there are limitations to the data. Rentrak distills how many people are in a home and the voting trends of that address, but it never knows who voted for Gov. Jay Nixon or who was watching “Dancing With the Stars.”
In this ratings approach, Walsh said advertisers can make more targeted placement decisions. He compares the process to using automobile-registration data. Walsh said while KY3 has a deeper penetration among Buick owners, for example, KOLR reaches the highest concentration of Buick owners in the market. “Joe Blow’s car dealership doesn’t care about how many men 25 to 54 last week in his schedule he reached. He cares about if he sold more cars last week than the week before,” Walsh said.
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