Candidates reached out, and local stations cashed in

LOCAL TV STATIONS pulled in millions this year from election ads, profiting from Barack Obama's huge campaign bankroll and Virginia's emergence as a battleground state.

"We envisioned it to be a big year, but it was bigger than we expected," said Doug Davis, president and general manager of WAVY-TV 10, the NBC affiliate, and Fox 43 (WVBT).

WTKR NewsChannel 3, the local CBS affiliate, made nearly $1.2 million in campaign ad revenue this year, said Jeff Hoffman, the president and general manager.

Officials from WAVY and WVEC, the ABC affiliate on Channel 13, declined to release revenue totals from election ads. But an examination of their campaign advertising records - which by law are required to be open to the public - showed that each brought in more than $2 million.

Yet for most, that didn't cancel out advertising declines triggered by the economic downturn.

"I don't think there was enough money spent in political ads to offset the money that has been canceled on the national side by General Motors and auto dealers and things like that," said Amy Warren, WVEC's director of sales and marketing. "The influx of political ads made the loss a little less, but it's still a loss."

President-elect Barack Obama accounted for a significant share, though not the majority, of the TV ad revenue locally. Obama's campaign poured more than $2.4 million into ads with six local non-cable stations, according to an estimate from TNS Media Intelligence, an advertising and marketing research company.

TNS surveyed WAVY, WTKR, WVBT, WVEC, WGNT (the CW affiliate on Channel 27) and WTVZ (the MyNetwork affiliate on Channel 33).

Republican presidential candidate John McCain's campaign spent less than half Obama's total - about $915,000 - regionally, the TNS estimate said.

Nationwide, Obama spent $250 million on TV ads, compared with about $135 million from McCain, according to Campaign Media Analysis Group, a division of TNS based in Arlington.

The local results in TV advertising dovetailed with trends in the campaign.

Obama had "lots of money available, and he was particularly interested in capturing Virginia," said Carol Pretlow, an associate professor of political science at Norfolk State University.

Obama, she said, targeted "battleground states that had been traditionally Republican." Within Virginia, Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia were considered the two most crucial regions. Both Obama and McCain, Pretlow said, saw potential strength here - the young vote for Obama and the military community for McCain.

"It certainly seems that in this particular market the increase in political revenue was more robust than what we saw in some other markets," said Christopher Harper, senior manager of the Grand Rapids, Mich., accounting firm Hungerford, Aldrin, Nichols & Carter PC. Hungerford compiles revenue reports for 75 TV markets across the country.

The results, however, weren't all buoyant for the local stations.

Campaigns sometimes get dibs on ad slots, which means that regular advertisers can get displaced - and frustrated - said Hoffman from Channel 3.

"The political stuff, at best, is a nice thing, but it's a temporary thing," he said. "The people we live for are our 365-day-a-year advertisers and our customers."

At WVEC, Warren estimated that total ad revenue from the 2008 election would be "about the same" as that from the 2006 election. Although the stations benefited from the huge presidential outlays, she said, spending on U.S. House and Senate races was down significantly.

In 2006, Republican Sen. George Allen lost a close contest to Democrat Jim Webb. This year, by contrast, Democratic Senate candidate Mark Warner substantially led Republican Jim Gilmore in the polls from the start.

The ads "extended into virtually all types of programming," Davis said. But the most preferred slots, TV executives said, were during news shows.

"Traditionally, the elections are won and lost in local markets," Warren said. "What drives viewerships in local markets is local news programs."

The boon in advertising also swept over stations that don't carry news.

"The stations with news are the preferred stations for candidates," said Steven Soldinger, vice president and general manager of CW27 (WGNT). "But this year was great for us. We got orders and reorders."

Soldinger declined to provide his station's election ad revenue this year, but TNS estimated that the Obama and McCain campaigns alone spent more than $240,000 at WGNT.

The TNS data also shed light on the relative advertising appeal of local stations. Of the six stations surveyed, WVEC and WAVY were tops in estimated share of presidential ad revenue, at 33 percent and 31 percent, respectively. WTKR, whose local news shows have lower ratings than the other two, was third, at 17 percent.

The Federal Communications Commission requires most TV stations to make available to the public their files on political advertising, though they need not provide totals.

At local stations, the campaign folders consisted of hundreds of pages, including ad orders, revisions, copies of checks and e-mail correspondence between the station and campaign officials. They showed that:

- In municipal races, successful Virginia Beach mayoral candidate Will Sessoms was by far the biggest spender.

- Candidates weren't the only ones who bought election ads. Unions and issues groups from both sides of the spectrum, including the National Rifle Association and the Service Employees International Union, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars locally.

- Most of the ads generally ran 30 seconds and cost from two to four figures. The slots that captured at least $5,000 apiece included "Desperate Housewives" on WVEC and "The Grammy Awards" on WTKR.

Philip Walzer, (757) 222-3864, phil.walzer@pilotonline.com