Florida TV: Crist ads ALL MORNING are right after Scott ads. By design?

Yesterday was the governor's debate....Today I tune in to local Miami TV....and though I haven't been watching all morning and every channel all the time (I have a life), I am noticing something new.

Every Rick Scott commercial I have seen has been IMMEDIATELY followed by a Charlie Crist commercial....as if the Crist campaign has arranged for special "rebuttal" time after every Rick Scott ad.

Having a rebuttal position is probably good for Crist. But when buying tv and radio spots, advertisers generally want to be first or last in the commercial break.

Same idea for inside cover ads in a magazine. Ads in the first and last positions are charged more.

The reason Scott is first is that he probably bought a block of advertising first or paid for first position in a break.

Also, ad buyers in politics are generally not higher level (experienced) media buyers. Maybe never even done it before or also work in other fields in these political machine companies.

Yes, they should mix positions and stations.

Politicians angle for position in advertising spots all the time. Crist has brought down a ton of money from the DNC, but the numbers are not in his favor. Floridians remember Crist’s pandering, and Democrats, while generally stupid, don’t take kindly to being lied to by Uncle Suntan.

I bet Scott takes the governor’s race by 4% and the “medical marijuana” amendment falls 51/49 (which will lead to braying about how unfair the amendment process is).

Yes. It's by design. --- The local station "ad buys" in federal elections are public record, and these are made available to opposing campaigns. Just as stations cannot charge more than the prevailing rate or the lowest discount. After receiving reports from auditors - usually a local volunteer with some experience or relationship with the local media - the campaign can buy slots to counter, and even bump paying customers - and depending on the sophistication and wealth of the campaign - counter with their own tailored messages.

That's it, very much in a nutshell, since the campaigns can't communicate their strategy with issue-oriented PAC's, for example (who can examine the same records).

A hostile local station can "clip" ads, be strict and / or slow about making reports, delivering reports, etc.

I won't bother with more detail, since you can use your imagination. Not all local stations are hostile to conservatives, or loving toward libs. Enforcements are too late to matter, etc.

I sold television advertising for local affiliates for many years.

Typically during election season there is just so much money pouring into political races that it is inevitable that political ads are running back to back to back to back. There simply are no normal advertisers that will come into a local market with multi-million dollar ad buys spread out over 5-6 weeks.

Take for example a mid-size market, a huge advertiser in many markets will generate $30-50k in ad spending per month. A well funded political candidate will come in and spend $100-125k the month before an election. Based on available inventory they all want news slots. With 16 units available per half hour every single break is likely going to filled with ads from two to four candidates depending on contested races.

Normal advertisers typically cede inventory to political races because it makes absolutely no fiscal sense for them to try and compete on price/demand.

Lowest unit cost is a joke. A normal spot in a 6PM newscast may be available for $500 for an annual advertiser. However an order placed by any advertiser at noon to run in that night’s broadcast is going to run $1,000+ because of all the rescheduling that needs to happen to change that days broadcast log.

This is how political campaigns buy. They’ll place an order likely 3 days at a time on short notice for quickly produced ads, bumps/lulls in fundraising etc.

Stations political months disrupt year to year station billing tremendously. You simply will never make up revenue gains from a hotly contested election the following year.

Not kooky at all. In the old days, the biggest advertisers, Campbell Soup, for example, demanded that no competitors’ ads would air in the same TV or radio block, or be on the opposite page of a magazine ad, etc.

I don’t see that with big advertisers today. Car companies come to mind immediately. During the Super Bowl last year, I saw commercials from no less than six car companies in the same commercial block, one right after the other.

It might very well be the case that modern TV advertisers have the upper hand, and will organize the commercial block as they damn well please.

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