25 advertisers run 24,000 radio spots in one week
In the final week leading up to America's midterm elections, radio advertising by political candidates and those who support their causes has increased to fever pace. In fact, the top 25 political advertisers collectively aired 23,666 radio spots between October 30 and November 5 on major market stations tracked by Media Monitors. Numbers in parenthesis refer to the rank on this week's various Spot Ten charts.
On this weeks's Spot Ten Politics '06 chart, three California candidates & issues aired more than any others: Vote No On Proposition 87 (#1) airing 3,600 spots, Vote Yes on Propositions 1A through E (#6) with just over 1,100 spots, and campaign spots promoting John Garamendi (#7) for Lieutenant Governor (#7) with just under 1,000 spots.
The individual candidates airing the most radio spots than any other this week: Republican Charlie Crist (#2), Florida's Attorney General, is making a run for Governor and aired over 1,740 spots in the Miami, Tampa, West Palm Beach, Orlando, Jacksonville, and Ft. Meyers/Naples markets combined, just in the past 7 days. Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry (#3) is running for re-election and ran over 1,500 spots, while Arizonan Jon Kyl's (R-AZ) Senate campaign broadcast just under 1,200 radio spots. And, Two Democrats' campaigns, Sherrod Brown (#9) of Ohio for Senator and Martin O'Malley (#10) of Maryland for Governor both aired in the 800-900 spots per week range.
Missouri: The Senate battle in the "Show Me" state showed both candidates making the Nationwide Spot Ten Politics '06 chart with Democrat Claire McCaskill benefiting from over 1,600 spots from two separate organizations on her behalf: McCaskill for Missouri (#8) with over 925 spots plus that state's Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (#12) airing over 730 spots promoting her candidacy. Her opponent, Republican Jim Talent (#4) ran just under 1,230 spots this week.
Other races of note bubbling under the Spot Ten include re-election campaigns from Virginia Republican Senator George Allen (#11) and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (#14) plus Tennessee Senate seat combatants Republican Bob Corker (#20) and Democrat Harold Ford, Jr. (#37).
Because the #1 market in America is geographically wedged tightly between two other key states, New York City radio has to accommodate airtime not only for candidates and issues advertising from New York but also from nearby New Jersey and Connecticut. And because air time in NYC is one of the most expensive in the country, it takes a lot of bucks to rank high on any summaries of ad activity. This week's Media Monitors Spot Ten NYC Politics chart shows the results of radio airplay over the past 7 days in the New York City market.
New York: Four New York campaigners placed nearly 700 radio spots collectively in the past week: Republicans Sue Kelly (#2), Pete King (#4) and Vito Fossella (#5) running for congressional seats and Democrat Hillary Clinton (#3) for re-election to the Senate.
New Jersey: By comparison, four "Jersey Boys" running for office aired just over 460 spots on New York radio last week, just under half of those coming from Democrat Bob Menendez (#1), the rest from fellow Dems Dennis McNerney for County Executive (#9) and Dave Mejias for Congress (#10), and Republican Congressional candidate Mike Ferguson (#8).
Connecticut: In the nearby Nutmeg State, Republican Christopher Shays (#5) is running for re-election to his seat in the House, long-time Democrat-turned-Independent and 2004 Vice Presidential candidate Joe Lieberman (#6) is seeking to keep his Senate seat while Republican Governor Jodi Rell is also up for re-election. All three combined aired over 260 radio spots on New York City radio last week.
Along with expensive radio campaigns in NYC, Media Monitors also examined the TV campaigns on broadcast television stations in New York City during this same 7-day period of October 30 to November, and found that almost all of those same candidates mentioned earlier were also running heavily on local TV, with three notable exceptions:
The re-election campaign for Democratic Comptroller Alan Hevesi clocked up over 540 TV spots, Minority Whip Tom Kean, Jr. aired over 300 TV spots, and Democratic Attorney General candidate Andrew Cuomo aired over 250 spots, all on NY area TV stations last week without adding the frequency benefit of a radio campaign. Cuomo's opponent, Republican Jeanine Pirro, aired over 160 TV spots and no radio in the past week.
Also notable on New York TV last week: Lieberman (I-CT) ran over 260 spots while his opponent Ned Lamont (D-CT) aired about 135 fewer TV commercials. All TV spot information is as of 2PM Sunday.
By contrast, however, other non-political advertisers ran far more radio than anyone mentioned so far: Geico and Fox TV Network, the top two radio advertisers this week, ran almost 27,000 and 22,000 radio commercials respectively.
