Panel: Political Candidates Stick to Traditional Media

PANEL: POLITICAL CANDIDATES STICK TO TRADITIONAL MEDIA
[SOURCE: MediaWeek, AUTHOR: Mike Shields]
Political candidates from both parties are demonstrating a stubborn devotion to traditional media, along with a cautious streak that is holding them back from truly embracing the Web as an outlet for political ad dollars. Despite Americans' rapidly changing media habits, the panelists predicted that most spending will remain on TV and other tried and true outlets. "When it comes to paid media, candidates are about seven years behind," said Richard Kosinski, vp of political advertising, Yahoo. Kosinski estimated that most candidates were planning to spend roughly one percent of their total media budgets online, versus the seven percent that most mainstream brands typically spend on the medium.
http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=10036...

* The Who, What and How Much of Campaign 2008
[SOURCE: tvnewsday]
At first glance, the election map doesn't look that exciting, what with most of the Senate races in less populated states and relatively few gubernatorial races. Nonetheless, candidates and their backers could drive political ad spending to record levels, perhaps $3 billion. At the TVB Forecast Conference in New York earlier this month, there was a lot of talk about various major advertising categories and their interest in spending on national spot. Much of it was discouraging for the assembled TV broadcasters. But the broadcasters could take heart from the report they heard on the every-other-year political category. Spending would likely set another record next year and most of it would go to TV stations.
http://www.tvnewsday.com/articles/2007/09/25/daily.1/