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Political Ad Frenzy
	Broadcast Industry Has Vested Interest in Maintaining the Status Quo Arizona Sen. John McCain speaks as Republican presidential candidate Texas Gov. George W. Bush looks on during a news conference after their meeting in Pittsburgh, Pa., on May 9, 2000. (Eric Draper/AP Photo)

By John Martin

W A S H I N G T O N, May 24 — Six months before the general election, America’s politicians are keeping their eyes on all prizes, from the White House to Senate seats to various city halls.
     By one estimate, they will spend $600,000,000 to win office or, in the case of special interest groups, influence votes. It might surprise you to learn where the campaigners will spend the money.
     Not on staffs, mailings or travel, but on television advertising. And almost all of it will go to television stations.
     “The cost of campaigns are high in America today,” says political consultant Neil Oxman, “because the costs of local television are so high.”
     What most voters may not realize is that the big TV networks, once the recipients of hundreds of millions of dollars for national advertising, no longer command the political marketplace. Candidates want to be able to ignore North Dakota and blanket Southern California, and they do not want to pay for both. The networks may earn no more than $50,000,000 this election cycle.
     That places the stations in the top 200 markets in a prime position to rake in the lion’s share of the money. “Television stations are licenses to print money,” says Oxman. Anybody who wants to reform the system has to face the fact that politicians and broadcasters have a vested interest in keeping things the way they are.
     According to analysts and consultants, this is what the broadcasters do to keep the status quo: The National Association of Broadcasters, which represents the stations and the networks themselves, spreads its money around through campaign donations and lobbying expenses. In the 1996 election cycle, they spent $1.4 million on donations; in 1998, they spent twice that much, $2.8 million; and thus far in 2000, they’ve already spent $1.4 million.

Station Managers’ Clout
But it’s not just the money, says a powerful senator; there’s another tactic that wins broadcasters’ votes.
     “They’ll bring back all of the station managers in the senators’ state,” says Arizona’s John McCain, “and obviously that has significant influence.” McCain says members of Congress do not dare cross the people who control the flow of news and public perceptions about them.”
     “I have never beaten the broadcasters on an issue,” says McCain.
     But what about the costs? Campaigns cost plenty because TV ads cost plenty, but political consultants and reformers blame the stations for jacking up their prices. One consultant says: “It goes beyond gouging.”
     Oxman runs a political consulting firm in Philadelphia, where two mayoral candidates set an American record last year in campaign spending. Together, they spent $27.6 million, of which $19 million wound up in the hands of television stations.
     The prices, says Oxman, do not reflect the economy. “They’ve gone up five to 10 times the cost of inflation and that’s really where all the money in politics has gone.”

Ad Frenzy Bids Up Cost
With so many ads chasing so little airtime, there’s a kind of frenzy. This bids up costs. In California’s governor’s race two years ago, the candidates spent $100 million, much of that in five television markets where most voters are clustered.
     Grace Gilchrist, station manager at WXYZ-TV in Detroit, explains why the cost goes up: “They are paying anything they need in order to get into any spot they believe they have to be at.”
     And who benefits most from high prices?
     Paul Taylor should know. He’s a former Washington Post reporter and foreign correspondent who quit his job to campaign for political reform. His Alliance for Better Campaigns argues for free airtime for politicians. The current system is too expensive, he says:
     “It’s great for incumbents because incumbents play the money game very well. It’s great for broadcasters, they make a handsome profit. It’s not very good for the democratic process.”
     Taylor has run into a stone wall when it comes to getting Congress to require free airtime. That’s no surprise. In the last 40 years, he points out, Congress has considered 164 separate bills to provide airtime for campaigns. Congress has rejected every one of them.

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