Exclusive: Obama buys half-hour of network primetime
(The Live Feed) - Barack Obama has purchased a half-hour of airtime on CBS, sources confirm.
The Obama campaign will air a half-hour primetime special on Wednesday, Oct. 29, at 8 p.m.
Sources say the Obama camp is also in talks with NBC and Fox. It’s not yet clear if an ad buy is locked on any other network, however, or if the special's duration or time period is the same.
A CBS spokesperson declined comment. The buy will push comedy "The New Adventures of Old Christine" to 8:30 p.m. and pre-empt "Gary Unmarried."
The direct purchase of such a large block of time is considered unusual in modern presidential politics, though not without precedent -- Ross Perot did a similar purchase in 1992.
This year has seen the first time in many years that presidential campaigns have bought national broadcast TV advertisements. In the past 12 years, much of the billions of dollars in political advertising spent has gone to local TV stations in battleground states. While some money has gone to national cable channels, the thinking has always been that it would be more prudent to target battleground states' voters instead of addressing the entire nation, including states that reliably vote for one party or another.
The first instance was in August, when both Obama and McCain ponied up about $5 million each to advertise in NBC's coverage of the Summer Olympics from Beijing. The networks' evening newscasts have also seen campaign ads for the first time in years. Before that, the last nationally broadcast campaign ad ran in the 1996 campaign.
The Obama campaign earlier this year opted out of the public financing system, which meant that it was free to raise and spend as much as it could. It has, in states like Michigan, outspent the publicly financed McCain campaign by a margin of at least 3-to-1.
It's not unprecedented for a candidate to buy longform broadcast network time, though it hasn't happened in a while. In October 1992, Perot drew audiences of 16.5 million and 10.5 million for 30-minute lectures/campaign ad aimed at voters. But in Perot's second run in 1996, the candidate was rebuffed by the Big Four networks in an attempt to sell air time. The FCC backed the networks in denying Perot air time, saying that they acted legally in refusing.
Earlier this year, the Hillary Clinton campaign bought time on the Hallmark Channel, a nearly fully distributed cable channel, for a town-hall meeting before Super Tuesday.
The Obama campaign will air a half-hour primetime special on Wednesday, Oct. 29, at 8 p.m.
Sources say the Obama camp is also in talks with NBC and Fox. It’s not yet clear if an ad buy is locked on any other network, however, or if the special's duration or time period is the same.
A CBS spokesperson declined comment. The buy will push comedy "The New Adventures of Old Christine" to 8:30 p.m. and pre-empt "Gary Unmarried."
The direct purchase of such a large block of time is considered unusual in modern presidential politics, though not without precedent -- Ross Perot did a similar purchase in 1992.
This year has seen the first time in many years that presidential campaigns have bought national broadcast TV advertisements. In the past 12 years, much of the billions of dollars in political advertising spent has gone to local TV stations in battleground states. While some money has gone to national cable channels, the thinking has always been that it would be more prudent to target battleground states' voters instead of addressing the entire nation, including states that reliably vote for one party or another.
The first instance was in August, when both Obama and McCain ponied up about $5 million each to advertise in NBC's coverage of the Summer Olympics from Beijing. The networks' evening newscasts have also seen campaign ads for the first time in years. Before that, the last nationally broadcast campaign ad ran in the 1996 campaign.
The Obama campaign earlier this year opted out of the public financing system, which meant that it was free to raise and spend as much as it could. It has, in states like Michigan, outspent the publicly financed McCain campaign by a margin of at least 3-to-1.
It's not unprecedented for a candidate to buy longform broadcast network time, though it hasn't happened in a while. In October 1992, Perot drew audiences of 16.5 million and 10.5 million for 30-minute lectures/campaign ad aimed at voters. But in Perot's second run in 1996, the candidate was rebuffed by the Big Four networks in an attempt to sell air time. The FCC backed the networks in denying Perot air time, saying that they acted legally in refusing.
Earlier this year, the Hillary Clinton campaign bought time on the Hallmark Channel, a nearly fully distributed cable channel, for a town-hall meeting before Super Tuesday.
posted by BP News Bureau | 4:18 PM
1 Comments:
Some pretty interesting advertising news. I wonder if this will help swing the undecided vote.
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