Rest Easy, Political Campaign Spending Will Hold Steady
As data flows faster and budgets get bigger, tracking political ad spend has become far more intelligent over the last several cycles. AdImpact and Kantar/CMAG know political media far better than Gordon Borrell (who stopped estimates in 2018) ever did.
Their numbers are based on the same underlying hard data, and they talk to practitioners all day. There are only about 30 cable buying companies (and their affiliates) that represent more than 80 percent of political cable purchases. The challenge: Trackable political ad spend does not equal total political spending and reports often conflate the two. Billions will be spent on voter contact in places that are unknowable and untraceable (but legal). In other words, nobody can tell you how much total will be spent on political in the ’22 cycle, with the exception of broadcast, local cable, satellite, radio, digital (Google and Facebook), and OTT/CTV.
Still, you may rest easy, fellow political consultants. You’ll be okay despite the looming recession. Low dollar GOP digital fundraising may be suffering in the short term, but the culprit is not inflation. Fundraisers cite the president’s economy over several other reasons, but that’s an easy out, as compared to blaming rough news cycles (also known as Liz Cheney) for choppy low-dollar GOP contributions.
News/Media Alliance Submits Comments To PRC On Rate Increases For Market-Dominant Products
On July 29, The News/Media Alliance submitted comments to the Postal Regulatory Commission’s (PRC) call for stakeholder input on the size and timing of the August 2021 rate increases for market-dominant products and the PAEA process that led to them.
The comments will inform a PRC report required by the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022. The Alliance’s comments detail how the PRC did not properly account for the COVID-19 pandemic on the Postal Service’s financial condition, particularly higher package revenues and $10 billion in emergency funding, as well as concerns on the authorization of above-CPI rate authority leading to exorbitant rate increases. In addition, the Alliance joined the National Newspaper Association on comments showing the harm these price increases have had on the news and magazine industry.
Capital Region Newspaper Group Joins Legal Challenge To Google, Facebook
A Capital Region publisher has joined the long line of newspapers suing Google and Facebook, saying the tech giants are cornering digital ad revenue with their monopolistic and anti-competitive practices. Attorneys for Capital Region Independent Media LLC on Tuesday filed papers Tuesday in federal court in Albany nearly identical to lawsuits they have filed on behalf of more than 200 other newspapers in 22 states.
The complaints make the point that “The freedom of the press is not at stake; the press itself is at stake” because the two digital giants have conspired to grab for themselves the bulk of digital advertising revenue that the press must have if it is to survive.
Capital Region Independent Media owner Mark Vinceguerra said Friday that Facebook and Google are unfairly exploiting newspapers like his:
The digital giants need fresh local content; so they take headlines and summaries from newspapers; without paying the newspapers for it; without incurring any of the costs of generating it; without bearing any of the responsibility or liability for its accuracy; and while keeping ad revenue for themselves. “The biggest thing, essentially, is they’ve taken what we produce and they’ve used that to boost their audience,” Vinceguerra said.
Reuters US Reporters Are Striking For First Time In Decades
Media company proposed raising pay annually by 1%, guild says Other news workers have pushed back on management practices
Thomson Reuters Corp. journalists in the US launched a daylong strike Thursday, the first walkout in decades among the media company’s long-unionized staff. Employees began a 24-hour strike at 6 a.m. New York time Thursday after claiming the company didn’t fairly negotiate pay increases, according to the Communications Workers of America’s NewsGuild, which represents US-based Reuters reporters, photographers and video journalists. The group said about 90% of the 300 or so Reuters employees it represents agreed to participate.
Daily Clips is a culmination of various articles from an array of news sources on topics spanning from news to tech
