YOK Election Spending 2022 for Posting.mp4
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00:00Hey, everyone. Thank you so much for joining our You Out of No session today. It's going
00:10to be a great one. Political is probably the one category that is going to allow us to
00:17compete in Q3 and Q4 this year. So far as a company right now, we have written $2.7 million
00:23in political dollars. Zero of those dollars are coming from digital. So we're here today.
00:29I am so honored to introduce Ben and Sally and Larry, who put everything together. We're
00:35going to do a deep dive into how many dollars are really out there in the political landscape,
00:40how much is being spent in political, TV and radio, and most importantly, how all of you
00:45can access those dollars. So without further ado, I will turn it over to Larry.
00:50Thank you, Tina. So good to see you. And it's hard to believe, Tina, we started talking about
00:55political a year ago for 2022, but there's 83 days left until the general election. And in 23 days,
01:02the political window opens where broadcast stations are obligated to provide the lowest unit rates to
01:08candidates for federal office. And as any good sailor might say, there will be a shipload of
01:15money spent between now and election day. As a matter of fact, earlier this year, it was
01:19predicted more political ad dollars will be spent during this year's midterm elections than I think
01:25any time in history, including the record-breaking presidential races in 2020. And in just a moment,
01:32we will be joined by Ben Tabor, a senior account manager for Ad Impact. His company measures in real
01:38time how much money is being spent on every race and issue in the country, including, as he says,
01:46right down to Dog Catcher in Robeson County, North Carolina, which is part of the Fayetteville Metro.
01:51Ben will be sharing with us how much money will be spent over the next 83 days to swing the vote.
01:57So far in Beasley markets, the vast majority of dollars have come from our national rep firms.
02:03But all of you on the call who are competing with local TV stations for local races should take to
02:09heart this advice from Bill Burton, who is the political strategist for both successful campaigns run by
02:15Barack Obama. Mr. Burton says that in 2022, if someone is running a political campaign towards
02:22less than a million people, which is a lot of the campaigns in our markets, like many, it will be
02:29very hard for these campaigns to effectively and efficiently reach the right voters. In this case,
02:36says Mr. Burton, search advertising is going to be the solution. And that's something we sell.
02:42And I think we'll hear from Ben in just a minute that it's not just search advertising, it's everything
02:48that's online is really making a difference in this year's political ad spending. After we hear
02:55from Ben about spending, we'll also hear from our in-house associate general counsel, Jamie Beasley,
03:00and Sally Buckman from our law firm from Lerman Center. They will be reminding us of our legal
03:06obligations when running political advertising, both on air and online. But first, I want to
03:13introduce our co-host for today's You Ought to Know, Matt Cowper. Welcome, Matt. Matt is Beasley's
03:19vice president of national sales, who works very closely with our rep firms to maximize our shower
03:24of dollars being spent by national political agencies. Hey, Matt, how you doing?
03:29Wonderful. Thank you for having me, Larry.
03:32Excellent. It's a pleasure. Matt's job today is to serve as the ears and the voice of the audience
03:37and helping to ask the tough questions that you might be thinking and maybe a little too shy to ask.
03:45But in fact, if you do have any questions, please enter those questions into the Q&A box on your screen
03:50and we will get to as many as we possibly can. So now to find out what to expect over the next 83 days,
03:58please meet Ben Tabor from Ad Impact. Ben has been with the company since 2017 where he started as a
04:07research analysis. He now works for a senior account manager and he knows, at least that's what he told
04:13me, he knows where every political dollar in America is being spent down to the DMA, zip code,
04:20and household level. And in his spare time, Ben is a hard, a hardcore soccer fan. And recently,
04:28and I don't know how you did it during this political season, he found time to get engaged.
04:31So congratulations and welcome, Ben. We so appreciate you making the time to join us.
04:38Thank you for having me, Larry.
04:39It is a pleasure. So I read, so a lot has changed, right? Since we first started talking about this a month ago,
04:48about having you join us, the political landscape has had almost an earthquake. And I read in Axios just the other day,
04:56that political spending is on track to, these are their words, obliterate the spending record from
05:022018 midterms. How much has been sent so far? And how much do you expect will be spent between now
05:09and the general election?
05:12Well, Larry, if anything, Axios undersold that a little bit, because we have already obliterated
05:172018, we've seen about $5.2 billion spent so far for this political cycle. We saw about 3.8 total in
05:252018. So to say that we're going to is a little bit of an understatement, because we have already
05:29done so. We are, we're severely past 2018, and are now coming up on 2020, which we do ultimately expect
05:36this election cycle to surpass is the most expensive of all time.
05:40Wow, that's, that's, that's pretty, pretty amazing. So, so at the end, what's your forecast?
05:46How much will ultimately be spent? When you look back on the day after election day, how much will
05:51have been spent during 2022 to, to get people elected?
05:55We expect to see about $9.7 billion. Now is a point of comparison. That was about $9 billion in
06:012020. So we do expect this year to surpass the presidential cycle of last year.
06:06Wow. And, and so, like I said, you track media, you know, regardless of where they are spending,
06:14spending these dollars. So, so far this year in 2022, what's the breakdown been on how
06:20this, this, as I said before, shipload of money is being, being spent?
06:25So what you're seeing is kind of a gradual trend towards digital outlets, broadcast and cable still
06:31are kind of the dominant players. Broadcast, according to our numbers, makes up a little
06:35under 50% of paid media on the political side. Cable has remained relatively steady, but two things
06:41you hit on earlier that have really exploded over the last couple of years are connected TV and
06:46digital spending. So we see connected TV making up about 13% of the overall budgets this year
06:51and about 15 to 16% on the digital side. And digital encompasses a lot of different things.
06:57That's pre-roll video, that's search, that's banner, that's all of those different things.
07:02So there's a lot of opportunity to sell inventory on the digital side.
07:05So, so if, if my math is correct and it seldom is, so please check me on this,
07:11that's about 28% of all spending will be with some sort of digital OTT, search, pre-roll videos,
07:20you name it. That's, that's, that's going to account for 28% of the spending.
07:24That's exactly right, Larry.
07:26Yeah. And, and so do we know how that compares say to 2020 and 2018?
07:30So we definitely are expecting to see growth. This is the first year we really have comprehensive
07:36insight into the connected TV and OTT side of things. So we don't have a direct point of
07:41comparison, but just anecdotally, we do feel like that field is just continuing to grow as people
07:46cut the cord and it's just becoming increasingly imperative to reach voters, especially younger
07:50voters who are cutting the cord, reach them where they are rather than just continuing to blast broadcast
07:56and cable, though those are still great opportunities to reach voters. Increased targeting
08:00is increasingly important.
08:02Hey, Ben, I'm sorry, Larry.
08:04Please go ahead, Ben.
08:05As you look at the different sort of silos and pillars of media, one of the biggest questions I
08:11get asked often is where are those decisions being made in terms of the allocation of broadcast,
08:18whether that's television, cable, or radio, digital, where are those decision-making processes
08:24happening? Because we look at just in the broadcast radio side, we still get 9% of the total spend.
08:30We see that broadcast TV continues to go down in terms of viewership, but it seems like the
08:37spending continues to either remain flat or increase. So tell us a little bit about that
08:41decision-making process in terms of how it's being made, whether it's the agency, the candidate,
08:45or the political strategist.
08:47That's a great question, Matt. And I think what you're going to find is that it really varies.
08:51There's a lot of campaigns that are going to let their agency kind of take the lead there and really
08:55crunch the numbers. There are also campaigns, maybe there's a general consultant or a candidate
09:00who feels very strongly. And a lot of these folks are, as you kind of hit on, have been doing this
09:05for a long time, which I think leads to sometimes slightly over-indexing on broadcast, because that's
09:11kind of the way it's already been done. And those numbers are very easy to track. And the people in
09:16the district, you know, they do drive impressions very quickly, but especially at the committee
09:20level, what you'll also, what you'll often find is that the committees themselves are making those
09:25calls. But in a lot of campaigns, it's the agency. So it is going to vary from campaign to campaign.
09:31So there seems to be this year, at least in news reporting, there's been a lot of focus on down-ballot
09:42races, like Secretary of State, Attorney Generals, down to city council. There seems to be catching a lot more
09:50of the oxygen in terms of news reporting. How do you see that in terms of ad spending? Are those types of campaigns
09:57spending more than they traditionally have? They're massively more so. So we group all of those
10:03down together as what we call our down-ballot category. And what we've seen so far, it is by far
10:08the largest category this year. About half a billion more has been spent on those down-ballots,
10:13State House, State Senate, AG, Secretary of State, than Senate races so far this year. And we expect that
10:19to continue. And in fact, for that to be the largest single category of political ad spending.
10:24So we do expect that to kind of continue. And that is a trend that is becoming increasingly
10:29important as it's covered in the news, as how much these local state and local races can really play
10:34on the national level, both in terms of a voting security kind of issue, and then also just as
10:39people, you know, maybe are disaffected with Washington and want to make a change at a local
10:43level. These races just keep increasing in importance and overall expenditures.
10:48So in terms of our business, and Matt, you may be able to provide some insight like this into this.
10:55So those down-ballot races seem to generally be, those dollars seem to be generated locally versus
11:03the big PACs and the Senate candidates seem to generate from, you know, political agencies in
11:11Chicago and D.C. and New York. Is it, do you see that as well, that these dollars are being generated
11:18directly from campaigns and injected into the local markets?
11:22I mean, from what I see, and Ben could probably also weigh in on this, is, you know, obviously the
11:27larger the race, they tend to have political strategists, access to major campaign funds, and use a very
11:34major political agency, typically based either in L.A. or Washington. I think sort of the smaller
11:40candidates, as you get sort of the bottom up, a lot of them probably don't really use any sort of ad
11:47agency, or maybe they have a low-level strategist that's helping to direct how they're supposed to
11:53spend their funds. So I feel at that level, you should probably reach out to the candidate directly,
11:58or at least somebody affiliated with them, because chances are they're not working with one of the
12:03major shops that you would see in Washington. Yeah, typically, I think it's the campaign manager
12:07that would be the great point of entry. They're controlling the purse strings. They're the ones
12:12that sign off on all of the political paperwork and kind of drive local strategy.
12:17So they're certainly more open to digital than when you get to the major agencies that tend to
12:22have a very solid digital strategy in place and buying it at a higher level. So they're usually
12:27more typically intrigued by the assets and the resources that we have available to them.
12:32So Ben, do you have an idea? Because I think it's pretty apparent that as a local marketing company
12:41in our 11 broadcast markets, is that these down-ballot races are going to dominate spending
12:52or a lot more than they did before? I just make sure that we heard that right.
12:57I would definitely say so. That is what we're seeing. We've seen over the last several cycles, and that's
13:02just continuing to be amplified this year. And so over the next 83 days, local marketers should really be
13:09going after these dollars. The sort of PAC money, some of the Senate dollars, those will take care of
13:16themselves. They are what they are. But the way we can influence the spend is to go after those local
13:22down-ballot races. Did I understand all of that correctly?
13:27Totally. And I think you have a lot of advantages in that space in terms of targeting and efficiency
13:31that are a little bit limited on broadcast. So you have a good opportunity to sell against those folks
13:36as well. Yeah. And I think that we mentioned Barack Obama's campaign strategist saying in these smaller
13:46campaigns, things like television just aren't going to be effective and efficient for a city council race
13:53or an attorney general race or a judgeship is that really these are the kind of campaigns that are
13:59turning towards more and more towards digital. At least that's his suggestion. Do you agree sort of
14:05with that, his assessment? I think that's a great point and I would totally agree. I would just say
14:10one thing to keep an eye out is that as fundraising has become easier and easier through WinRed and Act
14:16Blue and these platforms that you're seeing some of these State House and State Senate candidates
14:20raise a tremendous amount of money, so much so that cable and even broadcast aren't necessarily high
14:26hurdles. So just something to keep an eye on there as well, that those pools are expanding,
14:30which is probably good for you in the aggregate, but some of them are going to have those budgets
14:34right on TV. Right. Yeah, exactly. So speaking of that, I think that's a nice transition
14:38is let's go ahead and look at the local markets where Beasley operates and figure out who's spending
14:46and, you know, what are the hot races? And we opened, if anybody joined us at the very beginning,
14:53we saw a couple of commercials from our local future, our local markets, and one of them was
14:58Georgia has a very hot Senate race, among other other things. So Augusta, we're already seeing a
15:06lot of dollars being pumped into there. But so in Augusta comprises Georgia and, of course,
15:13part of South Carolina, what do you see as the big ticket items there?
15:17I mean, I think you kind of hit the nail on the head. It's the Senate and gubernatorial races in
15:22Georgia that are really going to be driving the budget there. You don't have a whole heck of a lot in
15:26the way on the congressional side. But you do have what could very easily be the most expensive
15:32Senate and the most expensive gubernatorial race in the country. You know, you've got
15:36very large, you've got several markets, you've got Atlanta, obviously, but you have a tremendous
15:41fundraising on both sides, you've got four figures who are very nationally recognizable and have a ton of
15:46fundraising potential. And you're seeing increased, you know, kind of scrutiny into Georgia after some of
15:52the questions that arose there in 2020. And you've got all of these lawsuits, I would feel
15:56very strong about those being two of if not the two top races. South Carolina, I don't see a whole
16:03heck of a lot. You know, you don't have that Jamie Harrison factor that you had in 2020. But there is
16:09some potential to keep an eye on the governor race there. You know, Joe Cunningham has won competitive
16:13seats in South Carolina before. And he does seem like someone who has the potential to catch fire from a
16:18fundraising perspective. But I would really focus on the Senate and governor races there in Georgia.
16:24And I think that they will probably monopolize most of the inventory available in broadcasts. So
16:30other races may have to turn to digital to find a way to reach their voters.
16:36Absolutely. The cost in there is going to be wild, just like we saw in the end of 2020 with the runoffs.
16:42Yeah. So what about Wilmington, Delaware area? And that contains portions of New Jersey, Delaware,
16:48and Maryland? What is anything that seems a little sleepy this year, that area?
16:52Yeah, I would anticipate that being pretty sleepy. You might get a little bit of spillover from some
16:58of those other states. But that isn't something that I would be too, too focused on in terms of,
17:03you know, really having real high potential political dollars.
17:06And then our two Western Florida markets, Tampa and Fort Myers,
17:12governor, governorship, I mean, we still have a primary to go in in Florida as well, correct?
17:17You do. So Florida is one of the most interesting states in the country right now, obviously,
17:22historically has been maybe the most competitive state in the country from a from a battleground
17:26state perspective, was potentially skewing blue, I saw a poll coming out today that had Demings up
17:32four points on Rubio just this morning. So it's some interesting things to keep an eye out there as
17:38those get more competitive, the primaries have kind of fizzled. Chris seems to be up 30 points on
17:43Freed there. But it's interesting to see how those races are going to break, you haven't seen a lot of
17:49national dollars coming yet. But as the environment potentially shifts a little bit towards the
17:53Democrats, definitely something to keep an eye on. You know, Fort Myers, you're probably not going to
17:58have much in the way of congressional districts. Tampa is an interesting one, you've got 13 and 15,
18:03which are both rated as a likely Republican by Cook Political Report right now. But I could see some
18:08movement there. You know, there's some been some positives for the Democrats nationally in the
18:15House side. So you could potentially see those competitive, but I would mostly be focused on the
18:19statewide there. And then we move we move into into North Carolina. Let's start with with Charlotte and
18:26must say is again, if you saw the commercial desert, we have we have a namesake candidate. There's a
18:31Beasley, I don't think any relation, but there's a Beasley running and that seems to be a well funded
18:36campaign. What what do we expect to see? And maybe we cover Charlotte and and Fayetteville and the Fayetteville
18:42area sort of together? Yeah, so from a statewide perspective there, you know, North Carolina's
18:48tends to be one of the most competitive, but is running a good campaign. Beasley is very well funded,
18:53as you mentioned. But that's looking like maybe a little bit less competitive than we've seen before,
18:59as the national environment has kind of shifted and Dems have better pickup opportunities
19:04in places like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and even Ohio now. So I potentially see North Carolina kind
19:10of decreasing a little bit in terms of relative national competitiveness on the Senate side,
19:15just something that's interesting there, you'll have good candidate money, maybe a little bit less
19:19on the pack side. On North Carolina, you know, and the congressional side, you have some interesting
19:26open races, you know, redistricting has really kind of thrown things for a loop there, you've got that
19:30open race in North Carolina 13 is probably the most one most the one you need to most keep an eye on
19:36there, though I don't know exactly how much coverage you have there in Fayetteville for that race, but
19:40that's probably the most likely one to get activity. Yeah. And then moving on to New Jersey, which is which is
19:48an interesting market for us. We have a station sort of grouped in two parts. One is in the New York DMA,
19:55and the other is in the Philadelphia DMA. And of course, there's it's New Jersey. So what what's hot
20:02in in New Jersey? So on the New York side, New Jersey seven is the race to watch out for Malinowski
20:09flipped that seat in 2018. You know, he's been a very strong candidate. But Cook actually has that
20:14as a lean Republican right now, despite being held by Democrat Malinowski. You know, anytime you have a
20:19chance for a flip there and such an expensive DMA should be a lot of opportunity for you there.
20:27New Jersey five maybe a little bit less so but New Jersey seven is really where I would keep an eye on
20:32on the New Jersey side. Sorry, on the Philly side, New Jersey three is probably the one to keep an eye on
20:40the most that's historically been an extremely high spending race listed as likely Democrat right now.
20:46But again, if the environment shifts a little bit could become a super competitive seat in a very
20:51expensive market. So potentially some good opportunity there.
20:56And then let's let's shift to to Nevada, which is always seems to be a hot spending market. What what
21:03what do you guys see in there?
21:04I see this is your best opportunity right now, you have two extraordinarily competitive statewide races
21:11on the governor and Senate side, you know, you've got two Democratic incumbents, but certainly two of
21:16the Republicans best pickup opportunities and opportunities they really need to, to flip if
21:22they're going to catch the Senate. And then also, you know, anytime you can knock off a governor, that's
21:26great. Additionally, you have three congressional races in Las Vegas DMA that are listed as toss up by
21:32Cook Political Report. There's a real chance that this becomes the highest spending DMA in the country.
21:37I don't know if I put money on it, but it's certainly in kind of that top tier
21:41to keep an eye on. You should have pretty much endless opportunity there. The rates in Vegas on
21:46the broadcast side are going to be I know they're already high, they're going to be out of this world,
21:51a lot of potential to kind of drive some money towards radio as well and digital platforms.
21:56Yeah, again, that seems to be one of those markets where there's just not enough
22:00on air inventory to meet the demand. So they're going to have to shift, shift elsewhere. I mean,
22:06TV will sell out first, then it will trickle down to radio and digital seems to be a good play,
22:12a good play there. Midwest, we have Detroit, Rashida Talib has already spent, we see spending from her
22:20already. What else do you see in Michigan? Yeah, so I think that's going to be mostly
22:25a primary play. She's in a safe general election seat, so I think she's probably going to cool off.
22:30The governor's seat there obviously is super, super hot. You know, Whitmer has been really,
22:34really, that whole race has been juiced by the Dobbs decision there. We've seen a ton of money there.
22:40You know, Whitmer has obviously, you know, certainly has national ambitions and will spend highly,
22:46has a lot of backing from the national party. I expect her to have a ton of money there.
22:51On the congressional side, Michigan 10 probably looks like your best bet to see money.
22:56Redistricting has taken a little bit, but the Republicans got a good candidate on the
23:00gubernatorial side and Dixon that they were a little bit worried how that was going to go.
23:04So I think they're happy there. So I would expect that gubernatorial race to be extraordinarily competitive.
23:11Philadelphia?
23:12Philly, you know, traditionally a great market. We see no reason that it won't be this year as well.
23:18You've got the two very large statewide on the Pennsylvania side and then the Senate and the
23:24Gov. You know, there's definitely some pandering on the Republican side about the performance of
23:29Oz and Mastriano. They have been performing potentially a little bit less strongly than was
23:35anticipated, which could drive down spending a little bit. And the Democrats do have two very strong
23:39candidates. But, you know, ultimately Pennsylvania is going to see, you know, statewide races in
23:45Pennsylvania with even plausible candidates are going to have a strong amount of money. So I wouldn't
23:49really maybe slight revision of budget there relative to what we were originally projecting,
23:54but still going to be a really, really strong market. And then Pennsylvania seven,
24:00Susan Wild is a potentially really good congressional race there to keep an eye on,
24:05depending on exactly what your geo looks like. You're going to have high spending levels.
24:10Pennsylvania one has kind of been traditionally the hottest race in that market, but does seem to
24:14be cooling off a little bit. So I would mostly keep my focus on the state. It's there.
24:20And speaking of that area, Glenn Stagg, who works with us in Philadelphia,
24:24has a candidate running in, it looks like New Jersey district one is, and he's asking is based
24:33on your knowledge, I guess, Norcross is a, is a candidate there. Do you have any insight? Is,
24:38is he in, it appears to be in trouble because the, the spending seems to have picked up.
24:43You know, that's not one that I'm familiar with off the top of my head, but you know, the, the house
24:49side can move so quickly that it's definitely something to keep an eye on.
24:53And, you know, every year you have a couple of kind of a long shot races that are not projected
24:58to be flipped by cook or any of these prognosticators who really do come online. So, you know,
25:02anytime kind of opportunity you have there and early spending is always a sign of better later
25:07on spending as well. So, you know, that definitely seems like a good opportunity. If you have a nice
25:12self-funded candidate there, you don't even need it to necessarily be that competitive and you can
25:17have a good budget there. And, and finally, we move into, into Boston, which I think traditionally,
25:24and, and Tina, I think, I think you told me this Boston is generally not one of our big political
25:29spending markets, but it seems that there's some early indications that there may be some,
25:35some pretty good spending there this year in, in Boston and in Massachusetts.
25:38So you get spending in that market from Manchester, because it's a Boston, Manchester DMA. So a lot of the New
25:43Hampshire candidates will pour dollars into mass to attract the commuter as well as the person in
25:50northern Massachusetts. Yeah. And one of them seems to be Maggie Hassan, who's running to retain her
25:56seat in, in New Hampshire. What, what do you see, Ben? Absolutely. Boston is going to be a great market
26:01this year. You know, Tina hit the nail on the head that it's really driven by a lot of that New
26:06Hampshire spending. Maggie Hassan, you know, very prominent national Democrat, has a tremendous amount of
26:11money, has a tremendous amount of barking, backing from the party, you know, has really kind of leaned
26:15into this post Dobbs bounce that we've seen from, from several of the Democratic women candidates,
26:21but don't overlook New Hampshire one in New Hampshire two, those should both be very competitive
26:25congressional seats. And then on the Massachusetts side, you can have a higher than expected activity,
26:33I would say, you know, with Baker leaving, Healy's, you know, a very, very strong candidate,
26:39but you are seeing some money from the, from the Republican candidate for governor as well.
26:43There's also some interesting issues going on there. You've seen this fair share amendment
26:47spending that has been pretty robust, um, so far. So I think Boston looks to be a really,
26:54really strong market helped by trends, both on the New Hampshire, New Hampshire and Massachusetts sides
26:59there. Hey, Larry. So, so here's probably the million dollar question. A lot of people on this call
27:05are, are thinking, um, now that we've kind of outlined state by state market by market, uh,
27:11potential spending, obviously the process is going to be different state by state and market by market.
27:18But can you just give a little bit, maybe like a minute or two on navigating the political process
27:24of getting to the right people who are making those decisions to help further our process to yielding
27:30and generating this revenue? Yeah, absolutely, Matt. And I would say there's two main processes
27:36and you've kind of hit on these before, cause there's going to be a major disparity between
27:40major spending coming out of these national agencies and this local dollars. And, you know,
27:46kind of working with these national agencies is something that, you know, if you haven't been doing
27:50it now, I'm sure you guys have been, but it is certainly a longer term process because they do have
27:55kind of candidates year after year, but you can put pressure even on them by speaking directly to
28:02the candidates and the campaigns. You know, we have seen that before they have a lot of accounts
28:07and it can sometimes be beneficial to put pressure directly on the campaigns. Now the agencies might
28:12not like that. So you do have to balance that a little bit, but it is something to keep an eye on.
28:16You know, if you have a good pitch and you feel like your inventory really does have a particular
28:21benefit that I would not be afraid to emphasize that directly to the campaigns, even if they're
28:26being handled by a major national agency. And for the local stuff, you know, I think Tina hit on it
28:31right at the beginning. You can't, can't emphasize enough, you know, you should be going directly to
28:35the, I would say the campaign manager is probably your best bet and they can direct you to the right
28:40folks. But, you know, focusing on efficiency and focusing on your benefits, lack of waste,
28:46increased targeting, all of those different kinds of things are really going to be game changers for
28:50campaigns that may not have $30 million to blow. If you have 30 million, you can do whatever you
28:55want to do pretty much. But if you have a limited budget, digital and more targeted platforms become
29:00incredibly important. And I think we've been talking about political for years now. And I know there
29:05were some resources that we gave to the sales staff, Ballotopia, things like that. Are there any other
29:12resources that you can share with them where they know who the campaign managers are and, you know,
29:17what the hot issue items in their market are other than Ballotopia?
29:20Yeah. I mean, Ballotpedia, I think is one of the best resources that's publicly available. We use it
29:26all the time. It's fantastic. I would really kind of clue into a couple of different things. I mean,
29:32it's important to keep track of the national trends, Politico, Punchbowl News. Some of these other
29:39folks are really, really good. Reading their morning newsletters really does drive a lot of what happens
29:46here in DC. And you will see a story that gets run in the morning, you know, morning score from
29:51Politico, for example, and really does drive real activity drives changes in strategy. So keeping an
29:57eye on that on the macro sense, but being tuned into your local reporters and your market as well,
30:02you know, these guys can get really good scoops, they might be more clued in on local races,
30:07they can have a lot of money. So, you know, paying attention to both the national trends and kind of the
30:11local news outlets is really important because some of those guys are doing very good work and
30:16breaking scoops for local races that might be get lost if you're only paying attention to Politico
30:22and Punchbowl and those folks. Yeah. And I think, you know, the, and just to drive this home is,
30:29it's not necessarily about the local candidates, but the local candidates are going to suffer when we read
30:37that these big well-funded campaigns are going to be eating up all the TV time. So in a lot of these
30:43markets, TV is going to be off the table, not because people aren't willing to spend. They have
30:48to make time. They still have to run Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune every night. They can't just be
30:52wall-to-wall political ads. So that is going to preclude a lot of our local races, attorney generals,
30:59judgeships, as you say, dog catcher. They aren't going to be able to use necessarily TV in a way that
31:05they've been used to before. That will trickle down to radio, of course, and certainly into digital.
31:12And I think the bottom line, we have 83 days to make a difference. There's not an 84th day here.
31:19Absolutely. And the other thing that I would flag is to keep an eye on the public file. Now,
31:23you don't need to be looking at every contract, but if you can keep a running, you know, keep an eye on
31:27what the seven o'clock news is on broadcast and how that's changing over time, that gives you a great
31:32selling point there. You can see how that balloons in Vegas and Boston and, you know, Augusta,
31:38wherever the case may be. And you can, you know, price that against what you're offering and really
31:42show value in what you're doing. So, Matt, any last questions? Tina,
31:46any last questions before we let Matt go about his day? Maybe catch a soccer game from Europe?
31:54Soccer match, not a soccer game. I'm sorry.
31:56Yeah, I mean, the last thing I have is kind of supporting what Ben was talking about,
32:00just in terms of information and research. There's a lot of great research out there
32:04that's provided by Nielsen that really drives home the sort of the messaging that we're looking
32:10for in terms of the benefits of digital and radio and the tandem of combining both of them,
32:15especially when it comes to the radio side and being able to align your political affiliates and
32:19your parties with certain formats and certain stations that make sense and using that research
32:24to drive home your points with the with the candidates. And then also just lastly,
32:30in addition to Ballotpedia, which is tremendous, and I use that all the time,
32:33the Cats Local Vote puts together a really great political research piece that I send out pretty
32:40often that I think you should all pay attention to because it provides a state-by-state breakdown
32:44and all the information you need from a research standpoint.
32:47And I would just say for the local sellers on the call, don't underestimate Q. These candidates are
32:53really looking to get their face out there. You can pair their radio messaging with a visual
32:59on their dashboard of that candidate and their voting message. So think about that as you're prospecting.
33:05Also, I just wanted to mention that Paul Mead in Boston came up with a great suggestion.
33:09Um, he actually called, um, some candidates in Boston and asked for bumper stickers and,
33:15you know, lawn signs and, um, started the dialogue with them and it resulted in a $50,000 ad spend.
33:20So that's a nice tip as well.
33:22And do you, Tina, do you know what, which, uh, which race that was? We don't need no candidate,
33:26but what, what race that he was able to generate from the $50,000?
33:31I don't know, Paul, if you're still there, if you could put it in the chat, that's great. I'm not sure.
33:34Yeah, that would be interesting. But, but thank you, Ben.
33:37That insight was amazing. And we really, really appreciate you taking, taking the time. I know
33:44how busy it is for the next 83 days and, and you giving us your time has just been incredible. So
33:49thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you a bunch, guys. Good luck.
33:53Thank you. And so now we're going to turn into the legal side of things because, you know,
33:59it's going to be fast and furious over the next, um, 83 days with getting people to advertise,
34:07let alone, um, taking care of all the paperwork that's involved with, with advertisers.
34:13Um, and so we're bringing on, um, two of our, two of our candidates and Matt seems to have disappeared.
34:26Matt, come back. Your job is not done here. And, and maybe Tina, maybe that was,
34:31my computer froze. Sorry about that. Okay. So anyway, is there's, there's a lot to know and a
34:39lot to be reminded of in terms of our legal obligations when running political advertising.
34:44And to that end is joining us is our, um, is Sally Buckman from our, one of our corporate law firms
34:52and Jamie Beasley, our, our, uh, one of our in-house local council who are going to,
34:56to answer some questions. And on this call, we're not going to get into the necessarily the nuts and
35:01bolts of what your, what the managers and general managers need to know, but what the sellers need to
35:07know and make sure we're, we're, we're taking, taking care of. So the first question is, uh, is,
35:15let's talk about paperwork is what's required every time we sell a political ad to, we'll start with
35:23broadcast. So when we sell somebody to run on the radio station, what paperwork do we need to be sure
35:30to collect in, in addition to the check? So what, what, what do we need? Sally, what, what do we need to
35:36make sure we gather? Yeah. So I think, um, several of you are, are somewhat familiar with this because
35:43we've circulated manuals and done trainings because as you probably know, in 2020, Beasley had to enter
35:53into a consent decree with the FCC, uh, around this whole paperwork, uh, online public file issues. So
36:01it's, I'm just going to give real basics here and there's a lot more information available if anybody
36:07wants to, to look at it. But, um, 2020 was kind of the first year that the political file was fully
36:17online. Um, you know, some stations switched over earlier, but for all the markets, um, and as a result,
36:25that made it much easier for you all to be able to look at other stations, files and see the rates
36:31as was referenced in the, the first part of this, uh, webinar, which is very helpful, but it also means
36:38a lot easier for the folks at the FCC to look at stations, political files online and make sure
36:46they're adhering to what the FCC requires. So one of the most important things to know is that when you
36:55sell an ad to a candidate, any candidate, federal state or local, or you sell, uh, an issue ad that
37:08involves a race or a national federal type issue, the FCC wants to make sure that the order for that
37:19particular buy and the order, as you know, is going to include the rates, include the numbers of number
37:25spots off light and timing of it and all that. The order has to be put in your online file.
37:32The rule says immediately, the FCC has interpreted that to me within one business day. So in the work
37:40that I've done with all the markets on this to make sure we complied with the consent decree requirements,
37:46um, for 2020 and 2021 elections, um, we put some procedures in place and typically there are
37:55different people at the stations who are responsible for actually uploading the information to the file,
38:01but it's the sellers who have to make sure they get that order form to whoever has to upload it
38:10as soon as they get it, really, so that you can make sure you comply with them.
38:14So in addition, in addition to the order, is there any other paperwork for broadcast that we need to
38:19include with, with the order? Yeah. Usually for again, for, uh, the candidates and the national issue
38:29advertisers, you usually see the NAB form, the PB 19. So that needs to be uploaded, uh, with the order, uh,
38:37assuming you get it with the order. If not, as soon as it's available. So that's just for broadcast.
38:44That's not for online. That's just for broadcast. Well, speaking of that, so those are three things
38:50that need to go into the political file. You need, or the two things, you need the order and you need
38:55the NAB, uh, NAB form needs to go into the file. So you brought it up. What about internet advertising?
39:02Internet, most apps of the internet, not governed by the FCC. It's not broadcast. What paperwork, uh,
39:10are we obligated to provide for political online advertisers and what would be a good idea to, to get?
39:19Yeah. So different, it's kind of a difference between what's best practices and, and what's
39:23actually required. There's really, you know, as, as Larry just said, the FCC rules, which as most of you
39:31know are very detailed, you know, for broadcast, cover rates, cover access, cover files, cover all
39:38that. That doesn't apply to digital. That doesn't apply to online. The FCC doesn't have oversight of
39:46digital in general, and certainly not political ads on digital. Um, there are certain FEC requirements
39:55that apply to candidates, not to the actual, the sellers, but, um, as far as, uh, information that
40:04has to be included. And you saw, you see these in political ads all the time. You saw them in the ads
40:09that were on at the very beginning of this call, where they, you know, they, for federal candidates,
40:15they have to say whether they, um, authorize the ad and obviously who paid for it. So, you know,
40:21any, any paperwork that you get on that kind of thing, you know, I think you should certainly
40:26keep in your internal files just to make sure that it's, it's there and, and anything that you
40:32have that reflects, um, you know, the actual specifics of the buy and the, you know, I would,
40:40I would try to keep something that deals with rates. Um, again, the federal lowest unit charge,
40:46that doesn't apply to digital. However, um, a few states, there aren't that many, and it's not
40:53something that, um, we've ever looked at in any great detail, but a few states do have requirements
41:00for candidate ads that basically you don't have to give lowest unit rate, can't get out,
41:05can't kind of price gouge, you know, you have to kind of sell comparable to what you would sell to
41:11commercial advertisers. Um, you know, if it's a tight market, because there's so much political
41:17advertising, which is what you all want to happen, that's fine. You can price according to
41:23the tightness of the market and the demand, but again, can't say, oh, it's political race. I'm
41:29going to charge five times as much in certain states. Larry, real quickly, just from a broadcast
41:35standpoint to get a little sort of more specific and Jamie and Sally can, um, pop in and
41:41tell me if I'm wrong here, but the typical sort of is all inquiries must go into the political file.
41:46If you get an inquiry, that's got to go into the political file regardless of whether it happens or
41:50doesn't happen. Always remember the NAB, always remember the original order, a copy of the original
41:56order, always remember a copy of the NXT order or the Marketron order, and then obviously creative.
42:02Those are sort of the processes and procedures to make sure of everything that needs to get uploaded.
42:07And the most important thing is if you don't know, raise your hand and ask, um, you'd rather have
42:12too much than too little to be safe rather than sorry. Yeah. Yeah. And we can circulate the, the
42:18slide decks that we've had previously, which go over some of this in more detail. We can circulate
42:23those again, um, probably would be a good idea. And, and I would just mention there that the
42:29creative for the candidate ads doesn't have to be uploaded and that doesn't always come with the ads.
42:37So, um, you know, if you don't get that, don't worry about it. It's that for issue ads, there is
42:47a relatively recent change or clarification, I guess they called it of the FCC requirements that says that
42:55you have to list the campaign or national legislative issues that are discussed. So there's a space for
43:04that on the NAB issue advertising. You know, sometimes they can spill out and sometimes they don't.
43:12Um, but a lot of times, uh, people just find it easier to upload the, you know, upload the copy itself.
43:20So, so one of the, one of the questions is it goes through that people are confused about,
43:25not so much our managers and the general managers, but a misconception that sometimes we have amongst
43:30the AEs for the broadcast side of things. We, we are obligated by the, um, by the FCC to accept ads from
43:42bonafide federal candidates. So if they're running for Senate, if they're running for the House of
43:47Representatives, if they're running for president, we have to accept those, those ads. But if they're
43:53local campaigns, as, as Ben Tablewood said, if someone's running for dog catcher,
43:58are our stations obligated to take that, that advertising?
44:05No, they are not. As you indicated, um, there's a statutory requirement, which we refer to
44:12as reasonable access. And that applies to federal candidates. And what that means is when a federal
44:20candidate in this current cycle, somebody running for Senate or House comes to you and says,
44:27um, I want to buy a ton of time on your station. Um, that may be a good thing. And you may have that
44:34available and you want to sell it to them. That's great. But oftentimes because of the number of
44:41races that federal races that are out there, you may not have all of the inventory. You may not want
44:48to, you know, sell them all of the inventory that they're requiring because they are, you know, eligible
44:54for the lowest you in charge. So you don't have to necessarily give them every single thing they're
44:59asking, but you can't impose any preset limits. Like you can't say one spot per day card period.
45:07Um, you're supposed to work with them and you can take into account, you know, what other
45:12campaigns you're going to have to sell time for and what equal, what the opponents may request,
45:17how many opponents there are. So that's for federal for the, to answer your specific question,
45:23Larry, when it's the state or local candidate, you do not have to accept it. Um, however,
45:29based on what Ben was talking about earlier, um, and the amount of money that may be out there,
45:34um, you may well want to accept it, which is fine. Just keep in mind, once you do take a race,
45:42once you sell to one candidate, um, for attorney general or mayor or council or whatever it is,
45:51then you have to sell to all candidates in that race.
45:55So sort of the reverse side of the house, do we have the same obligations and the same rules apply
46:01to online advertising? Are we obligated to take it from federal candidates or is it,
46:09since there's no obligation with online, what we can run and are there any requirements for equal access
46:16for, uh, so let me ask you, it seems to be the wild west on online for the, uh, for political candidates,
46:26right? We don't, we really don't have any obligations in the same regard.
46:30Right. Right. Exactly. We do not. Um, I mean, again, you need to keep the PR in the back of your mind.
46:39I mean, if you're taking only, you know, the Democrats and not taking the Republican online,
46:45you may get some flack for that. Um, but there's no legal requirement that you have to do it.
46:52So when, when a bonafide candidate places an ad on a broadcast station, radio or TV,
46:57the station isn't obligated for the, to, to, to judge the content of the ad either on a,
47:05on a truthful basis or a, uh, you know, so, so essentially whatever the candidate gives us,
47:13we have to run, correct? Is there? Yeah. The, that, the, um, the FCC rule,
47:19what we refer to it as those of us who've been dealing with the nuts and bolts of this for more
47:25years than we'd like to acknowledge is no. So that means when you get an ad from a candidate,
47:34and again, it's not just federal, it's any candidate that you take the ad for,
47:39you are not permitted to censor, to change, edit that ad in any way. The only thing you're allowed
47:45to do is make sure it has a proper sponsorship ID, sponsorship tagline, and if it does,
47:52insert one, or you can request the candidate to insert one. So as a result of that no censorship,
47:59rule, there's also a policy out there that you are not, not subject to liability
48:08for any false statements that might be in those ads or any defamatory statements that might be in those
48:14ads that you can't edit. So again, this applies only to candidates, not to pack ads, and only for
48:21broadcast, the no censorship. So for issue ads, and this is where, you know, you've seen this,
48:31you know, for several cycles out where the letters go out. You know, one side says, Oh,
48:37this said that, you know, you're running that supports democratic candidate has all these false
48:42statements in it. And, you know, you need to remove it, take it down right away. And what typically
48:48happens in those instances is you go back to the pack or the issue advertiser that provided you
48:55with the ad, and you say, Hey, you know, they've this others, the other side's alleged this is
49:01defamatory. And they, you know, will then provide you with some substantiation. But it is incumbent on you
49:09as the publisher of that ad, to review that substantiation and, you know, or send it to
49:16Jamie or, you know, somebody is going to review and say, you know, okay, we've got this and
49:23substantiate that we'll keep running the ad. If there's a doubt about it, then you might have to
49:28pull it. Now, I just want to throw in there since we're talking about the subject that
49:33the no censorship protection does not apply to the digital space. So even for
49:40camera ads in the digital space. So what is our obligation as the seller?
49:48So, you know, we talked about Maggie Hassan run something in it that she buys from our Boston
49:55digital team that clearly is is false. So when we get that creative, what is our obligation
50:03to, to, to, to, to judge it? And are we liable if there are liabilities to us if it is just
50:11false information? If it's clearly false, yes, you're liable, just like you are for any other ad
50:19that you would run that's potential that's not political, that's potentially to pay and you would
50:25be the publisher of that ad. Got it. And speaking, speaking of Maggie Hassan, she's a she's running for
50:32federal office. It's good. It's a good example. We have this in, you know, South Carolina and,
50:39you know, adjacent regions of our other markets. So if she wants to buy time in Boston, even though
50:44she's a New Hampshire candidate, are we obligated to provide, you know, the access to Massachusetts
50:53broadcast properties, even though she's running in another state? Yes. As long as the station serves
51:02a portion of the district where the candidate is running. And in her case, you know, she's a
51:09statewide race in New Hampshire. So as long as your Boston station
51:16contour parts of New Hampshire, you're obligated to sell time to her for that. If you're in
51:23New Jersey, you know, the example you gave earlier, and there's a congressional race that's in northern
51:33New Jersey, the district is northern in Jersey and the New Jersey stations that are closer to Philly,
51:42signal doesn't cover that district, that congressional district, then you don't have to take that.
51:48Got it. So what else? I mean, it's confusing, it's time consuming, but they are obligations. What else
51:55do the sellers need to know when selling and processing any orders that they might develop
52:03or that are given to them? What else do they need to know? Real quick, Larry, back to the subject on
52:10issue advertising. If a candidate provides creative, and again, Sally, Jamie interject, if a client provides
52:19creative that you deem may be salacious or inaccurate in its portrayal, if they provide
52:26substantiation that vets out, you are required still at that point to run that ad. On an issue ad?
52:34Correct. But not on a candidate. No, correct. I mean, no, I mean, with issue ads, you always have a choice.
52:43I mean, you don't have to take any issue ad that you feel you're not comfortable taking. I mean, again,
52:50it's usually a lot of money, so you want to typically take them. But, you know, you can decide that
52:59something is just... Right. But you can request what the point of substantiation becomes, obviously.
53:03Oh, you must. I mean, you know, I think it's a responsible broadcaster, you know.
53:11I just wanted to make that point clear so everybody understood that point to the issue side of the
53:16business. Yeah. And that is... Go ahead.
53:21I was going to say, and it seems to be pretty much the same for digital ads. We're not required to take
53:27them. However, we have some responsibility for knowing what we're running and making sure that it
53:34has, that it is accurate and, as Matt would say, not salacious. Is that... Do I have that right?
53:44Yeah. Yeah. The only other thing I would touch on briefly is lowest unit of charge, which you
53:49mentioned at the beginning, that we're, you know, a couple of states are still, that haven't had
53:55primaries yet, are still in the lowest unit charge period for the primaries, the lowest unit charge
54:03charge periods for the general, for the general is in... What did you say? How many days is it away?
54:09I can't remember. 83 days. But, you know... Yeah, but that's...
54:14Oh, 23 days. 23 days until the political window open where we're obligated for the lowest unit
54:20rates. And that just brings up an interesting question, because I never thought about this
54:25before. There are some cases where the 60-day window and the 45-day primary
54:32window can overlap, right? I don't think that there's many, but there could be some.
54:37And if a candidate wants to run something clearly, says, vote for me in November, even though it's in
54:44the primary that, you know, it's aimed at the general election, do we have to provide the lowest
54:52unit rates during the primary window? You know, that's kind of a more difficult or nuanced question.
55:00I mean, if the candidate doesn't have an opponent in the primary, so they're, you know, really buying
55:09for the general, then the answer to that question is no, because you're really only required to provide
55:15it for the 60 days. But if there is a primary and they're, you know, the candidate for one party and
55:24they have opponents for that party, even if their copy focuses on the general, you may still have to
55:30provide the lowest unit charge. It's one of those kind of like you have to go a little more closely,
55:34I think. And I was just going to mention is that it's becoming more common. I mean, generally,
55:43you know, if it's the lowest unit charge, it's candidate, it applies to candidates only. And
55:47typically, you know, it's going to be an ad that's sponsored by the candidates campaign committee,
55:54you know, committee to elect Herschel Walker, you know, it is sometimes because there's they're just
56:04because there's so much money involved in the election these days, they try to get more creative
56:10in terms of what money can be considered actual candidate money. And like, for example, in Florida,
56:20I know there's this thing where they can put like three candidates together, and the party,
56:25it's called like a triptych, the party can pay for that, that ad that has a slate of Democrats or
56:33the slate of Republicans. That is often usually actually considered candidate money. So those ads
56:42are eligible for lowest unit charge. There also are some instances, you know, particularly for
56:50state candidates, where the, it may be sponsored by a party, as opposed to the campaign committee,
56:59and party is actually the authorized committee and that example. And they're sometimes, you know,
57:07if that's the case, they're eligible for lowest unit charge as well. Typically, whoever is placing the ad,
57:15whether it's an agency or, you know, the party, they will say to you, oh, this is eligible for lowest
57:22unit charge. And, you know, that's the kind of thing, again, where sellers should feel free to reach
57:28out to me or Jamie. This is, are they willing? So we're just about out of time. Matt, Tina, Jamie,
57:37any last thoughts, concerns? And as I always say, practical jokes or slanderous remarks?
57:43No, I did want to let you know that Paul did chime in on the race that he got to 2004 by asking for
57:49a bumper sticker was a governor's race. So, you know, think big and small. I think there's a lot
57:54of opportunity out there to go after.
57:55Matt, any last thoughts? It's going to be a lot of money being placed, so let's get busy.
58:03And again, as we've said since the beginning, we have 83 days to realize a portion of that. So,
58:12thank you, Sally. Thank you, Jamie. Thank you, Matt, for joining us today. And we will see you
58:18next month for You Ought to Know.