Brace yourselves until Americans change campaign finance laws, changing political advertising

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Editorial: Political ads bolster local TV, pollute democracy
December 28, 2013

Last week, when Meredith Corp. of Des Moines, Iowa, announced that it had acquired three television stations — KMOV (Channel 4) in St. Louis and a pair in Phoenix — two of Meredith’s executives placed heavy emphasis on one point.

“The markets are growing and they’re located in states with significant political advertising,” Steve Lacy, Meredith’s chairman and CEO said in a conference call with financial analysts.

In a company press release, Paul Karpowicz, the president of the company’s local media group, said, “These stations are terrific additions to our group. The markets are growing and they are located in states with significant political advertising.”

Nothing was said about KMOV’s role in the community or history of public service, nor even anything about Larry Conners. Just political advertising.

These are not boom times for network television and local stations. Cable television and Internet television services like Netflix have eaten big chunks out of their market. The trend is not expected to abate.

So what makes three local stations — two without major network affiliations in the nation’s 12th-largest broadcast market, and one CBS affiliate in the 21st-largest market — worth a total of $407.5 million? If we understand the Meredith executives correctly, it’s because they can bombard us with political ads.

Lord knows we’re not unsympathetic to the plight of “old media,” but this is not healthy for democracy.

Spending on political advertising is expected to reach $2.4 billion in 2014, according to Kantar Media Group. Kantar makes its money tracking money spent on advertising paid for by campaign donations. The political-industrial complex is growing like The Blob.

Bear in mind that 2014 is not a presidential election year, and only two states — Arkansas and Michigan — are rated as having a lot of competitive seats in play. If $2.4 billion will be spent in 2014, imagine what will be spent in 2016, when both parties will have presidential primary races.

In an election year, political advertising is second only to automobile advertising as a source of local TV revenue. The St. Louis market includes parts of two states, doubling the opportunities to sell time. “Issue ads” paid for by “Super PACs” and bogus social welfare organizations are rich new veins in the gold mine.

Local TV stations like KMOV may not have the audiences they had when Lucy and Ricky Ricardo were drawing 50 million viewers a week, but network TV still delivers a bigger audience than any other single source.

It would be one thing if these did anything but pollute public discourse. But when KMOV sold two 30-second slots during NFL football broadcasts last Nov. 4 for $15,000 apiece so the anonymous “Now or Never PAC” could argue that Missouri Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin wasn’t that bad, nobody even knew where the money came from.

Some day Americans will get sick of being misled by anonymous plutocrats and political hacks. They’ll extricate themselves from the Blob and change campaign finance laws. Stations that use the public airwaves will be obliged to provide free time for political debate, not profiteer off people who are undermining democracy. Until then, brace yourselves.

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