Fresh off the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, political advertising is ramping up for U.S. TV broadcasters as limitations due to COVID-19 are expected to boost TV’s take of the important revenue segment.
With lower-than-expected political revenue in the second quarter, a windfall of political advertising in the second half of 2020 will be needed for the segment to reach a record.
According to a new analysis by Kagan, the media research unit of S&P Global Market Intelligence, TV groups’ political ad revenues were negatively impacted by COVID-19 during the second quarter, with the revenue segment declining over 20% on average from second quarter 2018 political revenues.
In comparison with the last presidential election year of 2016, political ad revenue was up over 150% on average in second quarter 2020.
Among the key highlights from the analysis:
- Nexstar Broadcast Group is the leading TV station group of the seven public TV groups in our analysis, with political ad revenue of nearly $22 million in second quarter 2020, almost twice the amount reported in the second quarter 2016.
- Gray Television has set political ad revenue guidance of between $250 million and $275 million in 2020. The company reported $21 million in political ad revenue in the second quarter, bringing its total for the first half of 2020 to $57 million, a 74% increase from the same period of 2018.
- Sinclair Broadcast Group had the third-largest second quarter in political ad revenue with $19 million, an increase of over 100% from second quarter 2016; however, that was a decrease of around 30% from 2018 second quarter political ad revenue.
Kagan, S&P Global Market Intelligence
