On Sunday, President Joe Biden announced that he is dropping out of the 2024 presidential election, citing advice from close allies and concerns about his ability to secure a victory against former President Donald Trump.
Now that Biden will be replaced as the Democratic candidate for president, with the likely potential of Vice President Kamala Harris gaining the nomination, what implications does that have for media ad spending in an already record-breaking political cycle?
On July 10, Radio Ink discussed this and several other pressing election issues for radio as we head into the fall campaign with BIA Advisory Services Vice President of Forecasting and Analysis Nicole Ovadia and Silver Oak Political President Steve Passwaiter. We again present that conversation to you now.
Radio Ink: If President Biden were to bow out of the race tomorrow and be replaced with a new Democratic candidate, what changes would you anticipate in ad strategy and spend, both overall and in radio?
Nicole Ovadia: The amount of money that is spent on political advertising doesn’t have as much to do with whether or not the candidates are replaced or not as it does fundraising. So the question becomes how would changing a candidate affect fundraising?
Steve Passwaiter: This debate has thrown all of this up in the air. Democratic donors are threatening to shut their wallets unless Biden gets out of the race. Whether they live up to it or not, or they eventually give in, who knows? There could be more than enough donors who are willing to open their wallets, and he’ll be okay. This sort of changes minute by minute as to how this thing all plays out.
At a presidential level, I know Biden has been buying radio. I think where Trump is concerned, he’s done a little bit of radio, but most of Trump’s stuff has been PACs, not him. Biden’s had a pretty big financial advantage for the whole cycle until [Trump’s criminal] trial. Once Trump got that guilty verdict, people started donating money to his campaign like crazy.
Nicole Ovadia: Since the first debate, the Republicans are out-raising the Democrats. They have more cash on hand than the Democrats did. So that is something that will affect how the money is spent. But honestly, at the end of the day, if the Democrats change or don’t change a candidate, I don’t think it’s going to have ultimately that much of an effect on the dollars being spent at the end of the day, because we’re still in for record-breaking fundraising.
Steve Passwaiter: Radio might want to keep in mind is there is a real fight for both the Hispanic and the African-American voters in this cycle. It’s a flip of the coin as to what’s happening in the Hispanic community with Trump, and clearly, Trump is still losing the vast majority of African American voters, but now the polls have been somewhere between 20 and 24%.
Given how both communities over-index with radio, it would seem like a perfect opportunity. At NAB, I said that money’s gonna get spent and radio needs to figure out how to be a prominent part of that because radio plays a huge role in both of those voter groups. And it would seem kind of silly if these guys that are buying the advertising didn’t do that.
Radio Ink: You mention the multicultural vote. At Hispanic Radio Conference 2024 a few weeks ago, there was a fair amount of frustration that while campaigns were increasingly turning to their Hispanic stations for interviews, that wasn’t translating into increased ad spend. This implies campaigns know the medium’s power, but simply don’t want to pay. How do stations get that money?
Steve Passwaiter: That unfortunately has been an issue for a very long time. I think that people who sell Spanish-language media in the political world sometimes get the notion that there’s a significant part, especially in the Hispanic population, of people who are bilingual and they will get the political ads in English, but there’s clearly a benefit to speaking to them in their own language. Why wouldn’t these guys want to use radio for that?
I know it frustrates the living daylights out of these guys. I’ve talked to enough of them over time. But if radio is going to make its point to the political people, it’s time to think about a new strategy to do that. The radio industry has plenty of clients that probably put more of their budget into video than audio, but you do business with them anyway, and you figure out how to make it work. You figure out where you fit in here and you go for it.
You have to go talk to those people. You have to seek them out and you go get them. If you really want to change this narrative, you can’t pay attention to it only in election years. You have to approach this vertical the same way you approach any other vertical, and that’s to be consistent. Meet people, listen, and get involved in the groundwork.
Nicole Ovadia: Something else to remember – candidate money will stay low, given lowest unit rate. Issue money is a lot more lucrative.
Radio Ink: Radio’s trust factor is a valuable commodity in this election, but it’s also been in focus over the past week due to radio interviews with President Biden that were revealed to be led by questions given to hosts by the President’s campaign team. Do you feel like any of the splashback will end up hurting radio’s overall trust factor?
Steve Passwaiter: I don’t think so. The WURD host obviously has paid the ultimate price for this by losing her job, but I don’t necessarily know that she was the one who took the blame for that. I think broadly people were perturbed at the Biden campaign for continuing this pattern. This is not a new pattern for them. How many times have we seen the President do a news conference where he’s got a picture of the reporter on the note cards and the question that’s gonna get asked and he’s got a scripted answer right there?
What makes this so maddening for other people is that, okay, look, you’ve just gone on a debate stage and you threw a ball over yourself because you couldn’t answer questions spontaneously. You didn’t have a teleprompter. You didn’t have prepared notes. And you choked. So, and then they came on and said, well, he’s gonna have to do more things spontaneously. And then some of the first interviews they set up afterward, they went right back to the same pattern.
Nicole Ovadia: I don’t. I think this is a little bit of just noise right now with really inside people. It’s so early. We’re so far from the actual election. This happens to be the story of the week, and I don’t think it’s gonna have a significant effect on strategy or radio.
Radio Ink: It’s the issue that has kept too many in radio banging their heads against their desks for political cycle after cycle, and it’s only getting more frustrating. Despite the appearance that it will be another record year for campaign spending, 4% of that spend – or less – is going to go to radio. Why is over-the-air television still getting the overwhelming majority of politicians’ traditional media ad dollars while TV’s reach has now dropped below radio for all persons of voting age? What will it possibly take for radio to escape past that 4% mark?
Nicole Ovadia: One avenue for radio to do that is by peeling back the layers on the video side of political advertising. You are correct, television over-the-air still has the lion’s share and we are not seeing much, if any, erosion. We at BIA are forecasting growth for television over-the-air from the last presidential cycle and even the mid-cycle in 2022. That being said, cable is down. Their share of the pie is flat at best, but will likely be down. A lot of dollars are shifting to CTV/OTT, and that is an opportunity for radio. Radio can sell those CTV/OTT spots, and they have access to that inventory. So that is one of the directions in which video political advertising is moving, and radio can go with it. Grow your video because that’s where the dollars truly are and continue to be.
Steve Passwaiter: Pierre Bouvard is always looking at me going, “Are we going to get our 3%, Steve?” And, yeah, I think that’s probably the way it’s going to go, even with all the great studies on how radio exceeds other media for the number of people it reaches in a week. That doesn’t seem to be making a difference to these folks.
The hard part is that it’s a video business and that’s the way the consultants roll. No consultant in politics has ever been fired for saying, “Let’s go buy more TV time.” It just doesn’t happen. You have to start talking to people inside these campaigns at senior levels. That won’t happen overnight. That’s something that has to be an ongoing process if you wanna do better in this space. The ad agencies are middle-people. That’s not to put them down, but they’re not decision-makers. The consultants are making those decisions.
Nicole Ovadia: I came up through radio, I was at Hot 97 and WBLS in New York and I worked for Emmis Communications forever. My soul is with radio, so yeah, I die a little on the inside when I see the 4% number. But what I am constantly reminded of is that when the polls ask people who they trust in terms of news, it is local radio and television.
We’re getting into the political cycle where down-ballot races and issues really matter. There’s so much more than who you’re gonna vote for to be president. There are so many more layers depending on where you live and what’s going on. Radio being a trusted news source is really important. Lean into that. Educate political candidates on how important and effective radio actually is. There’s another avenue for growing that 4%.
Steve Passwaiter: Don’t forget about what’s happening in your own backyard. All this state activity is better funded now, by the way. You’re gonna have a hard time changing anybody’s mind here in DC, but the ability to take what you know and your relationships into these communities and to be able to go in and talk to local candidates where you may be able to have some influence because the people live and, you know, live and work and have their lives within the confines of the signals of these radio stations. Swing for the fences on some of this other stuff.
Editor’s Note: Both interviews were lightly edited for content and clarity before being combined.
Radio has been losing $$ for the past 3 national election cycles. Average age of listeners has continued to go up & agencies aren’t going to burn the cash so dinosaurs can listen to their spots.
If a person only speaks Spanish and doesn’t speak or read English, how can they understand anything that the political candidate is saying or sending out? Because the language of our country is English.
Yes, Hispanic ethnicity Americans are very important to reach with a political campaign, as are all other Americans. Specifically, bilingual Hispanics – who can be easily and efficiently be reached with general media.