ABSTRACT
A critical component of most political campaigns in America is television advertising. There is no doubt that television advertising costs a lot of money. But what exactly determines the cost of advertising, and does the high price affect all electoral actors similarly? This chapter addresses this question head on, using comprehensive data about television advertising in five major contests in the Philadelphia area in 2006. We open up the “black box” of political advertising pricing to explain what political actors are up against in the communications marketplace. While political campaigns are being waged, commercial interests do not recede. Therefore, decisions about purchasing political advertising require a complicated investigation of a variety of factors: what the target audience is watching; competition for the target audience; incentives from the stations to buy early or in bulk; requirements from the federal government that broadcasters make available some time for political candidates; and the competitive political environment for the individual campaigns. Our study shows that candidates indeed get a break on the price of political advertising and that political parties and interest groups need to be much more creative to have the same advertising coverage for their money.
