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Inside the $182B Local Ad Market: Key Trends for 2026 · Leading Local Insights

• 0:34
  Tom Buono: Welcome.
• 0:35
  Tom Buono: And thanks for joining us for the first Leading Local Insights podcast of 2026.
• 0:41
  Tom Buono: I'm Tom Buono, founder and CEO of BIA Advisory Services, and today I'm joined by members of our analyst team to talk about what's happening in local advertising.
• 0:53
  Tom Buono: Just before the holidays in December, we released our annual trends report, one of our most popular industry reports.
• 1:02
  Tom Buono: In that we talked about $182 billion of local advertising as an opportunity for all of those on this call and all serving this marketplace.
• 1:14
  Tom Buono: It highlights 10 key trends shaping local advertising today.
• 1:19
  Tom Buono: What we are seeing is that local advertising is moving fast right now.
• 1:33
  Tom Buono: Audiences are spread across more screens than ever.
• 1:37
  Tom Buono: New platforms keep popping up, and both national and local advertisers are rethinking where they're where they are spending their money.
• 1:46
  Tom Buono: At the same time, we're seeing national brands leaning into local.
• 1:53
  Tom Buono: Connected TV and OTT are changing how video gets planned and bought.
• 1:59
  Tom Buono: Digital out of home continues to build momentum, and political advertising and major event advertising are tightening inventory in certain markets.
• 2:10
  Tom Buono: At the same time, AI is starting to influence how campaigns are planned, activated, and optimized.
• 2:19
  Tom Buono: In a market like this, clarity really matters.
• 2:24
  Tom Buono: That's what we're hoping to bring to you today in this discussion and with our clients throughout 2026.
• 2:32
  Tom Buono: With that, let's get started.
• 2:35
  Tom Buono: So first up is Rick Ducey.
• 2:37
  Tom Buono: Rick is a managing director with BIA.
• 2:40
  Tom Buono: He oversees our strategic consulting and works with a lot of clients at the executive level on a whole range of different issues.
• 2:48
  Tom Buono: And today I'd like you to talk a little bit, Rick, about CTV OTT.
• 2:53
  Tom Buono: You're really the expert in this space.
• 2:55
  Tom Buono: Can you talk about what we're seeing for the coming year and the trends driving the growth?
• 3:00
  Rick Ducey: Sure, Tom.
• 3:01
  Rick Ducey: Thanks.
• 3:01
  Rick Ducey: And um welcome everybody.
• 3:02
  Rick Ducey: It's wonderful to have this chance to get together, share some of our data, some of our insights about what's happening with local, which is a happening place these days.
• 3:10
  Rick Ducey: And there's a few places in terms of media channels where the activity is particularly, I guess, exciting and possibly even turbulent, you might say.
• 3:19
  Rick Ducey: And CTV, connected TV, and OTT definitely is one of those areas.
• 3:24
  Rick Ducey: Just first briefly, we say CTV slash OTT.
• 3:28
  Rick Ducey: There's different kinds of streaming video, and in this media channel, we're talking about premium video, full-length video.
• 3:36
  Rick Ducey: For CTV specifically, ad impression inventory that is on a TV set.
• 3:42
  Rick Ducey: So one of the things we've done is when we look at local and video, we have a couple of different ways of looking at it.
• 3:47
  Rick Ducey: One is the local TV marketplace for ads targeting local audiences.
• 3:54
  Rick Ducey: And in that, we include over-the-air broadcast TV stations, uh, MVPT, the cable operators, and now CTV.
• 4:01
  Rick Ducey: So those are three media channels targeting the TV set as the display device for ad inventory.
• 4:07
  Rick Ducey: And of course, streaming, you can watch premium content on your TV set.
• 4:11
  Rick Ducey: You can also watch it on your iPad, your phone, whatever.
• 4:14
  Rick Ducey: But those are different kinds of ad inventory.
• 4:17
  Rick Ducey: So mostly when we say TV, Tom, as you know, we're focused on it on the TV set.
• 4:21
  Rick Ducey: So I'll just pick a couple of uh data points there to highlight what we're seeing.
• 4:26
  Rick Ducey: First of all, high growth.
• 4:28
  Rick Ducey: Now, CTV's been coming off a small base.
• 4:30
  Rick Ducey: So to say high growth on a relative basis, the percentages look good.
• 4:34
  Rick Ducey: But as the absolute number of dollars spent in local CTV gets bigger, uh the percentages start to drop because the denominator gets bigger, obviously.
• 4:43
  Rick Ducey: But still we're seeing some really exciting movement uh compared to some of the other channels that are either aren't moving or are going backwards.
• 4:49
  Rick Ducey: So in 2005, we figured CTV targeting local audiences closed out at about $3.3 billion, excluding political spending, which didn't matter that much for 25.
• 5:00
  Rick Ducey: Now we're in 26 midterm year, um, and we're expecting CTV spending, not including political spending, which will be substantial, um, to go up about 10% to $3.6 billion.
• 5:11
  Rick Ducey: And if we look at this in a context, if we look at that calculation of local TV and TV being sort of broadly defined here as broadcast stations, uh MVPDs, and CTV uh targeting that TV set, um, the share of that spending from CTV has increased from about just under 14% in 2024 to almost 19%.
• 5:35
  Rick Ducey: Uh so pretty huge growth we're expecting in in 2026.
• 5:39
  Rick Ducey: Again, um if we look at how the dollars are spent, broadcast TV stations still get the lion share, but the fast riser, and we expect to continue to rise fast, is going to be CTV.
• 5:50
  Rick Ducey: So there's a couple of quick stats and a little bit of context, Tom.
• 5:54
  Tom Buono: Yeah, thanks, Rick.
• 5:55
  Tom Buono: You know, it always comes down to selling.
• 5:57
  Tom Buono: So can you give us uh one key opportunity for local sellers packaging OTA with CTV and digital video?
• 6:07
  Rick Ducey: Sure.
• 6:07
  Rick Ducey: I mean, if you look at the ecosystem and then CTV, you mentioned Tom, it it's fragmented generally, um, you know, media.
• 6:15
  Rick Ducey: We track, I think we have been tracking 16 different media uh channels, and we're increasing that number just because of how things are breaking out in the market.
• 6:23
  Rick Ducey: Um, we we need to have more targets that we're that we're tracking.
• 6:27
  Rick Ducey: And that may be hard from an analyst perspective, uh, but it's also, of course, hard from a brand perspective.
• 6:32
  Rick Ducey: The marketers are kind of going a little bit crazy.
• 6:35
  Rick Ducey: How do we find our you know, target groups and across all these different media channels?
• 6:39
  Rick Ducey: And how can we orchestrate our brand messaging from a brand level?
• 6:43
  Rick Ducey: And then as we get into smaller regional businesses, they're more performance-oriented.
• 6:47
  Rick Ducey: You know, how do we reach our target consumer bases geographically?
• 6:52
  Rick Ducey: And a lot of times the lift is very impressive when you geo-target uh campaigns for various uh reasons.
• 6:59
  Rick Ducey: You're finding people where they live, you're able to do geographically relevant content when you're doing dynamic ad insertion, things like that.
• 7:08
  Rick Ducey: So now these three uh video media um targeting a TV set, what brands want to do, agencies want to do, uh, is to go cross-platform.
• 7:19
  Rick Ducey: We want to get video impressions in front of our target group in whatever screen they're looking at.
• 7:25
  Rick Ducey: And if we can do that in a relevant way in our journey to purchase and use each of those media differently, I mean you can use the paradigm of the funnel, top of the funnel branding, maybe that's broadcast TV.
• 7:35
  Rick Ducey: And then you get into CTV, which is a lot more targeting.
• 7:38
  Rick Ducey: You can layer on a lot of signals to get that message to the target audience you want to get to.
• 7:43
  Rick Ducey: And you can see some performance, you have different optimization capabilities, and even into other forms of digital like social video, uh, where you can really get some engagement, uh, get some brand halo effect uh from some of the things happening there.
• 7:56
  Rick Ducey: And again, drive down to very um concrete KPIs like uh retail foot traffic, uh, web form fills, things like that.
• 8:05
  Rick Ducey: So uh for a selling strategy, there's a lot of things that media sellers can bring to the market that is in demand.
• 8:13
  Rick Ducey: And the challenge is to do that in a way that's orchestrated, it makes sense, and all the different parts and pieces fit together, and you can see that with the metrics and data you're you're getting.
• 8:23
  Rick Ducey: So you can optimize and steward that campaign and drive it to the outcomes that the clients want.
• 8:27
  Rick Ducey: And those are a big set of challenges, but the industry has been working hard on it and getting some good solutions.
• 8:34
  Tom Buono: Good.
• 8:35
  Tom Buono: All right, Rick, thanks for that.
• 8:36
  Tom Buono: Uh, we're gonna turn to Steve Passwaiter.
• 8:39
  Tom Buono: Steve is an advisor to BIA and has worked with us for many, many years and a lot of other media companies over time.
• 8:46
  Tom Buono: Steve, let's talk a little bit about out of home.
• 8:50
  Tom Buono: It seems to be having a real moment now, especially with digital screens and programmatic buying.
• 8:55
  Tom Buono: Uh, can you just share a little bit on the growth of out of home and the vertical advertisers leaning into out of home this coming year?
• 9:04
  Steve Passwaiter: Sure, Tom.
• 9:05
  Steve Passwaiter: Uh, you know, 2025 was really the year of legal.
• 9:10
  Steve Passwaiter: Uh legal firms and uh the out-of-home industry got a lot closer to one another during uh 2025.
• 9:18
  Steve Passwaiter: Now that will likely continue unabated into 2026, but it'll be joined by restaurants and amusement parks and real estate.
• 9:30
  Steve Passwaiter: Uh these are categories that uh the BIA forecast uh has uh putting more money towards outdoor, and there are plenty of reasons for that.
• 9:41
  Steve Passwaiter: Uh Senan, I thought uh uh you might have some uh thoughts on exactly why those categories, uh what's special about them and how they uh you know how how outdoor fits uh what they're trying to do.
• 9:58
  Senan Mele: Yes, Steve.
• 10:00
  Senan Mele: Um what we are seeing is that amusement park, restaurants, and real estate development, as well as uh legal services, as you've mentioned, they all depend on being top of mind at the moment uh someone is nearby.
• 10:16
  Senan Mele: So out of home tend to excel at capturing attention uh close to the point of decision, whether it's choosing where to eat, which attraction to visit, and which firm to call.
• 10:30
  Senan Mele: So, as you've mentioned, um as food traffic rebounds and stabilizes, uh, advertisers will naturally put dollars behind media that influence physical movement.
• 10:44
  Senan Mele: What we are also seeing is that in categories like QSA, full service restaurants, and um legal services, digital channels can become saturated and increasingly expensive.
• 10:58
  Senan Mele: So, out of home offers a great way to um to get high risk at cost efficiency and at scale, especially in dense urban and commuter markets.
• 11:13
  Senan Mele: Uh the other thing I will add here is that as customer acquisition costs rise online, brands are reallocating budget to channels that deliver broad awareness and incremental reach.
• 11:26
  Senan Mele: And out-of-home plays a big role in that.
• 11:32
  Steve Passwaiter: Thanks.
• 11:32
  Steve Passwaiter: Thanks, Senan.
• 11:33
  Steve Passwaiter: Yeah, I appreciate your uh your thoughts on that.
• 11:35
  Steve Passwaiter: I think all that's incredibly true.
• 11:40
  Tom Buono: Steve, can you uh expand a little bit about the opportunity for out-of-home to use data and digital capabilities to compete more directly with channels like CTV and and social?
• 11:55
  Steve Passwaiter: Sure, Tom.
• 11:55
  Steve Passwaiter: I'd actually reframe that maybe just a little bit into thinking of out-of-door as more of an amplification media that actually uh you know uh plays well with others, uh, like we all used to get graded with uh when we were in school.
• 12:12
  Steve Passwaiter: Um that's really it, because outdoor is really an amplification media, sort of some of what uh Senan was uh was adding before.
• 12:22
  Steve Passwaiter: It does have reach, and that reach can be very broad, but at the same time, it also has geographical constraints that can be put around it.
• 12:33
  Steve Passwaiter: Now, this is really great stuff for, you know, I think the folks in retail media have figured out that uh, you know, outdoor is uh a really interesting place to get the message out of the store and and add reinforcement.
• 12:48
  Steve Passwaiter: And out of home does really add frequency, but does so in a non-obtrusive way.
• 12:56
  Steve Passwaiter: It is a it's a it's a non-skippable media, which you gotta love in this uh day and age, but it really limits, you know, I think both CTV and social have a bit of a burnout problem.
• 13:10
  Steve Passwaiter: Uh, you know, there's too much frequency, you see too much of the same thing.
• 13:15
  Steve Passwaiter: Outdoor really doesn't do that.
• 13:17
  Steve Passwaiter: And I think there's a, you know, where data's concerned, there's all kinds of studies about the effectiveness of out of home and how out of home really makes the dollars that are invested in CTV and social work that much harder and really adds a real boost to what they're you know, what they're what they're what they're trying to do.
• 13:42
  Steve Passwaiter: And then lastly, you know, I think where social is concerned, out of home, and we see advertisers putting various social elements into their outdoor ads, uh, really allows an expansion of those campaigns into social and gets more references, but at no additional cost.
• 14:03
  Steve Passwaiter: And that's a beautiful thing about it.
• 14:04
  Steve Passwaiter: So these are, you know, I think some of the things that out of home has, uh, you know, these unique attributes about it that are giving it that moment uh that everybody in the ad world is talking about at the moment.
• 14:19
  Tom Buono: Yeah, for sure.
• 14:20
  Tom Buono: And certainly on the digital side.
• 14:22
  Tom Buono: Uh let's go to Celine.
• 14:24
  Tom Buono: Celine Matthiessen is a vice president with BIA, works closely with a number of clients uh related to competitive intelligence.
• 14:33
  Tom Buono: Celine, can you talk a little bit about national brands going local in 2026 from your perspective?
• 14:40
  Tom Buono: Uh what's actually changing on the ground?
• 14:44
  Celine Matthiessen: Oh, sure, Tom.
• 14:45
  Celine Matthiessen: I mean, you know, national brands and brands have been in local for a long time.
• 14:49
  Celine Matthiessen: However, you know, they always kind of view it as a tactical add-on.
• 14:52
  Celine Matthiessen: Um, but you know, for 2026, um, it's shaping up to be a highly competitive year for national brands and local, um, where advertisers are leaning in harder into channels that deliver measurable market level performance.
• 15:06
  Celine Matthiessen: And it's like Rick said, especially with uh CTV OTT with that level of targeting and all the data, they're really leaning into that in the local market space.
• 15:16
  Celine Matthiessen: Um, one of the big areas that's driving that growth are all the sporting events coming up in 2026, the winter Olympics, and then the FIFA World Cup.
• 15:25
  Celine Matthiessen: I'm down in Houston.
• 15:26
  Celine Matthiessen: And so, you know, we hear all about that.
• 15:28
  Celine Matthiessen: Um, those are primarily uh primarily being monetized, that inventory is being monetized in local.
• 15:36
  Tom Buono: Yeah, it'll be an exciting year for all of that.
• 15:39
  Tom Buono: Um you help clients uh craft local sales strategies, Celine.
• 15:44
  Tom Buono: Uh, you know, what's the biggest opportunity to add value?
• 15:49
  Celine Matthiessen: Um it's definitely bundling CTV OTT with digital inventory and then localizing creative, which is getting so much easier now with all the new tools that are out there, uh, to align with the national campaign and you know, brand messaging.
• 16:03
  Celine Matthiessen: Uh local sellers can move from being viewed as a tactical add-on by these brands to a strategic growth partner.
• 16:11
  Tom Buono: Yep, for sure.
• 16:12
  Tom Buono: All right, let's go to Mark Dugan.
• 16:14
  Tom Buono: Mark is a senior director with the firm.
• 16:17
  Tom Buono: He works on the forecasting side and and really uh a lot of clients uh with briefings and helping them with their concerns.
• 16:25
  Tom Buono: Mark, let's talk about you know what's happening uh with the different business verticals and spending from our trends analysis.
• 16:33
  Tom Buono: What are we seeing there and where's the momentum?
• 16:37
  Mark Dugan: Uh sure, Tom.
• 16:38
  Mark Dugan: Uh some that Steve has already mentioned, but for um 2026, three categories are really um jumping up the page uh real estate, leisure and recreation, and restaurants.
• 16:49
  Mark Dugan: Uh real estate's out in front, uh, with followed by leisure and recreation, then uh restaurants.
• 16:56
  Mark Dugan: And uh the local sellers should be very, these should be the first verticals that they're really looking at and building their prospecting plans around with a noticeably more digital and performance targeted strategy than in years past.
• 17:12
  Mark Dugan: Uh, we'll start with real estate, and the local land spend uh in real estate is expected to climb about 5.8% in 2026, fueled by uh the easing interest rates and the buyer's journey that's much more online and uh research heavy uh than it has been in the past.
• 17:31
  Mark Dugan: The uh real estate marketers are already thinking digital first, uh search listings platforms, social, CTV video, plus uh local targeting to stay in front of the uh in-market buyers.
• 17:45
  Mark Dugan: Uh following uh leisure and recreation uh with the local spend projected to grow about 4.3% in 2026.
• 17:54
  Mark Dugan: And a lot of that momentum is coming from online gambling, uh the shifting travel behaviors, and a rising demand from uh consumers for experiences instead of just stuff.
• 18:08
  Mark Dugan: Um the categories becoming increasingly sophisticated, um, precision targeting and performance media, they're going after highly defined behavior and interest groups, the betters, the frequent travelers, the event goers.
• 18:23
  Mark Dugan: Um and then there are restaurants, which are set to boost local ad spend by about 3.7% in 2026.
• 18:32
  Mark Dugan: Uh the consumers are really, you know, they're now value-seeking diners and have a weakening brand loyalty and are um pushing the restaurant marketers to really turn up the volume and get sharper at the local level, uh, moving more local.
• 18:50
  Mark Dugan: The competitive pressure and promotion-driven consumers are really moving more dollars into digital, social, CTV, and also have tight geographic and audience targeting um to try to win that next visit.
• 19:05
  Tom Buono: Yeah, really a changing business.
• 19:07
  Tom Buono: Uh thanks, Mark.
• 19:08
  Tom Buono: Let's go to Saint An.
• 19:10
  Tom Buono: Uh Saint On is uh uh uh data scientist.
• 19:13
  Tom Buono: Uh he is our vice president for forecasting, and he's been with us about a year and is really doing a great job of taking a lot more inputs and really making our modeling more sophisticated for forecasting.
• 19:25
  Tom Buono: So, Senan, let's talk a little bit about political.
• 19:29
  Tom Buono: It's gonna be an intense midterm cycle coming up.
• 19:33
  Tom Buono: Uh, what are we seeing?
• 19:34
  Tom Buono: What is our forecast saying about political advertising?
• 19:39
  Senan Mele: Yeah, absolutely.
• 19:40
  Senan Mele: And um, thank you, Tom.
• 19:42
  Senan Mele: So there are a few very important points to make when it comes to political um advertising in 2026.
• 19:51
  Senan Mele: And the first point I will focus on here is that 2026 will be intense in terms of political advertising, but it will also be unevenly distributed.
• 20:05
  Senan Mele: And what we mean here is that uh political spend will be highly concentrated in competitive markets rather than spread evenly across the country.
• 20:19
  Senan Mele: And this is being driven primarily by all of the Senate, House, gubernatorial, and ballot races happening across the country, meaning buyers should expect pressure to be located.
• 20:33
  Senan Mele: Localized rather than uniform.
• 20:36
  Senan Mele: The second point is that political advertising remains video-led, with TV OTA as the anchor.
• 20:45
  Senan Mele: And in that light, BI is forecasting roughly 3.9 billion in political TV OTA spend, making it the single largest political medium by a wide margin.
• 21:01
  Senan Mele: It's also important to note that this number is focusing on our 2026 only forecast, where we are looking into where dollars are expected to land in that year, not the full multi-year cycle.
• 21:20
  Senan Mele: So while BIA's uh OTA estimate is modestly below the 2022 midterm peak, that does not signal um a weaker video demand, especially in a midterm year where voters tend to skew older.
• 21:38
  Senan Mele: And of course, that aligns closely with uh broadcast TV viewership.
• 21:44
  Senan Mele: Now, the third important point uh I'll want to make here is that um the it is really the changes in how video is executed because campaigns are no longer relying on linear alone.
• 22:01
  Senan Mele: They are increasingly planning TV OTA alongside CTV and YouTube as a part of a single video strategy.
• 22:10
  Senan Mele: So the way it will work is that OTA will deliver skill, trust, and rapid reach, while CTV and YouTube will provide incremental reach, frequency management, and precision, particularly among um code light and harder to reach voters.
• 22:30
  Senan Mele: So the main takeaway and the answer to your question, Tom, is that political uh advertising in 2026 has not weakened.
• 22:41
  Senan Mele: It has broadened across screens.
• 22:45
  Senan Mele: OTA will, of course, remain the foundation, especially in competitive markets, while CTV and YouTube are now core layers that are used to extend and optimize that wish.
• 22:59
  Senan Mele: And together they will define what political video will look like in 2026.
• 23:04
  Senan Mele: But um one thing uh I I want to also say is actually given uh the concentration that we've just discussed, I have a quick question for Steve.
• 23:18
  Senan Mele: Um, which is in which markets uh he thinks buyers should expect to face the most pressure, especially when it comes to higher cost and tighter availability.
• 23:31
  Steve Passwaiter: Gosh, I thought you'd never ask.
• 23:33
  Steve Passwaiter: Um thanks.
• 23:35
  Steve Passwaiter: Uh yeah, okay.
• 23:36
  Steve Passwaiter: So yeah, maybe I have a little bit of a background here with this, but um there are uh I think your point about uh unevenly distributed is uh is a is a crucial one because that's gonna be the case.
• 23:51
  Steve Passwaiter: There are gonna be some places where you're just gonna struggle to get out of the way, uh, and there are other places where you're you're really not gonna see much.
• 23:59
  Steve Passwaiter: And I'll I won't focus on all of them, but just a few of them that I think are are are kind of interesting.
• 24:05
  Steve Passwaiter: You know, I look at North Carolina where there is an uh open Senate seat.
• 24:11
  Steve Passwaiter: The Democratic candidate is the former governor of the state, probably the strongest Democrat that uh they've put up against a Republican in in some time.
• 24:22
  Steve Passwaiter: And anybody who knows anything about North Carolina Senate seats knows that they're a fist fight and they're expensive fist fights.
• 24:30
  Steve Passwaiter: Uh, I don't think there's any question that race is headed for the half billion dollar mark, might even might even go higher than that, just based on past spending.
• 24:39
  Steve Passwaiter: So certainly anything that you try to buy in North Carolina, any market, but particularly, you know, Raleigh Durham and Charlotte particularly are going to be really heavy.
• 24:51
  Steve Passwaiter: Uh Raleigh will also get a lot of money from uh North Carolina One on the House side, where the uh state legislature redrew the district to draw more Republicans in.
• 25:03
  Steve Passwaiter: That has been a swing state, uh pardon me, swing seat for quite some time in a swing state.
• 25:09
  Steve Passwaiter: But um that's gonna make this one the Democrats will want to defend uh Congressman Davis, and the Republicans will do everything they can to get rid of him.
• 25:19
  Steve Passwaiter: Um I also look at places like Michigan, uh, where there's both an open governor's seat and an open Senate seat, and a few House races that always turn out to be kind of interesting.
• 25:31
  Steve Passwaiter: They're on the fringes of Detroit.
• 25:33
  Steve Passwaiter: Um about $200 million got spent on a Senate seat a couple of years ago.
• 25:38
  Steve Passwaiter: The one that uh Elissa Slotkin, Senator Slotkin, now occupies uh the governor's race uh will will also be uh an expensive fist fight through Michigan, and Michigan is a very narrow state in both directions.
• 25:54
  Steve Passwaiter: I would expect that Detroit uh is going to be incredibly difficult to buy at multiple times during this year.
• 26:02
  Steve Passwaiter: Uh look at Texas with a redraw of the congressional districts, and uh what will likely be a very nasty primary fight on the Republican side between uh Senator Cornyn and Attorney General Paxton and Congressman Hunt uh from the Houston area.
• 26:22
  Steve Passwaiter: Those three are going to duke it out.
• 26:24
  Steve Passwaiter: That's gonna get loud, noisy, and expensive.
• 26:27
  Steve Passwaiter: Uh, and then we've got a Senate seat.
• 26:29
  Steve Passwaiter: There's also a primary on the Democratic side uh between uh Tel Rico and uh Congresswoman uh Jasmine Crockett, who is a bit of a lightning rod to uh say the least.
• 26:41
  Steve Passwaiter: And uh so should should be kind of fun.
• 26:44
  Steve Passwaiter: Celine, you know if you're gonna get to see a lot of it uh this year where you're sitting, and um it'll it'll be kind of tough, uh it'll be interesting.
• 26:52
  Steve Passwaiter: And and of course, Georgia.
• 26:54
  Steve Passwaiter: Uh Georgia has become open governor's seat uh with Governor Kemp uh bowing out after two terms and uh Senator Osoff uh fighting for his first re-elect.
• 27:05
  Steve Passwaiter: So uh again, Atlanta, um you know, good luck.
• 27:10
  Steve Passwaiter: You may need it trying to buy Atlanta if you're not a political advertiser.
• 27:14
  Steve Passwaiter: And and I'll kind of throw this one in here at the end, but look at Maine.
• 27:19
  Steve Passwaiter: Um, even a market like you know, like markets like Portland and Bangor, um, there's an open governor's seat, and Susan Collins is running for re-election.
• 27:29
  Steve Passwaiter: That is always a difficult and expensive proposition.
• 27:33
  Steve Passwaiter: I mean, she spent $150 million back in uh 2020, back in 2020, the last time she ran.
• 27:42
  Steve Passwaiter: So nine figures in Maine where there's less than a million registered voters.
• 27:46
  Steve Passwaiter: So do some math on that.
• 27:47
  Steve Passwaiter: That's pretty expensive.
• 27:49
  Steve Passwaiter: Um, there's also an open seat in the banker market, which is Maine 2, which has been represented by Jared Golden for the last few years.
• 27:58
  Steve Passwaiter: That's a district that Trump has won.
• 28:00
  Steve Passwaiter: All three times he's won, but they've elected a uh moderately conservative uh Democratic congressperson.
• 28:08
  Steve Passwaiter: He is not running.
• 28:09
  Steve Passwaiter: So that puts more pressure, even in you know, a mid-sized and uh smaller market like that.
• 28:16
  Steve Passwaiter: And we could talk about you know, Ohio Senate, Ohio Gov, we could talk about California where you know uh the districts are being redrawn.
• 28:24
  Steve Passwaiter: Bottom line is you better keep track of what is going on politically in these markets if you've got to buy anything uh this year between an accelerated primary schedule and a record midterm.
• 28:39
  Steve Passwaiter: It is going to um, you know, this isn't anything new, but the scale of the political advertising just refuses to go away.
• 28:48
  Steve Passwaiter: And this uh has been going on since Citizens United.
• 28:53
  Steve Passwaiter: It kind of opened the floodgates for all this money to come flowing into the system.
• 28:57
  Steve Passwaiter: And we keep some of us kind of keep wondering when that upward movement is going to go away, and the answer seems to be not anytime soon.
• 29:10
  Steve Passwaiter: So we probably will be having the same conversation in 2028.
• 29:15
  Tom Buono: Well, uh I think we're gonna have this conversation later in the year on one of our other podcasts because there's a lot to cover related to political advertising.
• 29:24
  Tom Buono: So thank you, Steve, on that.
• 29:26
  Tom Buono: Uh I think overall, you know, this has been pretty informative.
• 29:29
  Tom Buono: Uh and before we close out, uh, I'd like to have Mark tell people where they can get our trends report.
• 29:37
  Mark Dugan: Sure, Tom.
• 29:38
  Mark Dugan: Um for any of our Advantage clients, uh the report can be accessed and downloaded from the uh guides and insights section in Advantage, or anyone that's not a client uh can access the full report at www.bia.com/2026trends.
• 29:58
  Mark Dugan: And you can find the full report there um for your own use.
• 30:02
  Mark Dugan: Great.
• 30:03
  Tom Buono: Thank you, Mark.
• 30:04
  Tom Buono: Well, thank you all.
• 30:05
  Tom Buono: I mean, uh that's all the time we have for today.
• 30:08
  Tom Buono: Uh I want to thank the analysts for the work they do every day uh to bring clarity to a more complex local advertising marketplace as we've just talked about.
• 30:18
  Tom Buono: Uh, and their insights is what make these conversations possible.
• 30:22
  Tom Buono: If you're a BIA client and you want to go deeper into the data behind today's discussion, uh you can tune to our databases, either BIA Advantage or BIA Media Access Pro.
• 30:35
  Tom Buono: Uh if you're not a client, uh we'd love to have you as a client.
• 30:38
  Tom Buono: So you can reach out to us, email us at advantage at BIA.com.
• 30:44
  Tom Buono: We appreciate uh you joining us today and hope that you'll tune in again soon.
• 30:50
  Tom Buono: We do have a robust schedule of podcast planned for this year, and our next one is going to dive even deeper into vertical.
• 30:58
  Tom Buono: So stay tuned.
• 31:00
  Tom Buono: We appreciate you being with us and look forward to continuing the conversation we started here today throughout the year.
• 31:08
  Tom Buono: Thanks very much.