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2024 Election Insights: Lessons for the Next Cycle · Leading Local Insights

• 0:34
  Nicole Ovadia: Hello and welcome to BIA Advisory Services' Leading Local Insights Podcast.
• 0:39
  Nicole Ovadia: My name is Nicole Ovadia and I'm the VP of Forecasting and Analysis at BIA.
• 0:44
  Nicole Ovadia: I am thrilled to be here for our final podcast in our political series.
• 0:48
  Nicole Ovadia: In this four-part series we have already examined expectations going into the election, how down-ballot and issues affect spending and the rise of CTV and OTT in political spending.
• 1:01
  Nicole Ovadia: For this final installment of our series, we're going to do a post-mortem of the 2024 election cycle, focusing on what happened as expected, what didn't happen as expected, what media won and what broadcasters need to be thinking about now in order to set themselves up for success in 2026 and 2028?
• 1:23
  Nicole Ovadia: .
• 1:23
  Nicole Ovadia: There's a lot to unpack here and I am grateful to have Steve Passwaiter here with us today.
• 1:28
  Nicole Ovadia: Steve is the president of Silver Oak Political, a DC-based political consulting firm.
• 1:33
  Nicole Ovadia: Steve, say hi to all of your friends.
• 1:37
  Steve Passwaiter: Hello to all my friends.
• 1:40
  Nicole Ovadia: Your mom, I know, yeah, that kind of thing.
• 1:42
  Nicole Ovadia: Your wife, you know, listening out there.
• 1:45
  Nicole Ovadia: Additionally, we're fortunate to have Paige Albiniak with us.
• 1:48
  Nicole Ovadia: Paige is a contributing editor at TV News Check and a seasoned business writer specializing in the broadcast industry.
• 1:55
  Nicole Ovadia: BIA respects Paige's insightful coverage and astute questions about the election, and so we've invited her to join us today to foster a comprehensive and meaningful discussion.
• 2:05
  Nicole Ovadia: Paige, thank you so much for joining us today.
• 2:09
  Paige Albiniak: It's my pleasure.
• 2:11
  Nicole Ovadia: So we have a lot to get through and I want to dive right in Paige.
• 2:16
  Nicole Ovadia: I'm going to hand you the mic and let you take it away what has been on your mind, and you the mic and let you take it away what has been on your mind and on the minds of all your readers related to the election.
• 2:29
  Paige Albiniak: I mean, I don't even know if we can delve into all that, but let's just talk about what's on our mind in terms of the spend.
• 2:33
  Paige Albiniak: So recently, ad Impact came out with numbers.
• 2:35
  Paige Albiniak: I think people really pay attention to those Ad Impact numbers and they showed that nearly $11 billion was spent on this year's election, all told up from 9 billion in 2020.
• 2:50
  Paige Albiniak: So can you guys break that down for us?
• 2:51
  Paige Albiniak: So, first of all, do you agree with that $11 billion or so numbers that jive with your own analysis?
• 2:54
  Paige Albiniak: And, second, how does the number break down in terms of you know how much was spent on linear broadcast versus spent on CTV versus perhaps spent on linear cable, et cetera?
• 3:04
  Paige Albiniak: So let me kick it to Steve and then we'll go to Nicole.
• 3:10
  Steve Passwaiter: Yeah, I don't really have much of an issue with the number.
• 3:15
  Steve Passwaiter: I think it might be a touch high, but certainly within a margin of error, and I think most of us that were forecasting this election cycle were somewhere in the, you know, anywhere from like 10.5 to 12.
• 3:28
  Steve Passwaiter: There was another one that was, you know, more, was higher than that.
• 3:33
  Steve Passwaiter: I think that's sort of the range we all sort of envisioned when we started to look at what the potential was for fundraising in an election like this, where everything was so close.
• 3:53
  Steve Passwaiter: That certainly promotes a lot of people to get involved and open the wallet and the checkbook and start pouring money into these races.
• 3:59
  Steve Passwaiter: You know, as far as broadcasters are concerned, I mean, broadcasters led the pack right and that is not new news.
• 4:11
  Steve Passwaiter: Perhaps it will be news going forward, will be news going forward, but for now, you know, I think the broadcast industry probably is somewhat satisfied.
• 4:24
  Steve Passwaiter: I mean, I'm sort of thinking they were a little flattish from where they ended up in 2020.
• 4:32
  Steve Passwaiter: And we had some.
• 4:33
  Steve Passwaiter: You know, if you remember the 2020 cycle, we had some.
• 4:34
  Steve Passwaiter: There were some very unusual characteristics to it.
• 4:37
  Steve Passwaiter: We had some.
• 4:37
  Steve Passwaiter: There were some very unusual characteristics to it.
• 4:39
  Steve Passwaiter: We had the billionaire club, particularly in the primary, with Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer.
• 4:46
  Steve Passwaiter: I mean, bloomberg poured, you know, six hundred million dollars into a campaign.
• 4:51
  Steve Passwaiter: He might have been better off spending fifty grand and grabbing a debate coach, so he knew how to handle Elizabeth Warren in Las Vegas, but be that as it may, and Tom Steyer dropped $200 million or so, not to mention what Trump spent on the Republican side.
• 5:09
  Steve Passwaiter: And then we also had the runoff in Georgia, which extended into early January of 2021, extended into early January of 2021, and there was $750 million spent in the Senate races in Georgia.
• 5:28
  Steve Passwaiter: So that gave the 2020 cycle a couple of real vitamin boosts to really, really promote spending.
• 5:32
  Steve Passwaiter: And that's not to say that this cycle didn't have its own set of peculiarities.
• 5:38
  Nicole Ovadia: That's not to say that this cycle didn't have its own set of peculiarities.
• 5:40
  Nicole Ovadia: Ok, what's your take?
• 5:41
  Nicole Ovadia: Nicole?
• 5:42
  Nicole Ovadia: I agree with largely with what Steve said.
• 5:44
  Nicole Ovadia: Not surprising because he's a very smart guy for anybody who didn't know that already.
• 5:47
  Nicole Ovadia: But BIA, we were forecasting 11.7 billion in total political for 2024.
• 5:54
  Nicole Ovadia: And, yeah, we're still counting all the beans finalizing it, but it's right around that number and that's about we were expecting it to be a 20%-ish increase from 2020 and we do think that's what panned out.
• 6:09
  Nicole Ovadia: But I think what Steve was saying is so interesting in that 2020 was an interesting year.
• 6:13
  Nicole Ovadia: It was higher in a lot of places and in a lot of ways, and so the fact that 2024 grew 20% over that, I think, is just really remarkable.
• 6:24
  Nicole Ovadia: And, Paige, you had asked about television over the air and broadcasters specifically.
• 6:28
  Nicole Ovadia: So for 2024, it's looking like broadcasters.
• 6:32
  Nicole Ovadia: We think television over the air grew slightly, but not that 20%.
• 6:38
  Nicole Ovadia: We're still again figuring out that number exactly, but I've seen numbers as high as two, two and a half billion on the CTV OTT estimated spending up from.
• 6:55
  Nicole Ovadia: I mean close to zero essentially, or you know, maybe you know 500 million in the previous cycle, at best four years ago, and so very so the fact that television over the air was grew slightly.
• 7:08
  Nicole Ovadia: I think it it just does.
• 7:12
  Nicole Ovadia: It doesn't quite show the full picture of where the growth is.
• 7:15
  Nicole Ovadia: The 20% year or cycle over cycle growth is incredible, and then looking at where that went to in terms of media is really most impactful, I think.
• 7:25
  Paige Albiniak: I'm just going to follow up on something you said, which is that so it grew 20% in total from 2024.
• 7:32
  Paige Albiniak: And then Steve had laid out why 2020 was sort of unique and like in the billionaire spending, the Georgia election, et cetera.
• 7:39
  Paige Albiniak: So those things existed in 2020, yet 2024 still went up 20%.
• 7:45
  Paige Albiniak: Why?
• 7:46
  Nicole Ovadia: So I'm going to do the opposite of your question.
• 7:49
  Nicole Ovadia: Actually, and it was very interesting this cycle it was much more of a presidential cycle spending and we did not see primary money like we did four years ago.
• 7:59
  Nicole Ovadia: As we said, bloomberg wasn't there.
• 8:01
  Nicole Ovadia: The billions of dollars were not spent.
• 8:04
  Nicole Ovadia: There was no primary.
• 8:05
  Nicole Ovadia: Essentially and even I know you're going to ask about 2028.
• 8:08
  Nicole Ovadia: I mean, we could have two primaries in 2028.
• 8:12
  Nicole Ovadia: So that'll be interesting, as we're looking forward to what's the potential for 2028 is the fact that the growth that we had in 2024 was without a primary.
• 8:21
  Nicole Ovadia: So where was this coming from?
• 8:23
  Nicole Ovadia: Yeah, a lot of extra spending, a lot of PAC dollars, a lot of issue dollars, a lot of down ballot, a lot of other races, and so the spending is coming from different places, different markets and different initiatives, which is all just going to keep growing, going forward, I believe.
• 8:41
  Paige Albiniak: Steve, do you think that the late entry of Kamala Harris into the race injected money into the overall situation, or do you think it would have still come out about this much even if Biden had stayed in?
• 8:55
  Steve Passwaiter: I actually think her presence was likely additive, certainly one of the reasons that President Biden was either pushed over the cliff by the former speaker or opted to do this himself.
• 9:11
  Steve Passwaiter: One of the big problems was Democrat donors were shutting their wallets to Joe Biden, if you'll remember, and she was able, I mean.
• 9:21
  Steve Passwaiter: One thing Democrats never struggle with is money.
• 9:23
  Steve Passwaiter: Money is not an issue for Democrats and indeed we've heard all these stories in recent days about what she did with a billion dollars she raised over practically overnight when you think about it, 107 days or however long it was.
• 9:40
  Steve Passwaiter: So I certainly believe her presence clearly added to the pile this year and I believe she was the largest candidate spender in the cycle and largest advertiser in the cycle period.
• 10:00
  Steve Passwaiter: She had that top spot and that's not surprising.
• 10:06
  Steve Passwaiter: But had President Biden stayed in, they might have been looking under the couch cushions trying to figure out how to come up with money.
• 10:15
  Paige Albiniak: It's funny.
• 10:15
  Paige Albiniak: I was talking to somebody yesterday and they were saying that Harris took out an ad on the Las Vegas sphere and then and I was like, how do you measure the ROI on that?
• 10:25
  Paige Albiniak: And they were like, well, that's in process, it remains to be seen.
• 10:28
  Paige Albiniak: And I was like, well, the ROI is zero because she lost.
• 10:32
  Paige Albiniak: Like presidential is is is an analog right, it's like a digital result.
• 10:37
  Paige Albiniak: It's a zero or it's a one.
• 10:38
  Paige Albiniak: It's not like you go oh okay, I got this many in this demographic because at the end of the day it kind of doesn't matter.
• 10:44
  Paige Albiniak: But I just sort of thought it was funny and interesting that you know that was one of the ways she spent her money.
• 10:49
  Paige Albiniak: Let's talk a little bit.
• 10:52
  Paige Albiniak: One thing I wanted to ask you about before we kind of move on a little bit, is about fundraising.
• 10:57
  Paige Albiniak: So everybody says that the way that you kind of gauge what the total spend is going to be is you look at fundraising and you ask so my fundraising?
• 11:05
  Paige Albiniak: Do you guys think that fundraising in 2028 will remain as high as fervent as it has been in the last two cycles?
• 11:16
  Nicole Ovadia: Yes, I mean, I do, personally, I think so.
• 11:19
  Nicole Ovadia: So I think that fundraising and the dollar spent and everything has to do with how close the elections are.
• 11:26
  Nicole Ovadia: And in America and today, in the race, like it was 1982, and you know the winner, the leader was leading by, you know, 60, 70% of the vote, like nobody would be spending money on on trying to get these votes.
• 11:50
  Nicole Ovadia: It's these, the elections are so close that that brings billions and billions of dollars, because getting those last few votes I mean the first 40, 45% of the votes that you get are pretty much free, like you don't have to advertise at all, they're there.
• 12:05
  Nicole Ovadia: But that last bit to get you over the edge to 50 to 51%, oh, so expensive and just getting more and more expensive, I believe going into 2028.
• 12:15
  Paige Albiniak: That's such a crazy way to look at it, like what's expensive?
• 12:18
  Paige Albiniak: Is that final?
• 12:19
  Paige Albiniak: Like two percent, that's it.
• 12:20
  Paige Albiniak: I mean it's not even on.
• 12:22
  Paige Albiniak: Yeah, that's crazy.
• 12:23
  Paige Albiniak: I think I just heard today that that um in the final vote count that trump won the popular by only 1.6 percent.
• 12:32
  Paige Albiniak: So that sort of proved out how close the polls were saying it is, andi feel like we all now live in a world where we have to hear the phrase margin of error all the time.
• 12:41
  Paige Albiniak: But that's where that lives.
• 12:45
  Steve Passwaiter: It's hard for me to imagine that.
• 12:47
  Steve Passwaiter: You know, if we're looking at the 26 midterm right in front of us, compared to what it was in 22, there are 36 governor's races coming up in 26, and a lot of them are going to be open seats because you'll have a number of term limited governors.
• 13:08
  Steve Passwaiter: I mean Michigan, Florida, Ohio, just as, example, California.
• 13:14
  Steve Passwaiter: You're going to have a limited term limited governor, a limited, you know, term limited governor.
• 13:22
  Steve Passwaiter: So you're going to have a lot of open seats and that will create a lot more competition and both sides really raising money trying to take that over from the other, from the other party 33 Senate seats where the Democrats were in defense in this cycle that flips around and the Republicans will be defending far more seats than the Democrats.
• 13:46
  Steve Passwaiter: So, once again, yeah, okay, it's 53-47, assuming that Bob Casey concedes sometime before you know the next election, which I'm not so sure about, it seems.
• 14:00
  Steve Passwaiter: You know the next election, which I'm not so sure about, it seems.
• 14:05
  Steve Passwaiter: But given that there again you've got a fairly competitive situation, as Nicole was talking about, and it's that competition and the thought that things that you can't have or you haven't had are attainable, like winning the House, winning the Senate.
• 14:21
  Steve Passwaiter: For Democrats to win more governorships than Republicans is something that would reverse quite a long period of time where Republicans have had the lead in governorships around the country.
• 14:36
  Steve Passwaiter: So there will also be plenty of state legislative elections.
• 14:41
  Steve Passwaiter: Those are now more important and are better funded than ever before, thanks to the Dobbs.
• 14:47
  Steve Passwaiter: Come to the conclusion that it's going to be tight and close, and therefore expensive.
• 14:54
  Steve Passwaiter: It doesn't seem as if, you know, we're going to see any real change to what we've been witnessing since Citizens United 10 years ago been witnessing since Citizens United 10 years ago, do you?
• 15:22
  Paige Albiniak: I mean, that's interesting too because of the states that you mentioned.
• 15:24
  Paige Albiniak: Those are some very big name governors and potential presidential candidates, right Like you've got Wittner, you've got Gavin Newsom, you've got DeSantis I don't know that he'll be a political presidential candidate again, but those are all very you know, very well-known candidates within the party.
• 15:41
  Paige Albiniak: So do you think, steve, do you have off the top of your head what the totals were for 2022?
• 15:47
  Paige Albiniak: And so, and do you expect 26 to exceed those totals?
• 16:01
  Steve Passwaiter: totals.
• 16:02
  Steve Passwaiter: I really do, and I'm trying to remember.
• 16:03
  Steve Passwaiter: If it was like, uh, you know, it was somewhere around nine billion dollars in 22 if my memory serves me correctly, it was, uh, somewhere right around that figure, right which meant that there was, you know, about 17 billion dollars raised, uh, for fundraising in that cycle, which is just mind blowing.
• 16:22
  Steve Passwaiter: Put that zeros behind things like this, but that's the truth of the matter, so I wouldn't not be at all.
• 16:29
  Steve Passwaiter: You know, I fully expect that there will be more money to be spent in 2026 than there was in 2022.
• 16:39
  Nicole Ovadia: Yeah, 2026 could be on par with 2024, to be honest, you know it could be, you know, 10 or 11 billion dollars at the end of the day.
• 16:47
  Nicole Ovadia: You know, I know it's a midterm that seems crazy, but you know we have just, we just keep moving the needles like we just, yeah, it just keeps happening.
• 16:57
  Paige Albiniak: I can hear broadcasters rubbing their hands together from here.
• 17:00
  Paige Albiniak: All right, so let's talk about some of the move from linear to CTV, which, in a way, I feel like for broadcasters, at least like the ones that are doing this strategically, that's a little bit one pocket to the other.
• 17:14
  Paige Albiniak: Right Like they're, they're going to pair their linear offerings with their CTV offerings, or they'll work with partners to expand reach linear offerings with their CTV offerings, or they'll work with partners to expand reach.
• 17:23
  Paige Albiniak: So it still might all go back to broadcasters.
• 17:26
  Paige Albiniak: But to what do you guys?
• 17:27
  Paige Albiniak: Why do you think that that move is happening?
• 17:30
  Paige Albiniak: What is the advantage to going to CTV for campaigns?
• 17:32
  Paige Albiniak: And I'll start with Nicole, since I started with Steve last time.
• 17:35
  Nicole Ovadia: Sure.
• 17:36
  Nicole Ovadia: So looking, peeling back the layers on the CTV.
• 17:39
  Nicole Ovadia: So we did talk about how that's grown tremendously Right, probably as high as one billion dollars this cycle at the end of the day, when we count it all up.
• 17:46
  Nicole Ovadia: But I do think it's very interesting to see who was buying those.
• 17:50
  Nicole Ovadia: So the House races, the local races, fueled that CTV OTT spending like nothing else, way more than the presidential elections, and that doesn't surprise me at all, because CTV and OTT is targetable.
• 18:04
  Nicole Ovadia: I mean, that's exactly what we're trying to do here.
• 18:08
  Nicole Ovadia: And the other interesting thing, though, is that number going back to that broadcast number staying pretty steady.
• 18:15
  Nicole Ovadia: It's interesting to figure out who are they trying to reach, where are these votes?
• 18:20
  Nicole Ovadia: Who are they?
• 18:21
  Nicole Ovadia: And so, again, that's getting to those new voters or undecided voters.
• 18:25
  Nicole Ovadia: There aren't very many of them, and so one of the things with the CTV OTT that was very attractive.
• 18:32
  Nicole Ovadia: Local races you can find your potential voters.
• 18:35
  Nicole Ovadia: You have to buy that, but when you're talking about a much larger race like the presidential race, the CTVOTT wasn't as attractive.
• 18:44
  Nicole Ovadia: I don't think.
• 18:44
  Nicole Ovadia: I think they were spending their money on the broadcast to get their messaging out there, to make sure that they reach first-time voters, or don't often vote voters or older voters and that was much more of a broadcast play than success on the CTVOTT play, than success on the CTV OTT.
• 19:00
  Nicole Ovadia: So just to try and summarize that growth I really think came from the down ballot, the local races and House Senate races and whatnot, and we're going to see that continue into the next cycles.
• 19:14
  Paige Albiniak: Do you want to add anything to that Steve?
• 19:17
  Steve Passwaiter: Yeah, I don't think you want to overlook the amount of presidential spending that went into CTV this cycle.
• 19:26
  Steve Passwaiter: I mean, I think you probably would imagine that they did make up a pretty large percentage because of the fact that they were very trying to target these relatively narrow segments, although as you get along in the cycle you tend to open up those requirements a little bit, because there's not a whole lot of inventory left.
• 19:50
  Steve Passwaiter: Otherwise, because everybody's trying to find the same five people for sure.
• 19:55
  Steve Passwaiter: There is no question, however, that this is just part of the move to digital.
• 20:03
  Steve Passwaiter: Where we target, we want to use a more somewhat elegant solution to reach the people that we think we want to reach, instead of just trying to go for everybody to the to that end.
• 20:17
  Steve Passwaiter: To that end, there's no question that if you're in a US House race or you're in a state legislative race state Senate, state legislature you know even right down to the dog catcher in.
• 20:33
  Steve Passwaiter: You know, in Podunk County there's a lot of areas in broadcast and they can't help this not yet, but there's a lot of areas that you will reach where either people can't vote for you because they don't live in the district.
• 20:50
  Steve Passwaiter: You know, when you take the whole DMA orban area to the west of Washington DC and they spent the vast majority of it on broadcast it.
• 21:16
  Steve Passwaiter: That actually would even consider you know who were either able to or would consider voting for these candidates.
• 21:23
  Steve Passwaiter: That it just makes you, you know, as a donor I would have pulled my hair out asking why in God's name are you doing this when you're appealing to such a narrow part of the DCDMA?
• 21:36
  Steve Passwaiter: So it makes a lot more sense for these kind of candidates to take that money they have and try to use it in a connected television way.
• 21:45
  Steve Passwaiter: I'm not saying you cut out broadcast altogether in that instance, but you know, if it were me, I'd be leaning much more heavily to the streaming side, knowing that I can target geographically an awful lot better than I can by using, you know, more traditional methods and to pile on to that, I mean we did see that um harris spent a lot less on television over the air compared to biden, even you know so she was moving that money over to the ctv ott and in her in.
• 22:14
  Nicole Ovadia: You know so, even looking at how the democrats, if you change their buying over the course during this cycle, we saw that money moving and that's consistent with how the Democrats buy.
• 22:26
  Steve Passwaiter: I mean, I think Democrats tend to probably think digital more quickly traditionally than Republicans do, although you know the Trump people had some really savvy folks buying their, buying their media for him this time and but I believe I had impacts at something to the effect that it was about 60, 40.
• 22:48
  Steve Passwaiter: I connected television, you know, from Harris to Trump.
• 22:51
  Steve Passwaiter: You know she out, she outspent him there rather liberally, if you don't mind the pun.
• 22:59
  Nicole Ovadia: Yeah, and overall I don't mind the pun.
• 23:01
  Nicole Ovadia: Yeah, and overall I don't mind the pun and overall the Republicans spent about 48 percent of their dollars on television over the air.
• 23:08
  Nicole Ovadia: Democrats were 42 percent traditional.
• 23:10
  Nicole Ovadia: So again just reemphasizes that point Republicans tend to spend more traditional television, democrats leaning more digital these days.
• 23:18
  Paige Albiniak: So and then we're talking about CTV, otv, ott, just to define for listeners.
• 23:24
  Paige Albiniak: So we're talking about everything from like even like a Disney plus ad supported tier or Hulu, or maybe even Netflix, down to Pluto, to Tubi, and then maybe even broadcasters like streaming apps, things like that, correct?
• 23:39
  Paige Albiniak: Yes, yeah.
• 23:40
  Paige Albiniak: Don't leave Peacock out of there, obviously, like streaming apps, things like that, correct?
• 23:46
  Paige Albiniak: Yes, that's our tier.
• 23:46
  Paige Albiniak: Yeah, don't leave Peacock out of there, obviously.
• 23:47
  Steve Passwaiter: Yes, don't leave Peacock, for sure, or Flex on the Fox side, because, as we know now, there is no separation between the people that are selling linear and streaming.
• 23:57
  Steve Passwaiter: They coexist in the same office and so it's very much an integrated offer.
• 24:03
  Steve Passwaiter: If you're working for NBC Universal, you're doing both, as are most of the network folks for sure.
• 24:16
  Nicole Ovadia: That is an interesting point though, because I think that's one of the things we're going to see changing as we move into 26 and 28 is more kind of trying to buy directly.
• 24:26
  Nicole Ovadia: I expect these campaigns to try and get rid of as many middlemen as possible, saving dollars and bringing down their CPMs and everything wherever possible.
• 24:36
  Nicole Ovadia: More campaigns and more packs dealing directly with you know, and various CTV OTT distributors and trying to get rid of as much of the middleman as possible, so that'll that price sensitivity could get interesting in terms of that competition.
• 24:54
  Paige Albiniak: And I mean and that's certainly where the industry is going in terms of the way they offer to buy, yeah, so, then also, if you have other digital players and Stephen, I think you and I talked about this in an earlier conversation but like a Google or a Meta, or not necessarily a TV specific platform, but a very digital specific platform are those guys also players or not so much?
• 25:16
  Steve Passwaiter: Oh, clearly I think Google had a, you know, led by YouTube.
• 25:20
  Steve Passwaiter: I mean YouTube.
• 25:21
  Steve Passwaiter: You know YouTube is a must have in campaigns, right, and it gets used for everything.
• 25:27
  Steve Passwaiter: It got heavily used for fundraising by both sides.
• 25:32
  Steve Passwaiter: It got in addition to whatever you know YouTube TV ads there were that flowed through to that platform.
• 25:40
  Steve Passwaiter: I don't sense that Meta had the robust cycle that Google did and I sort of wonder with those guys whether part of that is designed that way, because they obviously will not let you target as robustly as they will commercial advertisers and, given how much grief Mark Zuckerberg gets on Capitol Hill, I think he'd rather lock his top salespeople in a room for 30 minutes and say go find me 500 million dollars so I don't have to take this from the political people.
• 26:20
  Paige Albiniak: So, yeah, you can buy Meta if you want to, but I don't think anybody's doing any celebratory high fives in the metal offices in Northern California when that happens interested in, too is this idea of earned media and whether or not earned media and the places where earned media shows up, like podcasts, for example, if that has any possibility of taking any of that political spending pie or if you think it's just additive.
• 26:53
  Paige Albiniak: And I also think the earned media question is very interesting just because several people I've talked to through this cycle are just, you know, nobody really does earn media like Trump, so he really does a great job of getting media to him whenever he wants it and you know his podcast with Joe Rogan, I think, did like 70 million uniques or something crazy.
• 27:13
  Paige Albiniak: So what do you guys think in terms of the role that earned media played in this election?
• 27:18
  Paige Albiniak: Do you see that continuing?
• 27:20
  Paige Albiniak: Do you see that changing the nature of spend?
• 27:24
  Nicole Ovadia: Nicole, great question.
• 27:26
  Nicole Ovadia: I mean earned media.
• 27:27
  Nicole Ovadia: You know it definitely played a role in this election cycle.
• 27:31
  Nicole Ovadia: I think it also played a role in Obama's first election cycle as well.
• 27:35
  Nicole Ovadia: So we can look back as another election where grassroots earned media whatever you want to call it like things outside of traditional buying, had seemed to have had an impact.
• 27:46
  Nicole Ovadia: I guess, in terms of the earned media for Trump, that goes back to where is he earning this media?
• 27:53
  Nicole Ovadia: Like who and who's seeing that?
• 27:55
  Nicole Ovadia: Like is it reaching the eyeballs of the people that he would be targeting or is it reemphasizing, you know, like he never would have spent the dollars?
• 28:04
  Nicole Ovadia: Where he's earning that media, I guess, is where I come back to.
• 28:07
  Nicole Ovadia: So, yes, it's earned media.
• 28:08
  Nicole Ovadia: Those are impressions, absolutely, but the return on that there's no investment, so hard to calculate an ROI there.
• 28:16
  Nicole Ovadia: But earned media, you know it's interesting, I think it has an effect, but I don't think it's going to take away from dollars actually being spent.
• 28:28
  Nicole Ovadia: I just don't think it's something that you can plan for in a deliberate way to go after you know the votes that you're trying to seek.
• 28:37
  Nicole Ovadia: I just don't think that would be a successful strategy.
• 28:40
  Nicole Ovadia: But that's my thought.
• 28:43
  Paige Albiniak: What do you think, steve?
• 28:43
  Paige Albiniak: And also, do you think that you'll see candidates spending on things like you know, audio media like a Spotify platform or platforms where political podcasts exist, to try to go in and get that?
• 28:56
  Paige Albiniak: Or is it what Nicole said, that earned media is sort of where those voters already lie, so you don't really need to spend against it?
• 29:07
  Steve Passwaiter: So I often wonder if the earned media phenomenon is just a Trump thing and whether or not.
• 29:15
  Steve Passwaiter: Once Mr Trump exits the scene, how much earned media would there be?
• 29:21
  Steve Passwaiter: And clearly, his business experience and his media experience comes in really handy at moments like this.
• 29:33
  Steve Passwaiter: And, as far as you know, alternative platforms are a concern.
• 29:38
  Steve Passwaiter: Paige I, you know podcasts are having a difficult time getting monetized to begin with.
• 29:44
  Steve Passwaiter: Begin with and thank you to eMarketer, who put something out this week on podcasting that I'm going to borrow from here a bit in this missive.
• 29:56
  Steve Passwaiter: But there are also some issues about, well, you know, how do you?
• 30:01
  Steve Passwaiter: You can skip ads, and what happens if the candidates want to be on a platform where they can skip it.
• 30:07
  Steve Passwaiter: So you know, I'm not saying that they won't do it, but there are some challenges that perhaps have to be overcome.
• 30:16
  Steve Passwaiter: And, let's face it, for Trump, the Rogan thing is not an accident.
• 30:23
  Steve Passwaiter: He was heavily favored by men, and particularly younger men, who seem to be growing up and going to the right as much as young women are going left.
• 30:36
  Steve Passwaiter: So for Mr Trump, this was an opportunity to speak to the proverbial choir.
• 30:42
  Steve Passwaiter: This is the people he wanted to reach and Rogan is also involved in, you know, kind of the mixed martial arts stuff and you know, and that was an audience that Mr Trump was very interested in reaching and that was a that was part of his coalition was getting those people.
• 31:03
  Steve Passwaiter: Rogan hit that nail right on the head for him.
• 31:08
  Steve Passwaiter: For Kamala Harris, you know that will probably be one of the bigger mistakes of her campaign was not going on Rogan to try to push back against that.
• 31:18
  Steve Passwaiter: You know, maybe they decided it wasn't worth it or they didn't like the terms that he was putting forth.
• 31:25
  Steve Passwaiter: But whatever, you know, that was no accident that Donald Trump went on Joe Rogan.
• 31:31
  Steve Passwaiter: No, that's not an accident at all.
• 31:34
  Steve Passwaiter: That was clearly designed and that was clearly his attempt to close the deal with young men who happen to like a lot of the same sort of sporting events that he seems to Right.
• 31:48
  Paige Albiniak: I mean, what do you think, Nicole?
• 31:49
  Paige Albiniak: Do you think that there was anything Harris could have done on the earned media front, kind of like what Steve just said in terms of going on Rogan or going other places?
• 31:57
  Paige Albiniak: She did definitely try to do similar things to what Trump did.
• 32:01
  Paige Albiniak: I just don't think she got as big an audience as Trump did with Rogan.
• 32:05
  Nicole Ovadia: I guess my only issue with this premise is I don't think that Trump going on Rogan is why he won the election.
• 32:12
  Nicole Ovadia: I think Trump went on Rogan yes, it didn't hurt him at all, but I don't think that's why.
• 32:17
  Nicole Ovadia: I don't think that pushed him over the edge.
• 32:19
  Nicole Ovadia: I don't think that's why the Democrats lost.
• 32:21
  Nicole Ovadia: So I don't necessarily think that, you know, harris going on Rogan would have moved it.
• 32:27
  Nicole Ovadia: It might have, it might not.
• 32:28
  Nicole Ovadia: I just don't think it would have because, again, most people who are Rogan listeners, you know, I think that the Democrats needed to do a better job of acknowledging that this country is going through difficult times for many, many people and they didn't do a good job of that and they could have done that via earned media, you know.
• 33:02
  Nicole Ovadia: I mean, yeah, that's the kind of place you know Harris could have been on the View or whatever, talking about other.
• 33:07
  Nicole Ovadia: You know that kind of earning, that kind of media, but just showing up is not enough.
• 33:11
  Nicole Ovadia: The messaging content is what matters, to be honest.
• 33:15
  Steve Passwaiter: Well, I'm going to, if I can interject, I'm going to take a little bit of a different stance with you on this one, Nicole, and here's why.
• 33:54
  Steve Passwaiter: And here's why Her inability and I don't believe that Trump going on Rogan was what won him the election, but I think it sealed, it helped him seal relationships with a part of the voters had that Kamala Harris could not do a three-hour interview and stay on her feet for three hours, that she was rather heavily scripted, that she only had certain lines that she used and I think Katie Couric talked about this earlier this week on her podcast that she was too scripted to do a three-hour interview with Joe Rogan, who just kind of lets it go.
• 34:19
  Steve Passwaiter: And I think her unwillingness to do that helped, for people who were feeling that way, helped cement the fact that she wasn't good enough on her feet or had enough of a grasp of the issues to be able to do something like that.
• 34:32
  Steve Passwaiter: So I think whether or not the audience was the right audience for her and we can certainly debate that but the fact of the matter that she wasn't willing to do a freewheeling three-hour interview with the guy was sort of more evidence that she just wasn't up to being on her own for three hours and I mean she tried to limit him to an hour, wanted him to come to Washington and Brogan's like hey, nobody else is doing that and uh, you know, everybody's coming to me, I'm not going to do that.
• 35:05
  Steve Passwaiter: So I think it may have just fed that perception.
• 35:08
  Steve Passwaiter: That's where I would kind of draw the line there.
• 35:11
  Paige Albiniak: I wonder if it's also that by not going on Rogan it's sort of doubled down on those young men's feeling that like Kamala was not for them, you know, like she's not really here for us so and we're already sort of anti anyway, and it just sort of made them feel like just confirm that for us so and we're already sort of anti anyway, and it just sort of made them feel like just confirm that for them.
• 35:32
  Steve Passwaiter: Yeah, I think that's going to be a hard one to know.
• 35:34
  Steve Passwaiter: Unless we can have a conversation with the 70 million folks that you know downloaded the interview, which may be, you know, may be more than we can figure out in the remaining time of the podcast here.
• 35:50
  Paige Albiniak: Okay so, and yeah, we don't have too the remaining time of the podcast here.
• 35:53
  Paige Albiniak: Okay so, and yeah, we don't have too much more time, I'm going to sort of throw a.
• 35:56
  Paige Albiniak: I'm going to throw a curve ball, so we'll see where this goes.
• 36:00
  Paige Albiniak: But and this should be the last question, but it's been interesting to me and, I will admit, not a little bit concerning that.
• 36:06
  Paige Albiniak: So Brandon Carr, who's Trump has nominated to be the chair of the FCC, was on Fox News this week talking about looking at the 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris and the editing of it in light of the of Skydance acquisition of Paramount, which sort of begs the question of you know how much is Trump going to hold media's feet to the fire, especially when he thinks that they have wronged him in some way?
• 36:30
  Paige Albiniak: So do you think that if they get very, if they start to really enforce fairness doctrine or equal time rules, that that has any possibility of chilling political spend on broadcast or does just increase it because everybody's got to do equal time?
• 36:50
  Steve Passwaiter: it because everybody's got to do equal time.
• 36:52
  Steve Passwaiter: And I'll start with Steve.
• 36:52
  Steve Passwaiter: Well, not being an FCC attorney, I'm going to.
• 36:59
  Steve Passwaiter: I'm not, you know, I'm sort of treading into places.
• 37:01
  Steve Passwaiter: I don't normally go here.
• 37:01
  Steve Passwaiter: You know, I don't think political advertisers really care very much about all of this.
• 37:07
  Steve Passwaiter: They're more interested in reaching audiences and where they have to find the voters.
• 37:12
  Steve Passwaiter: And you know, we're coming up on a midterm page and what we know about midterm voters is that they tend to be it tends to be an older electorate and certainly broadcasters having 50 plus, you know, age audiences and stuff is probably going to be really important and something that can't be ignored, no matter what Brendan Carr does or does not do as chairman of the FCC, and I would kind of be surprised a little bit if this got too crazy.
• 37:51
  Paige Albiniak: You think it's more bark than bite?
• 37:54
  Steve Passwaiter: You know, I hope so.
• 37:55
  Steve Passwaiter: Let me just put it that way I hope so.
• 37:58
  Steve Passwaiter: I mean, I'm not crazy about what CBS did with with the 60 minutes thing, but is it a you know?
• 38:08
  Steve Passwaiter: You know what kind of a sin is it in all of this?
• 38:13
  Steve Passwaiter: And the best path down here is just to you know, not fixate on this kind of stuff.
• 38:24
  Steve Passwaiter: I think Mr Trump won the election.
• 38:26
  Steve Passwaiter: It obviously didn't hurt him.
• 38:27
  Steve Passwaiter: I know he didn't like it, but it didn't hurt him.
• 38:28
  Steve Passwaiter: Trump won the election.
• 38:29
  Steve Passwaiter: It obviously didn't hurt him.
• 38:29
  Steve Passwaiter: I know he didn't like it, but it didn't hurt him.
• 38:31
  Steve Passwaiter: He won the election.
• 38:32
  Steve Passwaiter: The Republicans have got the Senate and the House.
• 38:34
  Steve Passwaiter: You know what.
• 38:36
  Steve Passwaiter: It's time to move on, folks.
• 38:38
  Paige Albiniak: Take your win.
• 38:38
  Paige Albiniak: Yeah, Nicole, you get the last word.
• 38:43
  Paige Albiniak: What would you like to close with?
• 38:46
  Nicole Ovadia: Oh, ok.
• 38:46
  Nicole Ovadia: Well, just in terms of of the FCC, I guess I'll just pick up there.
• 38:49
  Nicole Ovadia: Um, honestly, yeah, I'm not too worried about the FCC either.
• 38:54
  Nicole Ovadia: By the time they even appoint somebody, it'll be, you know, close to the end of 2025.
• 39:01
  Nicole Ovadia: And then in the past, I mean what we've heard from Carr.
• 39:04
  Nicole Ovadia: If anything, I would expect him to maybe go after ownership caps, maybe.
• 39:09
  Nicole Ovadia: But the other thing is, trump has said so many things, he has so many initiatives.
• 39:15
  Nicole Ovadia: Everything is the most important thing in the world.
• 39:17
  Nicole Ovadia: Like, obviously, he can't do it all, it can't all happen.
• 39:20
  Nicole Ovadia: And so every single thing that has been threatened, screamed about, promised whatever you want to call it, depending on your perspective like it's just physically not possible.
• 39:41
  Nicole Ovadia: And so you know, when I'm thinking about how much could the FCC do, or how much of a problem could this be if it becomes the issue, yeah, campaign or anything like that going over the next four years.
• 39:49
  Nicole Ovadia: So I don't think the FCC is going to do anything significant over the course of the next four years, to be honest.
• 39:54
  Paige Albiniak: Yeah, yeah, that's interesting because, yeah, again, in talking to people you know Carr was, he's up through, I think, 26, but they have to bring in a third commissioner, a Republican commissioner, and they still have to get them confirmed.
• 40:08
  Paige Albiniak: So and then you've got two years until this, you know, till things potentially all switch with the midterms.
• 40:14
  Paige Albiniak: So you're right, and every lobbyist in town is like on the starting blocks ready to get their asks in.
• 40:20
  Paige Albiniak: So, yeah, it's going to be a real interesting yeah.
• 40:24
  Steve Passwaiter: Paige.
• 40:25
  Steve Passwaiter: I am really hoping that Mr Musk and Mr Ramaswamy make a visit to the portals and, while they're sitting there trying to figure out how to save money, and upgrading computer systems so that something that was actually created in this century instead of the last one, I hope they also take the time to modernize the rules and convince these boneheads at the FCC that it's not 1975 anymore.
• 40:53
  Paige Albiniak: Ok well, maybe we'll do a separate podcast about regulations, but I'm here for All right you guys.
• 41:00
  Paige Albiniak: Thank you so much.
• 41:01
  Paige Albiniak: It was wonderful to talk to both of you and you gave a lot of like great.
• 41:05
  Paige Albiniak: I think you really set us up well to looking for the next cycle, which sounds like it's going to be bigger than ever.
• 41:11
  Nicole Ovadia: Absolutely yes.
• 41:12
  Nicole Ovadia: Paige, I cannot thank you enough for being here and for taking the time to ask all of your amazing questions.
• 41:17
  Nicole Ovadia: I am very much looking forward to your inevitable article in TV News Check and I'm excited to continue to read about how everything is going to continue to play out as things go forward in the next year and beyond.
• 41:29
  Nicole Ovadia: So, Paige, thank you, thank you, thank you and please say thank you to our audience.
• 41:33
  Paige Albiniak: Thanks everybody.
• 41:34
  Paige Albiniak: It was great to talk to you, Steve as always.
• 41:38
  Nicole Ovadia: Yes, no, I must thank you individually.
• 41:40
  Nicole Ovadia: I am very grateful for all of your thoughts and insights and the conversation that we've been having over the course of this entire political series.
• 41:47
  Nicole Ovadia: Clearly, political is not a once every four years kind of thing, and so I expect you and I will continue to have conversations and continue to analyze as everything in political continues to change.
• 42:00
  Nicole Ovadia: So thank you, thank you, thank you for being here and promise me you'll come back come back.
• 42:12
  Steve Passwaiter: I've really appreciated the time and the invitations and I will certainly look forward to that whenever it occurs.
• 42:14
  Nicole Ovadia: Awesome and for all of our listeners out there.
• 42:17
  Nicole Ovadia: Thank you for joining us for this very special episode of BIA Advisory Services' Leading Local Insights podcast.
• 42:24
  Nicole Ovadia: We will be back again with more compelling topics and guests, because if it's happening in local advertising, we talking about it here.
• 42:31
  Nicole Ovadia: If you have any questions or topics that you want us to talk about in the future, please email us at podcasts@ bia.
• 42:38
  Nicole Ovadia: com.
• 42:40
  Nicole Ovadia: Until next time, have a great day.