IN BRIEF: Sept. 11 weekly political ad buys
Every week Project Open Vault receives new political ad buy contracts from three mid-Missouri TV stations, updating our ad spending database as soon as possible. Below is a brief look at the past week’s ad buys:
Political advertising has slowed down over the past week due, in-part, to a new political advertising window and the Labor Day holiday, which typically marks the beginning of the final fight to election day. The new window brings with it adjusted advertising rates and times, requiring TV stations and political candidates to rework some of their plans for advertisements.
With just under eight weeks left until the general election, sales officials at the three mid-Missouri stations say they expect advertising to pick up soonAdvertising is expected to pick up soon. Even with the slowdown three candidates are still holding fast in TV campaigning.
Incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill has released a new ad touting her record as a moderate U.S. Senator. The ad is based off a 2011 ranking of U.S. Senators by National Journal, which placed McCaskill right in the ideological middle at number 50. National Journal compiled the rankings by analyzing senators votes on key issues.
McCaskill spent $25,795 over the past week on political ads. She has yet to run any ads directly attacking her opponent, Republican U.S. Rep. Todd Akin, since his comments on rape and abortion. Akin still has two weeks to request a court order to be taken off of the election ballot, but he has repeatedly said he will stay in the race.
Last week, Akin once again garnered media attention after doubts were raised about the financial stability of his campaign due to a lack of payments on political ad contracts.
One mid-Missouri station, KOMU TV-8, reported on Sept. 6 that the station, as well as others across the state, had cancelled scheduled ads because they had not recieved payment from the Akin campaign. Akin and his campaign declared the story false, insisting that payment had been made for the ads and later cut ties with KOMU, saying Akin would no longer be running ads on the local NBC affiliate.
From an original ad buy of $6,500, KOMU ran less than half of the scheduled ads due to a lack of payment for $3,850 worth of ads, according to ad contracts and station officials. Akin apparently planned to buy a new contract during the new advertising window that began Sept. 7, but did not after he announced his campaign would no longer be working with KOMU.
In addition to KOMU, mid-Missouri station KRCG did not run half of an ad buy that was originally worth $10,550, according to political ad contracts from the station. Since last week the Akin campaign bought a contract for $5,200 worth of ads, which serves as a replacement for the ads not run last week.
Other mid-Missouri ad buys:
Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon is continuing to run the same ad from last week, entitled “Here in Missouri.” Over the past week his campaign purchased $11,650 worth of ad time.
Caleb Rowden, the GOP nominee for the 44th state House District, has bought $9,665 worth of time for ads set to run in October. During the primary, Rowden beat out three Republican challengers, including a former state senator, Dennis Smith. For the general election, Rowden is once again running against a former state legislator, Democrat Ken Jacob.
