W. Post: Follow the Money

March 20, 2001 3:12 PM

W. Post: Follow the Money Or, rather, are TV stations gouging political advertisers -- and is this, the price of advertising, the quandary rather than reforming the financing of said campaign or issue advertising? Quite intriguing.
posted by raysmj (5 comments total)

There's no intrigue WRT candidates; It's against federal law for stations to price-gouge any ads bought by or for a candidate for national office within 45 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election. They have to give you their current lowest unit rate. General issue ads, however, go for whatever the market will bear.
posted by aaron at 11:23 PM on March 20, 2001

Wrong. There's been loopholes added to that law over the years,. just as there has almost every FCC regulation dealing with broadcasters responsibility to the public in return for being given one of the few licenses available. Stations can preempt lowest unit rate ads at their discretion, and political advertisers are often pressured into spending on regular advertising for a sure bet.
posted by raysmj at 6:33 AM on March 21, 2001

I only saw Broder's editorial after I posted my comment on this issue but it's nice to know that someone else has recognized one of the major causes of skyrocketing campaign costs.
posted by Octaviuz at 8:22 AM on March 21, 2001

Ditto
posted by Octaviuz at 9:22 AM on March 21, 2001

OK, I think we need RedundancyMan to get involved here. This is getting a little repetitive . You'd think somebody on Capitol Hill would have noticed the solution by now.
posted by Octaviuz at 9:26 AM on March 23, 2001