Effectv, Comcast Cable’s advertising sales division, said it has hired Chris Vail as VP, political sales.

Vail, who had been head of government, political and omnichannel advertising at Snap, fills a post that had been held by veteran Dan Sinagoga, who has become a senior adviser to the company.

In his new position, Vail will head Effectv’s political sales unit and oversee its relationships with Comcast Government Affairs and Ampersand. 

Vail previously worked at Effectv (then known as Comcast Spotlight) in 2013 as an account executive.

Sinagoga will continue to work closely with the political sales team and Effectv leadership as the company prepares for the 2024 presidential election cycle.

“At Effectv, we firmly believe that talent is our greatest asset. Having Chris join and bring to Effectv a wealth of digital experience and passion for building and motivating high-performing teams, while also retaining Dan and his years of deep industry knowledge, is wonderful for our nationwide team of political sellers,”  Pooja Midha, executive VP and GM of Effectv, said. “As we enter a major presidential election season, these moves allow us to have two of the industry’s top political ad experts bring their best to serving our customers.”

Before Snap, Vail was VP of sales for Downstream and manager and business site lead, advertising sales, at Amazon.

“Returning to Effectv is such a full-circle moment for me and comes at a perfect time, just as we are heading into a pivotal election year,” Vail said. “While we currently live in a fragmented world in terms of how consumers receive their news and content, there remains much opportunity for political advertisers to reach viewers at scale with Effectv’s audience-driven, multiscreen approach.”

Sinagoga has been with Comcast for more than 20 years, rising from political manager to his most recent role as VP, political advertising.

“As I step into my new role, I just want to say that I am incredibly thrilled, grateful and humble at the same time,” Sinagoga said. “These new appointments attest to Effectv’s commitment to continue investing in, retaining and growing key company talent. I am excited to be moving into a new role and am greatly looking forward to the opportunity for our political team to continue growing, innovating and bringing customers best-in-class solutions and service under Chris’s leadership. I’ve known Chris a long time and one of the things I admire most about him is his emphasis on people and culture.”

With a big ad spending election year around the corner, Magnite said it hired Erik Brydges as head of political demand, a new position at the company.

Brydges was previously with Microsoft Advertising’s Xandr unit, responsible for Xandr’s political sales strategy as head of political.

In his new post, Brydges will oversee Magnite’s political demand facilitation team, leading the company’s effort to connect political advertisers to key voters and constituents.

Before joining Xandr, Brydges was senior VP of advertising technology at DSPolitical.

In recent years, we’ve seen some pretty cool marketing tactics from political campaigns, including one candidate who enlisted the meme community and another’s foray into the world of video games. And while these past activations definitely exhibited a “cool” factor, this year’s 2022 midterm election marketing campaigns are banking on CTV for the “conversion” factor.

One of the obvious benefits of streaming is that it's a digital version of traditional linear media -- same content, same screen size, but with the ability to apply the benefits of programmatic ad buying. In simple terms, this means advertisers can do more than just target the “standard adults 25 to 54” they are accustomed to on linear, and leverage expanded segments including behavior, interests, and geography.

That’s why this year’s 2022 midterm elections are expected to exceed $8 billion in political ad spend, with an estimated 15% of that going to CTV, as candidates leverage streaming’s superior targeting abilities to connect with potential voters on a local level. Not to mention, CTV is redefining what “local” really means.

Getting Granular with Geography

There are 210 designated market areas (DMAs) in the U.S. and more than 41,000 zip codes within, which traditional linear TV allows advertisers to target viewers by. For political advertisers, however, targeting by zip codes doesn't quite cut it. When you break it down, congressional and legislative districts rarely line up with zip code maps, which sometimes forces candidates to buy an entire city or metro area in order to reach all the voters they want. This can result in a huge waste of money. 

Streaming, on the other hand, provides the ability to go beyond zip codes and target congressional and legislative districts from a geo perspective. This digital style targeting on television screens is something political campaigns were never able to access at scale before. And when you pair this with behavior and interest targeting, all of a sudden a political candidate can target “Democratic-leaning swing voters, that care about climate change, and live in a specific congressional district.”

This scenario recently played out in the primary for New York’s 19th Congressional District, which encompasses all or part of 11 different counties, spanning three different DMAs: New York City, Albany, and Utica. Instead of putting all their money into linear -- where they would have had to spend money across all three DMAs including the very expensive New York market -- campaigns utilized streaming to limit their buys to households within the district, making those buys far more cost-effective.

Understanding the Outcomes

Another benefit of streaming being digitally delivered is that it allows candidates to transcend the probabilistic feed they’re accustomed to on linear and get down to deterministic data. Sure, linear provides a confirmation that your spot ran on this channel at this time, but streaming provides a wealth of information that is tied to a specific household based on data from IP addresses, device IDs, and geolocation. 

All those data signals coming in can be leveraged towards performance-based attribution and measurement. So candidates can see which people were exposed to what ad, and if they went to the website, joined the email list, downloaded an app, donated to the campaign, or actually walked into a physical location to vote. This is a huge step up from linear where at most candidates can determine that their ad ran, and then probabilistically attribute activity to it during a window of time. 

In recent years, we’ve seen some innovative attempts to tap into culture, but this year candidates are focused on optimizing messaging, speaking to local voters and driving conversions. And at a time when the digital is struggling to adjust to privacy regulations, iOS changes, and the sunsetting of the cookie, CTV is offering a privacy-compliant, one-stop-shop platform for candidates to drive conversions. ■

Local cable advertising rep company Viamedia says it expects record midterm political advertising, with growth coming specifically in issue ads.

Election advertising spending is up 11% year-to-date, when compared to the 2018 midterm elections, and up 2% from 2020, a presidential year marked by heavy spending by Michael Bloomberg during the primaries. 

Digital and connected TV revenue is already 61% higher than in 2018 and up 38% from 2020.

Through August, issue advertising — as opposed to ads backing a specific candidate  — accounted for 63% of all 2022 political advertising handled by Viamedia, compared to 47% during the 2020 and 2018 election cycles.

The next biggest political category is spending for candidates for U.S. Senate at 12%, followed by campaigns for governor with 11%.

“Thanks to a revamped political advertising team, including our outstanding partners at Ampersand, as well as a growing local sales team, we are able to achieve these results in the face of cord cutting,”  Viamedia CEO David Solomon said. “This is due in part to our strong growth in connected TV advertising as well as to the still-powerful draw of the television screen for impactful and results-driven political messaging.”

Viamedia’s data is based on political advertising purchases from more than 60 multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) in 70 markets. ■

#BoycottHulu began trending on Twitter Tuesday, after a group of Democratic Party-led campaign organizations looking to buy TV commercial time tied to November's midterm elections had their spots rebuffed by Disney-controlled Hulu.

The groups said that on July 15, they jointly attempted to buy time for commercial spots that pertained to hot-button issues including abortion, gun control and climate change. The ads had already been accepted by Facebook, YouTube and Roku Channel, but Disney -- which controls joint-venture streaming service Hulu -- rejected them. 

In a joint statement, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Democratic Governors Association said, “Hulu’s censorship of the truth is outrageous, offensive, and another step down a dangerous path for our country.”

Here's a tweet from the  Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee:

A Hulu rep reportedly said last week that the ad was rejected due to "content issues," but neither the JV or Disney has released any further explanation for the rejection. 

Disney's stock is down more than 33% since January, and the media conglomerate is still licking its wounds after wading into the discussion over a highly controversial education law in Florida championed by the far right and Governor Ron DeSantis. 

Disney's support of the so-called "Don't Say Gay" bill, which seeks to restrict discussion of LGBTQ topics in Florida classrooms, set off a flurry of activity from vengeful GOP state lawmakers, looking to make business tougher for the Disney World  in Orlando, Fla.

Indeed, the culture wars are certainly not good for the bottom line of a theme parks operation still reeling from COVID. And with Hulu not obligated under the equal-time rules the FCC mandates for broadcasters, Disney could be using the negative publicity tied to its Hulu demure to offer a bone to DeSantis and the far right. 

As consumers continue to spend more time watching streaming TV and listening to online audio, political advertisers are investing billions in streaming media channels to reach and engage target voters. 

During the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, political advertising spend on connected TV was estimated to be upwards of $750 million, exceeding even optimistic projections. As the coronavirus ebbs and TV viewing time returns to prepandemic levels, 2022 political CTV ad-spend projections are now estimated at a boggling $1.48 billion. Even looking at these forecasts conservatively, they suggest despite 2022 being a midterm election, political CTV ad spend is on course to nearly double what it was in 2020.

The astounding growth rate of CTV political advertising spend is driven in large part by the fact streaming media is purpose-built for political advertising campaigns. Campaigns and causes that effectively tap into connected media advertising‘s scale, flexibility and advanced targeting capabilities stand to gain.

Whether political advertisers are interested in reaching Generation Z, the baby boomers or any group in between, streaming is on its way to become the dominant way to watch TV. Most U.S. homes (79%) still subscribing to pay TV also carry a subscription streaming service. By mid-2023, most homes won’t have a cable or satellite-TV subscription for the first time in more than 40 years. Even 40% of baby boomers spend more time consuming video content via streaming services today, compared to 45% who watch more cable and network TV. Across age groups, advertisers wanting to engage consumers will need a household-first view of streaming media audiences whether they want to reach streaming-only households, hybrid households — subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) and pay TV — or want to coordinate addressable campaigns across linear addressable and streaming channels.

Reaching intended targets is critical to political advertising success. Connected media allows for precision-targeted, addressable advertising with messaging designed to resonate with specific voter segments. Advertisers can also target based on political interests and behaviors, such as party membership, past voting behavior and issue orientation for more effective advertising reach and messaging.

The Local Advantage

A defining characteristic of political advertising is nearly all ads run at the local level. Streaming media in effect is entirely “local” as it is addressable at the household level — regardless of program or station — making it a natural fit for political advertising campaigns. In addition to targeting households based on attributes like tendency to vote and party affiliation, CTV and smart speakers enable campaign geography to be tailored to specific neighborhoods, municipal boundaries, congressional districts and state borders.

With midterm elections approaching, advertisers must consider one of the biggest challenges in reaching precise targets via connected channels — scale. Historically, no more than half of the eligible population votes during midterm elections. And only a subset of those will turn out to support a specific candidate or cause — and even fewer are undecided. This makes the window to reach the right U.S. adults small, requiring political advertisers to play a scale game — targeting as many of the right voters as possible with specific messaging. For advertisers to scale this approach, they’ll need to tap into a large data set that includes nearly all ad-addressable homes. 

To target streaming media advertising precisely, advertisers need to reach people in the places they engage by precisely associating devices to streaming households. This means capturing and resolving the many signals that make up a household’s streaming identity, including those from streaming-capable devices, streaming channels and even proprietary identifiers employed by some streaming publishers and device manufacturers. By resolving identity across walled gardens via interoperable solutions, advertisers can achieve greater reach and better targeting, as well as messaging consistency.

Motivating voters to turn out is no easy feat, but it’s better accomplished when political advertisers can reach more of the right targets with messaging that resonates. The combination of data-driven audience targeting, real-time flexibility of a digital channel and geographic precision make streaming media an effective, highly efficient choice for political advertisers to get the most bang from tight budgets. With near-record ad spending predicted this election cycle, audience targeting that scales across connected channels could make all the difference come November. ￭

Media agency Zenith expects television advertising spending to rise 3.2% in 2022, to $64.4 billion, in a year with a Winter Olympics and midterm elections.

Zenith sees network broadcast falling 2% to $15.9 billion, national cable down 5% to $19.2 billion and syndication dropping 9% to $2.2 billion. But with political spending exploding, spot is expected to increase 15% to $27.2 billion.

In 2023, the forecast is for a drop in TV spending, with broadcast, cable and syndication flat, but spot dropping 10% in a political off-year.

For 2024, Zenith sees TV spending rebounding in a presidential election year with spot jumping 20%. The agency sees broadcast, cable and syndication again flat.

Total internet ad spending is expected to increase by 16.6% to $218.2 billion in 2022, a slowdown from 33.7% growth in 2022. Internet video is seen climbing 20% to $41.1 billion.

Also: National Linear TV Ad Spending Rose 5% in April: SMI

In 2023 internet advertising is seen rising 8.3%, posting another 11% worth of growth in 2024, with internet video rising 12% in 2023 and 15% in 2024. In North America unchanged at 12%.

Global advertising expenditures are forecast to grow 8% in 2022, according to Zenith’s latest Advertising Expenditure Forecasts report, published Wednesday. This represents a minor downgrade from the 9.1% growth rate Zenith published in December. 

Growth will be supported by the Winter Olympics, midterm U.S. elections and the FIFA World Cup, which for the first time will take place in the most advertising-intensive period of the year in the run-up to Christmas. 

Slowdown Seen in ‘23

Faced with this tough comparison, growth will slow to 5.4% in 2023, before the Summer Olympics and U.S. presidential elections help boost it to 7.6% in 2024.

Global linear television advertising is forecasted to grow by 1.1% a year on average between 2021 and 2024, from $173.6 billion to $179.2 billion, as price increases continue to compensate for audience losses.

This ongoing decline in reach and efficiency will drive brands to digital channels, however, including online video, the report said. Television’s share of total ad spend is forecast to fall from 24.6% in 2021 to 20.8% in 2024, while online video’s share increases from 8.8% to 11.1%.

The sustained growth in demand from advertisers is pushing up media inflation, particularly in television. Price increases vary widely for different audiences in different countries, but the global average cost of television advertising across all audiences is expected to rise by 11%-13% this year. 

Online video prices are expected to increase by about 7%, although in this case the supply of audiences is rising. 

“Brands that simply buy broad audiences to achieve reach targets will not be able to avoid having to spend more to reach the same audiences,” the report said. “But brands that use first-party data to identify their most profitable customers, and combine it with third-party data to target their best prospects in the most efficient channels, will be able to mitigate much of the effect of media inflation.”

Zenith predicts 62% of ad budgets will be spent on digital media in 2022, up from 59% in 2021, and that this proportion will reach 65% in 2024.

The agency predicts that online video will emerge as the fastest-growing channel over the next three years, with an average of 15.4% growth per year on average between 2021 and 2024. The growth will be fueled by the rapid development of connected TV, ad-funded video-on-demand, streaming and other video formats. 

Zenith called connected TV a mainstream video platform in the U.S., with a higher penetration than cable TV, and noted that it is becoming established in other markets, especially in Western Europe and Asia-Pacific. The introduction of cheaper ad-funded tiers by subscription video-on-demand services like Netflix and Disney Plus will boost growth further by providing new high-quality environments for brand communication.

Online Video Spend to Rise

Zenith expects online video ad spend to rise from $62 billion in 2021 to $95 billion in 2024.

“Online video is growing by creating new opportunities for building brand awareness, complemented by social media’s capacity for cost-effective targeting with low barriers to entry,” said Jonathan Barnard, head of forecasting for Zenith. “Online video is steadily narrowing the spending gap with television, and will be half as large as television by 2024.”

Ad spending has remained on track despite the macroeconomic headwinds that emerged this year, the Zenith report said. High inflation, concentrated in essentials like heating, gas and food, is forcing consumers to reprioritize their spending, particularly the less well-off, and has led to a drop in consumer confidence. 

But for now, consumer spending continues to grow, as consumers demonstrate their strong appetite for the travel and entertainment experiences that were denied to them over the pandemic, the agency said. “Business confidence is generally high, and corporate investment is rising, and there is little evidence of widespread cost-cutting.”  ■

TVSquared, the ad measurement and attribution company, said it is working with AdImpact to provide real-time reach and frequency metrics for political ads on connected TV.

AdImpact, which collects ad intelligence ads, earlier this year projected that 17% of political ad spending in 2022 -- about $1.5 billion -- will land on CTV.

Also Read: CTV Ad Spending Up 84% in 1st Quarter: TVSquared

“TV continues to reinvent itself and TV measurement is too,” said Bob Ivins, chief strategy officer at TVSquared. “With eyeballs moving from linear to streaming, and ad dollars following, advertisers want tools to consistently measure campaign reach, frequency and effectiveness across platforms. It’s about having holistic campaign metrics, not platform-specific ones. We are looking forward to working with AdImpact to do just that for political candidates and causes.” 

Also Read: TVSquared Launches Analytics Platform ADvantage XP

Together TVSquared and AdImpact will be able to quantify incremental reach for CTV campaigns over linear and across platforms, identify the point of diminishing returns when audiences become overexposed, and optimize campaigns to specific audiences and retarget them over the course of a campaign.

“Our partnership with TVSquared will bring a new set of performance metrics to political campaigns,” said AdImpact CEO Kyle Roberts. “We are allowing candidates to connect paid media to website and fundraising performance in real time, bringing an entirely new level of accountability and transparency to TV advertising.” 

A trio of powerful Democratic senators are pressing Facebook on its decision not to let researchers at New York University's Ad Observatory Project to its platform, which Facebook said was out of privacy concerns.

The university is studying political advertising on Facebook, including finding what the senators called "a lack of transparency in how advertisers target political ads online on Facebook."

Also Read: Hawley Says Facebook Should Scrap Political Ad Ban

The senators expressed their surprise at the move in a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg dated Aug. 6.

"The opaque and unregulated online advertising platforms that social media companies maintain have allowed a hotbed of disinformation and consumer scams to proliferate, and we need to find solutions to those problems,” they told Zuckerberg, adding "it is imperative that Facebook allow credible academic researchers and journalists like those involved in the Ad Observatory project to conduct independent research that will help illuminate how the company can better tackle misinformation, disinformation, and other harmful activity that is proliferating on its platforms.”

Co-signing the letter were Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.).

They want Zuckerberg to answer a bunch of questions related to the move, including how many researcher and journalist accounts were terminated or disabled in 2021, why the accounts were terminated, and what it meant when it said it had terminated the accounts because it didn't want the research to "compromise people's privacy."

The Federal Communications Commission has proposed to revise the definition of “legally qualified candidate for public office” to reflect the rise of the internet.

According to multiple sources, the FCC had been pondering whether to require broadcast stations to report network and syndicated political ad buys in their political files, something broadcasters were pushing back on, but that did not show up in the notice of proposed rulemaking released Thursday (July 15).

Acting FCC chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel had signaled political file rule changes were coming.

The FCC, which released the NPRM on tweaks to its political rules, said it would add use of social media or the creation of a campaign website to the current list of activities that may be considered in determining if a write-in candidate has sufficiently established their candidacy.

That establishment determines whether broadcasters must provide the candidates with air time.

The commission is also proposing to adjust its rules to campaign finance reform legislation to reflect that stations, cable and satellite operators must report any purchase of ad time that “communicates a message relating to any political matter of national importance” and make clear what record on that message must be maintained in a station's political file.

“While the agency has strived to update its guidance to reflect changes in law and campaign practices, it has not undertaken a formal review to update the political programming and record-keeping rules since 1991,” the FCC said. “Given the substantial growth of political media messaging in recent years, the updates proposed in this item are intended to conform our rules with statutory amendments, reflect existing practices and guidance, and account for modern campaign practices.”

The FCC in 2019 resolved a dozen campaign ad-disclosure complaints against various broadcast stations but with only some admonishments — official reprimands — rather than fines against what the FCC said were, in some cases, willful violations of its political file disclosure rules.

The new item is said to be an effort to clean up the rules and close some loopholes after complaints that the rules were not sufficiently clear.

The FCC put out some guidance following the resolution of the disclosure complaints, but broadcasters were not pleased with the result.

Acting Federal Communications Commission chair Jessica Rosenworcel is going to propose some changes to the agency’s political programming rules, she signaled in a blog post Wednesday (July 14).

She did not say what the changes will be, but she will need Republican buy-in. She likely has it because she has scheduled a vote on the item for the August meeting and would be unlikely to schedule a vote in a 2-2 commission on something that could not pass.

“The FCC has political programming and recordkeeping rules for broadcast licensees, cable operators, and satellite providers, but we have not formally reviewed these rules since 1991,” Rosenworcel said in outlining the tentative August meeting agenda. “We will consider two updates to these rules that are designed to comply with statutory requirements and account for modern campaign practices.”

Also Read: State Associations Call FCC Political Ad Guidance 'Unconscionable'

The FCC last year said it would apply a "standard of reasonableness and good faith decision-making" when it comes to deciding which political ads trigger disclosure requirements, adding that the disclosure requirement clarification applies only to issue ads.

The Senate on Wednesday (March 24) will hold its first hearing on a new bill that could reduce the media's massive election ad take by extending political ad disclosures to online ads on the largest digital platforms, beefing up content disclosures for political spots and other content on television and radio and making existing disclosures more prominent.

The Democrat-backed bill has President Biden's support.

Also Read: New Bill Would Heighten Political Ad Disclosures

The goal is to rein in "dark money." That is money to influence elections but funneled through nonprofits and shell companies so its source remains obscured.

The Senate Rules Committee, chaired by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) is holding a hearing Wednesday (March 24) on the For the People Act of 2021 (HR 1). The bill — the first of the new session, as its number suggests — was introduced Jan. 4 and passed the House. But it will be a tough sell in the Senate. Republicans are likely to filibuster it, but the filibuster is also in jeopardy, as Democrats contemplate getting rid of, or at least modifying, the procedure that allows a single senator to delay passage of a bill. 

When the Supreme Court ruled in the Citizens United case that corporations and unions had free speech rights and lifted limits on how much money they could spend on elections, the court also said that disclosure would be a key element to balance that new freedom.

There will be two panels of witnesses on the bill. 

Panel I features former Attorney General Eric Holder; Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson; Michael Waldman, Brennan Center for Justice; Mac Warner, West Virginia Secretary of State; and Todd Rokita, Indiana attorney general.

Panel II features former FEC Chair and Campaign Legal Center founder Trevor Potter; Fred Wertheimer, director of Democracy 21 (and former president of Common Cause); Tiffany Muller, president, End Citizens United/Let America Vote Action Fund; and Bradley Smith, former FEC chair and chairman of the Institute for Free Speech.

Among other things, the bill at issue would change the disclosure language that applies to “radio” and “audio,” meaning online audio as well as broadcast, and change references to “television” to “video format,” which would incorporate streaming. 

The bill would mandate that online platforms maintain files of political ads for public inspection, as broadcasters are currently required to do, and that those buying the ad time provide the requisite information for the file, which includes a digital copy of the ad, a description of the target audience, the average rate charged for the ad, the name of the candidate and the office they are seeking, as well as the election to which the ad refers. The file would have to be retained for at least four years.

For a candidate ad, it must include the name of the candidate, the authorized committee and the committee treasurer.

“Online platform” is defined as “any public-facing website, web application, or digital application (including a social network, ad network or search engine).” But it only pertains to those platforms with “50,000,000 or more unique monthly United States visitors or users for a majority of months during the preceding 12 months,” which would include YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon.

The bill would also require broadcast, cable and online platforms to make “reasonable efforts” to ensure political ads are not purchased by foreign nationals, directly or indirectly.

Also Read: Dems Seek FCC Political Disclosure Closure

In the interests of giving the public more tools to combat election disinformation, the bill would require the Federal Election Commission to conduct a study on “media literacy with respect to online political content consumption among voting-age Americans,” including recommendations for improving critical skills when it comes to consuming political content in general, and online political content in particular.

The FCC said broadcasters don't have to offer the lowest unit rate for political ads in the post-election period--some races may not have been decided and counting could go on for days and some close races may not be called for longer than that if there are legal challenges and/or recounts.

The FCC's Media Bureau said that it had been getting a lot of inquiries from broadcasters, TV and radio, about whether they would be obligated to provide those government-dictated lower prices--the lowest price it charges commercial advertisers--for any political ads "on behalf of contenders in races for which final results of the election remain pending."

The FCC said that the lowest unit charge is confined to the days preceding the date of the general election, which the FCC is interpreting as Nov. 3, as "designated by federal law."

Earlier in the election season, the FCC advised broadcasters that ad time they gave to businesses to help them out during the pandemic would not factor into lowest unit rate calculations, so long as those free spots are not part of an existing ad contract.

Top House Energy & Commerce Committee Democrats are calling on Facebook to work with, not against, an effort to improve the accountability and transparency in political ads.

Related: Social Net CEOs Get Senate Grilling

E&C Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.J.), joined by Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) and Consumer Protection Subcommittee Chair Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), wrote Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to make that plea.

Related: Facebook Targeted with Six-Figure Campaign

They were referring to a New York University research effort in which volunteers provide those researchers and journalists access to the political ads they are served on Facebook so they can investigate who is targeted by the ads and why. According to the legislators, Facebook contacted NYU demanding it stop the research by the end of next month, citing consumer privacy.

“The unfortunate timing of a letter from Facebook to the NYU Ad Observatory, which runs the Ad Observer tool, just weeks before the 2020 presidential election, raises concerns about Facebook’s commitment to election integrity,” they wrote.

The legislators say the NYU program has taken "concrete steps" to protect privacy and asked Facebook to work with them on any concerns, and suggested Facebook has a history of not wanting to work with researchers. Besides, they cited reports that the NYU ad project only uses data with the explicit permission of the volunteers.

Suggesting Facebook had lost the trust of the American people, they said that greater transparency about targeted political ads was the only way to get it back.

Facilitating election meddling is arguably Democrats' primary issue with Facebook, and one of the driving forces behind their support of revising social media's Section 230 immunity from civil liability for third-party content.

Some Facebook critics were hardly reassured by its announcement Thursday (Sept. 3) that it would not run new political or issue ads in the week before the November election, branding it a PR stunt and essentially a nothing burger.

Women's group Ultraviolet minced no words, calling Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg a "menace to democracy."

Of the announced political ad moratorium, which Zuckerberg announced in a Facebook post, the group suggested that a week before election day is effectively a non sequitur.

Related: Facebook Won't Run New Political Ads Week Before Election

“Voting starts in North Carolina tomorrow," pointed out Ultraviolet executive director Shaunna Thomas. "Election Day isn’t in two months, it’s tomorrow and every day after, which means voters in that state and many others that vote early will be subject to months of dishonest ads on Facebook’s platform. For women and people of color running for office, these months of unchecked, untrue racist and sexist attacks are especially damaging."

“If Facebook were serious about stopping the threats of disinformation and election interference it would be fact-checking and removing political ads, in addition to intentionally deceptive posts, that proliferate across the platform," Thomas said. "Because the real truth that Facebook refuses to acknowledge is that ads are just a small part of the massive problem at Facebook."

Liberal watchdog group Media Matters for America was equally unimpressed.

“Facebook’s new ad policy announcement is designed to fool the media and the public into thinking the company is taking disinformation seriously," said the group's president, Angelo Carusone. "[T]his new policy is pointless - and may even do more harm than good. Makes no mistake - you can still spread misinformation with political ads on Facebook, you just can’t do it with NEW ads just ONE week before Election Day. According to this new policy, political ads that have at least one impression prior to Oct. 27th, can be rerun and re-targeted to new groups during the week of Election Day.  

“Facebook’s policy will only further empower those seeking to do harm, while weakening the ability of outside forces to counteract attacks and misinformation, something that has proven necessary given Facebook’s weak enforcement."

Back in June, and under pressure from Washington, civil rights groups, advertisers and others, Facebook announced it is going to start moderating political content more closely, but Zuckerberg and Facebook have been reluctant to take down political speech.

Facebook, which has taken flak in D.C. over the use of its platform for 2016 Russian election disinformation, said it won't accept any new political ads for a week before the upcoming election, though ads running before that time can continue to run.

That is one of what CEO Mark Zuckerberg characterized in a Facebook post as additional steps to insure a secure election. 

Another is to flag any claim that "lawful methods of voting will lead to fraud."

It was Twitter's flagging of the president's claim about mail-in-balloting which is legal, leads to massive voter fraud that most believe helped spur his executive order to regulate social media's moderation of content. The order suggested such flagging turned a neutral platform into a speaker that should lose Sec. 230 immunity from liability over content on its platform.

Related: Trump Threatens to Close Down Social Media

"We're going to block new political and issue ads during the final week of the campaign, Zuckerberg said in the post. "It's important that campaigns can run get out the vote campaigns, and I generally believe the best antidote to bad speech is more speech, but in the final days of an election there may not be enough time to contest new claims. So in the week before the election, we won't accept new political or issue ads," he said. "Advertisers will be able to continue running ads they started running before the final week and adjust the targeting for those ads, but those ads will already be published transparently in our Ads Library so anyone, including fact-checkers and journalists, can scrutinize them."

Zuckerberg said the platform was taking steps to "connect people to authoritative information, and reducing the risks of post-election confusion."

In addition to the political ad moratorium just before the election, those are: 

1. "We’ll remove posts that claim that people will get COVID-19 if they take part in voting, and we’ll attach a link to authoritative information about the coronavirus to posts that might use COVID-19 to discourage voting.

2. "We will attach an informational label to content that seeks to delegitimize the outcome of the election or discuss the legitimacy of voting methods, for example, by claiming that lawful methods of voting will lead to fraud. 

3. "If any candidate or campaign tries to declare victory before the final results are in, we’ll add a label to their posts directing people to the official results from Reuters and the National Election Pool."

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) has collected a number of supporters for her bill banning microtargeted political ads.

Those backers include Mozilla, Common Cause, the Center for Digital Democracy, and the Open Markets Institute. 

The idea behind the bill is to battle coordinated disinformation/misinformation campaigns. 

H.R. 7014, the Banning Microtargeted Political Ads Act, would prohibit social media sites, streaming services and ad networks from targeting political ads based on demos or behavioral data.  

It applies to all electioneering communications, meaning both candidate and noncandidate ads. 

The Federal Election Commission will enforce the prohibition and there will be a private right of action as well, class action suits for example. 

The bill does allow ads targeted by state, municipality and congressional district and targeted to individuals who opt in to targeted ads.   

“Political speech is critical to democratic discourse, but organized disinformation and organic misinformation use microtargeting and prevent ideas from being debated in the open. Changing how paid political messaging works online could be a powerful step forward in response to the ongoing challenges of disinformation and manipulation of our democratic processes, whether by candidates, PACs, or others. We appreciate this legislation and the thoughtfulness of Rep. Eshoo in moving this discussion forward,” said Heather West, head of Americas public policy at Mozilla. 

According to a recent poll cited by Eshoo's office, a majority of both Republicans (75%) and Democrats (69%) oppose using personal information for hyper-targeted political ads.  

When the 2020 presidential race began, no one could have predicted the current pandemic and the huge impact it would have on many political advertising campaigns. It’s no secret that the big players spend big budgets making sure they reach the right person, at the right time through the right device.

But the pandemic has had a huge effect on the demand and supply of advertising. On top of that, changes in the way we’re consuming digital content and interacting with our connected devices are having big consequences for the advertisers trying to reach us.

Content consumption has increased by nearly 2% day-over-day since the national emergency began. YouTube visits have increased by 14%, and movie consumption has seen a spike of 28% since pre-lockdown. But just because consumption has increased, doesn’t mean that demand has. With advertisers pulling or reducing their ad spend because stores are shutting down, and consumer habits changing in terms of how much we consume and when we do it, cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) has fallen for many domains.

Many of these new inventory opportunities are to be found around content relating to business, industry news and health and wellness. While these topics might not be where general advertisers are looking for their audience — because they’re not relevant or there are brand safety concerns — these are exactly the kinds of opportunities that political advertisers are looking for to connect with potential voters.

And because inventory costs for these content types have significantly dropped over the last three weeks, it’s a double opportunity to drive higher reach through less-expensive yet still high-value inventory.

Rise of Cord-Cutters, OTT

Even before the outbreak, TV consumption was changing. We found that during a one-month period in 2020, 16% of identified households were watching OTT content through their smart TVs and another 8% were apparent cord-cutters.

Cord-cutters tend to be younger, meaning that people aged 18-34 are the easiest to target through smart TVs. Generally, households with fewer than three members have higher OTT content consumption (2.4 times higher). Households with dependents or retirees are more likely to watch content using both linear and OTT. Importantly, OTT consumption has increased 50% amongst those between the ages of 35 and 54 — voters the candidates need to reach — since mid March.

But a higher OTT use doesn’t necessarily correlate to high TV consumption overall. In fact, households with linear TV tend to watch nearly double the amount of TV content than households with access to OTT platforms. This is all-important information when attempting to reach potential voters.

Peaks in TV watching used to occur on the weekends, but now that behavior has flipped due to the fact that we’ve had our TV fill by Saturday. Additionally, daytime viewing is up, creating more opportunities for political advertisers to reach their audience.

News consumption has risen 32%, movies 26% and premium content 22%. However there have been significant declines in music (-3%) and sports (-14%) content. The cancellation of huge sporting events has caused many advertisers to reconsider how they are going to reach those audiences. The possible loss of the Major League Baseball season could have a large impact on political advertising due to its older-skewing audience containing many potential voters.

Measuring Success in Unsure Times

Measuring the success of a political campaign can be tricky. Advertisers are often given one chance to measure true success — Election Day — and by that time the need for measurement and optimization is over. That’s why it is critical for political advertisers to find effective ways of measuring success through proxy metrics prior to election day.

One way of doing this is by measuring incremental reach. Advertisers need to see to what extent a campaign is able to expand its reach to include new households and voters that weren’t previously being reached through other ad buys. This is especially useful for campaigns that are focused on reaching cord-cutters or cord-trimmers, where the goal may be to make sure previously unreachable audiences are being reached. By using OTT as a way to reach cord-cutters and deliver media to people who were previously unreachable, political advertisers can make sure their campaign messages are getting to the highest reach.

2020 was shaping up to be a monumental year for U.S. politics and the pandemic has forced most physical rallies and outdoor marketing collateral online.

Political advertisers need to not only make sure they take advantage of new opportunities, but also ensure they continually refresh their approach during these uncertain times. 

Jesse Contario is director, political & advocacy, and Melissa Kurstin is regional VP, mid-Atlantic, at MiQ. 

With the presidential election only seven months away, though an unprecedented one given the pandemic. Cable operators continue to press the FCC to cut them some slack when it comes to unintentional errors in complying with new political advertising disclosures guidance. 

Executives from the NCTA-The Internet & Television Association last week were urging some top FCC staffers to further clarify the FCC's recent clarification of political advertising rules to make clear that they are not subject to liability for mistakes while making good faith efforts to comply with the obligations. 

The FCC clarified its rules last October as part of a dozen campaign ad disclosure complaints against TV stations. The rules also apply to political ads on cable.

Related: ACA Backs Broadcaster Political Ad Petition 

NCTA wants the FCC to defer to those good faith efforts, as well as to "clarify" that the FCC interpretations apply only to non-candidate political ads--from PACS and unions and the like--rather than candidate ads. 

Cable operators are on the same page with broadcasters when it comes to seeking more clarity on the clarification. 

In comments filed last December, NCTA said it agreed with the National Association of Broadcasters that the FCC "imposed an overly strict standard that fails to account for the frenetic pace of political advertising sales during the heat of an election," adding: [I]t would be overly burdensome to demand perfect adherence to such strict standards." 

The National Association of Broadcasters joined with Hearst Television, Graham Media Group, Nexstar, Fox, Tegna and Scripps, to ask the FCC to narrow its definition of non-candidate ads.

Political ad spending by Presidential candidates on cable systems has more than so far this year, according to Viamedia, which represents multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) in 72 markets including many battleground states.

Viamedia said that the spending increase is being driven by the billionaires in the race, with the Mike Bloomberg campaign accounting for 64% of spending by presidential candidates and Tom Steyer’s campaign accounting for about 16%.

Senator Amy Klobuchar’s spending was about 6%, followed by Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 4%, President Trump, Senator Bernie Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren had each spent less than 3% with former VP Joe Biden at less than 1%.

The dynamics of the race changed suddenly in the past few days with Steyer, Klobuchar and Buttigieg dropping out.

About $10 billion is expected to be spent on political advertising in 2020, according to estimates.

Viamedia said 2020 had started off differently than the 2016 campaign, when issue advertising had the highest share of spending on cable at 40%, followed by the presidential campaigns at 26%. Candidates for U.S. Senate spent 16%, congressional candidates spent 18%. The proportions were similar in 2012, Viamedia said.

For 2020, presidential candidates account for 47% of the total, with issue advertising totaling 34%. Senate races took up 10% and congressional races were 9%.

“It used to be the case that issues advertising, largely by PACs, was emerging as the dominant category of political advertising -- but the Bloomberg spending, especially, has flipped the script, at least for this cycle thus far,” said Viamedia CEO Mark Lieberman.

“These are early numbers and nearly two-thirds of cable TV political ad spending in a presidential-election year materializes between Labor Day and Election Day,” Lieberman added. “Nevertheless, our trending data indicate the local cable TV industry, bolstered by attractive geo-targeting capabilities and popular, curated content, will once again see a record year for political advertising. Given Mayor Bloomberg’s promise to continue spending regardless of his own candidacy, this level of spending growth should hold.”

ACA Connects, which represents small and midsized cable operators, told the FCC this week it supports a National Association of Broadcasters petition that asks the FCC to "clarify" that state and local political ads not trigger enhanced disclosure just because they may mention an issue of national importance. 

The National Association of Broadcasters joined with Hearst Television, Graham Media Group, Nexstar, Fox, Tegna and Scripps to ask the FCC to narrow its definition of non-candidate ads on “any political matter of national importance" (i.e. "issue" ads) and the disclosure obligations on broadcasters to identify the issues in those ads. 

In reply comments in support of NAB, they told the FCC that in resolving political file complaints, the FCC's interpretation of statute would expand political file obligations for not only TV stations but cable operators also subject to political file requirements. 

Broadcasters and cable operators are required to report political ad buys to the FCC.  

"We share petitioners’ and other parties’ concerns with these interpretations, as well as with the process by which the Commission arrived at them," said ACA. "In particular, by announcing these interpretations in the context of narrow complaint proceedings, the Commission was not able to consider or address the impact of its rulings on cable operators, including the heightened burdens they create for smaller cable operators. ACA Connects thus urges the Commission to reconsider the Political File Orders, and to seek comment on reconsideration on how best to implement the statutory language at issue." 

ACA said that whether or not the FCC grants the broadcaster petition, it should make clear that it will "defer to the good-faith compliance efforts by cable operators and others subject to [the] requirements," particularly in the case of the smaller operators it represents. ACA said that is because the FCC has created "novel and highly context-sensitive disclosure obligations." 

A pair of Democratic Congressmen who have pushed for greater transparency in political ad disclosures were encouraged by the FCC's new clarification, issued this week in resolving a raft of complaints, but suggested it fell short of what they were looking for.

In a statement, Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) and John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) said: “While we are encouraged by this first step toward better transparency in the FCC’s political file rules, it merely highlights that more work needs to be done."

They said for starters that if the new Administration wants to "drain the swamp," it should include strenghtening disclosures so that it was clear that the "true donors" behind issue ads were identified. They also want the FCC's online political file database to be machine readable.

They said they would introduce new legislation to make sure that the public knows who is funding the political ads they see and hear.

The legislators introduced H.R. 2125, the Keeping Our Campaigns Honest Act of 2015, and H.R. 4179, the Fair and Clear Campaign Transparency Act, in the last Congress, but they failed to gain traction.

Luján and Yarmuth pushed for enhanced disclosure as members of the Communications Subcommittee, but both are no longer on the committee per the Dems' selection process for new members Thursday (Jan. 12).

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton outspent Republican rival Donald Trump on local cable advertising by 9-to-1 in four key battleground states, but lost in part because her targeted ad strategy was overcome by his ability to generate earned media, according to Viamedia, an independent cable ad management company.

Republican candidates for state-wide and local races in presidential battleground markets tended to outspend their Democratic rivals, which represented a substantial number of distributors in Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and Missouri, the company said.

Viamedia's political advertising revenue was up more than 50% from 2012, while many broadcast station owners have reported that their political ad sales were below forecasts, in part because Trump didn’t buy as much TV advertising as expected.

Nearly half -- 47% -- of all cable TV political ad spending came from issues advertisers such as PACs and other organizations.

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.

With Election Day drawing near (Nov. 1), the Video Advertising Bureau has released a report that shows undecided voters in the last days before going to the polls are influenced more by TV than by other media.

Televised debates and political TV shows were cited by 65% of respondents as their primary sources for political information about national races, according to a VAB survey of undecided voters.

More than 40% of undecided voters have gone online to research a candidate or issue after seeing a political ad on TV, the survey found. Only 21% said they had researched a candidate after viewing an ad on social media, and 17% said they had followed up after someone they knew “liked” a candidate on Facebook.

More than three quarters of respondents (79%) said TV was the medium where a political ad was most likely to get their attention, in both national and local races.

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.