Georgia Runoff Propels Atlanta TV Station to Ad Cash Crown

Greater than $86 million in political promoting flowed into the ABC affiliate to this point this 12 months, based on information from the advert tracker AdImpact. It’s a windfall generated by a confluence of high-profile races for governor and U.S. Senate, together with the bonus of the runoff between Democratic Sen.

Raphael Warnock

and Republican

Herschel Walker.

“Not solely did they’ve a number of aggressive races, however then they acquired a complete additional chew on the apple” with the runoff race, mentioned

Ken Goldstein,

a polling and political analyst who has achieved tutorial analysis on marketing campaign promoting.

It’s the second 12 months in a row Georgia TV stations have benefited from that second chew. Mr. Warnock was first elected in a January 2021 runoff that featured heavy spending, following a wave of 2020 normal election outlays on the senatorial and presidential races.

Over a interval that features the 2021 and 2022 runoffs, from Jan. 1, 2020, by means of Nov. 28, 2022, WSB-TV took in near $232 million in political promoting, once more considerably greater than any station within the nation, AdImpact information exhibits. WSB-TV is the flagship tv property of Atlanta-based Cox Media Group, which owns TV and radio stations in a number of states, and didn’t reply to requests for remark.

Among the many 5 largest-grossing TV stations for political advertisements throughout the multiyear interval, three got here from Atlanta, based on AdImpact. The opposite two had been in Phoenix and Detroit.

For 2022, the second-highest recipient is the NBC affiliate KSNV-TV in Las Vegas, which attracted $59.7 million, AdImpact information exhibits. Like Georgia, Nevada was house to aggressive races for each the U.S. Senate and the governorship.

KSNV-TV didn’t reply to inquiries in search of remark. A spokeswoman for Mr. Warnock’s marketing campaign mentioned it doesn’t touch upon spending, whereas a spokesman and spokeswoman for Mr. Walker didn’t reply to requests for remark.

Nationwide, AdImpact mentioned about $8.9 billion has been spent to this point by candidates and outdoors teams attempting to affect native, state and federal elections. That compares with about $4 billion within the 2018 midterm cycle and about $9 billion within the 2020 presidential cycle. With the ultimate burst in Georgia, the overall for this 12 months’s midterm would possibly surpass the spending within the final presidential cycle.

The largess from the campaigns has crowded out many common companies attempting to promote in Georgia, whereas additionally driving up prices, mentioned

Brian Easter,

co-founder of the Nebo Company, an Atlanta-based promoting agency.

Mr. Easter mentioned that on this 12 months’s normal election, the senate campaigns—together with different races—pushed costs for tv spots and digital spending to historic highs in Georgia. “They weren’t blinking a watch about spending,” he mentioned.

Now within the runoff, solely Messrs. Warnock and Walker and their allies are spending on political advertisements, however these {dollars} are coming when there may be already usually heavy advert spending. “The runoff is colliding with the vacation spend,” Mr. Easter mentioned.

Whereas the competition between Georgia Republican Gov.

Brian Kemp

and Democrat

Stacey Abrams

didn’t find yourself being that aggressive—the incumbent gained by greater than 7 proportion factors—the net fundraising prowess of Ms. Abrams introduced some huge cash into the race.

“That cash needed to get spent someplace, and it acquired spent on tv,” Mr. Goldstein mentioned. “It made a slightly aggressive governor’s race generate exercise prefer it was a really aggressive race.”

Georgia voters on either side of the political aisle expressed exasperation on the deluge of promoting, a lot of it adverse, on their TV units, radios, smartphones and laptops.

Antimo Ponticello,

38, who works in Georgia’s rising tv and movie trade, voted at an early-voting station in closely Democratic Atlanta just lately. He made up his thoughts on whom he was voting for months in the past, and the barrage of promoting did nothing to sway him, he mentioned. Adverts appeared within the mail and on common tv, the web, streaming companies and his smartphone. 

“I do know who I’m going to vote for,” mentioned Mr. Ponticello. “Not one of the promoting is altering something. It’s a waste of cash. It’s simply noise.”

Ginger Rhea,

46, who voted early for Mr. Walker in Dallas, Ga., northwest of Atlanta, mentioned the relentless political advertisements interrupted her night TV viewing. 

“We watch ‘Jeopardy’ and stay up for it, and all that ruined it,” she mentioned, including that she and her husband rapidly change to a different station when political commercials come on.

Write to John McCormick at mccormick.john@wsj.com and Cameron McWhirter at Cameron.McWhirter@wsj.com