• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, May 14, 2009

The saddest news for TV stations is that political TV spending seems to be on the rise.

It's sad for the simple reason that this bit of news would have been a nice surprise in a year without the Olympics or big elections, especially if the automotive and financial advertising had kept up their end of the things, even just a little bit, in this full-force recession.

Political advertising might hit $1 billion in 2009, which would be a record for an off political year. Not only that -- but 2010 political spending may "zoom past that of 2008," Evan Tracey, founder and president of the Campaign Media Analysis Group, told TVNewsday. Political advertising in 2008 tallied some $3 billion, a record for any political year.

A lot of advocacy advertising seems to be the reason for the climb, mostly from members of the out-of-office Republican party looking to rebuild and make their mark. For this year advocacy ads and some 600 mayoralty races will be contributing to TV coffers.

But the message is clear for the near term: political dollars will do little to affect overall TV station advertising dollars, which are still poised to sharply drop, by an eye-opening 20% or more number in 2009.

Still, this brings up the positive news that there are some ad categories on the rise, ones that TV stations should seek out. For some TV station groups, auto advertising is no longer the No 1. Category. Direct response advertisers are taking up the reins, for example.

Would Google's TV ads division have an answer?  Its big lure for national TV sellers currently is that it can bring new TV advertisers to the mix, as Google has done with the Internet.

During MediaPost's recent Outfront conference, one big question was asked of Mike Steib, director of Google TV Ads: What about local TV stations?

Technology isn't available to make this an efficient reality, he noted. At the moment Google will stick to national TV business, selling the likes of remnant NBC Universal cable inventory, Bloomberg TV, Hallmark, and Dish Network.

But this doesn't mean TV stations need to wait. WCBS New York is pre-producing spots from ads that appear in the newspapers, targeting what Google, in effect, does for lower entry-level marketers, some of whom are also print advertisers.

None of this will replace those big automotive advertising dollars. The sadness won't go away anytime soon. But new financial goals, no matter how small, will make things feel less gloomy .