• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, May 15, 2017

If you are a big TV network this week, it’s your time to show off. Thankfully, you are only providing some daily entertainment to the masses.

The president says James Comey, director of the FBI, has been a “showboat” and “grandstander.”  So he fired him. Hypocrisy coming from a big-time former reality TV star?

Lots of organizations look to find their voice above the noise -- whether it's a TV network, a major consumer marketer, or a top government official.

Grandstanding? Showboating? Maybe that extends to some political TV commercials, too. About a week ago, the ongoing Trump campaign intended to spend $1.5 million on an advertising campaign for an ad touting the administration’s “First 100 Days.”

TV networks were interested in that media buy -- and why not?

But virtually all the networks needed one tiny change. Amid touting big achievements in the commercial -- a Supreme Court judge, a number executive orders, efforts to go ahead with the Keystone Pipeline, and tax reform -- a brief “fake news” label appeared over a video of TV news anchors.

That just won’t fly. TV networks say they are not fake news. But the Trump campaign apparently wasn’t interested in minor alterations. 

So of the intended $1.5 million media buy, the campaign only spent $116,729 on national TV networks, according to iSpot.tv -- from May 2 through May 6. Now, we don’t know whether any of the money was spent on local TV stations or on local cable. But we do know that only two TV networks ran the spot: Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network.

No matter. There is still messaging to push. The Trump campaign could now bash the networks for not airing the commercial. The whole first 100 days thing has now come and gone. So it’s unlikely the rest of media buy will be expressed elsewhere.

But you can still see the spot. YouTube metrics shows the TV commercial has been viewed 1.2 million times — which doesn’t necessarily mean 1.2 million unique viewers/

Some 62.98 million people voted for Trump. So maybe there is some some media planning work to be done. Facebook or Twitter, anyone?