• by June 17, 2004

KERRY'S TV BUYS APPROACH THE BUSH LEAGUE -- Ever since he emerged as the presumed Democratic candidate for President, John Kerry has narrowed George W. Bush's lead in the polls. Now he's narrowing W's lead in the advertising pocketbook. Kerry, who was being outspent by a considerable margin in spot TV advertising by the Bush campaign for the past several months, suddenly took the lead in May and is closing in on Bush's TV ad impressions to date, according to estimates released this morning by Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

Best of all, the early ad dueling of the Campaign '04 rivals is creating an advertising bonanza for local TV stations in hotly contested states. Through the first five months of 2004, the two candidates have spent $64.3 million on local TV ad buys. That's roughly 3.5 times the amount ($18.6 million) of money spent on local TV ad buys by George W. Bush and Al Gore during the first five months of the 2000 campaign.

Meanwhile, the Bush and Kerry teams appear to be using different geographic targeting strategies. Bush has outspent Kerry by wide margins in Philadelphia, Seattle, and, of course, Miami-Ft. Lauderdale. Kerry, meanwhile, has nearly matched Bush's spending in Phoenix, Minneapolis, Detroit and Cleveland.

This differs considerably from 2000, when most of the money was spent in Los Angeles ($3.1 million) and New York ($2.1 million), neither market of which has gotten a cent to date.

Spot TV Ad Spending By Month

                  Bush         Kerry

January             $0    $1,738,881  
February            $0    $2,415,327  
March      $15,338,833    $2,857,477  
April      $12,156,759    $6,914,869  
May*        $8,923,543
$13,965,279  

Total      $36,419,135   $27,891,833  

Source: Nielsen Monitor-Plus. *May 1 through May 23, 2004.