• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, November 6, 2018

On the backs of what is expected to be a record election turnout for a midterm election, there is a record turnout when it comes to midterms advertising spending -- $2.9 billion, according to Advertising Analytics,

That amount is almost double what it was in the last midterm elections in 2014.

The big beneficiary is broadcast TV, earning almost $2.4 billion. Way down the list after that comes cable TV, radio, addressable advertising and Facebook.

But don’t get too happy, TV people -- there’s always next year. You know, the one without any big political revenues coming local TV stations’ way.

Borrell Associates says TV will be all smiles -- this year. Just on broadcast and cable networks, political ads will hit $4.6 billion, with $1.8 billion going to digital media this year.

Facebook isn’t doing all that bad, either. Political marketers spent $354 million on Facebook between May 2018 and November 3, 2018, according to Advertising Analytics.

That’s right -- although plied with lots of iffy political advertising/content for the presidential election in 2016, Facebook was still in  demand from political advertisers.

Still, this holistic view gets a big round of applause from TV ad-selling executives this time of year. Local TV can still beat digital media when it comes to high-profile revs from political advertising.

But this is just short-term thinking.

TV stations know that political revenues, as well as still growing revenues from retransmission fees, aren’t enough to plan any hyped-up future growth from investors -- especially as core advertising revenues continue to limp along — virtually flat results year after year.

The New ATSC 3.0 technology standard for TV stations? Although just getting started, real dollars and businesses coming from this is still a long way off. Until that happens, digital media will continue to amp up its scale, reach and engagement to siphoned away more local TV marketers media budgets.

Such media campaigning will continue. Figuring out the election winners is another matter.