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Campaign Ad Bonanza Expected For TV, Radio

The general election is 14 months away, but with as many as 17 candidates running president, television and radio stations are slathering at the prospect of billions of ad dollars. And they are apt to get their payoff early, as many states have moved up their 2008 primaries. Some analysts predict TV stations alone might bring in $2 billion to $3 billion from the 2008 election cycle -- a new record -- up from $1.6 billion in 2006 and $900 million in 2004.

Top beneficiaries of the electoral largesse are expected to include CBS, Hearst-Argyle Television and Meredith, with the latter two really raking it in from early voting states. Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney, has already spent more than $1.8 million on broadcast media in the first half of this year.

Still, the GOP candidate who leads the polls, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, hasn't run any television commercials, but has used some radio in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. "We're inching closer to January, this is just the beginning," says Giuliani spokeswoman Maria Comella. Democratic candidate John Edwards, running neck and neck in Iowa with front-runners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, has run very few broadcast ads as yet, but that "will change as we get closer (to the early 2008 primaries, " says senior campaign adviser Joe Trippi.

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Read the whole story at Reuters via Washington Post »

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