Viewers of Grand Rapids ABC affiliate WZZM had a hard time escaping those pesky political ads this election season.
According to MLive, in the week before the election, WZZM aired 1,820 ads, the most of any station in the country. The report says the high number may not be a fluke, the station may make itself attractive to political ad buyers.
The Michigan Campaign Finance Network observed the state’s top 150 political action committees raised $60.1 million since Jan. 1, 2013, through the end of October 2014 — a 73 percent increase compared to the previous election cycle.
AdvertisementFounder Rich Robinson and his organization now are busy crunching final ad spending numbers from across the state, but he said it’s likely WZZM had relatively inexpensive ad rates to attract a greater number of advertisers.
“There was a lot of money chasing a finite inventory of ad time,” Robinson wrote in an email. “Maybe its programming lineup had particular appeal.
“Also, it has chosen not to place ad contracts of ‘issue’ ads about state candidates in its public file. That probably makes it somewhat more attractive to entities that don’t want to leave a trail of their activity.”