Knowing When to Adjust Your Budget: A Guide for Broadcast TV Stations

The beginning of 2024 saw some very healthy political budgets handed down to stations from above. As it stands, in the first couple of months, very little of those big expectations have come to fruition. Some markets are seeing political spending, but the majority are nowhere near their expected Q1 budgets. Could that change after Super Tuesday or later in the year? Possibly, but when is it time to abandon the budget and get real about what’s happening in your market?

When navigating a political year, staying aware and nimble is important. Understanding the type of spending expected is important. Do you expect more issue or candidate money in the market? Issue money typically comes in high and doesn’t consume as much inventory, so it is a bit easier to handle. If the majority of the money is expected to be candidate dollars, then it’s a little trickier. We saw it in 2016 and again in some markets in 2020. If you stubbornly hold on to full political pricing too long and it doesn’t materialize, you’ve possibly scared away core customers, and it may become too late to get them back.

At the start of the year, it’s important to understand what your station needs to average in order to handle the expected political spending in each quarter. Stations are required to post their political rates publicly in most states. At ShareBuilders, we can help you create realistic rates that will help you reach your budget. However, when it becomes apparent that the races are not stacking up as budgeting, it’s important to adjust those expectations. It’s time to fine-tune and respond to current market conditions or risk losing core customers. The opposite can also be true. If demand is higher than expected it’s important to modify and raise rates so we can hold as much core and political as possible.

We can work with you to set minimums so we don’t go below LUR but still price more aggressively if the political is not materializing as budgeted. We can choose to price for partial political and lean in when it really begins so there is less fallout for our core customers. As a client, we have access to years of your political history and can strategically adjust pricing based on issue vs candidate as the spending (or lack thereof) plays out.

Whether political or core, it’s important to be flexible and realistic when pricing your station. Talk to your ShareBuilders consultant about all the strategies we can explore when dealing with the ever-changing demand in your market.