TV Stations Curtail Discount Ads
For Virginia Campaign

Washington's four most popular television stations are sharply cutting sales of advertising spots to Virginia political candidates in profit-boosting moves that critics say will greatly limit what voters see of the campaigns in the three weeks before Election Day.

Heading into last night -- when the Washington Redskins-Dallas Cowboys football game and the Baltimore Orioles baseball playoffs game were expected to pull the highest audiences of the season -- Washington's major network affiliates had informed Virginia's candidates for governor, James S. Gilmore III (R) and Donald S. Beyer Jr. (D), that they will limit air-time purchases by the campaigns by roughly 40 percent between now and the Nov. 4 election.

One station went further, according to several campaigns, citing open-market competition and limited audience interest in the Virginia campaigns among D.C. and Maryland viewers. WJLA-TV (Channel 7), the local ABC network affiliate, will sell no more time to lieutenant governor and attorney general candidates at the customary discounted rate for politicians, the campaigns said. WRC-TV (Channel 4), WUSA-TV (Channel 9) and WTTG-TV (Channel 5) have cut back down-ticket campaigns from discounted ads in lucrative prime-time and news slots, when most viewers are tuned in.

"It's a very, very healthy market economically, so it's tough for anybody to get TV time," said Terry J. Connelly, WJLA's president and general manager, who said that Washington's stations are raking in profits well above last year. Connelly said the station has no formal policy restricting candidate ads, but explained, "It's strictly supply and demand."

But political observers and media analysts say the stations' moves are a jolt to campaigns that have spent months -- or years -- trolling for cash in order to battle over the airwaves, only to find that TV stations aren't interested in their ads.

"These people are looking at political debate with the same commercial eye that they look at selling sausage. It's a terrible thing," said William D. Dolan III, Virginia's Democratic nominee for attorney general. He added that the stations' decisions send a bad sign: that "dollars are more important than public debate."

Groups that have encouraged broadcasters to give candidates free air time to encourage debate untainted by big money called the Washington area stations' decisions a step in an uncharted direction.

Although consultants say restrictions on campaign ads are increasing in state races across the country, Ellen S. Miller, executive director of Public Campaign, a Washington-based nonprofit group lobbying for publicly financed campaigns, said she had never heard of stations refusing to sell any spots to candidates.

"If we can't even get them to provide paid time, what's the potential for getting free time for debates?" Miller asked. "It has enormous ramifications for the ability of candidates to make their voices heard in races."

Under U.S. law, federal candidates such as those running for president or Congress are entitled to the lowest market rate for ads and "reasonable access" -- translated in practice to virtually unlimited purchases. But candidates for state offices enjoy few legal protections for guaranteed TV time.

The situation in this region is complex because its split geography means that only two of five viewers live in Virginia. TV stations mainly justify the political advertising cap as simply good business, given demands by paying commercial advertisers.

"We can't turn over all time to political candidates, because they're only here once every four years, and our other advertisers are there 52 weeks a year," WJLA's Connelly said.

Robert J. Sullivan, president and general manager of WUSA-TV, said his station was being "a good public citizen" by offering state candidates any time at all, even at full-market rates marked up 40 percent and higher from discounted rates for political ads.

"It's a state race, not a federal race. We could say we don't want political ads filling up our space," Sullivan said. Asked whether that distinction best serves the public interest, he replied, "You know, I don't write the laws."

Sales officials at WRC and WTTG, the Fox affiliate, said they were limiting political ads because of heavy commercial demand. Spokesmen for the stations were not available.

In past years, Redskins-Cowboys games on Monday nights have drawn up to 70 percent of the area's viewers, or about 800,000 homes.

Stations are reluctant to discuss their ad rates publicly, but a Virginia GOP campaign said that a 30-second spot during the Redskins game on Channel 7 cost $38,000, compared with $16,000 for a similar spot during last night's baseball game. Media buyers said a typical prime-time slot can cost a few thousand dollars, with daytime or late evening slots costing less.

But without federal guarantees for air time, Virginia's state candidates are struggling to be heard against big-budgeted advertisers such as department stores and furniture retailers.

"The public policy issue is whether or not voters are going to be entitled to the maximum amount of information" in the last days before the election, said Beyer media consultant Mike Donilon, of Washington-based Shrum Devine & Donilon.

Both Donilon and Gilmore consultant Dick Leggitt said stations began limiting time in September. Instead of selling candidates enough time to reach an average viewer 10 or 12 times a week, they are selling the equivalent of six or seven sightings, both men said.

The stations' decisions in Virginia's biggest, costliest TV market, home to one in three state voters, have led campaigns to direct their money elsewhere and retune their messages for radio, mail and phone.

Republicans say the TV ad limits in the Washington area, which leans Democratic, could help their candidates. Democrats Beyer and Dolan are in tight races and are hoping for high voter turnout from their native Northern Virginia. L.F. Payne Jr. of the Charlottesville area, the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, also is counting heavily on the region.

John H. Hager, the GOP nominee for lieutenant governor, and state Sen. Mark L. Earley of Chesapeake, the Republican running for attorney general, are quietly gleeful because they have fewer resources to fight in the costly D.C. market and are relying on supporters elsewhere in the state.

"This is great news for us," said Mike Salster, spokesman for Hager, a former tobacco executive from Richmond. "It takes a big bat out of your opponent's hands."

Mark Bowles, Payne's campaign manager, said the stations' move was "disappointing, to say the least. . . . It's something we're trying to figure out right now, between mail and phone and radio and TV. The money's got to go somewhere."

Staff writer Ellen Nakashima contributed to this report.

Back to the Top

Go to Governor's Race Opening Page
Go to Key Post Stories | Go to All Post Stories | Go to Campaign Documents | Go to Maps



Go to Washington World