For Immediate Release
April 13, 2004

Contact:
Cindi Canary (312) 335-1767

CHICAGO TV STATIONS HAVE RECEIVED MORE THAN $9 MILLION IN POLITICAL AD SPENDING . . . MORE TO COME

The recent U.S. Senate primary election was a money machine for Chicago television stations, which sold nearly $9 million in commercial time to the candidates in the month leading up to the March balloting.

WLS won the political sales campaign, taking in $2,778,785 and airing 1,275 campaign commercials, according to the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform (ICPR).

WMAQ broadcast 1,345 commercials, more than any other Chicago station, and finished second in the money with just over $2.5 million from the nine Senate candidates purchasing time on Chicago stations.

“It’s no wonder television viewers felt like they were being bombarded by political commercials,” said Cynthia Canary, Director of ICPR. “More than 5,000 candidate commercials were broadcast during the primary election season.

“The two primary winners were not the biggest television spenders,” Canary said. “However, each winner devoted more than $1 million to buy time to talk to voters in Chicago, and no candidate spending less than $1 million even came close to winning their party’s nomination.

“Two things are clear from this study,” Canary said. “One, a winning candidate must either be a millionaire or be willing to spend a great deal of time asking special interest groups for contributions. And, two, television stations using public airwaves free of charge are among the biggest beneficiaries of the escalating campaign spending.”

Political ad spending across the nation soared from $771 million in 2000 to about $1 billion in 2002, and industry analysts predict 2004 spending at local television stations will easily break that record.

The chart above shows how much the Senate candidates spent to air commercials on Chicago television stations. A breakdown of spending by each candidate and the number of campaign commercials aired by each station is available at ICPR's web site www.ilcampaign.org or by calling ICPR at 312-335-1767.

ICPR gathered the information by reviewing each station’s political advertising sales contracts, which the Federal Communications Commission requires to be available to the public.

ICPR is a non-profit, non-partisan campaign watchdog organization that works to increase public awareness of how political campaigns are funded in Illinois