Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on November 1, 2012

Posted: Thursday, November 1, 2012, 4:34 AM

A torrent of ads is flooding TV sets in the final days of Election 2012 -- and fact-checkers, reporters and pundits are poring over nearly every one.

But there's another, less-noticed air war.

Barack Obama, Mitt Romney and their allies have also unleashed a flood of radio ads, which usually get little scrutiny. Yet industry insiders say the radio spots actually could be more influential at this late stage, as the eyes of swing-state voters glaze over after months of near-constant television ads.

(Also on POLITICO: Listen to 10 presidential race radio ads)

Radio allows campaigns, super PACs and other players to tailor messages to specific audiences on issues that play to the base, such as gay marriage, mammograms and defense cuts. It also lets them roll out edgier ads at a relatively low cost, including a rap artist-backed spot about "disrespect" of Obama and one from a religious conservative group claiming that Obama denied America's Christian heritage during a visit to a Muslim nation.

Several industry sources said they expect spending on political ads for radio to set a record this year, though they cautioned that final figures are hard to predict because so much of the money is spent close to the election.

(PHOTOS: Final countdown to Election Day)

"There's less clutter on radio than on TV," said Evan Tracey, who founded a firm that tracks political ad buys, the Campaign Media Analysis Group. "It's a crowded room problem. Everybody's in the room yelling something different, and that's particularly true in the battleground states. ... In Las Vegas, there have been something like 73,000 political TV ads. That's a very crowded room."

Tracey, who teaches at George Washington University, called radio "kind of the original microtargeting and social media."

Read more:
Radio: The other air war

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