Making More Room for Political Ads
As the 2020 race heats up, stations continue to add more newscasts, not to cover the news, but to make more room for political ads.
Graham’s KPRC in Houston expanded their 4PM newscast to one hour starting this week.
“The expansion of our KPRC 2 News at 4 feels like a logical progression for us,” says KPRC VP-GM Jerry Martin. “This will provide us the time to dig deeper into stories affecting our communities.”
What he didn’t say is, that political campaigns like to buy ads in newscasts, because they feel that a person that watches news is more likely to be a voter.
Stations across the country have been adding newscasts in an effort to give their sales people more spots to sell to campaigns.
If it really was about doing more news and informing the viewer, these stations would be adding many more people with the announced expansion.
Most stations are either adding no one, or maybe one employee.
Don’t let them fool you, this is all about the money.