Axios reports that local TV stations are experiencing an advertising windfall this election cycle, thanks to a record amount of U.S. political ad spending.

They even showed a fancy graphic showing how much local stations are making.

While this sounds like great news, let’s drop a truth bomb.

Yes, local stations are raking in money with political ads.

However, none of those stations will get to keep any of that money; it will all kick up the food chain to the corporate owner.

As a former News Vice President told FTVLive, “I’ve lived through numerous elections with stations pulling in millions, and we never got a bump in our budget to hire or provide better raises even with the millions brought in.”

The former news boss adds, “In fact, you can bet next year will be a brutal year for newsroom budgets  - managers will probably have to make layoffs since it will be a non-election year and local news viewing continues to decline.”

H/T Axios