In Depth
Obama Buys Olympics Ad Time
It’s official. Barack Obama’s campaign will be among the TV sponsors of NBC’s Olympics coverage.
In the first significant network TV buy by any presidential candidate in at least 16 years, the Obama campaign has taken a $5 million package of Olympics spots that includes network TV as well as cable ads.
The package is less than one $10 million package NBC had offered the campaign, according to NBC’s political file, but well above the $500,000, $2 million and $4 million package of Olympics spots the campaign initially requested information about.
NBC Universal is airing 3,600 hours of Olympics coverage on its broadcast network and cable networks including NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, USA Network, Oxygen and Telemundo.
While some of the Obama spots will air on network TV, the breakdown of how many or exactly when they will air was not immediately available, but it included most dayparts.
The Obama campaign did not return several calls seeking comment on the reasoning behind the buy.
The Obama campaign will join major advertisers including McDonald’s and Anheuser-Busch with a presence on the telecasts from Beijing that begin Aug. 8 with the Opening Ceremonies.
While Rudolph Giuliani’s campaign did a tiny buy to air political ads on “Fox News Sunday” in consecutive weeks, the Obama campaign’s spending on the high-rated and expensive Olympics tops anything that has been done on network TV by presidential candidates in years.
The last network TV spot apparently was a single multi-minute ad Republican Bob Dole ran in 1996.
Since then, presidential candidates have mostly used their advertising dollars to target battleground states, with some in recent campaigns also running national ads on cable television.
Obama campaign officials have said before they were looking at the possibility of doing national advertising and were looking at a variety of options including cable channels such as MTV and BET and potentially the Olympics.
The buy comes as the Obama campaign continues to set fundraising records. Also, its decision to not accept federal matching funds leaves it able to spend as much money as it can raise. The campaign reported it raised $52 million in June, compared with the nearly $21.5 million raised by Sen. John McCain’s campaign.
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Comments 19
Rocco
First!
Bill
I've always enjoyed watching the Olympics.
Not this year.
Instead of celebrating the triumphs of athletes, we'll be told over and over again why America is a failure and why Obama's "change" is the only thing that can fix it.
Thanks for freeing up lots of my time, NBC.
Howard
Aw c'mon ... the Olympics are supposed to be non political. Just because a candidate has the dough, doesn't mean it's right to use these games for personal political gain. The credo of the Olympics is ... It's not whether you win or not, it's how you play the game. Once again, it appears that Obama will disregard and disrespect any and all traditions in order to win. Once again, Obama will do anything, or say anything to win. The end does not always justify the means. Extreme arrogance and ambition can be a very distasteful character flaw.
joe
Oh, relax people. $5 million in only a handful of spots over 2 weeks. My guess is he probably bought prime spots. $5 million comes out to roughly 6-7 prime spots, total.
bga
ADAge just reported that the McCain camp made a last minute purchase of $6 mil in ad time. Feel better?
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