By: Randy Evans

As the money continues to roll in for the 2014 Georgia senatorial and gubernatorial candidates, Georgia media outlets must be smiling big. At the end of the day, most contenders and independent expenditure committees will use that money to either promote or attack candidates in the 2014 elections.

Make no mistake, just candidates in the Georgia Senate and gubernatorial races alone will raise and spend over $40 million by the time the general election rolls around. In fact, the various candidates, Super PACS, political parties and independent expenditure committees in the race for Senate and governor have already raised or spent almost $20 million.

Indeed, in the last reporting period incumbent Republican Gov. Nathan Deal had raised just under $4 million; Democratic Senate candidate Michelle Nunn had raised $5.7 million; Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jason Carter had raised $1.8 million; and the host of Republican candidates for Senate totaled almost $10 million – and that is before the Republican senatorial primary runoff and not counting the undisclosed expenditure by non-candidate committees.

Add to that the money that various congressional candidates will spend, and it will be a whopping number for September and October heading into the November general election. For voters it will mean an endless river of email, snail mail, radio commercials and television advertisements. For media outlets, it will be a financial lifeline at the end of a long, hard economic road.

Although social media certainly has and continues to make inroads into the political process, the fact remains that television is still king.

When important statewide races like Georgia’s Senate race and gubernatorial race make the national radar, it only expands the potential sources of information for voters in those elections. Yet, in the end, there is only so much that candidates (even with huge war chests) can buy. For candidates who can afford it, local television remains the most effective way to reach independent or swing voters who do not focus on state elections until late and can be swayed by last-minute information.

When it comes to local television stations, Georgia is a big state and has lots of them. Atlanta alone has 13 full-power broadcast television stations. In all, 49 full-power broadcast television stations cover some significant part of Georgia.

Needless to say, small stations serving cities around the state do not have the reach of some of the major stations in Atlanta. Correspondingly, they are nowhere near as expensive. As a result, spreading resources around necessarily means weighing the return on investment, i.e. in political terms, the amount of money spent compared to the number of likely favorable voters reached.

In some situations, the same money spent on a radio station or market-specific print media offers a far greater return on investment for many candidates. Indeed, clever strategists will make use of targeted print media – confirming brands; addressing issues unique to readers; and, locking in constituencies.

Everyone will use social media and emails. In most cases, they reach folks who have already made up their mind or become prime targets for spam filters for the undecided.

Yet, television does have the sex appeal of celebrity and remains king.

Contrary to popular perception, however, numbers (viewers) are not everything when it comes to buying television. For candidates to buy airtime on hostile cable news networks rarely makes a lot of sense. Cable news proves that point with each of the various major cable news networks bringing their own perspective and, with it, a specific audience. Yes, the political advertisement reaches voters. Unfortunately, the newscast that follows undercuts whatever message might have been included.

Similarly, some stations, like WSB-TV, are just behemoths – dominating the ratings with viewers of all kinds. Stations like that become “must buys” for candidates who need to raise name identification, create brand and launch effective attack advertisements.

Of course, in a midterm election, driving voter turnout is as important as winning swing or independent voters. As a result, Democrats will hit hard radio and television stations that play to their audience – aided by huge investments by independent expenditure committees eager to prompt voters to go to the polls. Similarly, Republicans will hit niche radio and television stations equally hard to make sure that their base also shows up at the polls on Election Day.

The common denominator for all of the candidates, political parties, political action

committees and independent expenditures will be the same – spend lots and lots of money on media to reach voters. After all, many national political pundits in Washington, D.C., see Georgia as a possibly “winnable” state in both the senatorial and gubernatorial race. That purported “purple” status translates into big money and that big money gets spent on media.

So, while some candidates will win and others will lose, in 2014, Georgia media outlets, especially local television stations, will win either way.