Sunlight Foundation Analyzes Philly Political Spend

We profile the Philly TV market in the new issue, where NBC's WCAU has all sorts of new stuff, KYW now resides in the same building as its radio counterparts, and WTXF is hiring a corps of "junior reporter" college kids to do stories—and bring in a younger audience.

The Sunlight Foundation virtually visited Philadelphia as well to see what's happening with political spending.

There was $4.6 million in political cash spent on KYW from April 2013 to June 2014. The Democrats outspent the Republicans by 350%, and a large majority of the spend came from actual candidates, not outside groups.

Philly benefitted not only from Pennsylvania elections, but New Jersey ones too, such as the race for governor.

Democratic candidates targeted the 11 p.m. news while Republican candidates went for news earlier in the day. Democrats also dominated celebrity gossip shows, says Philly.com, while Republicans spent on Let's Make a Deal.

Writes Philly.com of the study:

The findings provide a glimpse at the relentlessness with which voters in key markets are bombarded with political messages — and intriguing details about how office seekers, political parties and other interest groups target them.

Michael Malone

Michael Malone, senior content producer at B+C/Multichannel News, covers network programming, including entertainment, news and sports on broadcast, cable and streaming; and local broadcast television. He hosts the podcasts Busted Pilot, about what’s new in television, and Series Business, a chat with the creator of a new program, and writes the column “The Watchman.” He joined B+C in 2005. His journalism has also appeared in The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Playboy and New York magazine.