Taking Advantage of the 1st Amendment

Radio is popular for political advertising

By: John Kesler, Emmis

The month of June returns Hoosier broadcasters to relative normalcy as the election commercials for the Indiana primary are over.

During late April through early May, it seemed you couldn’t turn on a radio or TV station without being inundated with a political advertising message.  Why?  Because candidates need to fish where the fish are to sway voters and get them to the polls.

Radio has long been a traditional form of advertising where targeting specific groups of people happen.  Primarily this is done by format.  The campaign managers, and advertising strategists for political candidates use radio tactically as a part of their strategy.  Older people tend to vote more frequently (not like Chicago, where people vote often..) and older people vote in local elections, primary elections, state-wide elections and general elections.  Younger people tend to vote less often, general/Presidential elections is an example of when they only vote.

Network Indiana is a news network.  We supply news in both spoken and written form to radio stations around Indiana. Our affiliated radio stations generally serve older audiences as older audiences are more interested in news than their younger counterparts.  Network Indiana has the ability to reach older listeners in all 92 counties.  That is why campaigns from statewide candidates rely heavily on Network Indiana and the affiliated radio stations.  In the fall and spring of election years Network Indiana will fill up with candidate and/or super political action committee (or PAC) advertising.

Richard Murdock, left, challenged incumbent Richard Lugar

In 2012, so far, we have seen business from Mourdock for Senate, Lugar for Senate and several special interest groups ranging from the National Rifle Association to the USA SuperPac and Freedomworks. We expect to see business from Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, Mike Pence for Governor, John Gregg for Governor, Tony Bennett for Superintendent of Public Instruction, and numerous other special interest groups that want to take advantage of the First Amendment.

In non-election cycles, Network Indiana will have advertisers that want to affect votes in the state or national legislature.  Our listeners will call or write their elected officials based on their position on an issue.  In recent years we have worked with Indiana issues like education reform and Right To Work along with national issues like cap and trade.

Network Indiana is a cost-efficient, simple way to reach voters across Indiana.

Fish where the fish are?  We have lots of fish that vote.