BIA Forecasts Record $11.1 Billion in Political Ad Spend in 2024

Author: Suzanne Ackley, Senior Research Analyst

Political spending in 2024 is forecast to be $11.1 billion; increasing $2.2 billion (+24%) over 2022, and $1.5 billion (+15.5%) over 2020 Political ad spending. Political will be the top spending vertical category in 2024 for many of the media channels in BIA’s forecast, including TV OTA, TV digital, Cable TV, Radio OTA, and CTV/OTT.

While local ad spending on digital is growing, traditional advertising is forecast to account for 70.2% of political ad spend in 2024, down from 77.9% in 2020. As with past Presidential elections, in 2024 over-the-air TV (TV OTA) will get the largest share of political ad dollars in local with an estimated $4.6 billion in forecast spending. Add in TV Digital, and the number rises to $4.9 billion. PC/Laptop will be the second highest at $1.3 billion, followed by Cable TV at $1.1 billion. Cable TV is the only media channel forecast to be down from 2020 in this category, by nearly $183 million.

Coming in fourth is relative newcomer Connected TV/Over-the-top TV (CTV/OTT), which is forecast to grow to $1.0 billion in 2024 from only $74 million in 2020. Over-the-air radio remains steady with $536 million in 2024, up 16% from 2020.

Three media channels with the biggest growth ($) in 2024 over 2020

• CTV/OTT (up $944M)
• TV OTA (up $163M)
• PC/Laptop (up $132M)

The biggest change in the political forecast is the spending on CTV/OTT. BIA is expecting more spending on CTV/OTT in 2024 by candidates and increased spending by non-political advertisers due to crowd-out. CTV/OTT is forecast to move up to 4th place for local political spending in 2024, behind TV OTA, PC/Laptop, and Cable TV. This is an opportunity to introduce advertisers to CTV/OTT and show them how to enhance their campaigns with CTV/OTT.

While preparing this post, I got some context from our VP of Forecasting, Nicole Ovadia. She expressed that this is a very exciting year for Political spending, not only because it will be higher than we’ve ever seen before, but because the distribution of the spending is also changing. Nicole explained that CTV/OTT will have nearly as much Political spending as Cable this year with down-ballot and smaller races embracing the hyper-targetability of the CTV/OTT medium.

As Nicole and our numbers indicate, this is a game-changer and a massive opportunity for media sellers.

Check out more on BIA’s political advertising forecast in our Local Political Ad Spend Forecast Report 2024. It offers our local political forecast by all 210 markets and spend by key media, along with other insights and analysis.

If you are a BIA ADVantage subscriber, login to access the Political forecast report and also run custom reports for your local market(s).  

The report is also available for purchase from our shop here.