Enjoy it while you can. The lull between the primary election and the Nov. 6 general election campaign season is here.
Labor Day is the traditional kick-off point for the ramping up of hectic general election campaigning. So for a few weeks TV viewers are getting a break from the constant barrage of accusations and adulations.
Except for when it comes to Linda Lingle, that is.
Civil Beat last week reported that the U.S. Senate hopeful was the only candidate to buy ad time on local TV stations.
That hasn’t changed, according to this week’s probe review of the public files.
Although general election campaigning is already well underway, it looks like most candidates and super PACs are waiting before they spend what’s left in their campaign bank accounts.
Every week, Civil Beat has been visiting the state’s three broadcast stations to make copies of their political ad contracts in an effort to “free the files.” These political files indicate which candidates and political committees have bought time on local airwaves and for how much.
Broadcast stations are required to make such contracts available to the public. Stations located in the top 50 markets now have to upload that information onto a new Federal Communications Commission website.
But because Hawaii’s TV market is ranked no. 71, local broadcasters have until July 2014 to do so. For now, only contracts with Oceanic Time Warner cable are accessible online.
Lingle this week spent more than $90,000 on 395 spots that are airing through the end of the week on KHON, KITV, KITV subsidiary MeTV, KGMB, KHNL and Time Warner cable networks such as CNN, ESPN and TNT.
The most expensive spots of the week cost $1,500 each and aired during the 6 p.m. news and the Wheel of Fortune on KHON. She also bought two $1,200 spots on KITV, one of which aired during Wednesday’s NY Med season finale and another which will air on Sunday during Extreme Makeover.
Lingle continues to pay $2,500 a week for her own cable channel.
A few contracts from last week also appeared this week in Time Warner’s online Lingle file.
One document reveals that the U.S. Senate candidate spent nearly $4,000 on 28 spots that aired Aug. 12 — the day after the primary election — on various cable networks. That means that Lingle spent roughly $17,000 total on spots that ran that day.
Recently uploaded contracts also show that the Republican doled out an additional $12,500 on spots that aired last week on a range of cable networks. That’s on top of the $2,500 she spent on her channel.
Lingle’s post-primary ad buys amount to approximately $180,000.
As of Wednesday, she had spent $762,000 total on ad time this election season.
Grand Totals
Total ad buys this week amount to about $91,000. As of Wednesday, total spending this election season was nearly $5.7 million. Super PACs have spent about 35 percent of that money, or approximately $2 million.
