Honolulu mayoral candidate Ben Cayetano spent about $30,000 this week on his first TV ad buys since the primary election.
He bought 58 spots that are airing on KITV and KGMB this week through late October. One spot cost $1,075 and will air next Thursday on KGMB during “Person of Interest.”
As of Wednesday, the former Hawaii governor had spent $331,000 on ad time this election season.
Cayetano’s ad purchases come a month after his opponent, former Honolulu managing director Kirk Caldwell, bought his first post-primary TV spots. Independent expenditure groups also have been flooding the airwaves with anti-Cayetano ads.
Caldwell this week spent roughly $25,000 on 78 spots that are airing on all the local broadcast stations through Sunday.
That’s on top of the additional $9,000 worth of previous contracts that showed up in this week’s public files.
As of Wednesday, Caldwell had spent about $74,000 on post-primary ad time, bringing his total spending this election season up to $273,000.
Civil Beat has been visiting the KHON, KITV and Hawaii News Now headquarters weekly to get hard copies of their political ad contracts in an effort to document how much money is being spent — and by whom — on political advertising. A national media outlet, ProPublica, has been trying to draw attention to the difficulty to access TV station records in its “Free the Files” series.
Broadcast stations by law are required to make the records available to the public. But Hawaii’s broadcasters won’t have to publish the information on the web until July 2014. Only ad buys made with Oceanic Time Warner cable are viewable online.
ProPublica.org recently teamed up with the Huffington Post to look at ad spending in swing-state cities including Denver, Detroit, Miami and Washington, D.C. The partnership has uncovered millions of dollars in spending by super PACs and dark money groups.
In Hawaii, Republican 1st Congressional District candidate Charles Djou this week spent more than $61,000 on 160 spots that are airing through Sunday on KHON, KITV, KFVE and KGMB. An earlier contract also shows that he spent more than $18,000 on on 34 spots that aired last week on KGMB.
One of the most expensive spots cost $1,455 and aired Thursday on KGMB during the “Big Bang Theory.”
Djou, who didn’t face a major Republican challenger in the primary, didn’t buy ad time before the Aug. 11 election. He bought his first TV spots of the season in late September. As of Wednesday, he had spent approximately $259,000 on ad time.
Djou’s Democratic rival Colleen Hanabusa this week spent more than $58,000 on 152 spots that are airing through Sunday on all the local broadcast stations. Two of the most expensive spots cost $1,500 each and aired on KHON during “Wheel of Fortune.”
She bought her first spots of the season last week. As of Wednesday, Hanabusa had spent about $111,000 total on ad time this election season.
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Mazie Hirono this week spent more than $258,000 on 701 spots, some of which are airing through early November. She spent $2,500 each on two spots that aired Wednesday and Thursday during the “X Factor” on KHON.
As of Wednesday, Hirono had spent more than $1.1 million on post-primary ad time. That means she has spent well over $1.8 million on ad time this election season.
Hirono’s Republican opponent Linda Lingle this week spent $144,000 on 407 spots that are airing through Sunday on all the local broadcast stations and a range of Oceanic Time Warner cable networks, including CNN, ESPN and TNT. Her most expensive buy of the week cost $6,000 on aired on KGMB Monday during “Hawaii Five-0.”
As of Wednesday, the Republican had spent close to $891,000 on ad time since the primary, bringing her total spending this election season up to nearly $1.5 million.
Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustee candidate Haunani Apoliona this week spent another $2,100 on 6 spots that are airing starting next week on KFVE. She has spent roughly $8,000 total on ad time this election season.
And the pro-rail trade group Pacific Resource Partnership spent an additional $12,000 on 5 spots that were added to an earlier contract with KGMB. The additional buys brought PRP’s post-primary ad spending up to $881,000. As of Wednesday, the union-affiliated group had spent more than $2.2 million airing ads attacking Cayetano this election season.
Grand Totals
Total ad buys this week amount to more than $1.4 million, according to Civil Beat’s most recent review of the public files. As of Thursday, total post-primary TV ad spending was more than $5.2 million. Total ad spending for the entire election season was about $11 million. Non-candidate political committees have accounted for 35 percent of that money, or slightly more than $3.8 million.
