Politicians are spending record money to yell at people through a box on the wall.
The box is winning.
Digital ad platforms have spent a decade promising to eat television alive. Instead, local stations are about to pocket nearly half of all political ad dollars this cycle. Local stations. The ones airing a weatherman named Doug and a segment on a dog that can skateboard.
Somewhere, a retail trader bought a digital advertising stock in 2021 because a man with a ring light said television was dead. That trader is still holding it. He checks it at red lights. It does not check on him.
Consider the buyer. A campaign has millions to spend and one goal: reach voters who actually show up. Who shows up? People over 60, watching the evening news at full volume, wondering where the remote went. You cannot retarget that audience. You can only interrupt their casserole.
So the money pours in. Every swing district gets a thirty-second spot where a grim narrator says a candidate's name like it's a diagnosis. Local affiliates collect the cash and send a fruit basket to no one.
Digital is gaining share, sure. It's the kid at the table who grew two inches and now thinks he runs dinner. Dad is still holding the checkbook.
Meanwhile, the average voter will see the same attack ad forty times before November and retain nothing but a vague hatred of a stranger named Gary.
Technical analysis says this trend is bullish for rabbit-ear antennas. I drew a line on a chart to confirm. The line agrees with me because I drew it.
Buy the stations. Or don't. Your portfolio has never once been interrupted by a candidate promising to fix it.
Photo by Eze Joseph on Unsplash
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