New projections from S&P Global Market Research confirm that local political ad spending will be a windfall for broadcasters in 2026, with revenue expected to reach $4.02 billion.
That is up 15% from the last midterms in 2022.
The study also highlights the growing importance of political advertisers in a period when core advertising has been relatively sluggish. In a blog post, S&P Global Market Research analyst Peter Leitzinger predicted political ad revenue to be 16.3% of net total broadcast revenue in 2026, a record for a nonpresidential election year.
However, the study found that the largest growth segment within political advertising in 2026 is the growth of political advertising on connected TV (CTV).
That trend highlights the importance of ongoing efforts by broadcast TV groups to bulk up their digital operations. Even so linear TV still commands close to half of all political advertising dollars.
The study also ranked the TV station groups with the largest number of stations in states with highly contested congressional races. Sinclair ranks first with 26 stations. Nexstar Media Group and Gray Media followed with 23 stations.
As of the March 19 closing of Nexstar's purchase of Tegna, Nexstar will have the most full-power TV stations in competitive swing states.
