Political parties may spend Rs 50 cr on local cable channels for elections

This year’s election campaign is expected to generate Rs 50 crore as ad revenue for the local cable industry.

Local cable channels are operated by multi-system operators, and/or local cable operators, and usually cover a smaller geographical area, usually a district.

In a non-election year, the ad spend on local cable channels is Rs 60-70 crore.

In the recently concluded state elections alone, national parties — BJP and Congress — spent Rs 8-10 crore on advertising on local cable channels, say sources in media planning and buying.

According to the advertising data recently released by Facebook, the BJP spent Rs 4 crore on social media platform ads in February alone. Given that political campaigning usually lasts four months, parties are expected to spend almost the same (which they are spending on Facebook) amount on local cable channels per month.