Political TV Ads, Paid for by [Your Name Here]
An online video start-up company hopes to make money by brokering political TV ads for ordinary folks. Saysme.TV, backed by such venture financiers as Intel Capital, hopes to exploit loose restrictions on electioneering communications paid for by individuals. Political action committees and campaigns must live with strict spending and disclosure rules, but individuals can spend on political ads with relative freedom, said former Federal Elections Commission Chairman Brad Smith, who’s advising the company. “One of the odd things about campaign finance law, if you're really rich, it’s not that hard to go out and buy ads and billboards,” Smith said. “But as soon as you get two or more people together, then you're subject to a whole other set of regulations.”
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Saysme hopes to entice art students and semi-pro video producers into making batches of ads backing a variety of candidates, said co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Morgan Warstler. Picking from among those offerings, individuals can select those they want to air and buy time on local broadcast stations or spots on cable systems, he said, cautioning that media outlets screen ads before accepting them. Would-be kingmakers provide credit card information, including the name that will run with the ad. “This is truly a better ‘Swift Boat,’ because now when you watch the ad at the end of it, you know exactly who paid for it,” Warstler said: “There’s not a shadowy group that you've got to go pull a bunch of reports.” Every time someone pays to run an ad, its producer will receive a fee, he said. Saysme also keeps some of what it collects from the ad buyer.
Saysme has agreements with broadcasters and cable operators in Indianapolis and Raleigh-Durham and Charlotte, N.C. The company hopes to expand to 70-90 markets within months, Warstler said. A 30-second political spot can run as little as $35, for a spot on Comedy Central in North Carolina, to $500 for a spot on McGraw-Hill ABC affiliate WRTV Indianapolis. Saysme generates all FEC paperwork stations and cable systems need for their public files, Warstler said.
If a campaign produces ads for the site and a supporter buys air time for it, FEC reporting will be more complex, said Warstler. In that scenario, citizens’ ad expenses would be reported as in-kind donations and limited by federal fundraising laws, he said. Designing a system for generating such reports was a challenge, Smith said. “The there are still different types of disclaimers for different types of ads,” he said. For instance, particular documentation is needed if an ad runs within 60 days of an election, and depending on whether it’s an issue ad or a candidate ad.
Another challenge will be handing the amount of uploaded video the site expects, Warstler said. “The video people are uploading are 700 megabit files for 25 seconds of video,” he said. “It’s not quite like YouTube, so if you're ingesting a large quantity of TV-ready video, you've got to really have your stuff turned on,” he said. “We just got funded, and we're going through the staffing process of putting more folks on the infrastructure. I'd be a little bit freaked out if you told me right now I was going to have 92 markets served.”