First, thanks to dKos reader, tmo, for the suggestion of that title.
Expanding on my post about Sinclair's advertisers. I work in tv in a medium sized market. We have 2 Sinclair stations here. I worked for 7 years for one of Sinclair's competitors producing local tv advertising. I worked everyday with the sales manager, and I got to know a LOT about how local tv stations generate ad revenue.
As I posted, over 60% of a local stations ad revenue is generated by their nightly 5pm/6pm news broadcast. That hour is the sacred cow of every local station. And the big advertisers on the 5pm/6pm broadcast are the angels, the most revered and sucked-up to group of people that the station does business with. Trust me, I know, if one of those advertisers is unhappy, it gets fixed.... FAST.
That's the pressure point, the local advertisers, usually car dealers are high on the list. But you also need to find out, and this is trickier, who the media buyers are for that market. A media buyer (just for those who don't know) is a business, sometimes part of an ad agency, who buys media on local tv stations. Every political campaign has their own media buyer. One media buyer might represent several advertisers. And those people are very low profile, the LAST thing they want is to be caught in the crossfire. So what should we do?.... Fire away!
heynewt