Friday, August 8, 2008

RT&T Reports Gas Station TV Access Denied to Obama in Florida

Real Time Traders Newswire (RTTNews) reports that Obama's camp claims that Gas Station TV revoked their media buy in Florida after pressure from oil companies during the 11th hour.

"Once again, the oil companies and their friends are standing with Sen. McCain, the candidate for President who is proposing to offer them a $4 billion tax cut," Obama spokesman Mark Bubriski said.

"It looks like Gas Station TV doesn't want the American people to know about Sen. Obama's plan to offer working families a $1,000 energy rebate," he added.

Well, maybe it was in the 11th hour of a 24-hour clock. According to Gas Station TV, it is and has been against company policy to run politican ads.

"At a time when presidential campaign ads monopolize prime time, we believe it is important to be able to provide traditional advertisers with a clutter-free environment to showcase their brands and target marketing messages to a captive audience," its CEO David Leider said in the statement.

It must be hard to pass up those lucrative campaign ad dollars.

The Hill reports that the Obama and McCain campaigns and the Republican National Committee (RNC) have collectively spent about $10.3 million on campaign advertisements in Pennsylvania alone. Ohio media buys have reached about $6 million. The next three states are Michigan, Florida and Virginia.

RTTNews offers articles related to news events and market information that effects trade values. It is possible that their wind testing on this matter was open to shallow reporting.

Fox Business picked up the piece from Gas Station Network's PR firm and added:
No invoices indicating approval from Gas Station TV to run a political ad were developed and at no time were related financial transactions completed with Gas Station TV and its partners. Email chains not coming directly from Gas Station TV staff members indicating anything different are inaccurate, taken out of context and lack understanding of the standard media buying process, as well as Gas Station TV's ad review and approval process.

However, Fox also offered a lengthy description of the company straight from the companies own PR firm, so it is difficult to assess just whose gas tank is being filled.

It is all spin, of course, but as we crank the engine up on political advertising, it is worth noting the variety of spark plugs both of the mainstream camps are firing up.

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