Survey: Cable Is a Political Dynamo

By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 2/6/2012 12:01:00 AM

Want to sway voters? Buy an ad on cable TV.

That’s the takeaway from a survey — sponsored by the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau — that found about two-thirds of voters prefer cable to broadcast for news and information on local candidates and issues, and seven out of 10 opt for cable on national elections.

In local elections, 68% of those polled said they prefer to find out about candidates and issues from cable versus 32% who cited broadcast. In national races, 70% said cable was their preferred source of information over broadcast TV.

More broadly, TV as a category beat other forms media. Overall, 85% of survey respondents said they first learn about national political candidates and issues from TV, followed by Internet sources (54%) and newspapers (49%).

Nearly two-thirds of voters (64%) said TV has some influence on their final vote in national elections, compared with 40% for Internet media, 37% for newspapers, 27% for word-of-mouth, 19% for radio, 14% for social media and 8% for direct mail.

On the local front, TV also came out ahead of other media, although by a smaller margin. About 46% of those polled said TV influences their final vote in local races followed by newspapers (43%), Internet (34%) and word-ofmouth (34%).

The Internet-based survey of 500 registered voters age 18 and older was conducted by political polling firm Peter D. Hart Research Associates.