Loss of mayor’s race
means lower ad sales

It's estimated hopefuls would have
spent up to $2.5 million in race

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By Tim Ruel
truel@starbulletin.com

Media outlets stand to lose up to $2.5 million from political ads for this year's Honolulu mayoral race, now that Mayor Jeremy Harris plans to stay in office and has dropped his run for governor, observers said.

The pain may be eased when candidates reshuffle and spend money to seek election in other big races. Lt. Gov. Mazie Hirono will be vying with Andy Anderson and Ed Case for the Democratic nomination for governor.

Still, the loss of the mayor's race in 2002 will be costly, said Buck Laird, president of Laird Christianson Harris Advertising Inc.

"The total aggregate spending will undoubtedly go down some," Laird said. His firm had been representing Honolulu City Councilman Duke Bainum in his run for mayor.

"The two money races generally are the governor's race and the mayor of Honolulu," said Dennis Christianson, the firm's creative director. "While you can get a hot race in many of the other categories ... that tends to vary from year to year."

Christianson estimated that major candidates for mayor would have spent anywhere from $600,000 to $900,000 each on advertising this year, while lesser candidates would have spent $200,000 to $400,000 each.

The total spending on advertising in the mayor's race this year would have ranged from $2 million to $2.5 million, according to industry representatives.

Of that amount, candidates would have devoted about $1.2 million to television ads, estimated Mike Rosenberg, president and general manager of KITV.

Rosenberg said his station could lose between $250,000 and $350,000 on advertising from the loss of the mayor's race. The station will be able to find other sources of ads, but the sudden loss in demand for advertising now will translate into lower-priced ads later in the year, Rosenberg said.

Print media also will lose revenue, said Don Kendall, president of Oahu Publications, parent company of the Star-Bulletin and MidWeek.

"There's no doubt that there'll be some loss for Star-Bulletin and all the media," he said.

The loss will be partially offset by increased spending by Hirono and others who are vying for the Democratic nomination for governor, he noted.