As I’m writing this newsletter, my wife and I are eating dinner while watching people starve on the History Channel show Alone.
I’m writing to all of my lovely readers, and my wife is scrolling Instagram. Neither of us is fully engaged with the TV until one of the participants has a shot at a big game animal.
Our viewership looks a lot like that of most voters.
Where is our attention?
These last couple of weeks have been all about ad frequency and identifying new strategies to reach voters where they are consuming content.
But reaching someone is not the same as getting their attention.
We have to think about voters as real people who spend very little of their time thinking about politics. To get our message in front of the right voter at the right time, we need to understand where their attention is while they are watching video content.
Think about yourself. How often are you scrolling social media, watching TikTok videos or YouTube Shorts, texting friends, or playing mobile games while also watching long-form content on the TV screen?
How do consumers watch “TV”?
Viewership is highly fragmented. We see this when we combine modeled voter audiences with viewership data to determine how to allocate budgets across screens.
Only 6% of viewers are watching exclusively live TV.
34% are watching a mix of live TV and streaming. These voters are the hardest to reach because they watch relatively small amounts of content across both mediums.
This aligns with Cross Screen Media’s viewership data on persuadable voters:
TV Only: 3%
Streaming Only: 26%
TV and Streaming: 71%
What is “TV”?
We, as political advertisers, have our own definition of TV. But how we buy TV does not always match how voters think about the “TV” they are watching.
54% of viewers said they watch “TV” on their mobile devices. In 2026, the screen matters less than the content someone wants to watch.
In politics, we should keep this in mind every time we review the seen, read, and heard questions that come back in polls.
Voters categorize video content differently than advertisers do. We should not expect a voter to know how an ad they saw was technically bought.
What are we doing when we're watching TV?
Over three-quarters of people say that they send text messages or scroll social media while watching TV.
That matches the experience in my house. The TV may be on, but it does not always have our full attention.
Why does this matter for political advertisers?
Reach does not equal attention. Voters are not seeking out political ads. To break through, campaigns need a voter contact strategy that reinforces the message across multiple channels.
Plan with viewership data. If you don't know where your audience is watching video or how much they're watching, your media plan starts at a disadvantage.
Most political creative sucks. You can't swap out a candidate's name and expect an ad to break through. Great creative earns attention and is reinforced across channels.