What Percentage of Voters Does a Broadcast TV Ad Actually Reach?
July 30, 2026 - 9 minutes read
If you’ve ever sat through a pitch for broadcast TV, you’ve probably heard that 20% of television viewership lives there, and it sounds impressive — it’s supposed to.
But that number hides the real truth: a single broadcast network reaches only about 3-5% of TV viewing on its own, and the 20% figure appears only when you add all five networks together (and even then, the number is generous).
Meanwhile, close to 50% of this election cycle’s ad spend is still going to broadcast. That means campaigns are pouring their biggest checks into a channel whose audience is overstated and consistently shrinking.
What Does the 20% Broadcast Number Actually Include?
When a station rep tells you you’re reaching 20% of viewership, it’s worth asking what that number actually includes. It’s not just one network doing the heavy lifting; it’s ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and the CW combined.
Nielsen’s April 2026 Gauge report put total broadcast at 19.9% of TV viewing. But, individually, each network holds only a small piece of the pie.
- CBS – 5%
- NBC – 4%
- ABC – 4%
- Fox – 3.5%
- The CW and other affiliates – splitting the last ~1%
If you only buy ads on one station, you’re reaching just a slice of the pie, not the whole 20%. Getting the whole 20% means closing five separate deals with five separate networks. Even then, you’re still capped at one-fifth of total TV viewing.
Meanwhile, streaming TV captures approximately 47.6% of all TV viewers, according to the April 2025 Gauge report.
“Would you rather reach 3% of voters, or a targeted 50%?” asks Shannon Allen, the chief revenue officer at Federated Digital Solutions. “That’s the choice campaigns are making every time they lead with broadcast.”
That 20% has another problem, too, and it starts with how Nielsen counts the number in the first place.
Why Is That Number Overstated?
The number is also inflated by how Nielsen counts its own data. If someone streams ABC through YouTube TV or Hulu Live, Nielsen still logs that view as broadcast, even though the person hasn’t touched an antenna or cable box.
A significant portion of that “broadcast” audience is actually a streaming audience. Once you account for that, the true reach of a broadcast-only buy is smaller than the number initially suggests.
Who Watches Broadcast and Cable?
Who is really on the other end of a broadcast ad?
The median age of a broadcast primetime viewer is 64.6, and cable skews the same way. Pew Research found that only 16% of adults ages 18-29, and 23% of adults ages 30-49, still subscribe to cable or satellite at all.
That might seem like an argument in broadcast’s favor — older voters show up at the polls more than any other demographic. Fair point, but do you know what else they’re doing? Streaming.
“My own mother is 75 and hasn’t had a cable box in years,” Allen says. “The problem with broadcast was never the age of the audience. It’s that you can’t confirm the person watching your ad is actually a registered voter in your district.”
How Much of a Campaign Budget Still Goes to Broadcast?
You may assume that a big chunk of campaigns’ budgets have already shifted away from broadcast, given everything we’ve shared about it, but they haven’t. At least, not yet.
AdImpact projects $11.6 billion in total political ad spending for the 2026 cycle, and broadcast will capture $5.61 billion of that amount (about 48%). That’s almost half of the entire budget chasing a channel that reaches less than one-fifth of the viewing audience.
We’re not telling you to abandon broadcast overnight. Instead, consider directing more of your budget where your voters consume their media, instead of simply where you’re used to directing it.
Doesn’t the Lower Unit Rate Make Broadcast Worth It?
When campaign staff hears about the low unit rates of broadcast, they think it solves their budget problem. It doesn’t, and this is often where people trip up.
FCC rules require stations to charge candidates no more than their lowest unit charge during the 45 days before a primary and 60 days before a general election. That’s a nice protection, but it only covers price. It doesn’t cover anything related to whether or not your ad actually airs or reaches your potential voters.
Commercial advertisers who pay above the political rate get priority for ad scheduling, and preemption of political ads tends to skyrocket in October, which is when campaigns really need their messaging to land.
You can lock in a great low rate on paper, but you might watch your ad get bumped for a car dealership ad or a roofing ad during the week that people need to see it the most.
That risk is higher for down-ballot campaigns. Federal races carry higher political priority, which means a city council or state legislative campaign gets bumped first when October inventory gets tight. That’s exactly when those races need visibility the most.
So what does the alternative actually deliver?
What Do Campaigns Get from Streaming?
Streaming offers something broadcast structurally cannot: targeting at the voter level. A campaign can match its budget to voter files, meaning the ad reaches registered voters in the district rather than everyone tuned in within a broader media market.
That distinction matters more than most campaigns realize. A single media market can span multiple congressional districts, which means a broadcast buy in South Bend, Ind., reaches voters in several districts who can’t vote for your candidate. Streaming eliminates that waste by targeting your district and no one else’s.
“Streaming lets you confirm who saw the ad and how often, almost in real time,” says Krystal Vivian, the director of client services at Federated Digital Solutions. “You can adjust creative and targeting as the race moves instead of waiting until it’s too late.”
Streaming inventory is also, in most cases, unskippable. That means it has higher completion rates than a broadcast spot, where a viewer can simply walk away during a commercial break.
That really matters when you account for early voting. In 2024, 30.7% of people voted early in person and 29% voted by mail nationally, adding up to almost 60% of the voting population. A message that lands hard a week before Election Day has already missed the majority of viewers by the time it goes live.
What Should a Campaign Do with This Information?
The shift doesn’t have to be dramatic. Start by pulling up your current video budget and comparing it to where your voters actually consume media, instead of where your budget has always gone.
Your next step should be to shift your budget dollars, while moving sooner rather than later, since inventory tightens and rates increase as October arrives.
If you want help figuring out where your budget should go this cycle, it’s worth talking about now rather than waiting until the fall. At FDS, we create custom plans for every campaign based on where your voters actually are. Reach out to the FDS Political team to talk through your options.