Q4 Local+National

Week-to-Week Pacing Changes

This week Q4 Core pace fell 1.5 points.

• October lost 2.1 points.

• November dropped 1.0 points.

• December declined 1.8 points.

For November, all categories fell except for Fox stations and the DMA 101+ group.

Forecast Updates

2026 continues to be a unique political year, behaving quite differently from prior election cycles in many ways. I’ll share more examples of these changing trends in the coming weeks, but today I want to highlight one particularly interesting data point: the difference in October’s Core pacing deterioration between 2024 and 2026.

In 2024, October pacing moved from -23.5% on October 1 to -25.3% by October 28, a deterioration of 1.8 percentage points. This year, we’ve gone from -12.8% to -19.4% over the same period, a deterioration of 6.6 points. That’s nearly four times as much in-month loss, even though the overall year-over-year decline remains smaller than it was in 2024.

In other words, October 2024 started off much softer but experienced relatively little additional Core pacing loss as the month progressed. October 2026 started off considerably stronger but has weakened much more dramatically. Interestingly, it looks like 2026 will add about 30 points of political dollars in-month, roughly the same as 2024. So despite similar political booking activity in both years, Core pacing has deteriorated much more this year. What’s that about?

One theory is that the markets seeing the heaviest political spending this month aren’t necessarily the traditional big political markets. When reliably red states like Mississippi, Florida, and Texas become the “swing states,” patterns change. Stations in these markets that weren’t anticipating this level of spending are experiencing more last-minute displacement than those that expected heavy political activity all along. Without that advance warning, they had less opportunity to price Core inventory to protect against displacement or help their Core advertisers shift spending into post-election weeks or onto streaming.

One takeaway? Planning is everything. Of course, political spending — or more accurately, the polling that directs it — is notoriously difficult to predict, but historically, past election cycles have provided a reasonably good guide. When history fails you and your market suddenly becomes a major political battleground, all is not lost. You just have to trust the data, make quick adjustments, and consistently measure and refine your strategy as new information comes in. The good news is that you work with ShareBuilders, so you’re already doing that!

Because October is experiencing more in-month Core pacing decline than I anticipated, my estimate has been too high. I’ve lowered it again today, but I’m holding November steady and making only a very slight adjustment to December. I practice what I preach by staying on top of the data and adjusting my outlook as conditions change. And I’m not afraid to admit when I’m wrong! If the outlook changes again next week, you’ll be the first to know.

Here are my forecasts for the week:

Q3 vs. 2025:

• July: -3.7%

• August: -8.8%

• September: -13.3% – up 0.1 points from last week

• Q3 Total: -9.1% - flat to last week

Q4 vs. 2025:

• October: -20.8% – down 1.3 points from last week

• November: -6.3% – flat to last last week

• December: -7.1% – down 0.3 points from last week

• Q4 Total: -11.5% - down 0.5 points from last week

2026 vs. 2025:

• Q1: -3.1%

• Q2: -9.8%

• Q3: -9.1% - flat to last week

• Q4: -11.5% - down 0.5 points from last week

• 2026: -8.4% - down 0.2 points from last week