Republicans in a spin if Fox runs out of ad space

It’s the stuff of Republican nightmares: Fox News runs out of advertising time.

However, in an election bursting with money from an expected 17 Republican presidential candidates and dozens of outside groups supporting them, NCC Media, the company that handles placement of political ads for most of the country’s cable systems, is already working out how to accommodate everyone.

“Fox is a revenue driver,” said Tim Kay, NCC’s director of political strategy. “It’s extremely popular as the way to reach Republican primary voters.

“What we’re waiting to see is, is everyone going to want Fox News, or are they branching out to different channels to try to capture some of those same demographics?”

It is not just Fox News. Broadcast stations in the early primary voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada are preparing for a 2016 onslaught — which they welcome, because presidential ads boost their bottom lines every four years.

For television viewers? Welcome back to campaign season. Those living in New Hampshire and Iowa are already seeing the smiling faces of at least four Republican presidential candidates. Starting last night, Ohio governor John Kasich spoke in a commercial about what he learned from his father: “Do your best to look out for other people.”

The ad, which costs about $1m to broadcast across New Hampshire, was paid for by New Day for America, an outside group backing the governor, who has yet to make his presidential candidacy official.

The Fox News outlet sucks up more political advertising spots than any other channel, NCC data show, and Republican primary elections drive that tally.

CNN follows, then NBC, CBS, and ABC.

A study by the Pew Research Center helps to illustrate why: It found that 47% of conservatives consider Fox News their main and only news source, and 88% of them trust it.

While three quarters of all political commercials in the last presidential election were on cable, broadcast reaches far more viewers and accounts for the majority of the estimated $3bn that political candidates and groups spent on ads in 2012.