Huber, Kelly flood airwaves

Pa2010's Dan Hirshhorn shoe-leathers a nice story here, tracking down the media buys by District 3 Republican money-leaders Paul Huber and Mike Kelly:

Huber has already committed to spending more than $150,000 on broadcast television in the Erie media market through the May 18 primary, with a third of that amount having already been spent as of Wednesday, according to public records gathered from network affiliates here. For Huber, the ad blitz amounts to the final steps of a campaign that started last summer, one in which he’s loaned $250,000 of his own money to the effort. Huber began advertising on Erie broadcast, the cheapest of the state’s major media markets, on April 7, starting with a relatively small buy of, for example, 23 spots per week on the local CBS affiliate and 39 spots per week on the local NBC affliction. But his campaign is ramping up slowly but surely, buying 54 spots on NBC over the next week and 82 spots in the week before the primary.

Kelly only got into the race earlier this year, but has also loaned his campaign $165,000. He finished with about $100,000 less campaign cash than Huber, which, combined with the late start, likely explains his campaign’s decision to hold off on a larger ad blitz—a decision that could pay off if voters find his message more compelling in the final days. Kelly began a limited ad buy on cable last week, and was set to go up on broadcast TV on Tuesday, with buys ranging from about $1,000 to about $8,000, depending on the network. His campaign plans to stay on the air until the primary, and has matched some of Huber’s ad buys on cable, which included limited time in the Pittsburgh and Youngstown media markets.