Media Markets

When Richard Nixon spoke, he could reach upward to 90% of the American public at the same time through television. ¹ These numbers will unlikely ever be replicated on a regular basis again. Americans still watch news, but network audiences have receded. The Pew Center in 2004 reported 34% of Americans regularly watch nightly network news. ² By 2018, the number fell to 26%. Viewers for local news trended upward from 2000 until 2015 when there began to be noticeable trends with older people continuing to watch local news and younger ones turning more to digital media sources for information. ³ Local news still “garners more viewers on average than cable or network news programs.” ⁴

Lang and Lang assert the increased access to mass media by the public has resulted in an information paradox. Experience and participation now function separately instead of in conjunction with each other. How presidents approach media relations impacts their administrations. ⁵ “As the media bring the world closer, the more intimate acquaintance with – the product of direct involvement – is replaced by a more superficial knowledge about the things outside one’s purview and beyond the horizon.” ⁶ In addition, this gained information is “mediated knowledge; it depends on what the media systems disseminate yet under no circumstance can the picture replicate the world in its full complexity.” ⁷ The mass media constructs a skewed sense of reality where individuals primarily rely upon a surrogate to provide their electoral knowledge. We, as a body of voters, primarily do not participate in election-based activities to derive our opinions. We look to media outlets to help us construct our opinions.

Whatever the comparison, local news scores the highest as the media source where people pay the most attention. Nationally broadcasted speeches cannot be relied upon to pull large enough audiences. In 2004, the State of the Union broadcast was beaten soundly by the television show, American Idol . The State of the Union drew a top ratings share for 18- to 49-year-olds on Fox with a 4.5, while American Idol pulled an 11.9 for the same demographic group on the same night. ⁸ In 2015, Barack Obama’s State of the Union had the lowest rating share since 2000. ⁹ In fact, the 9:00 p.m. State of the Union time slot’s best station rating was a 3.10 on Fox News with an audience share (18–49) of .4. A rerun of The Big Bang Theory on Turner Broadcasting System (TBS) at the same time pulled a 3.06 with an audience share of 1.0 for the same demographic. ¹⁰ As we become less information seeking, presidents must become more aware of varying ways to get out their messages. Local media allows presidents to fulfill voter needs for information while customizing it for a specific audience for reelection periods. Kaid and Foote show that when the president is in a news story with a member of the House or Senate, the news piece received better placement and was longer. ¹¹ Therefore, it is distinctly beneficial for a member of Congress to have the president present if they are attempting to increase exposure. In midterm campaigning season, the president would undoubtedly provide a sort of “incumbency advantage” if the president was of the same party as the candidate.

How can we study whether presidents prefer large or smaller media markets? The US Census allows us to examine speeches regionally, but lacks the fine distinctions to look into specific locations within regions or even states. When you consider places like Florida, Miami is culturally, socially, and politically different from Tallahassee. If locales within geographical regions have drastically diverse population compositions, is it possible to eliminate spatial considerations in favor of another scale? Can we reconceive regionalism as similarities between correspondingly sized metropolitan areas regardless of geography? In other words, do cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Philadelphia have more in common with each other given their size than they do with smaller cities in their same states like Albany, Sacramento, Springfield, El Paso, and Harrisburg? Do presidents give speeches in specific cities based more on their size or location?

Designated market areas (DMAs) or more commonly, media markets, offer an alternative measurement for political scientists to capture regionalism within America. Coined by A. C. Nielsen Media Research, a DMA specifically refers to an area covered by a television station. ¹² The size and thus ranking of the DMA are calculated by determining the number of television households within that vicinity. In addition, DMAs also gauge the ratio of the area’s total population in relation to the total population of the USA. Considering 98% of all American households own one television, and 75% own more than one set, ¹³ most Americans households are captured by these DMAs.

Arbitron’s ABIs and later Nielsen’s DMAs are ranked by television household size. They are listed from the number one market (New York City) to the smallest market numbered 210 (Glendive, Montana). Media markets offer greater latitude of flexibility that constrains geographical scales. Markets are ranked and updated every year for the television audience. They track growth, but are not simply confined to city or county borders. They reflect the number of people who receive television broadcasts in that area so marketers can accurately charge or sell advertising time. For presidential speeches, DMAs reasonably reflect to an administration how many people will potentially see their speech on the local news. Media markets offer a solution to these fixed boundaries. This project culled commercially available records by broadcasting journals that provided the assigned market for individual cities. Next to every city’s rank and name includes the number of television households. These population numbers can also be ranked or sorted according to household concentrations.

Market areas offer more flexibility than geographical boundaries. DMAs, when collated together into general sizes, should show what sizes of cities presidents prefer to give speeches (if any). Market areas show if presidents seek maximum media penetration in speeches outside DC, prefer to go places with more limited audiences, or seek specific electorate types. To determine the usefulness of media markets, it is paramount to accurately gauge the concentration of presidential speeches in these markets. As cities have grown larger in size during the past forty years, is it possible to skew results if we only look at the number of television households? One solution is to collate results based upon market rank. Since the scale has ranged from 1 to 210 (ABI for 1969 is ranked 1–100, but the all speeches were located within these markets) for almost all of its existence, ranking by number eliminates the problem of increasingly larger cities.

Table 4.1 shows the percentage of presidential speeches within each term by ranked media markets. It considers markets from 1969 to 2016 collated from 1–50 to 51–210. The Washington, DC, market (ranked 6–8 depending on year) has been removed. The DC market encompasses the largest number of presidential speeches and skews the ranking. However, the most important aspect of the DC market is that it picks up all speeches in the area regardless of where they are given geographically. Though presidents tend to give many speeches at the White House, they also commonly give others in Virginia and Maryland. Through the use of media markets, all these speeches are captured within that market and not divided between DC and its nearby states. In 1969, markets ranked 75+ contained less than 200,000 television households. In 2016, the 75th media market had approximately 409,000 television households. ¹⁴ Rankings are informative because they take into consideration populations have increased in cities over time. In 1969, only 8 markets were a million or more television households; by 1981, 14 had this, many households; and by 2015, 28. While not perfect, most of the major markets remain fairly stable and grow over time yet retain rankings. In the Ford administration, the top 15 were: New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco, Detroit, Washington, DC, Cleveland, Dallas, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Houston, Miami, and Atlanta. The 2016 rankings are: New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, San Francisco, Washington, DC, Houston, Boston, Atlanta, Tampa, Phoenix, Detroit, Seattle, and Minneapolis. There was movement in the last 40 years, but not very much in the larger markets. St. Louis was ranked 12 in 1976 and 21 in 2016, while Miami was 15 in 1976 and 16 in 2016. Tampa was ranked 17 in 1976 and 11 in 2016. Phoenix was ranked 25 in 1983 and had risen up to 12 by 2016. Seattle was ranked 18 in 1976 and 14 in 2016. There have only been a handful of media markets which have significantly changed their rankings over time. One of the most notable is Las Vegas. It was ranked 140 in 1976, and by 2016, it had raised 100 places to 40. Raleigh–Durham rose from 47 in 1976 to 24 in 2016. Austin was ranked at 99 in 1980 and was at 39 in 2016. Dayton was ranked 40 in 1976 and 64 in 2016. Many markets outside of the top 25 have moved about 10 places in the last 40 years, both up and down, but few have changed more than that and are more the exception than the rule.

Table 4.1

Total speeches in designated media markets by term

Total speeches	DMA 1–50 (%)	DMA 51–210 (%)	Total
Nixon 1	69.3	30.7	267
Nixon 2	56.0	44.0	50
Ford	68.8	31.2	622
Carter	68.8	31.2	429
Reagan 1	69.9	30.1	392
Reagan 2	63.5	34.5	296
Bush 41	70.6	29.4	686
Clinton 1	76.5	23.5	775
Clinton 2	82.3	17.5	808
Bush 43 1	59.3	40.7	895
Bush 43 2	53.4	46.6	485
Obama 1	74.5	25.1	677
Obama 2	81.6	18.4	386

All the presidents examined except second-term George W. Bush and Richard Nixon give the majority of their speeches in the largest markets within the USA. Presidents tend to concentrate their overall speechmaking in the largest markets while giving fewer speeches in smaller locations. Nixon is unusual because it reflects a shortened term. George W. Bush signals a dramatic change in presidential speechmaking by market which was not continued by Barack Obama. Ranked markets suggest most presidents prefer to give speeches in the larger markets in the USA and generally spend significantly less time in markets numbered 51 and higher. George W. Bush significantly shifted presidential speechmaking patterns during his administration. He moved away from focusing upon the largest markets toward a more diffused approach. In many ways, this presidency indicates a change with previously established patterns focusing its efforts on smaller television market areas within the USA. He appears to specifically target smaller media markets in order to convey messages. All others gave at least half of their total speeches in the largest media markets within the USA. In his first term, he gives only 59.3% of his public speeches in the largest media markets. His second term is 53.4%, lower than any other presidency. Richard Nixon in his second term gave a small number of speeches in the largest media markets (56.0% between 1973 and 1974) and a larger number in smaller markets (44.0%), but it was an embattled administration with an increasingly adversarial relationship with the press. The Bush 43 second term had only 50 speeches in the media markets outside of Washington, DC. This sparse number skews the results a bit because barely spoke during his second term. Since Nixon, every other president gave a considerable higher number of speeches. The lowest after Nixon is second term Ronald Reagan with just under 300 speeches. It is the volume of the first term of George W. Bush that thus makes the media markets exceptional. With 895 total speeches, 364 were given in media markets with less than 625,000 television households according to the Nielsen 2004 rankings. In fact, just over a quarter of those speeches (26.5%) were given in television markets with less than 400,000 television households and 66 of the speeches, or 7.4% of his total first-term speeches, were in markets with fewer than 250,000 television households. Bush 43 gave the most speeches (percentage and volume) in these smallest markets over any other president in Table 4.1. The lowest percentages are closely split between George H. W. Bush and first-term Bill Clinton who each gave slightly over 6% of their total speeches in media markets ranked between 76 and 210.

For media markets, first- and second-term administrations appear to be somewhat different. If we discount Nixon as an anomalous situation, we have 4 first- and second-term presidencies in Table 4.1: Reagan, Clinton, Bush 43, and Obama. All the administrations except Reagan gave more speeches in the top 50 markets during their second term when compared to their first. Reagan went down 6.4% though the cumulative total was a decline of 86 speeches in these top markets between the first and second term. Between all the markets, Ronald Reagan decreased a total of 96 speeches in his second term meaning his smaller markets only decreased a total of 10 speeches for that term. While Reagan gave fewer large market speeches in his second term, all the other presidents saw their percentage significantly increase. Clinton, Bush 43, and Obama all gave higher percentage of their term’s speeches in the largest markets during the second one though Clinton was the only one to see an increase in terms of raw numbers. Both Bush 43 and Obama almost halved their public speech totals in the second term. They gave more large market speeches, though a smaller number of speeches in general.

Table 4.1 suggests presidents generally give about 70% of their public speeches in the largest markets of the USA. If you expect them to get the largest return for their time, it completely makes sense. Most presidents want to capture the biggest audience possible, and these markets offer the most promising opportunity. Certain locations like New York City are physically within one state, but their market area extends as far as rural Pike County, Pennsylvania, with a population of less than 50,000. For presidential speeches, DMAs reasonably reflect to an administration how many people will potentially see their speech on the local news where news coverage can often extend across several cities and even states. DMAs help see the sizes of cities presidents prefer to give speeches when collated together into general sizes. Market areas reveal if presidents seek maximum media saturation in speeches outside Washington, DC, or prefer to go places with smaller audiences. Some administrations did stand out in Table 4.1 for differing reasons. George W. Bush gave fewer speeches in the larger markets than any other president. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama gave a higher percentage of speeches in the larger markets than other presidents. Barack Obama shifts away from George W. Bush’s smaller market approach and returns to similar behaviors of other presidents making George W. Bush appear more as an outlier than a pattern shift. Barack Obama focused primarily upon the largest markets in the USA. Both Clinton and Obama contrast not only with George W. Bush, but also other administrations in Table 4.1. In their first and second terms, each gave at least three-quarters of their total speeches outside of Washington, DC, in the largest media markets throughout the USA. In fact, they actually gave over 60% of these speeches in the markets ranked from 1 to 25 which contained over one million television households during these time periods. Bush 43, Clinton, and Obama all increased the number of speeches given in the largest markets during their second terms. However, Clinton and Obama shifted to well over 80% of their speeches there suggesting they worked to reinforce favorable areas. In the 1996 Electoral College results, Clinton carried 13 of the 17 states in the top 25 markets, and in 2012, Barack Obama carried 12 of these 17. Clinton and Obama appear to work toward reinforcing their bases in the markets as president, while Bush 43 worked to extend bases of support, particularly in smaller areas.

Many presidents across their entire presidency across their entire term focus on the largest markets. However, does that change from year to year? That is, do presidents consistently speak in markets from year to year or do fluctuations happen? As with the Census results, presidents do tend to give more speeches on midterm and election years, but the market sizes do vacillate depending upon the president and the administration. First-term Richard Nixon preferred large media markets. In his 1970 midterm congressional election year, he gave the most speeches for any term of his entire administration. He gave the largest percentage of his first-term speeches in the biggest media markets that year. He also gave the highest number of speeches in the smallest media markets in that year as well. Specifically, Nixon had 64 speeches in the largest markets and 31 in the smallest for 1970. In his first-term reelection year, Nixon gave the second highest percentage of speeches in the media markets with a total of 51 speeches. His reelection year was also the year of the lowest percentage and number of speeches in the smallest markets. He gave 10 speeches, or a total of 3.7% of the ones in his first term. It is unusual given that other presidents tend to give increased attention to the smallest markets in the last year of their terms. Nixon functionally ignored the smaller markets except when he needed to be there. Two of the speeches in 1972 involved traveling to Pennsylvania because of Hurricane Agnes damage, three were in Hawaii to meet the Japanese Prime Minister and a ceremony for the retirement of John McCain Jr. from the Navy, and one toured a customs facility in Laredo, Texas. The remaining three were campaign speeches given right before the 1972 election. Given the 1972 landslide election of Nixon, it seems odd he did not spend much time speaking in his fourth year, especially in the smaller markets.

Speeches for Gerald Ford increased in each media market for every year he was in office. These findings should not be considered overly exceptional since Ford’s 1974 presidential year lasted only four months. In fact, given the short time he was in office that year, Ford gives 55 speeches. The number is higher than the totality of Nixon’s second term and more than the first year in the first terms of Nixon and Reagan. The first year of Carter gave the exact same number of speeches. For every year of Ford’s term, he gave more speeches in the larger markets over the smaller ones. The majority of Ford’s speeches occur in 1976, the year he ran for election. In that year, he gave 45.8% of his total term’s speeches in the markets ranked 1–50 and 22.8% in the ones from 51 to 10. This abundance of speeches in his presidential election year is not especially exceptional. He is our only president who was never elected to either the presidency or vice presidency, and these results help suggest he traveled extensively during his election year to help bring himself to the American people. Ford stands out because of the large number of speeches he gave at both ends of the media market spectrum. He gave 427 speeches in 1976 in the media markets throughout the USA. Roughly 50% of those speeches were given in the top 25 markets, and another 20% were given in markets ranked 76–210. The remainders were located in the markets in the middle. Ford gave more speeches in these smallest media markets than any other president with the exception of George W. Bush.

Jimmy Carter appears to be a president who gave the majority of speeches in the various media markets groups during congressional or presidential election years. Almost 70% of all speeches Carter gave during his presidency in the media markets occurred in either 1978 or 1980. He was a president who focused his speechmaking on election years. Also, Jimmy Carter in terms of volume gave far more speeches in the largest media markets. In 1980, Jimmy Carter gave 146 speeches in the largest markets and 82% of those 119 speeches were located in the top 25. In fact, 83 speeches were in the top 10 national media markets. He gave more speeches in the largest national media markets in 1980 than he gave in any other year and any other sized market.

Ronald Reagan displays some similarities, but overall a different sort of pattern when dealing with the American public. Reagan definitely gave more speeches in the larger media markets within the USA. He spoke during 1984 in these markets more than the other three years, but overall, he did give a considerable amount of speeches in these markets from 1982 to 1984. In the top 50 markets, Reagan increased his speeches every year of his first term. The smaller markets ranked after 50 are a completely different matter. Ronald Reagan did not speak in any of these markets at any appreciable volume in his first year in office. He gave only 6 total speeches in these markets in 1981. Unlike the larger markets, Reagan gives most of his speeches in these smaller markets in years 2 and 4, suggesting he focused upon them during election periods. The second term of Ronald Reagan displays unusual yearly patterns as well. In the larger markets, he gave more speeches in the first year of his second term than the second year with congressional midterms. In the smaller markets, his speeches increased on the second year, but he gave the exact same number of speeches (29) in his third and fourth years. The cumulative read on the Reagan administration is one that preferred the larger markets, but also did not speak around the country as much as many other presidents. With the exception of Nixon, Ronald Reagan had the lowest volume of first- and second-term speeches. Ronald Reagan, for example, gave approximately 88% of all speeches in 1981 and 1983 in media markets ranked 1–50, with over 65% of these in the largest markets in the USA. During election years, his speechmaking patterns in the media markets altered dramatically. In both 1982 and 1984, his speechmaking in the top media markets dropped to slightly less than 50%. At the same time, he went from giving between 3 and 8% of speeches in the smallest media markets in 1981 and 1983 to around 19% of his total speeches in media markets for 1982 and 1984. In terms of actual speeches, in 1981, Ronald Reagan gave exactly 1 speech in the smallest markets. In 1983, he gave 7. In the congressional election year of 1982, he gave 17 speeches in these smallest markets, and in 1984, 29. In essence, Ronald Reagan obviously preferred giving speeches in the largest media markets of the USA, but would change pattern and speak other places during election years.

George H. W. Bush (or Bush 41) is both simultaneously similar and different from Ronald Reagan during these first terms. Bush 41 gives more speeches in every year of office compared to Ronald Reagan. At times, he spoke significantly more than his immediate predecessor. For example, during the first year of Reagan, he spoke 31 times in the larger markets and 6 times in the smaller. Bush 41, in contrast, spoke 67 times in the larger markets and 40 times in the smaller ones. The disparity in these numbers may partially be explained by the assassination attempt of Reagan by John Hinckley Jr. However, it does not fully explain the numbers. Ronald Reagan was shot on March 30, 1981. He had only spoken 3 times in the media markets outside of Washington, DC, at that point. He had spoken the exact same number of times in the media markets by March 30, 1985, the first year of his second term. Reagan preferred speaking in Washington, DC, and did not travel around the country compared to later administrations. First-term Reagan and Bush 41 were functionally identical percentage-wise for their time in the smaller and larger markets, yet the latter spoke far more. In fact, Bush 41 gave 686 speeches in the media markets during his 4 years in office. When adding Reagan’s two terms together, he spoke 688 times or only 2 less in 8 years than what Bush 41 did in 4. Bush 41 gave far more speeches in the largest markets than he did in the smaller ones. Bush gave 53% of his speeches in the media markets ranked 25 and higher. Reagan gave a smaller number overall, he also gave lower percentages in the same ranked markets. In his first term, it was only 51% of his speeches, and in the second, 47%. He differs from Reagan with the amount of speeches he gives in the smaller media markets. George H. W. Bush gave 84 speeches in the smaller two media market categories compared to Reagan’s 54 in his first term and 29 in his second. After you look past the largest market grouping, more of a cyclic pattern in media market type speeches surfaces during the George H. W. Bush administration. Bush, like Carter and first-term Reagan have the pattern of more speeches in years 2 and 4. The percentages of speeches from 1989 to 1990 grew considerably. Then for year 3 (1991), there is a drop-off in the percentage of speeches given. Finally, the presidential election year of 1992 sees massive growth in the number of speeches in all media markets categories. At a minimum, speeches doubled experiencing more than 50% of all the speeches during his term given in that year alone.

Bill Clinton’s first term has some similarities as well as differences from previous administrations. By volume, Clinton spoke a tremendous amount with more speeches in the largest media markets during his first and second years than any other president. The statement is true for both his first and second terms in office. He gave more speeches in the third year in his second term than any other president in the largest markets as well. His fourth years of each term are a bit more complicated. Gerald Ford has the largest volume of any presidential speeches in their fourth year in the largest media markets. For first terms, George H. W. Bush gave more speeches in those markets as well. However, in terms of raw numbers Bill Clinton gave the second highest after Ford in the large markets during the fourth year of his second term. It is also simultaneously the largest volume of speeches in the largest media markets from any second-term administration. Also, like every other administration, Clinton spoke in the largest media markets more often than the smaller ones. Bill Clinton has some distinctive traits that make his administration stand out from the others. It is evident Clinton did not focus on the smaller media markets during the congressional election year of 1994. He gave a total of 28 speeches in these smaller markets in 1994 or 3.6% of the speeches in his first term. In the wake of the Republican takeover of Congress in the November 1994 election, Bill Clinton changes his speaking pattern in these markets sharply in 1995. In that year, the smaller markets receive over double from the previous year for a total of 65. These results will be explored again in the Electoral College chapter because media market focus does not adequately explain the Clinton’s market choices. Clinton gave over 60% of his total 1995 speeches in states carried by the Democrats in 1992. These findings help corroborate that Clinton was attempting to shore up these media markets in preparation for his 1996 reelection campaign. The midterms of his second term occur in 1998. Clinton gives even fewer speeches in the smaller media markets that year. He gives only 15 total speeches, yet the Democrats pick up 5 seats in the House of Representatives.

George W. Bush’s first term in office sets itself apart from the other administrations. There are quite a few reasons why this particular presidency is distinctive. The most important difference involves the volume and location of speeches. George W. Bush gave more speeches in the smaller media markets than any other president. In particular, he gave more speeches in markets ranked 76–210 than any other president since the rankings have been calculated. For reference, during his administration, these markets are approximately the size of Omaha, Nebraska, or Shreveport, Louisiana, and smaller. In 2004, these markets had just fewer than 400,000 television households. As a comparison, the markets are roughly exactly the same size in 2016. George W. Bush appears to have taken a diffused approach to speaking in television markets within the USA. He spoke in smaller places more often than any other recent presidential administration. During his first term, he gave 895 speeches in the media markets. Forty percent of them were located in the largest top 25 markets in the USA with 26.5% in the markets ranked 76–210. The percentage in these top markets is almost 10% lower than any other president; the volume is actually quite high. He gives 361 speeches, which is more than Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and second-term Obama. His father, George H. W. Bush, gave only 2 more speeches for a total of 363. The only administrations to have more speeches in those larger markets are Bush 41, Clinton, and first-term Obama. George W. Bush’s second term has fewer speeches in these larger markets. He gives a total of 485 speeches for the term with 156 or 32% in the largest top 25 markets. By volume, the only presidents to give more speeches in those markets are Nixon and second-term Reagan. George W. Bush’s smallest media markets are extremely unusual. In his first term, he gave 364 speeches in the ones from 51 to 210 and 238 were in the ones 76–210. No other president is comparable in terms of volume or percentage. The second term is also unusual though the volume is significantly lower. He gives 485 speeches in the media markets during his second term, a decrease of about 400 speeches. However, he gives almost the exact same number of speeches in the largest and smallest media markets. During the second term, he gave 156 speeches in the top 25 markets and 157 in the ones from 76 to 210. George W. Bush traveled to small media markets with regular frequency more than any other president. He behaves much like other administrations by speaking more in all markets during years 2 and 4 and not as much in years 1 and 3, but the volume is much more pronounced. Bush spends far more time during congressional and presidential reelection years in the smaller markets. George W. Bush surfaces as a change in the way presidents speak in the media markets throughout the USA. It is simply not enough to suggest George W. Bush was behaving like previous presidents. He gave more speeches in the country’s media markets than any other president in this research. Bush also gave tremendous attention to smaller media markets while not focusing on the largest ones in the USA. This change suggests the George W. Bush administration was acutely aware of the importance of local media and utilized it to its advantage especially in election cycles. It also suggests they carefully identified areas where a speech could have significant electoral impact.

Barack Obama shifts away from George W. Bush’s patterns back to one with a heavy focus upon the largest media markets and less attention to the smaller ones. In his first term, he gave 74.5% of his speeches in the largest markets within the USA. Actually, 59% of his first-term speeches were in markets ranked 1–25 and only 16% were in the ones ranked 26–50. Obama preferred the larger media markets and focused most of his attention there. His first term is notable because he spoke more every year he was in office. He spoke more every year in larger and smaller media market categories. For example, in his first year in office, he gave speeches only 26 times in media markets ranked 51–210. It was the lowest first year number since 1993 Clinton. However, his second year grew to 33 followed by 37 in his third year, with 74 in his fourth reelection year. The larger media markets grew every year as well, from 67–112 to 132–196. His pattern is unusual because it is the only first-term administration which had more speeches in year 3 than year 2. The only exception is Gerald Ford, and at the timing of his ascension, the presidency makes it an outlier that should be excluded. Many first presidents tend to give speeches throughout the USA in a cyclical manner. They almost always speak more during their reelection years, with most also showing a spike in congressional reelection years as well. This pattern, particularly with the steep decline in speeches during their third year in office, helps support the notion that presidents do not engage in a permanent campaigning model for speeches throughout their first terms in office. Barack Obama upends this notion and seemingly breaks with traditional speechmaking patterns. From a media market perspective, he does seem to engage in permanent campaigning, or at the very least, an awareness of the importance of regional speechmaking throughout the entirety of his first four years in office. Second-term Obama gives fewer speeches, but focuses even more in the larger markets. When looking at the yearly patterns, his second term somewhat conforms to the pattern of more speeches in the second and fourth years with fewer in the first and third. However, the differences between the years are extremely minor. Obama gives 89 total speeches in the media markets the first year of his second term. His second year hits the high mark of 108 speeches for the second term, followed by 93 in his third and 96 in his fourth and final year of office. He certainly does give more speeches in the congressional election year, but there exists only a 3 speech difference between years 3 and 4 into total. He gives fewer speeches in his second term than every president except Nixon and Reagan. Moreover, these speeches significantly shift into the largest media markets. In 2013, Barack Obama gave 10 total speeches in markets ranked 51–210. In that year, those are markets with less than 650,000 television households and New Orleans, Louisiana, was ranked 51 as a gauge for comparison. On an annual basis, Obama gave the most speeches in 2014, the second year of his second term. Of the 108 speeches, only 14 were given in these 51–210 market areas. The numbers increased in his third year to 27 speeches in these smaller markets followed by a decrease to only 20 in his last year of office.

Barack Obama bears very little resemblance to George W. Bush. On balance, Obama actually looks far more like Bush 41 or Clinton than Bush 43. President Obama gravitates toward the largest markets every year in office. He gives a higher percentage in the largest markets on any given year when compared to George W. Bush. Obama’s speech volume in media markets is lower than either Clinton or George W. Bush, but so are his overall speech totals. The George W. Bush and Barack Obama presidencies are exciting ones because of their irregularities compared to their predecessors. With regard to preferences in media markets, they present themselves almost as polar opposites. Bush 43 focuses extensively on smaller markets, while Obama concentrates on the largest markets. They both spent considerable amounts of time reinforcing the areas they felt were their best sources of support. Obama appears to embrace a large market strategy working to reinforce bases loyal to the Democratic Party. In 2011, the top 25 media markets were in 17 different states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington). All but four of those states (Arizona, Georgia, Missouri, and Texas) were carried by Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election. In 2009, only 7.0% of speeches given in the top 25 markets were in states that did not support Obama in 2008. That number slightly decreases to 6.9% in 2010 for those top four markets. Over 50% of the speeches given by Barack Obama in 2009–2010 were in the largest American media markets within states that voted for him in 2008. The domestic speechmaking strategy for Barack Obama relies upon the largest media markets in supportive states and areas. In contrast, the top 25 media markets in 2001 were also in 17 states. In 2001, George W. Bush gave 58.3% of all speeches in the top 25 markets that did not support him in 2000. That number increased to 65.1% in 2002 for speeches in the largest markets in states that did not support him.

Media markets should be considered another tool to add to the conversation about presidential speechmaking. The size of a location matters to the president. Larger locations may garner more attention, but smaller locales may have a more friendly media market. Local television markets have consistently retained their audience though it has recently been trending older, while online readership trends younger. ¹⁵ Certain constraints do affect the president because they do have to be able to land Air Force One within the vicinity to visit. When a president such as George W. Bush commits much of his entire speechmaking agenda outside of Washington, DC, to smaller, if not the smallest media markets, it helps tell us about the audiences he is courting. When George W. Bush said “I’m a uniter, not a divider,” ¹⁶ these markets suggest he meant the statement and it was not simply a good talking point. George W. Bush presents himself as a president who broke many long-standing traditional presidential speech patterns by focusing a large number of his total speeches in the swing states. Barack Obama looks more like a traditional presidency rather than the maverick administration of George W. Bush. While his speech volume remains in line with the post-Reagan administration, he prefers speaking in larger markets. He does spend time in the smaller places, but they are not emphasized or subject to concentrated appeals. Between 2009 and 2011, Barack Obama gives a total of 3 election or campaign speeches in media markets ranked between 51 and 210.

Media markets are just one facet or lens to use when looking at presidential administrations. These markets give us the ability to better see choices, changes, and consistencies for administrations over time. George H. W. Bush’s administration denotes a shift where American presidents begin to give more speeches outside of Washington, DC, on a regular basis. Gerald Ford in 1976 and even Harry Truman in 1948 gave large numbers of speeches outside of Washington, DC, but both were unusual situations with accidental presidents who used regional campaigning as a tool to encourage their elections. They were not sustained volumes and stand out as outliers when looking at the patterns across administrations. Presidents have spent time outside of Washington, DC, giving substantial numbers of speeches. Most trend toward the larger markets, except during elections with the notable exception of George W. Bush.

Midterm elections occur toward the end of the second year of a presidential term. Since 1946, there have been twelve first-term midterm elections. Three of these administrations saw their party gain Senate seats at midterm (Kennedy, Nixon, George W. Bush) and only one (George W. Bush) in the House of Representatives. People have grown to expect the president’s party to falter at midterm. This halfway point is critical and affects the composition of Congress for the next two years. Some feel presidents use these midterm campaign speeches as a way to cultivate a Congress favorable to his policies. ¹⁷ Midterm elections are important because the president needs to rally party support and a “campaign appearance mobilizes voters, rather than converting them.” ¹⁸ Congressional seats won or lost alter the ability for a president to develop policy and give incentive to encourage favorable midterm election outcomes. The ability of the president’s party to control Congress has long-term impacts upon policy agendas. ¹⁹ Hoddie and Routh see predictable patterns with presidential midterm behavior not unlike presidential campaign behavior. ²⁰ Strategies employed when a president is running are mimicked at midterm for their own party. Presidential popularity and competitive races are strong indicators ²¹ that drive midterm campaign stops. Gimpel et al. found “low income voters are more likely to develop an interest in the campaign when they reside in states that both parties have targeted as battlegrounds.” ²² In conjunction with these findings, they also find the “geographic concentration of the poor enables activation and mobilization because television and radio remain constrained by geography of electronic signal propagation.” ²³ Speeches in media markets matter because voter activation matters. It is imperative to reach voters. Television coverage reaches audiences who are not attending rallies and events. It brings the campaign to the average citizen and functions as a key source of information.

Table 4.2 explores the percentages of the election or campaign speeches given by presidents divided by media market categories. Election speeches help us see where presidents prioritize campaigns for themselves and others. They are not going to travel to places without any potential for electoral success because time is a valuable commodity in campaign seasons. This table focuses in on just the election speeches and in many ways is a complement to Table 4.1.

Table 4.2

Campaign-oriented speeches in designated media markets by term

Total Election Speeches	DMA 1–50 (%)	DMA 51–210 (%)	Total
Nixon 1	65.2	34.8	66
Nixon 2	0.0	0.0	0
Ford	69.1	30.9	217
Carter	65.2	34.8	164
Reagan 1	68.2	31.8	107
Reagan 2	69.4	30.6	85
Bush 41	75.1	24.9	209
Clinton 1	75.8	24.2	182
Clinton 2	88.7	11.3	275
Bush 43 1	66.3	36.7	338
Bush 43 2	60.0	40.0	60
Obama 1	84.4	15.6	327
Obama 2	98.3	1.7	121

The first noticeable comparison between the two tables is the percentages between them in each category largely remained stable. There are some clear differences in specific administrations, but most of the changes do not have high fluctuations. The biggest differences occur in the changes in volume. First-term presidents generally gave more campaign speeches than second-term ones. Second-term Richard Nixon stands out because he gives zero campaign speeches in that term. Bill Clinton stands out because he gives more campaigning speeches in his second term compared to his first. Most second-term presidents give fewer campaign speeches in that fourth year in office. They are not running for reelection so they do not have to spent as much time traveling around the USA. Surprisingly, Clinton gives only 1 more campaigning speech in his 8th year in office when compared to his 4th. The volume differences actually occur in the other years. During his first year in office in 1993, Bill Clinton gave 8 speeches that could be considered fund-raising or campaign oriented. In 1997, the first year of his second term dramatically rises to 33. The second years are even more prominent. Clinton gave only 34 speeches in 1994. He doubled that number to 68 in 1998 for his second-term congressional midterms. The third years were also notable because in 1995 Clinton gave only 11 campaign speeches, and that changed to 44 in 1999.

In general, Table 4.2 shows that some presidents prefer giving election speeches in large markets and others in smaller ones. George W. Bush is prominent given the fact his first-term election speech totals are substantially higher than any other administration. Barack Obama comes close in his first term to Bush 43, but still does not surpass him. Table 4.2 suggests most first-term presidents will slightly shift speechmaking when campaigning into smaller markets throughout the USA. George H. W. Bush and Barack Obama did not and instead focus on larger media markets. George W. Bush does shift into larger markets as well, but given his clear preference for smaller media markets in general, his slight shift toward larger markets for campaign speeches suggests he may have been attempting to create a greater impact with his speechmaking during election season. In 2002, George W. Bush was very active in supporting candidates at midterm with great success. Between inauguration and midterm elections, he “spent 241 days in 43 different states” ²⁴ supporting other Republicans. Presidential attention to states has importance beyond the candidate. According to Sellers and Denton, Bush used these speeches to “strengthen his electoral coalition” and “bolster his supporters commitment in others.” ²⁵ They believed Bush used Senate midterm campaigning trips as a way to reinforce his own bases for reelection “in states with numerous electoral votes, regardless of their chances of winning.” ²⁶ Barack Obama focuses on the largest markets when making campaign appeals at a higher level than any other administration in a term to term comparison. Most important are his second-term campaigning speeches. Barack Obama gave 98.3% of his election speeches in the largest markets within the USA. In terms of actual numbers, during Barack Obama’s second term in office, he delivered 119 campaign speeches in media markets with more than 650,000 television households in each (101 of these were in markets greater than a million households). He gave a total of 2 election-oriented speeches in the media markets with fewer than 640,000 television households. They occurred in the midterm election year in Newport, Rhode Island, and Portland, Maine, areas both considered strong Democratic Party bases. Barack Obama adheres to a pattern of going to large media markets especially when campaigning. Smaller markets were overlooked throughout the USA in favor of larger places during both terms. Bill Clinton also had an overwhelming preference for larger markets, but in a term-by-term comparison, Barack Obama was more pronounced. The campaigning strategy of Obama apparently relied upon reinforcing large markets with little regard to smaller locales. The second-term campaign percentages are surprising and perhaps contributed to these areas feeling ignored by their government and leaders.

Do presidents modify which media markets they concentrate election speeches depending on the year in office? One of the most revealing findings involves the year before the presidential elections or for most administrations, the third year in office. Most presidents gave fewer election speeches in this year compared to the year before and year afterward. Volume is not the only noticeable difference. For every administration, these third year speeches were almost exclusively in the largest media markets in the USA. In other words, when presidents gave campaign speeches in this year, they were primarily just in extremely large markets. Election speeches in the smallest markets tend to drastically increase during either congressional or presidential election years. It is quite perceptible since in the congressional or presidential election years most administration gave a lower percentage of their election speeches at this market level.

Richard Nixon in 1970 presents some of the more unique findings on the entire table. That year, he evenly splits his election speeches between the largest and smallest media markets. He gives 38 campaign-oriented speeches with 19 in markets ranked 1–50 and 19 in markets ranked 51–210. In fact, 15 of those election speeches were in the absolute smallest markets ranked 76–210. When he was seeking reelection to the presidency in 1972, Nixon shifts to giving the majority of these election speeches that year to the largest markets reversing the general pattern present in 1970. In 1972, Nixon gave only 2 speeches in the smallest markets with the remaining 20 he gave that year in the top 50 within the USA. Gerald Ford in 1976 primarily gave the majority of election speeches in the largest media market category. He concentrated most speeches there in his shortened term. When Ford ran for election in 1976, he gave 108 speeches in the largest media markets and 57 in the smaller ones. Of those 57 speeches, 25 of them were in markets ranked 90–210. As a comparison, in 1974–1975, Ford gave only 10 campaigning speeches in the smaller markets ranked 50–210. These numbers suggest he shifted into smaller markets as a campaign strategy. Jimmy Carter is the only president in Table 4.2 to give more campaigning speeches in the smaller media markets over the larger ones during an election year. In the 1978 congressional midterm year, Carter gave 10 campaign speeches in the larger media markets and 24 in the markets ranked 51–210. He barely gave any campaign speeches in years 1 and 3. There were 11 between those two years and 10 of them were in the largest markets. The bulk of his election speeches occur in his 1980 reelection year. He focused overwhelmingly on the larger media markets giving 87 speeches there and only 32 in the smaller ones.

Ronald Reagan in Table 4.2 presents a president who strongly prefers the larger markets over the smaller ones. However, the annual totals offer a bit more nuanced situation. Compared to other administrations, Reagan did not give many campaign speeches. His first-term totals are lower than any other president with the exception of Nixon. His second-term numbers are quite low as well. The only other administration with comparably low second-term election speeches is George W. Bush. In many ways, the low number of speeches for Bush 43 makes sense because of his general lack of popularity in 2008. On September 8–11, 2008, Gallup has his approval rating at 31%. ²⁷ Reagan from September 9 to 11, 1988, has an approval rating of 53%. ²⁸ Reagan’s popularity was not low enough to drive him off the campaign trail in the same way George W. Bush was eschewed from supporting fellow Republicans. Ronald Reagan gave the majority of his campaign-oriented speeches in the second and fourth years of his terms. Campaigning on the other years was simply not a focus of the Reagan administration. Of the 112 campaign speeches in his first term, only 19 were given in years 1 and 3. In the second term, he gives a total of 85 speeches and those years fall to a total of 10 speeches. Reagan concentrated his campaigning speeches for election years. He gave a total of 24 of these types of speeches in the 1982 midterm election year evenly divided between the largest and smallest markets. Eight of the speeches that year were all in the top 15 markets of the country. Nine of the speeches were located in some of the absolute smallest media markets in the USA. Of those nine, the largest market he gave a speech was in Peoria, Illinois, close to where he went to college. In 1982, it had a media market ranking of 95 or less than 300,000 television households. The remaining election speeches in the small markets for 1982 were located in several of the Western states such as Montana, Wyoming, and New Mexico. The congressional election year speeches in the second term are similar, yet a bit different. In 1986, Reagan gave 26 speeches in the larger markets and 16 in the smaller ones. The larger market speeches were fairly evenly spread across various DMAs ranked 1–50. The smaller ones, however, look very similar to the 1982 congressional election speeches. Reagan gave the majority of these speeches (14) in the smallest markets throughout the USA ranked between 75 and 210.

During Reagan’s presidential election years of 1984 and 1988, he gives a considerable amount of speeches in the largest markets. While he had almost double in 1984 when compared to 1988, he places a higher emphasis on the bigger markets. Two-thirds of his 1984 election speeches were located in the top 25 markets throughout the USA. Much like this midterm speeches, he also spends a surprising amount of time in truly small media markets. Granted, Reagan did not give many election speeches at all, but 11 of his 1984 election speeches were in markets ranked higher than 100. These were places like Endicott in New York, Medford in Oregon, and Parkersburg, West Virginia. Parkersburg was ranked 193 in 1984 and almost holds the same ranking in 2016. It has fallen one place to 194 and currently has around 60,000 television households. During the 1988 presidential election year, Ronald Reagan did not extensively campaign for George H. W. Bush. He gave a little less than 35 campaign speeches out in the media markets that year. Twenty of those speeches were in the top 25 media markets in the USA, with 11 located in either California or Illinois. As two states with close ties to Ronald Reagan, it would make sense he would spend time in them giving election speeches for the upcoming 1988 contest. Though he did not give many small market speeches, Reagan again travelled to some of the smaller markets to hold rallies in 1988. In particular, he held party events in Bowling Green, Kentucky, as well as Cape Girardeau, Missouri. They stand out because out of the 210 media markets, they were ranked 191 and 195, respectively. They were among two of the smallest markets in the USA to hold Republican Party events.

George H. W. Bush is the first president in the media markets to have a high number of midterm election speeches. In 1990, he gives 63 election speeches, almost doubled over every other first president other than his son who exceeds him by 32 speeches. George H. W. Bush during every year in office gives over 50% of all his election speeches in the largest media markets inside the USA. However, when it was not a congressional or presidential election year, he did not give many speeches in the smaller markets in the country.

Bill Clinton’s use of the largest markets is even more pronounced as a general trend than any other administration. In 1994, 79.4% of all of his election speeches occurred in the top 25 media markets within the USA. Bill Clinton gave a total of 34 campaign speeches in 1994. Twenty-seven of them were in the top 25 markets with the smallest city being St. Louis, Missouri. The smallest market any election speech in 1994 was Portland, Maine, and it was ranked 76. By comparison, he gave a higher percentage of election speeches in the largest media markets and the lowest percentage of speeches in the smaller media markets than any other president until Barack Obama. In 1995, Clinton gave all of his election speeches only in the top 25 markets. When Clinton runs for reelection in 1996, he appears more like the other presidents in the table. He gives fewer election speeches in the top 25 markets and more election speeches in the smallest media markets than he gave any other year. He gives 53% of his first-term election year speeches in the top 25 markets. While still quite high, it is lower than other years. In total, Clinton gives 38 campaign speeches in markets ranked 51–210 in 1996. Interestingly, almost half of those speeches were located in markets ranked over 100 located in places like Lake Charles, Louisiana, and Jackson, Tennessee.

Bill Clinton’s second term sees an even more pronounced shift to campaigning in the largest media markets throughout the USA. During the first two years of his second term, Clinton gives a total of 98 campaign speeches in the top 50 markets and only 3 in markets ranked 51–210. During the third year in office, every one of the campaign speeches was in a market ranked 1–75. While it appears Clinton was preparing for supporting the Democratic Party in the 2000 elections, all of these speeches were in large to moderate-sized markets. Of the 44 total speeches in year 3, 14 were dinners, receptions, or fund-raisers explicitly for members of the House of Representatives or Senate. Bill Clinton gave an impressive 130 campaign speeches in the final year of his second term in the media markets. It is by far the largest number of speeches any second-term president has given since the market information has been collected. The bulk of them, 113, were given in the largest markets within the USA. Specifically, 30, or 27%, were given in the New York City media market. An additional 5 campaign speeches were given in other New York media markets in places like Johnson City or Alexandria, New York. These are located in very small markets ranked in 1996 at 154 and 176, respectively. Clinton also gave 32 campaign speeches in California with the bulk located in the Los Angeles market area. Of the 17 speeches given in the media markets ranked from 51 to 210, 9 were fund-raisers or receptions for specific people running for office. More importantly, of those 9, 5 were for his wife in her bid for a New York Senate seat. Nineteen of the 130 election speeches given by Bill Clinton in 2000 were explicit speeches for Hillary Clinton’s campaign. The bulk of the speeches were in New York, but there were two given on Cape Cod and others in Connecticut, Indianapolis, Miami, Philadelphia, and Little Rock.

One of the most intriguing presidencies is the George W. Bush administration. In 2001, Bush did not give many election speeches. However, in 2002, he gave 95, more than any other first-term president in the media markets during their second year in office. Forty-four of those speeches were in the largest 25 media markets and 26 of them were in the markets ranked from 75 to 210. Fifty-one of the 95 speeches were explicit campaign stops for gubernatorial, congressional, and senatorial candidates seeking office. In 2003, George W. Bush gave 46 election speeches in the nation’s media markets, far more than any other president with the exception of first-term Barack Obama. However, unlike the general diffuse speeches throughout the markets in 2002, Bush gives all but three of them in markets ranked 1–75. In fact, he only gives one speech a truly small media market with a campaigning speech right before the 2003 election in Gulfport, Mississippi, which was ranked 156 that year. In 2004, Bush 43 gives more campaigning speeches in the media markets than any other administration. He gave 192 speeches, with 114 in the markets ranked 1–50 and 78 in the ones from 51 to 210. The only other administration with a similar number is first-term Obama, but he gives 144 in the top 50 markets and only 46 in the smaller ones ranked 51–210. George W. Bush focuses more on smaller media markets than any other president in their reelection year. The National Republican Convention officially gave George W. Bush the nomination on September 2, 2004. From September 3 until Election Day on November 2, Bush gave a total of 114 campaign-related speeches in 19 states. Most states were visited multiple times with the most visits in Iowa (10), Wisconsin (11), Pennsylvania (13), Florida (16), and Ohio (19). Wisconsin has 8 DMAs, and Bush went to 5 of them campaigning in 2004. The state of Ohio has 12 and Bush campaigned in 7 of them leading up to his reelection. He also campaigned in 7 of Florida’s 10 DMAs and 5 of Iowa’s 10. Pennsylvania has 11 DMAs, and Bush gave campaign speeches in 2004 within 6 of them. Bush carried Iowa, Florida, and Ohio and barely lost Wisconsin by .38% and Pennsylvania by 2.5%. Second-term George W. Bush was very different with his approach to the media markets. In 2005, he gives only a handful of campaign speeches and all but one are in the largest media market of the country. For the congressional midterm year, George W. Bush does aggressively campaign for candidates. He gives 51 campaign speeches in the media markets outside Washington, DC, that year, and 30 of them are explicitly for candidates seeking office. The 30 speeches are a bit of a mixed bag for George W. Bush. He campaigned for 9 gubernatorial candidates and only 3 were elected. There were 5 Senate candidates he campaigned for and only 2 of those were elected into office. He did do better with the members of the House of Representatives. He campaigned for 16 candidates of 10 of them won election. However, the 2006 midterm elections were a good night for the Democratic Party and they picked up the majority of governors along with control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Afterward, George W. Bush gave only two campaign speeches in 2007 for Senatorial candidates who were likely going to easily win reelection, Mitch McConnell and Jefferson Sessions.

The presidency of Barack Obama reflects an administration primarily focused upon large markets. In 2009, Obama gave 21 campaign speeches, all of which were in the top 50 markets. In reality, 15 of them were in the top 7 media markets in the USA. He gave 5 speeches on 4 different for New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Jon Corzine who lost to Chris Christie. He also gave speeches for 4 different candidates who would not face reelection until 2010. Of those, only Nevada Senator Harry Reid and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick won reelection. Midterm election years are often when presidents give more campaign speeches in smaller markets. Barack Obama did not follow this pattern. He gave 61 campaign speeches in the media markets outside of Washington, DC, and 50 of them were in the top 25 in 2010. He only gave 1 campaigning speech in a truly small market. He spoke in Charlottesville, Virginia, which is ranked 183. He campaigned for Tom Perriello who lost reelection to his Republican challenger. This House race is worth noting because it was the only House of Representatives candidate Barack Obama explicitly campaigned for in 2010. He did give speeches on behalf of 5 gubernatorial candidates and 3 of them won their elections. His best success was with the senatorial candidates up for election in 2010. He gave explicit campaigning speeches for 10 of them and 6 won their races. In 2011, almost every single campaigning speech was a fund-raiser geared for the 2012 reelection campaign. Fifty of the 55 election speeches that year were in the top 25 markets. The only speech given not in the top 50 media markets was a November 2011 fund-raiser in Hawaii. Barack Obama ran for reelection in 2012. During that year, he gave 190 overt campaign speeches in the media markets outside of Washington, DC. Every single speech was geared toward his reelection campaign. He did not give one speech explicitly on the behalf of another Democratic candidate running for election. Since Obama has been primarily going to the largest media markets so far, why did he give 46 speeches in the markets ranked 51–210 in 2012? Aside from the obvious desire for reelection, the answer probably lies with the large number of states he repetitively gave election speeches in that year. Barack Obama gave 26 campaign speeches in Ohio, 22 in Florida, 20 in New York, 19 in Iowa, 18 in California, 13 in Colorado, 11 in Illinois, and 9 in Virginia. He also gave campaign speeches in many other states, but not with the same high frequency. Many of the smaller market speeches were located in these states where he gave a large number of speeches. His strategy paid off because he won every state he gave more than 8 campaign speeches in during 2012. In all, Barack Obama gave campaigning speeches in 25 states when he was running for reelection. He focused his energies on the states where he was going to reinforce his chances with election because he carried all but 4 of them in 2012 though it was really only 3. He accepted the Democratic nomination at their convention in North Carolina, and it was the only campaigning speech he gave in the state.

The second term of Barack Obama focuses more upon the largest media markets in the USA than any other administration. In 2013, he only gave fund-raising and campaign speeches in the top 14 media markets throughout the USA. The smallest one he spoke in was Miami with 1.6 million television households. Of the 28 election-oriented speeches he gave in 2013, only two of them were on behalf of specific candidates seeking election and both won office. During the 2014 term midterms, Barack Obama gave 35 total campaign speeches, with all but 2 of them in the top 40 markets. The smallest market he spoke in was ranked 80, and it was on behalf of the Democratic candidate unsuccessfully running for the governorship of Maine. In all, Obama only spoke on behalf of 6 candidates in 2014 and the rest were general fund-raising speeches. Of the 5 governors he campaigned for, two won their offices. He also campaigned for the Gary Peters who won the Michigan Senate seat. All the campaign speeches in 2015 were focused on party fund-raising. Barack Obama gave 14 in the media markets outside of Washington, DC, that year and all but 3 were in the top 6 markets in the USA which all have around 2.5 million television households. For the 2016 presidential election year, Obama gave only 44 speeches geared toward campaigning activities. All of them were in the top 50 media markets in the country. The smallest market was Jacksonville Florida which was ranked 47 with 688,500 television households. More importantly, of the 44 speeches, 35 were given in markets with over a million television households. Barack Obama was focusing all his fund-raising and election efforts in the larger media markets. Twenty-four of these speeches or roughly 55% were all speeches given specifically on behalf of the election of Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. He only gave 3 other speeches on behalf of people running for other offices, a governorship and 2 Senate seats. Two of the candidates did win their elections with Tammy Duckworth picking up the Illinois Senate seat and Jay Inslee reelected the governor of Washington State.

The George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations offer some interesting numbers with implications toward an evolving presidency. Presidents who received a second term gave an average of 20.8% total speeches outside of Washington, DC, focused on campaigning. George W. Bush was the higher than average with 21.3% (as a comparison, Eisenhower 20.5%, Nixon 14.7%, Reagan 18.8%, Clinton 20.3%). Obama gave the highest percentage in over 60 years with 28.9% of these speeches. He began fund-raisers for the Democratic Party in March of 2009 after only two months in office. As a comparison, George W. Bush gave his first campaign-oriented speech in April 2001 and Clinton in September of 1993. The length of time between their initial presidential election and fund-raising/campaigning speeches is shrinking, and the number they are expected to participate is increasing. The line between governing and campaigning may be thinning even further as the more and more domestic speechmaking activity involves campaigning.

Media markets free speeches from the geographical boundaries. Modern presidents have ease of transportation with dedicated planes and cars at their ready disposal. Geographical space does not constrain them in the same way it did for presidents a century ago. In this sense, regionalism largely falls away in favor of accessibility and penetration. As a general rule, speeches in the largest media markets have increased during every first-term administration since Richard Nixon. Also, the smallest media markets have seen a decrease in the number of speeches in them during the same period. These results are quite logical. The population in the last 35 years is increased, and the majority of those people live in the proximity to larger cities. The smaller DMAs have shrunk in size as the larger metropolitan areas have grown. These trends were somewhat regular until the presidency of George W. Bush. George W. Bush gave a smaller percentage of speeches in the largest media markets of the USA than any other president in this study. He also gave the largest percentage of speeches in the smaller media markets. These findings for George W. Bush administration are striking. By skirting around the largest media markets, these stump speeches can appear fresh to the people who listen to them regionally. The dramatic differences between George W. Bush and every other president since Nixon in this regard cannot simply be written off as a mere anomaly. This Bush administration appears acutely aware of the nature of media markets and utilizes them to their maximum advantage. Also, it is not enough to simply dismiss these findings by arguing Republicans prefer rural areas. Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Clinton, and Obama all gave more speeches in the largest markets and fewer speeches in the smaller ones. These results suggest a very strategic approach to speechmaking beyond a simple dislike for larger media markets. They hint at a very deliberate and focused appeal toward markets when elections are on the horizon.

“Going public” in its most basic meaning suggests presidents go over the heads of Congress and make direct appeals to the public for support. Presidents would make national-level appeals (often via television or radio) to put forth their policies to the public. If the public found them appealing, they would, in essence, force Congress to back the president or risk losing their own public approval and perhaps a future election. The sizable number of speeches many presidents have given in the largest media markets shows they have often sought the biggest audiences when attempting to pressure the public. Nevertheless, the nature of “going public” shifted in the George W. Bush presidency though Barack Obama reverted to more traditional patterns. Speechmaking from size of market to location has been markedly distinctive for Bush when compared with other administrations, both Democratic and Republican. For “going public,” it means George W. Bush focuses far more on smaller media markets and Democratic states. Barack Obama places a high priority on national speeches and large media markets which mimics several previous administrations, yet at the same time pursues the strategy with an unusually high vigor. Media market size matters, but in different ways to different administrations at different times. Media markets help us better understand priorities and perceived bases of support.

Notes

1.
Joe S. Foote, Television Access and Political Power: The Networks, the Presidency, and the Loyal Opposition (New York: Praeger, 1990): 169.
2.
“Online News Audience Larger, More Diverse,” The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, June 8, 2004, http://www.people-press.org/files/legacy-pdf/215.pdf.
3.
“State of the News Media 2016,” Pew Research Center, June 15, 2016, http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2016/06/30143308/state-of-the-news-media-report-2016-final.pdf.
4.
“Local TV News Fact Sheet,” Pew Research Center, July 13, 2017, http://www.journalism.org/fact-sheet/local-tv-news/.
5.
Lori Cox Han, Governing from Center Stage (Cresskill: Hampton Press, 2001).
6.
Kurt Lang and Gladys Engel Lang, Television and Politics (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2002): 198.
7.
Lang and Lang, Television, 198.
8.
“Another Night of ‘Idol’ Gives Fox Tuesday Boost,” Media Life Magazine, January 2004, http://www.medialifemagazine.com/news2004/jan04/jan19/4_thurs/news7thursday.html.
9.
Dylan Byers, “Record-Low Ratings for State of the Union,” Politico, January 21, 2015, https://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/01/record-low-ratings-for-state-of-the-union-201400.
10.
“Prime Time Cable Ratings: January 20, 2015,” Tv-aholic, http://tvaholics.blogspot.com/2015/01/primetime-cable-ratings-January-20-2015.html.
11.
L. L. Kaid and Joe S. Foote, “How Network Television Coverage of the President and Congress Compare,” Journalism Quarterly 62 (1985): 65.
12.
“DMA Regions,” Nielsen, accessed December 30, 2017, http://www.nielsen.com/intl-campaigns/us/dma-maps.html.
13.
Alan Albarran, Media Economics. Understanding Markets, Industries and Concepts (Ames: Iowa State Press, 2002): 229.
14.
“Local Television Market Universe Estimates,” Nielsen, September 24, 2016, http://www.nielsen.com/content/dam/corporate/us/en/docs/solutions/measurement/television/2016-2017-nielsen-local-dma-ranks.pdf.
15.
“State of the News Media 2016,” 29.
16.
“Gov. Bush: I’m a Uniter, Not a Divider,” CNN, February 29, 2000, http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0002/29/se.01.html.
17.
Jeffrey E. Cohen, Michael A. Krassa, and John A. Hamman, “The Impact of Presidential Campaigning on Midterm U.S. Senate Elections,” The American Political Science Review 85, no. 1 (1991); Luke Keele, Brian Fogarty, and James Stimson, “Presidential Campaigning in the 2002 Congressional Elections,” PS: Political Science and Politics 37, no. 4.
18.
Cohen, Krassa, and Hamman, “Impact of a Presidential,” 176.
19.
Jon R. Bond and Richard Fleisher, The President in the Legislative Arena (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990); George C. Edwards III, At the Margins: Presidential Leadership of Congress (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989); Mark Peterson, Legislating Together: The White House and Capitol Hill from Eisenhower to Reagan (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990).
20.
Matthew Hoddie and Stephen R. Routh, “Predicting the Presidential Presence: Explaining Presidential Midterm Elections Campaign Behavior,” Political Research Quarterly 57, no. 2 (2004): 264.
21.
Hoddie and Routh, “Predicting.”
22.
James G. Gimpel, Karen M. Kaufmann, and Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz, “Battleground States Versus Blackout States: The Behavioral Implications of Modern Presidential Campaigns,” Journal of Politics 69, no. 3 (2007): 795.
23.
Gimpel, Kaufmann, and Pearson-Merkowitz, “Battleground,” 795.
24.
Patrick J. Sellers and Laura M. Denton, “Presidential Visits and Midterm Senate Elections,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 36, no. 3 (2006): 411.
25.
Sellers and Denton, “Presidential Visits,” 429.
26.
Sellers and Denton, “Presidential Visits,” 429.
27.
“President Bush—Overall Job Rating,” PollingReport.com, accessed January 28, 2018, http://www.pollingreport.com/BushJob.htm/.
28.
John Wooley and Gerhard Peters, “President Job Approval,” The American Presidency Project, accessed January 11, 2018, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/popularity.php?pres=40.

4. Media Markets

Notes