US Broadcast Political Ad Buys 2026 (12 States)

What’s in the listing

Every broadcast station must file each political ad order, with the rate charged, in its FCC political file. Civly reads the filings for 2026 races in 12 states: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas and West Virginia. Civly ties each order’s versions together: the original order, revisions, the signed contract and invoices. A revision often lists only the changed lines but prints the whole order’s total, so ORDERS counts each order once, at the total the station printed on its best reviewed version.

Common uses: tracking opponent and outside-group TV and radio spending by market and station, station political revenue, rate benchmarking (lowest unit charge flags where printed), and buy timing.

How much is read so far

Civly finishes reading the 2026 filings in early October 2026. Until then the tables fill in each week. As of October 1, 2026: 711 orders from 115 stations.

How the reading checks out

On a random check of 200 filings against their PDFs (October 1, 2026): the order total was read exactly on 191, missed on 9 (those orders fall back to the sum of their listed lines and are labeled listed_lines), and wrong on none. The order number matched on 198 of 200. The sample came from the first filings read.

Only reads that passed review are included. ORDERS.HAS_NEWER_UNREVIEWED_VERSION flags orders whose newest filing did not pass review.

Data dictionary

Three tables, 72 columns in total: ORDERS, FILINGS and BUY_LINES. The same tables serve the trial and the subscription. During the free trial they return Nevada only. A subscription adds the other 11 states.

Data dictionary: ORDERS

One row per station ad order, counted once. The total comes from the order’s best reviewed version: the total the station printed, else the sum of that filing’s listed lines. Values are Civly’s AI reading of the station’s FCC political-file filing. Follow TOTAL_FROM_FCC_FILING_URL to the original.

Data dictionary: FILINGS

One row per reviewed filing (order, revision, contract or invoice) with the total it prints and its change from the previous version of the same order. Values are Civly’s AI reading of the station’s filing.

Data dictionary: BUY_LINES

Schedule lines read from each reviewed filing: daypart, spots, rate and gross. Revisions restate earlier lines, so never sum these across filings. Use ORDERS for totals.

Joining the tables

Join ORDERS to FILINGS and BUY_LINES on ORDER_ID. Join FILINGS to BUY_LINES on FILING_ID. Use ORDERS for order totals. Do not sum FILINGS or BUY_LINES across the versions of one order: a revision often lists only the changed lines.

Sample queries

After installing, set your worksheet’s database selector to the installed database and these run as written.

-- Spending by state, counting each order once
SELECT state, COUNT(*) AS orders, SUM(order_total) AS total_usd
FROM POLITICAL_AD_BUYS.ORDERS
GROUP BY state
ORDER BY total_usd DESC;

-- Largest sponsors in one market
SELECT sponsor_name, COUNT(*) AS orders, SUM(order_total) AS total_usd
FROM POLITICAL_AD_BUYS.ORDERS
WHERE market ILIKE 'Columbus%'
GROUP BY sponsor_name
ORDER BY total_usd DESC
LIMIT 20;

-- How one order changed across its filed versions
SELECT filed_on, document_type, revision, printed_order_total, change_from_previous_version, fcc_filing_url
FROM POLITICAL_AD_BUYS.FILINGS
WHERE order_id = (SELECT order_id FROM POLITICAL_AD_BUYS.ORDERS ORDER BY versions DESC LIMIT 1)
ORDER BY filed_on;

Sourcing and attribution

Every broadcast station must keep and publish a political file (47 U.S.C. 315(e), 47 CFR 73.1943). The values in this dataset are Civly’s AI reading of each filing, not FCC content. Every row links to the original filing on files.fcc.gov. The underlying PDFs are not redistributed, and no buyer or station staff contact details are included.

This product uses the FCC Data API but is not endorsed or certified by the FCC.

For coverage or access questions: [email protected]