Analysis of Agency Responsive Data
To Determine the Percentage of Advertising Placement Allocated to Community Media
How much of the over $905 million in agency/authority ad spending went to community media over those ten years?
CCM filed Freedom of Information Law requests with 16 state agencies that spent the most with state-contracted advertising vendors (Table 1) to obtain the ad agency invoice records with detailed data on media placements and the amount spent with specific media outlets. We subsequently limited the scope of data to FYs 2019-2022 to increase the odds that we would get responsive records within the twenty days prescribed by law.
TABLE 1
NYS Agencies that CCM sent Freedom of Information Requests (FOILs) for invoices that include Media Buys or Media Placements17
Top NYS Advertising Payees/Vendors
FY 2012–2022
TABLE 1
NYS Agencies that CCM sent Freedom of Information Requests (FOILs) for invoices that include Media Buys or Media Placements17
TABLE 2
Top NYS Advertising Payees/Vendors
FY 2012–2022
CCM received scope-limited responsive records from only six state agencies out of the 16 we sent Freedom of Information Requests: the Gaming Commission, the Department of Children and Families, the Board of Elections, the Department of Agriculture, the Office of Temporary Disability, and the Department of Labor.
At the time of this report, in September 2023, almost a year after CCM filed FOIL requests, we received scope-limited responsive records from only six state agencies: the Gaming Commission, the Department of Children and Families, the Board of Elections, the Department of Agriculture, the Office of Temporary Disability, and the Department of Labor. The responsive data we received was not standardized across agencies. Some of it included performance metrics of the ad placements, like the number of impressions and video completions. Several other agencies, like the Department of Homeland Security, advised that they found no relevant records after a diligent search. Yet other agencies, like the Department of Health (DOH), the agency communicating the most vital public messages to New Yorkers, especially during the pandemic, stated they needed more time to fulfill the request.
The DOH sent records that were not responsive to our specific request for data. The records did not show which specific media outlets ran the ads. As a result, we could not analyze any of the data to determine what the agency spent on media placements in community media versus other media categories. DOH advised CCM that responsive records are forthcoming, and we will update this report if they are received.
These DOH records, however, gave us a window into the amount the agency spent on ad campaigns during a momentous period in the state’s (and the world’s) history. From July 2019 through June 2022, the DOH paid $116 million to place ads publicizing critical messages on COVID-19 Vaccination, Stroke Awareness, Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorder, Extreme Heat, HIV Home Test Giveaway, Maternity Care, Childhood Lead Awareness, FLU Vaccines, Tobacco Control, NY Cures Hep C, Breast Cancer Awareness, PrEP Awareness, and Opioid Awareness, among others topics.19
New York State agencies’ delayed or failed fulfillment of CCM’s FOIL requests is not unusual. When Gannett’s Albany Bureau filed a FOIL request with Empire State Development for the agency’s ad spending between 2012 and March 2015, the state fulfilled the records request almost one year later. There may be hope for timely public record request responses, though. In March 2022, Governor Hochul promised that her administration would streamline the Freedom of Information Law process. Hochul stated that her administration, after seven months in office, had completed more FOIL requests than were processed in all of 2019 (323 requests completed) and all of 2020 (368 requests completed).
We worked with the limited and imperfect data the six responsive state agencies sent CCM. However, the media placement records give us a snapshot of how state agencies disseminated these advertising messages and an estimate of what share community media got from these advertising allocations.
CCM’s findings show that community media only received 2.6% ($5.6 million) of the $216 million total spent on the agency advertising campaigns.
We analyzed 90 advertising campaigns that state agencies conducted, some from 2015 and some through 2023. These campaigns advertised messages that included early voting dates and places, choosing healthy drinks, how to apply for emergency rental assistance, and NYS Lottery Games. CCM’s analysis found that community media only received 2.6% ($5.6 million) of the $216 million total spent on agency advertising campaigns.
The traditional media outlets – mainstream media, local print outlets, and TV and radio stations that are part of larger media companies – received the most agency ad dollars we analyzed, 61% or $133 million of the total ad spending across the six agencies.20
Sports and “live events marketing” were the second largest spending category at 15% or $33.3 million.21 Ad-serving/targeting companies (digital marketing platforms that use artificial intelligence to target consumers like Adtheorent, H Code Media, which specializes in reaching “US Hispanic Audiences,” and Google’s marketing company DoubleClick Digital Marketing) comprised 12.8% of the ad spending at $27.7 million. Social media and tech entities encompassed 7% or $14.7 million of the agency media placement advertising we analyzed. Facebook (Meta) was at least 0.4%, or $881K, of media buys, and Google came in at 0.4%, or $911K, of media buys.22
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17* These agencies sent responsive records to CCM’s FOIL requests. Note that Lottery Division falls under the Gaming Commission, which comprises “all aspects of gaming activity in the State, including horse racing and pari-mutuel wagering, Class III Indian Gaming, the state lottery (including video lottery terminals), commercial gaming, sports wagering, interactive fantasy sports, and charitable gaming.”
18 An additional 22 agencies were not FOILed by CCM, but spent $12.4 million with the top state-contracted advertising firms from FYs 2012-2022.
19 Ad spending data attached to July 25, 2023 New York State Department of Health email.
20 These totals include both “traditional” media and “unspecified traditional” media. We gave the second label to media placement items that did not include outlet names, such as “Paid Traditional Media Buy” in the case of the Department of Agriculture and Markets, or in the case of the Gaming Commission, placements described as TV and Radio grouped by New York State region.
21 All of the sports and live events marketing were identified in the State Gaming Commission records only.
22 The Facebook (Meta) dollar amount is the total of all ad campaigns across the six agencies with the exception of three campaigns provided by the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance. The OTDA data grouped payments for Facebook (Meta) with other social media companies and could not be separately calculated. Also, the Department of Agriculture and Markets did not identify company names in most of the media placement line items. Instead, the agency only described the item as a “digital media buy.” One of the line items did mention Google but in combination with Gay City News and Syracuse New Times. For analysis purposes, this grouped row was split into three separate line items. The two media outlets were assigned the same dollar amount as they had received in earlier ad buys while the amount for Google was estimated to be what remained after subtracting the two media outlet buys from the amount of the original grouped row.
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