Television advertising for November initiatives rising to $100 million level.

WITH eight contentious initiatives on the ballot and tens of millions of special interest dollars flowing into the state, the run-up to the Nov 8 California special election is turning out to be Christmas in October for the state's broadcasters.

Television is receiving the bulk of the $85 to $100 million in political advertising that by some estimates will be spent this election cycle. With two weeks to go before balloting, TV spending has exceeded what was spent in the entire 2003 gubernatorial recall election that brought Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to power, according TNS Media Intelligence/CMR data.

As of Oct. 15, there has been $55 million in local TV ad spending, and interest groups are spending $1.5 million to $2 million a day, an amount that will increase each week until the election, according to Evan Tracy, chief operating officer for TNS's Campaign Media Analysis Group in Arlington, Va.

"There's no longer an off-year in California for political advocacy advertising," he said. "But this election is particularly heavy because you have groups like pharmaceutical companies and unions spending on some of these issues, in addition to a governor who is able to raise significant money to promote his initiatives."

With demand for airtime increasing, so are prices. Broadcasters are not under the usual federal election restraints to cap their rates. The political windfall is making it difficult for year-round buyers to get media time or even keep the time slots they've already paid for, according to ad agencies and media buyers covering the Los Angeles market.

"What I'll spend $1,000 on, they'll spend $5,000," said Janet Meyer, a supervisor at Los Angeles' Zenith Media, a large local media buyer. "They come in with this ridiculous amount of money, and they aren't working under the same restrictions we are, like having a budget."

Cathleen Campe, senior vice president and director of spot broadcast for the Santa Monica ad agency RPA, which represents American Honda Motor Co., says her agency has had difficulty booking some October and November spots.

While buyers complain about bidding wars that such free spending is encouraging, Mike McCarthy, senior vice president for sales at KNBC-TV (Channel 4), says his station works hard to be fair to all advertisers, and had warned his regulars that inventory was likely to be tight this fall.

X-Life

Variety is pulling the plug on V Life--just two months after the celebrity-centric lifestyle magazine made the transition from special supplement to stand-alone publication. That's a quick death even in an industry where only 38 percent of the magazines survive their first year.

The publication was competing for readers who have high incomes and crave celebrity news, two crowded niches. To fulfill contractual obligations, its last issue will be in February.

President-Publisher Charlie Koones said that the decision had nothing to do with the content or interest from its targeted upscale advertisers. Rather, Variety executives wanted to focus on Internet and overseas projects, which include a Chinese version of Variety.

"There really wasn't enough data to indicate whether the magazine was going to be a hit or a miserable failure so we didn't base our decision on that." said Koones. who said V Life had came close but not hit undisclosed revenue numbers.

Samir Husni, chairman of the University of Mississippi's journalism department, was skeptical. "Saying you're killing a project to focus on the Internet has become the excuse du jour," he said. "That's a lame excuse."

Variety began testing the waters with V Life two years ago by including it as a semi-monthly supplement mailed to 54,000 daily and weekly subscribers with an average household income of $404,000. Daily Variety's Friday edition will continue to publish a weekend edition of V Life as a section within the magazine.

Koones said the company is working to find other jobs for V Life's staff of 10. Variety is published by Reed Business Information, a subsidiary of Dutch conglomerate Reed Elsevier PLC.