Source : THE AGE NEWS
A late advertisement splurge by the Coalition wasn’t enough to stop its election wipeout on Saturday, as Labor shifted its strategy towards attacking ousted Liberal leader Peter Dutton in the final two weeks of the campaign.
The Labor Party spent only marginally less than Clive Palmer’s Trumpet of Patriots on video advertising across television, streaming platforms and YouTube over the five-week campaign, while the Coalition left most of its spending late, in what might be considered a crucial misstep in a campaign plagued by own goals.
Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton went hard on attacking each other in political advertising.Credit: Fairfax Media
The data, compiled by measurement firm Adgile, shows the major parties spent big on advertising with the commercial television networks over the five weeks.
The Trumpet of Patriots spent $24.1 million on video advertising according to Adgile, in return for no seats. It was followed by Labor’s $24 million, and the Coalition, which spent $20.7 million. The Greens spent $1.46 million, split fairly evenly across television and YouTube and the teal independents spent most of its $657,000 on the Google-owned platform directly targeting voters.
The total ad spend for each party, particularly the Trumpet of Patriots, is likely to be significantly higher as the data does not include print newspaper advertising, outdoor, social media, radio and digital spend.
The figures show Labor spent its money fairly consistently over the five weeks, while the Coalition started slowly, spending twice as much in the final week of the campaign than in the first week.
Early in the campaign, Labor’s messaging focused on its policy platforms, while the Coalition, which was criticised for being thin on policy details, instead focused its efforts on attack ads on Labor and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, spending most on policy messaging in the second last week of the campaign.
Labor spent four times as much on policy messaging in the first week of the campaign, shifting its spend to attack ads towards the end of the campaign. Its messaging, in particular in the final week, targeted potential cuts Dutton would make to health services.
The major parties were far more sophisticated in the ways they targeted voters this election, according to Adgile founder and managing director Shaun Lohman, particularly using digital platforms such as 7Plus, 9Now and Foxtel’s Binge and Kayo to deliver political ads.
Election analyst Antony Green on the ABC election set during his final appearance the public broadcaster.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
“In 2025, it’s clear that Australia’s political parties have taken cues from the US election
playbook, adopting far more sophisticated strategies. We saw highly targeted ads delivered
to key electorates with precision,” Lohman said.
The ABC was by some distance the most popular choice for people to watch the election results live on the night. There were some technical glitches for chief election analyst Antony Green during the ABC’s broadcast, but that didn’t stop the public broadcaster reaching more than 4 million people.
It was the final ABC election broadcast for Green, who joined the broadcaster 36 years ago.
Its programming between 8.30pm and 10pm was the most viewed of the evening, drawing an average audience of 2.36 million. Its average audience remained steady around 2 million across the night and it had a prime-time audience share of almost 50 per cent of free-to-air viewership.
Network Seven’s coverage was the second most popular, reaching 2.78 million people. It had an average audience of 580,000, significantly lower than the ABC’s.
Nine’s coverage reached 2.42 million. An average audience of 527,000 watched the results come in. Network 10’s coverage, which reached 1.74 million people, had an average audience of just 97,000. Sky News Regional’s average viewership was 68,000.
Reach describes the total number of unique viewers who watched a program for at least one minute, while average describes the average audience watching over the length of the program on broadcast and streaming platforms, such as ABC iview and 9Now.
The ABC’s coverage between 10pm and 11pm, headlined by Albanese’s victory speech addressing the nation, reached 3.2 million people. The average audience was 1.99 million, of which 188,000 were watching on digital streaming platform ABC iview.
Coalition senator James McGrath told the ABC’s panel early in the evening the nation would not know who its next prime minister would be by the end of the evening, but it was not even 8pm when both Sky News and Seven declared there was no path to government for the Coalition. Seven was the first network to call the result for Labor.
By 9 o’clock, Nine was broadcasting its election “Dunk Tank”, dropping opposition leader Peter Dutton into a virtual tank of water after he lost his Queensland seat of Dickson.
