Political Ads Get the Cheapest Rate a TV Station Offers, by Law, in the Weeks Before an Election. Here Is the FCC Rule.

A candidate walks into a station's sales office in the last weeks of a race and buys time on terms no car dealer can get. For that stretch of the calendar, the station can't charge the candidate more than its lowest unit charge — the bottom rate on its own card for that class of time — because Section 315(b) of the Communications Act sets the ceiling, and the ceiling is the floor price everybody else negotiates toward.

The Window Runs 45 Days Before a Primary and 60 Days Before a General Election

The discount isn't a year-round courtesy. Section 315(b)(1)(A), as the FCC quotes it in its political programming order, fixes two windows. During the 45 days preceding a primary or primary runoff election, and during the 60 days preceding a general or special election in which the person is a candidate, the charge for the candidate's use of the station can't exceed "the lowest unit charge of the station for the same class and amount of time for the same period."

Three limits ride inside that sentence. The buyer has to be a legally qualified candidate. The purchase has to be in connection with that candidate's campaign for nomination or election. And the comparison runs class for class: a candidate buying a fixed slot in prime time gets the lowest charge for that class, that amount of time and that period — not the lowest charge on the card for a run-of-schedule spot at 3 a.m.

Outside the Window, the Standard Drops From Lowest to Comparable

Section 315(b)(1)(B) covers the rest of the year. At any other time, the charge for a candidate's use of the station can't exceed the charges made for comparable use of the station by other users. Comparable isn't lowest. A campaign buying in March pays the going rate for a comparable buy; a campaign buying inside the window pays the bottom rate for its class. The whole rule, laid side by side:

• Inside the window — 45 days before a primary or primary runoff, 60 days before a general or special election: the lowest unit charge for the same class and amount of time for the same period.
• Outside the window — the rest of the calendar: no more than the charges for comparable use by other users of the station.
• Who holds the right — a legally qualified candidate, buying for the candidate's own campaign. The rate provisions of Section 315 reach candidates for any public office, federal, state or local.
• Where the right runs — broadcast stations first, and the FCC's order confirms the equal-opportunity and lowest-unit-charge requirements also apply to cable system operators, satellite radio (SDARS) licensees and direct broadcast satellite (DBS) providers.

Only a Legally Qualified Candidate Can Claim the Rate

The discount belongs to a status, and the FCC's rules define it at 47 CFR 73.1940. A legally qualified candidate has publicly announced an intention to run for office, is qualified under the applicable law to hold the office sought, and has qualified for a place on the ballot — or is running as a write-in and has made a substantial showing of a bona fide candidacy.

The write-in test is a record of real campaigning. The activities the rule lists include making campaign speeches, distributing campaign literature, issuing press releases, maintaining a campaign committee and establishing a campaign headquarters. In its 2022 order, the FCC added two entries that reflect how campaigns actually run now: the use of social media to promote or further a campaign, and the creation of a campaign website. A hopeful who hasn't announced, can't hold the office or hasn't qualified and can't show a real campaign doesn't hold the status — and without the status, none of the Section 315 protections attach, the rate included.

The Rate Attaches to the Candidate's Own Appearance

A second gate sits on the ad itself. The protections run to a "use" of the station, and the FCC's rule defines a use as a candidate appearance — by voice or picture — that's positive and identifiable, lasting four or more seconds, in a program that isn't exempt under the equal-opportunities rule. A spot the candidate never appears in isn't a use, however warmly it talks about the candidate, and the lowest-charge entitlement is built for uses.

The same section carries the companion protections, and they explain why stations treat candidate time as a separate species of inventory. Under Section 315(a), a station that permits one legally qualified candidate to use it must afford equal opportunities to every other candidate for the same office — and the station holds no power of censorship over the material a candidate broadcasts under the section. A rival who wants to answer has one week from the opponent's first use to put in the request. Separately, Section 312(a)(7) requires broadcast licensees to give legally qualified candidates for federal office reasonable access to the station, or to let them purchase reasonable amounts of time. That access right is federal-only and doesn't reach cable operators; the rate right is broader, running to state and local candidates as well.

The Political File Lets Anyone Check What a Candidate Paid

A discount nobody can audit wouldn't hold for long, so the Act pairs the rate with a paper trail. Under Section 315(e), added by the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, a station must maintain a political file — a complete record, open to public inspection — of every request to purchase broadcast time made by or on behalf of a legally qualified candidate, and of every request for time that communicates a message relating to a political matter of national importance, a category that includes a legally qualified candidate, any election to federal office and a national legislative issue of public importance.

The record for each request states whether the station accepted or rejected it, the rate charged, the date and time the communication aired, the class of time purchased, and the candidate, office, election or issue the communication refers to. A candidate purchase also names the candidate, the candidate's authorized committee and its treasurer; a purchase by anyone else names the buyer, a contact person's name, address and phone number, and the buyer's chief executive officers, executive committee or board of directors. The information goes into the file as soon as possible — the FCC's rules read that as immediately, absent unusual circumstances — and stays there for two years. The files sit online on the Commission's own site, publicfiles.fcc.gov, where the public can verify that a station honored the rate and an opposing candidate can see exactly what access and pricing a rival got.

Note the order of the machine. Congress wrote the access right, the equal-opportunity right and the rate ceiling into Sections 312 and 315; the FCC's rules define who counts as a candidate and what counts as a use; and the political file turns the whole arrangement into a record any citizen can pull up and read. The cheapest rate on the card isn't a favor a station grants in October. It's a charge the law caps, in a window the statute counts out day by day — 45 for the nomination fight, 60 for the election itself. If you're following the money that buys the airtime around the rate, our explainer on the upfronts — the May market where networks sell most of a season's commercial time in advance — shows the unregulated end of the same business, and our Nielsen explainer shows how the audience numbers that price every class of time get counted in the first place.