site.btaIPED Releases Results of Monitoring of Funds Allocated by Parties for Media Advertising during Election Campaign

The Institute for Public Environment Development (IPED) released on Tuesday the results of its traditional monitoring of the funds allocated by parties for media advertising. The monitoring included the official websites of 39 national and regional media outlets.

The review of the contracts between the parties and the media service providers showed that for the month of the election campaign the participants in it paid BGN 2,689,163 (excluding VAT). This is the total of all published contracts for the National Assembly campaign and the European Parliament campaign as of June 12.

Vazrazhdane was the political force that allocated the most funding for media presence - BGN 507,890, followed by Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria with BGN 410,744.

The Bulgarian National Television attracted the largest amount of funds (BGN 569,488), followed by Eurocom (BGN 568,181) and bTV (BGN 349,066).

Through media packages, the formations that do not receive a subsidy paid BGN 1,678,235 for advertising and distribution of their messages in the media. 

"We checked the [political] formations and their candidates who posted sponsored content on Facebook during the campaign," the monitoring said. The spending data for a specific formation aggregates all sponsored posts marked as paid political content worth more than EUR 100 between May 12 and June 10.

In the election month, the Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria coalition spent the most money - EUR 209,268, with which 1,658 publications were distributed. They were followed in social media spending by There is Such a People with EUR 52,290 euros for 251 publications. In third place were GERB-UDF, which spent EUR 49,812 to sponsor 509 publications to target potential voters.

Detailed information about the political formations and their media spending in the campaign can be found on IPED's Open Parliament platform.