Catherine J. Mathis, a spokeswoman for The New York Times Company, said the advertising department does not base its rates on political content. She also said the department does not disclose the rates it charges for individual advertisements. But she did say that “similar types of ads are priced in the same way.” She said the department charges advocacy groups $64,575 for full-page, black-and-white advertisements that run on a “standby” basis, meaning an advertiser can request a specific day and placement but is not guaranteed them.....As for advance word of when a standby ad is running, she said: “Someone might say, ‘I’d like the standby rate, I’d like it to run tomorrow,’ and we say, ‘We can’t guarantee that,’ but then if we find out it is running, we let them know. If we have room, we try to accommodate them.”
But wait.
This was a very time-sensitive ad. For it to have the desired effect, it pretty much had to run Monday. Under such circumstances, why would MoveOn buy an ad without guaranteed placement? That would be like flying standby to your own wedding.
Maybe MoveOn figured out a way to game the Times's system. Perhaps, for instance, it is possible to buy a full-price ad after learning that a standby ad will not run on a given day. However, that would seem to defeat the purpose of the pricing scheme by allowing advertisers to get guaranteed placement without necessarily paying for it.
But it may also be that the Times advertising department was overly accommodating to MoveOn.org. Presumably the ad salesmen have an idea of how likely a customer is to get the desired placement for a standby ad. If ad sales are sluggish enough, the salesmen may know well in advance that a standby ad will run.
But if (as the Times seems to tacitly admit) someone apprised the MoveOn.org PAC in advance that its "standby" ad would definitely run Monday, then the Times gave the PAC guaranteed placement at the standby rate--i.e., it sold something worth $167,000 for $65,000.
It's hard to see how that is anything other than an in-kind campaign contribution.
