If you think you are seeing much less of the two major-party presidential candidates in TV ads this year compared to four years ago, it's not your imagination.
Political advertising spending at the four central Ohio network affiliates is only 25 percent of what it was during the presidential election cycle in 2012.
While the flood of money from the past two presidential cycles has slowed, the station operators don't appear alarmed.
"Surprised is a better word," said Chuck DeVendra, general sales manager at WCMH-TV (Channel 4).
"We can't control political (spending), so it is what it is," said John Cardenas, president and general manager of WBNS-TV (Channel 10).
The campaigns for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump placed orders for ads on WCMH, WSYX-TV (Channel 6), WBNS and WTTE-TV (Channel 28) in September totaling somewhere between $1.1 million and $1.8 million, based on estimates and public records.
In 2012, meanwhile, the campaigns for Barack Obama and Mitt Romney spent a combined $7.3 million. Both candidates in 2012 spent more individually last month than both candidates this year spent combined.
"It was an unprecedented flood four years ago," said Bob Clegg, a Republican strategist and senior vice president of Midwest Communications & Media of Carroll.
"Four years ago, we had an incumbent president who didn't have a primary (battle)," Clegg said. "Obama (ad spending) went up in the middle of May and stayed up. Then, once Romney started spending here, he spent a lot."
This year, on the Republican side, spending was down leading into the primary "primarily due to the vast number of candidates still in the race on the Republican ticket," Cardenas said. "Some candidates and some (political action committees) withheld their advertising given the number of candidates still vying for a spot on the ticket."
"Trump didn't spend a lot in the primary and won anyway," Clegg said. "He had probably 95 percent name awareness. He was so well known he didn't need to spend a lot in the primary. He's spending more now, but not nearly as much as Romney did. Trump can say he barely spent in September and he's beating (Clinton) anyway (in some polls), so he doesn't need TV."
Having Gov. John Kasich in the race made a difference during the primaries, too, Cardenas said. "That actually kept some candidates and PACs from advertising in Ohio, given the assumption he would do well in Ohio."
On the Democratic side, "Clinton had a primary and she had to spend a lot of money because she didn't have the setup that Obama had," Clegg said. "Then you saw no ads from her after wrapping up the nomination in May — it was third-party (PAC) money on her behalf."
In addition to the presidential race, the U.S. Senate race between Republican Sen. Rob Portman and former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland has been similarly disappointing to TV stations hoping to cash in big.
"Strickland (spending) is nowhere near where Portman is or where (Sherrod) Brown or (Josh) Mandel were four years ago" in their U.S. Senate race, Clegg said. "So it's a double whammy for the stations."
Some have speculated that the reason for the lack of spending in Ohio is that the state no longer is as important as it once was to winning the presidency.
That's unlikely, Clegg said. "If it were, then you would see no commercials. There's a route to 270 (electoral votes), and Ohio's always a big part of the equation."
The real reason for the change is that "politics is very situational in nature. It's a big chessboard and it changes every time," he said.
Based on what has happened over the past three or four months, no one sees the spending ramping up much this year.
"You've got 30-some days left to the election, but we're running out of runway," DeVendra said. "Even if (the presidential candidates) bought every spot we had, it won't come close to what we sold in 2012. There just isn't enough time left."