Broadcasters are giddy with excitement, and it has nothing to do with a stellar fall lineup. A new report by Moody's Investors Service predicts that political advertising sales will continue to soar, breaking records in 2012 and flushing broadcasters with exorbitant revenues. And even in the face of a possible double-dip recession, broadcasters are comfortable that the money will keep rolling in. 

We aren't as giddy -- not about the political ad sales, or the fall lineup; this influx of cash isn't correlating with a re-investment in better programming or quality news. It's just straight profit. 

Thanks to Citizens United v. FEC, corporations can now spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns, and they're paying for TV political ads in record numbers. The report predicts political ad revenue will grow to 18 percent in 2012 -- a nine-percent increase from 2010, when broadcasters netted an estimated $2.3 billion in political broadcast TV ad spending. With a contentious presidential election looming, you can bet corporations will be using this Supreme Court gift to influence voters, shoveling cash at broadcasters. 

Broadcasters have long cried poor, blaming massive lay-offs, station closures and out-and-out bad programming on their feeble earnings. So all this cash should mean we'll see -- and should already be seeing -- better news and entertainment. 

Broadcasters must be using their windfall to rehire journalists, pump up bare-boned TV stations, and produce quality news reporting and entertainment, right? They're not just taking that money straight to the bank, right? They believe in the tenets of journalism, right? There's no way they would just pocket the money and run... oh. Right. Rather than re-invest their billions to give us a better product, broadcasters are padding their profits. 

The Federal Communications Commission's recent report on the “future of media” offered a scathing review of broadcasters' behavior: 

Instead of using the money saved by new technologies and production efficiencies, and the additional money that poured into local TV stations from the historic levels of political advertising in the 2010 election season, to increase the pool of reporters who could cover their communities and more effectively monitor institutions and government agencies, many stations have opted to let those dollars simply flow to the bottom line. In today’s multitasking news operations, reporters given broadened production responsibilities have less time to do the labor-intensive reporting that can provide vital information to the local viewer and hold local institutions and leaders accountable.

If the past is any prediction, we won't see the results of broadcasters' windfall showing up on our TV screens any time soon.

As we've noted, broadcasters are also quietly merging newsrooms across the country in a practice called “covert consolidation.” It's another example of crying poor, saying they need to be more “efficient” by delivering the same news from the same news team on several different TV stations. In reality, broadcasters are raking in money from political ads and simultaneously shrinking stations and overhead costs.

Broadcasters have a real opportunity to deliver the public a better product with their increased funds. Instead, we're going to see more news rooms delivering the same news, more vapid programming, and a whole lot more political ads.