FCC Political File Ad Orders: Who Is Buying Political TV and Radio Ads

FCC Political File Ad Orders walks the FCC Public Inspection File (OPIF) political folders of licensed full-service TV, FM and AM stations in a state and returns one clean row per filing: station, licensee, race level, candidate or issue-group folder, file name, filing type (order, invoice, contract, NAB form and more), order number, flight dates as typed in the file name, upload timestamp and a direct PDF link. It answers "who is buying political ads on local TV stations?" from the FCC's own public API, with no login, proxy or PDF download.

Input

All fields are optional. This example scans Georgia TV stations for new federal-race filings since October 1:

{
  "states": ["GA"],
  "service": "tv",
  "year": 2026,
  "race_level": "Federal",
  "uploaded_after": "2026-10-01",
  "max_stations": 15,
  "max_rows": 2000
}

• states: two-letter US state codes whose stations to scan (default ["CT"]). Capped by max_stations.
• call_signs: scan only these stations, for example ["WFSB", "WTNH"]. When set, states is ignored.
• service: tv (default), fm or am.
• year: which Political Files/<year> folder to walk (default 2026). Stations keep two years online.
• race_level: ALL (default), Federal, State, Local or Issue (non-candidate issue ads).
• uploaded_after: ISO date; only filings uploaded on or after it.
• include_low_power: also include LPTV, Class A, LPFM and translators (default false).
• max_stations: stop after this many stations (default 15, maximum 500). max_rows: stop after this many filing rows (default 2000). concurrency: parallel requests, 1 to 10 (default 5).

Output

One row per filing, plus a free SUMMARY row at the end of every run (stations scanned, filings found, top 10 advertisers by filing count). Real example filing row:

{
  "type": "filing",
  "call_sign": "WTIC-TV",
  "facility_id": 147,
  "service": "tv",
  "licensee": "TEGNA BROADCAST HOLDINGS, LLC",
  "community": "HARTFORD",
  "state": "CT",
  "race_level": "State",
  "race_folder": null,
  "advertiser_folder": null,
  "folder_path": "Political Files/2026/State",
  "file_name": "Erin for Connecticut (1)",
  "filing_type": "other",
  "order_number": null,
  "flight_dates_raw": null,
  "file_size_bytes": 1135092,
  "uploaded_at": "2026-02-19T14:10:31-05:00",
  "last_updated_at": "2026-02-19T14:10:33-05:00",
  "pdf_url": "https://files.fcc.gov/download/6373ca8b-53b6-40ca-9ddf-2828f59ef173.pdf",
  "url": "https://files.fcc.gov/download/6373ca8b-53b6-40ca-9ddf-2828f59ef173.pdf",
  "opif_download_url": "https://publicfiles.fcc.gov/api/manager/download/601a971e-a14b-93f5-7abe-18b10c61d36a/6373ca8b-53b6-40ca-9ddf-2828f59ef173.pdf",
  "source_url": "https://publicfiles.fcc.gov/api/manager/folder/id/601a971e-a14b-93f5-7abe-18b10c61d36a.json?entityId=147&sourceService=tv",
  "retrieved_at": "2026-10-14T12:11:52.189Z"
}

Use cases

Search phrases this actor is built for:

• "Political ads on local TV stations": scan a state and read advertiser_folder, race_level and order_number.
• "FCC political file ad orders by race": set race_level to Federal, State, Local or Issue and read race_folder.
• "FCC political file" daily monitoring: run daily with uploaded_after set to yesterday and send new rows to a spreadsheet or alert.

Typical users are campaigns and media buyers, newsrooms and researchers, and political data and ad-tech teams. It also works as a tool for AI agents through the Apify MCP server.

Pricing

Pay per result: $0.02 per filing row ($20 per 1,000). The SUMMARY row is free. A full state of TV stations for the 2026 cycle is typically a few hundred to a couple of thousand rows; use max_rows, race_level and uploaded_after to keep a refresh small.

Limits

• Station list comes from the FCC station query for licensed stations; low-power, Class A and translator stations only with include_low_power.
• order_number and flight_dates_raw are parsed from the file name as the station typed it, so they are null when the name has no such token. Rates and spot counts live inside the PDF and are not extracted.
• Cable systems and satellite providers file in different OPIF branches and are not covered.
• A station is missing if it has no Political Files/<year> folder, is not full-service licensed, or was cut by max_stations.

FAQ

Can I get the ad rates? Open pdf_url; the order confirmation lists spots, dayparts and rates. The actor does not parse PDFs.

How fresh is it? Stations must upload political orders promptly under 47 CFR 73.1943; most post within a business day. Run daily with uploaded_after.

Do I need an FCC account? No. It reads the public inspection file API.