The income of the SDP was derived from two main sources: membership subscription (recommended at £9 per member in 1981, rising to £16 in 1987) and donation from companies and individuals. Alan MacConnell calculates that these two sources on average matched each other ('Should parties be funded by the state?' in Britain's Changing Party System p.211) and describes the SDP's fund raising approach as highly centralist and aggressive (p.210). The party was innovative in introducing direct mail and direct telephone, or ` telecanvassing', programmes to publicise the party and boost membership subscription and donations: as noted in an article in Direct Mail Magazine , the SDP pioneered political direct mail in Britain (vol.4; no.2; p.12). Peter Luff introduced a direct mailing programme after joining the SDP as its funding director in Sep 1982 by which SDP members, supporters and prospective supporters were sent letters to encourage renewal of subscriptions, recruitment of new members, and donations to election campaign and other funds. In 1986 Fiona Wilson took over as head of fund raising.

After the successful publicity surrounding the launch of the party (see D 709 3/1: Papers relating to the launch of the SDP) the SDP, as a new `fourth' party on the political scene, faced certain problems in competing with the established parties for media attention, having to fight to extend their television news coverage and the allocation of party political broadcasts (PPBs). The allocation of party political broadcasts was decided by a formula based on the number of votes cast for each party in the previous election, and despite complaints to the Committee on Party Political Broadcasting, the SDP, having not fought a general election, was not allocated a PPB until Apr 1983. The Party also became dissatisfied with the amount of television news coverage it received, particularly in comparison to Labour Party, also in opposition, and in June 1984 David Owen submitted a complaint to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission on the grounds of unfair television news coverage by the BBC and IBA of the Alliance parties in comparison to Labour; and following the Commission's ruling that the investigation of this complaint was beyond its powers, the SDP turned to the High Court to overturn this decision, the hearing being held on 13 and 14 Jan 1985. Following the court's ruling that the Commission was within its rights to refuse to consider the complaint, the SDP continued to press the BBC and IBA with queries and complaints concerning the balance of political news coverage, before deciding to bring an action of application for a judicial review on the matter against the BBC to the High Court in Jan 1986, which was finally settled out of court in an agreement by which the BBC agreed to reveal in confidentiality to the Party details of its principles for judging impartiality in its news coverage and monitoring data. David Owen writes of a marked improvement in media practice since the case, noting that politics is no longer presented simply as a two-horse race (Owen, Time to Declare p.624).

Another influence that the SDP had on televised politics was a ground-breaking approach to the party political broadcast, attracting 15 million viewers on 3 Dec 1985 to a broadcast on proportional representation written and presented by the comedian, John Cleese, hailed by Herbert Kretzmer in the Daily Mail as a refreshing pointer to new directions (4 Dec 1985, p27) in terms of party political broadcasting.