HuffPost Off The Bus / Open Reporting

source2012:

2012’s ad avalanche

Research released this week from Kantar Media’s CMAG, which tracks political advertising, shows that battleground TV viewers are being deluged by ads.

“As of early this month,” writes Kantar’s Elizabeth Wilner in Ad Age, “we have seen 1.3 million ad occurrences for all political advertising on local spot TV.”

Not only is this a huge increase above the number of ads aired during the same period of 2008, but this election has seen a spike in the percentage of ads aired by outside groups such as super PACs and politically active nonprofits — especially on the Republican side.

Between April 10, when Republican Mitt Romney unofficially claimed the GOP presidential nomination, and early September, Wilner notes, outside groups accounted for 55% of all presidential ads aired on the Republican side, while Romney and the Republican National Committee accounted for just 45%.

She continues:

“During this same time frame in 2008, only 3% of all Republican ads were sponsored by outside groups; 97% were aired by the McCain campaign or the RNC.

“On the Democratic side, the difference between 2008 and 2012 is negligible: 91% of all presidential ads aired during the April-September period in 2012 were sponsored by either the Obama campaign or the Democratic National Committee; just 9% of the ads aired came from outside groups such as Priorities USA Action. In 2008, the breakdown was 96% to 4%.”

h/t Andrew Sullivan

(via huffpostpol)