RI ranked 64th for frequency of political commercials

If you felt that you couldn’t watch TV in October without being bombarded by political commercials, you weren’t alone.  A national analysis by Nielsen shows that the Providence-New Bedford market ranked 64th (out of 128 leading markets) for the greatest frequency of political commercials.

Of 96,605 commercials broadcast in the local market during October, 10,942 — or 11.3 percent — were political commercials, Nielsen found.

That frequency of political commercials ranked Prov-New Bedford ahead of such larger markets as New York (6.8 percent) and Washington, D.C. (6.8 percent), but behind Cleveland, where a whopping 23.4 percent of all commercials in October were political.

Here’s part of Nielsen’s analysis:

Even in a midterm election cycle, American TV viewers were inundated with more TV ads than perhaps ever before.

Last month, American TV viewers were exposed to almost 1.48 million political ads, up from the 1.41 million political ads aired in October 2008 (the last major presidential election year), according to data released today by Nielsen. It was the largest political ad output on record in what is traditionally known as the busiest month of the year for political messaging. Nielsen data over the last five calendar years suggest that TV distributors air twice as many political and issue ads in October than any other month, on average.

Some critics grouse that many TV stations across the country have walked away from meaningful political coverage even as they profit handsomely from political commercials.

Closer to home, WPRI, Channel 12 (disclosure: where I’m a regular panelist on the station’s Newsmakers show), maintains that political coverage can be a ratings winner:

On election night, Eyewitness News on WPRI 12 was the most watched local television station for coverage of Campaign 2010. Eyewitness News coverage was #1 in the 9pm to 11pm time period with more than 86,000 viewers tuning in. From 9pm to 11pm,  more people counted on Eyewitness News for election coverage than all of the other Rhode Island television stations- combined.

Eyewitness News on WPRI 12 and Fox Providence were the only stations with live, local coverage all night long, reporters at local political headquarters bringing viewers victory speeches live from every major winner, and expert analysis from Joe Fleming, which allowed Eyewitness News to declare the winner first in every key race.