Nielsen: Nearly 1.5M Political Ads Aired In October

NEW YORK (AP) – Television viewers were probably exposed to more political ads last month than ever before.

The Nielsen Co. said Friday that nearly 1.48 million political ads aired on local broadcast stations in October. That’s more than any other month since Nielsen began collecting that data in 2000.

Nielsen spokesman Aaron Lewis says the company is confident that there was no bigger number before that.

The previous high was 1.41 million ads in October 2008, a presidential election year.

The actual number of televised ads was higher. Nielsen’s count takes in 707 broadcast stations across the country, but does not include cable networks.