Yesterday Sen. John McCain boosted his TV advertising units in seven key swing states — Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, closing the gap between his advertising and Sen. Barack Obama’s.
On Sunday, Oct. 26, McCain ran just 331 TV ad units in those seven states — 308% fewer than the 1,350 ad units Obama ran that day.  
But on Monday, Obama’s lead in these key battleground states shrank to 113% — or a margin of 1,528 ad units, after McCain’s campaign increased the number of TV ad units it ran in those states by 308%, to 1,353 units. 
In comparison, …

Senator Barack Obama’s advertising in seven key swing states continues to surpass the number of ad units run by his presidential opponent, Sen. John McCain.
In Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, Obama placed 155% more ad units (62,022 vs. 24,273) than McCain between October 6 and October 26, 2008.
As of October 22, Obama had placed 150% more ad units (53,049 vs. 21,106) than McCain in those key battleground states.
Obama’s advertising continues to be heaviest in Florida, where he ran 18,909 ads between October 6 and October 26, outpacing …

Good news for Sen. John McCain’s campaign: cheap, but effective TV advertising options abound, according to a new report by Nielsen PreView.
Chief among these thrifty advertising alternatives – the auto-themed Speed Channel, which Republicans are 52% more likely to watch, compared with the average American.
In comparison, Republican voters are 48% more likely to watch FOX News and 33% more likely to watch Country Music Television. 
The takeaway: well-placed cable advertising can reach core Republican constituents at a more favorable CPM.

In the home stretch leading up to the presidential election, Sen. Barack Obama is easily out-advertising his presidential opponent, Sen. John McCain.
In seven key swing states — Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, Obama placed 150% more ad units (53,049 v. 21,106) than McCain between October 6 and October 22, 2008.
Obama’s advertising has been most prolific in Florida, where he ran 15,887 ads between October 6 and October 22, 2008, outpacing McCain’s 4,662 ads by 240%.

According to Nielsen Online, in September NYTimes.com was the top U.S.-based online newspaper site, while MSNBC Digital Network (MSNBC) was the top U.S. online news outlet, Editor & Publisher reported this week.
The NY Times’ website drew just over 20 million unique visitors in September — a 37% increase over unique traffic to the site last September.

Sept. 2008 Rank
Top 10 
Newspaper Sites
(ranked by unique users)
Sept. 2008 Unique Traffic
(in 000’s)
% Growth
Vs. Sept. 2007 Unique Traffic

1
NYTimes.com
20,068
37%

2
washingtonpost.com
12,956
43%

3
USATODAY.com
11,439
33%

4
LA Times
10,022
102%

5
Wall Street Journal Online
9,047
94%

6
Boston.com
8,610
122%

7
SFGate.com/San Francisco Chronicle
5,129
18%

8
New York Post
4,815
98%

9
Politico
4,605
219%

10
Chicago Tribune
4,558
46%

Source: The Nielsen Company (September 2008).

Meanwhile, MSNBC saw 44% year over year growth, …

Do politics play a role in TV viewing? 
Yes and no, according to Nielsen IAG, which recently released data showing which cable programs are most “engaging” among self-identified Democrats and Republicans.
“Engagement” refers to the amount of attention paid to a television program by the average viewer.  Nielsen measures TV engagement by questioning a representative panel of viewers about their recall of specific telecasts’ content.
Nielsen’s analysis found that the cable programs that received the highest overall engagement scores — meaning viewers were most engaged in the shows’ content — also received the most bipartisan support, …

Online buzz surrounding Senators Barack Obama and John McCain remained strong during the three presidential debates in September and October, but voters’ engagement in the debate TV broadcasts declined significantly after the first debate, according to an analysis released Tuesday by Nielsen IAG and Nielsen Online.
“Engagement” refers to the amount of attention paid to a television program by the average viewer.  Nielsen measures TV engagement by questioning a representative panel of viewers about their recall of specific telecasts’ content.
Online consumer discussion of both candidates spiked before and after each of the four …

With the presidential campaign of Senator Barack Obama touting record political contributions for the month of September, Nielsen Claritas has taken a look at the source of Sen. Obama’s and Sen. McCain contributions through the lens of lifestyle attributes and socio-economic data, such as income, age, occupation, education, and household composition.
Nielsen Claritas’s PRIZM system breaks down the U.S. population into 66 segments based on these attributes. 
Obama leads McCain in dollars and the number of donations received from the 10 PRIZM segments of the U.S. population that have made the most political contributions through …

The final presidential debate between Senators John McCain and Barack Obama drew 56.5 million U.S. viewers Wednesday night, Nielsen reported Thursday.
The TV audience for the senators’ third meeting edged past that of their first debate at the end of September, which drew 52.4 million viewers, but was easily surpassed by the audience of 63.2 million that tuned in for the second presidential debate last week.
During the previous presidential campaign, 51.2 million viewers tuned in for President Bush and John Kerry’s third debate on Oct. 13, 2004.  (View complete historical debate ratings.)
As …

NBC’s post-debate analysis of the final presidential debate between Senators John McCain and Barack Obama edged past ABC’s post-debate coverage to claim the number one spot in Nielsen’s ranking of the top primetime telecasts on broadcast TV for Wednesday, October 15, 2008.
FOX, which aired live coverage of Game 5 of Major League Baseball’s National League Championship Series — instead of the debate, rounded out the top three.
CBS’s post-debate analysis also made the top ten.

RANK
PROGRAM
NETWORK
VIEWERS (P2+)

1
DECISION ‘08:PRES ANALYS3(S)-10/15/2008
NBC
9,091,000

2
VOTE2008:ANALYSIS-WED(S)-10/15/2008
ABC
8,864,000

3
FOX MLB NLCS GAME 5(S)-10/15/2008
FOX
8,029,000

4
OLD CHRISTINE
CBS
7,613,000

5
GARY UNMARRIED
CBS
7,529,000

6
KNIGHT RIDER
NBC
7,470,000

7
CAMPAIGN ‘08-DEBATE ANL-3(S)-10/15/2008
CBS
7,189,000

8
PUSHING DAISIES
ABC
6,108,000

9
FOX MLB NLCS GAME …