VIRGINIA: The ad race between Virginia gubernatorial candidates continues to be as tight as it was reported two weeks ago. Since September 21st Robert McDonnell(R) has out-placed Creigh Deeds (D) 6215 to 5718.

A breakdown of the Designated Market Areas (DMAs) within Virginia lends a better view of where the candidates are targeting their messages. McDonnell is dominating the airwaves in the Richmond and Norfolk markets, where his campaign has placed about 40% more ads than Deeds’s campaign since September 21st.  But Deeds, the Democratic candidate, is more of a presence on TVs in the rural Western part of the state, where he’s bought 16% more ads than the McDonnell campaign in the Roanoke-Lynchburg market and 19% more in the Tri-Cities market in the last month. In the Washington DC market, the two candidates are virtually tied, with each of the campaigns placing roughly 1700 ads from 9/21 to 10/19.

NEW JERSEY: In Nielsen’s last analysis of the governor’s race two weeks ago, incumbent Democrat John Corzine showed a big lead in ad buys over Republican challenger Chris Christie. And that lead hasn’t waivered, with Corzine’s campaign placing almost 2 1/2 times as many ads on New Jersey TVs as Christie’s, since September 21st through October 19th (4131 to 1786).

But ads placed by the campaigns alone do not tell the entire story in New Jersey.  The Republican Governors’ Association has chipped in with its own advertising on behalf of Christie. The RGA placed over 900 ads over the last month to help close the gap.

NEW YORK CITY: Incumbent Mike Bloomberg continues to dominate New York airwaves over his opponent Bill Thompson (D). Bloomberg’s 2,875 TV ads placed since September 21st, almost 1,300 more than the amount placed by Thompson over the same period.

NEW YORK CITY: Incumbent Mayor Mike Bloomberg is dominating his competition in the ad buying race. Between June 1^st and September 20^th, Bloomberg purchased 4,706 TV ads in the New York market – no small feat considering New York is one of the most expensive markets in the country. The figure dwarfs the number of ads bought by Democratic challenger Bill Thompson, whose campaign bought just 14 TV ads over the same period – all of which ran on or after September 18^th.

NEW JERSEY: Recent polls show a slim lead for former prosecutor Chris Christie over incumbent Governor John Corzine. But since Christie was tapped as the Republican nominee back in June, the ad race has been much more lopsided in favor of his Democratic rival. Gov. Corzine has placed 3 ½ times more TV ads from June 3^rd to September 20^th, outscoring Christie 4,806 to 1,393 in the New York City and Philadelphia markets combined.

VIRGINIA: In the Old Dominion governor’s race, Republican Robert McDonnell hopes that history repeats itself as he takes on a Democratic opponent in Creigh Deeds whom he narrowly beat out for the attorney general seat four years ago. Since the Virginia primary ended in June, McDonnell has placed more ads across Virginia’s multiple TV markets with a score of 4,382 to 3,986 through September 20^th. But more recently, Deeds has been a bigger presence on Virginans’ TV sets with 3,028 ads in the first three weeks of September alone compared to 2,753 ad buys for McDonnell.

Just weeks after his inauguration in 1993 President Bill Clinton also held a prime time news conference. That event focused on the economy and was carried by 4 networks on February 15, 1993. The sum of the audience of those networks was a 42.1 household rating with 64,300,000 viewers on average.

On October 11, 2001, exactly a month after the attacks of September 11, President Bush held a prime time news conference that was carried by 7 networks. The sum of those networks’ audience from approximately 8-8:45PM was a 42.0 household rating with 64,813,000 viewers.

In 1993 the average U.S. TV home had approximately 40 channels available. By 2000 the average home had 61 channels and now that figure has increased to more than 118 channels available.

Web traffic to sites within the “Current Events and Global News” category was up 27% on Election Day, versus the previous Tuesday (Oct. 28), Nielsen Online reported Wednesday.

The candidates’ websites also drew healthy traffic on Election Day.  Obama’s site had 1.2 million unique visitors on Nov. 4, while McCain’s site had 479,000 unique visitors.

Page views and time-per-person at current events and news websites also increased 103% and 61%, respectively, on Tuesday, according to Nielsen.

Check out historical unique audience data from Election Day 2004.

View the full media alert.

Read coverage of Nielsen’s findings in Ad Age, Silicon Alley Insider, Mediaweek, Media Life magazine, and Direct News.

Live news coverage was carried on both broadcast and cable networks, including Spanish-language networks: ABC, CBS, FOX Broadcast, NBC, Telemundo, Univision, BBC America, BET, CNBC, CNN, FOX News Channel, MSNBC, and TV One.

Nielsen’s audience estimates include primetime coverage, from 8pm to 11pm, in the Eastern and Central Time Zones and live in Mountain and Pacific Time Zones.

Audience estimates for the 8pm to 12:30am time frame, which featured Sen. McCain’s concession speech and President-Elect Obama’s speech in Chicago, are also included below.

In 2004, almost 59.2 million viewers tuned in between 8pm and 11pm to watch Election Night TV coverage, as President Bush defeated Sen. John Kerry to win re-election.

On Election Night in 2000, almost 61.6 million viewers (excluding viewers of Spanish language networks) watched primetime TV coverage of President Bush and Former Vice President Al Gore’s embattled election contest.

Nielsen’s broadcast audience numbers include a combination of national and local news coverage.

View the full media alert.

Read coverage of Nielsen’s findings by the Associated Press and Reuters, as well as in The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, Mediaweek, and Media Life magazine.

NBC’s 8pm to 11:30pm coverage of the voting results claimed second place, and ABC’s 8pm to 9pm Election Night coverage rounded out the top three.

Election returns coverage on CBS, FOX, and Univision dominated the rest of the top ten.

Overall, ABC won the night with an average audience of just over 13.2 million viewers, while NBC took second place with almost 12.5 million average viewers. CBS and FOX claimed third and fourth places with roughly 7.4 million and 4.7 million average viewers, respectively. Univision and the CW followed in fifth and sixth places with average audiences of roughly 4 million and 2.4 million average viewers, respectively.

In the wake of winning the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Obama was mentioned in almost 20% of all blog discussions, Nielsen Online reported Wednesday.

In comparison, John McCain was referenced by just 6.3% of all blog entries posted on November 5, according to Nielsen.

On Sunday, Nov. 2, McCain ran just 708 TV ad units in those seven states — 48% fewer than the 1,463 ad units Obama ran that day. 

But on Monday, Nov. 3, Obama’s lead in these key battleground states shrank to 79% — or a margin of 1,510 ad units, after McCain’s campaign increased the number of TV ad units it ran in those states by 168%, to 1,900 units.

In comparison, Obama’s campaign ran 3,410 ad units in Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia on Monday — a 133% increase from Sunday.

Both candidates continued to focus the bulk of their advertising on Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.  On Monday, McCain ran 75% of his 1,900 ads (1,424 units) in those three states, while Obama ran 67% of his 3,410 ads (2,292 units) there.

Advertising in Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia by both McCain (1,912 units) and Obama (4,119 units) peaked on Friday, Oct. 17 (6,031 combined ad units) — just two days after their final presidential debate.

In comparison, on Monday – the last day before the election – the candidates placed a combined total of 5,310 ads, falling short of their Oct. 17 combined advertising peak by 13.5%. 

For his part, McCain came within 12 ad units (6%) of his Oct. 17 advertising peak on Monday, while Obama remained 709 units (21%) shy of his highest ad unit level.

Overall, between Oct. 6 and Nov. 3, Obama placed 133% more ad units (83,903 vs. 36,070) than McCain in Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

Nielsen’s ad unit data shows preliminary commercial occurrences and may fluctuate from day to day, as data is updated.

Read coverage of Nielsen’s findings by Bloomberg and in The Boston Globe and the Houston Chronicle.

Despite trailing Obama in terms of the total number of TV ad units placed, McCain showed a much larger percentage increase in TV advertising from the previous weekend (Friday October 24 thru Sunday, October 26) to this past weekend (Friday, October 31 thru Sunday, November 2).  

McCain bumped his TV ad units up by 76% overall in the seven battleground states Nielsen tracked, while Obama increased his advertising in those states by just 3% over the previous weekend.

Between October 6 and November 2, Obama placed 135% more ad units (80,504 vs. 34,179) than McCain in Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

To date, both McCain and Obama have advertised most heavily in Florida.  Obama ran 24,834 ads in the state between October 6 and November 2, outpacing McCain’s 8,599 ads by almost 189%.

Nielsen’s ad unit data shows preliminary commercial occurrences and may fluctuate from day to day, as data is updated.

Stay tuned on NielsenWire for daily political ad updates from the swing states.