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.

Nielsen’s final look at ad buys by the 2008 Presidential candidates proved one famous mantra: politics really are local.
President-elect Barack Obama placed one-and-a-half times as many spot TV ads than John McCain during the general election season (6/08 to 11/08), and almost twice as many ads dating back to the beginning of January when the primaries were just heating up.

SPOT TV ADS: June-Nov 2008

Barack Obama
419,667

John McCain
269,992

The local numbers show a much bigger discrepancy than those for national cable and network buys. Sen. McCain kept pace w/ President-elect Obama in those …