The House Committee on Energy and Commerce released the results of its British Petroleum query asking how much it had been spending on advertising since the Deepwater Horizon spill compared to the same period a year earlier. It turns out that its expenditures have more than tripled to $93.4M between late April and mid-August. Meanwhile, it provided $89.5M to tourism promoters in four affected states.
The report was put together at the request of Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL). Committee Chair Henry Waxman and Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chair Bart Stupak (D-MI) signed off on it.
According to the report, BP actually purchased fewer radio and television spots during the period in question, but they tended to be longer, 60-second spots and were placed on national rather than local media.
BP has been a boon to the newspaper industry this year. In 2009 during the period, it bought local newspaper ads in just two states and the District of Columbia. This time: 126 markets in 17 states, including Gulf states Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi – as well as California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Maryland, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Texas.
