This week, Media Monitors took a look at elections ads and Minneapolis-St. Paul, the 16th largest radio market with a population of 2,697,500. Last week in the Twin Cities, politics placed front and center in the minds of the people and spots on the radio. MENARDS was #1 with 463 spots and the SHANE COMPANY was #2 with 456 commercials. Coming in #3 was TINKLENBERG FOR CONGRESS with 447 ads, while MICHELE BACHMANN FOR CONGRESS was in at #4 running 385 announcements. WALMART was #5 with 379 spots, while the DSCC – AL FRANKEN ran 332 ads. TOYOTA was #8 with 323 spots, while the HD DIGITAL RADIO ALLIANCE was #9 running 314 ads. #10 was RAINBOW FOODS (Roundy’s Supermarkets) with 300 spots.
Because of all the California Propositions on the ballot that have numbers, this analysis might get a little difficult to follow, but here goes: BARACK OBAMA FOR PRESIDENT was #1 running 16,816 spots, but also shows in #4 with spots from the DNC titled BARACK OBAMA FOR US PRESIDENT with 3,452, bringing his grand total to 20,268 for the week. JOHN MCCAIN’s spots bought by the RNC, came in #2 with 11,918. Coming in #3 was NO ON 8, EQUALITY FOR ALL (California prop.) with 5,660 spots, while Prop 1A. CALIFORNIA FOR HIGH-SPEED TRAINS was #5 airing 3,373 announcements. Coming in #6 was PROTECTMARRIAGE.COM (Yes on Prop. 8) ran 3,173 ads, while YES ON 11 (holding politicians accountable) aired 2,329 spots bringing them in at #7. #8 was CALIFORNIA AGAINST COSTLY ENERGY – Prop. 7 with 2,034 spots, while #9 was NO ON 6 COMMITTEE with 1,932 spots. #10 was AFT AFL-CIIO BARACK OBAMA ads endorsing the candidate that ran 1,895.
In the final week, October 27 – November 2, 2008, here is the way the candidates used media to get their message out:
Radio
Barack Obama 22,268 (down 1,788)
John McCain 11,918 (up 3,537)
TV
Barack Obama 12,359 (down 5,156)
John McCain 3,647 (down 13)
Cable
Barack Obama 5,712 (down 1,013)
John McCain 994 (down 186)
On the national level, GEICO was #1 running 36,270 spots. WALMART was #2 with 31,804 spots, while the HD DIGITAL RADIO ALLIANCE was #3 airing 25,648 announcements. AT&T was #4 with 19,281 spots and #5 last week was HOME DEPOT running 18,741 spots.
