WASHINGTON – Television viewers in the Midwest got an eyeful of politics during local newscasts last month, but most of it was in the ads, not the news.
A study by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s NewsLab found that in the month before the Nov. 7 elections, television stations in seven Midwest markets aired an average of 4 minutes and 24 seconds of political ads and 1 minute and 43 seconds of election news during a typical 30-minute broadcast.