Commentary

Independent Voters Give 4% More 'Attention' To Political Ads Vs. Average Viewing

by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, October 2, 2024

Are political campaigns working? Some are -- and the good news is that it mostly comes down to the key voters everyone wants: Independents.

Independent voters are paying about 4% more attention to political ads than the average viewing of all TV commercials, according to TVision. Its second-by-second attention data for political ads among proclaimed indie voters shows they come in at a 106 index, and a 102 for all other ads.

Drilling down, TVision notes independent voting status “is not an exact proxy for undecided voters, it might be safe to assume that more undecided voters are likely to be registered Independents. That makes Independents keying in on campaign ads good news for both campaigns.”

Looking at political ads by party affiliation, Democrats underperform when it comes to attention of all political ads, registering a 93 index -- 7% lower for other advertising categories. On the flip side, Republicans are slightly higher when it comes to focusing on political ads (and TV commercials overall) at a 102 index -- 2% higher.

Looking at other political content on TV -- the Democratic (DNC) and Republican (RNC) national conventions this summer, independents also scored the strongest viewing results versus Democrats and Republicans -- but just barely.

They viewed the DNC and RNC at 12% higher activity than average TV viewing. Republicans watching the RNC convention were at an 111 index, with Democrats at a 110 index -- representing a 11% and 10% improvement over the average viewer.

It's little surprise that self-described political-party loyalists viewers watch their own conventions at a higher level versus the other party -- Democrats 10% more for the DNC and Republicans at 11% for the RNC.

The TVision measurement looked at viewers' attention to political ads across both connected TV (CTV) and linear TV from June 1, 2024 to August 28, 2024 using its “eyes on the screen” technology. TVision data is derived from a panel of 5,000 viewers ages two years and up.

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2 comments about "Independent Voters Give 4% More 'Attention' To Political Ads Vs. Average Viewing".

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Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, October 2, 2024 at 6:55 p.m.
Wayne,the differences are very small and may be a function of demographics.For example TVision usually finds that older viewers are more likely to watch TV commercials than younger adults. If the -median age of the Democrat viewers happened to be three or four years younger than the GOP viewers, that, alone might explain the differences you cited. .
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Ben B from Retired, October 2, 2024 at 11:26 p.m.

Political ads don't sway me since all it is slander, smearing, defaming, by both sides along with spewing lies. I wish that there was a rule that political ads can only air 6 weeks out for primaries & mid-term/general elections so you don't have 7 or 8 months of the ads that are lies.