A mother rejects a box of “liberal cereal.”
Dan Osborn delivers 30 seconds of meat-based puns.
A rape victim condems a pardon of her rapist by her former governor.
These are just some of the political advertisements that have repeated themselves across airwaves this election cycle, even intruding on one of the state’s most culturally significant fall rituals: watching Nebraska football.
Given the potential of reaching a sizable chunk of the 1.3 million Nebraskans eligible to vote, Nebraska Public Media News tracked how much time political ads have used up during each game this season. Before Saturday’s game against Washington, it was 1,635 seconds — or 27 minutes and 45 seconds. The production crew of “Big Red Wrap-Up” shared the digital recordings of the games used on the show with the newsroom.
The Nebraska Senate race between incumbent Sen. Pete Ricketts and Independent Dan Osborn commanded the most air time, with 31 total ads amounting to 975 seconds.
Despite cord-cutters, broadcasters still maintain the largest slice of the political advertising pie, with about $5.6 billion expected to be spent nationwide before the midterms.
The mix of advertisements varies based on your television provider and your location, as well as the kickoff time. The Indiana game, which was featured as the Big Noon Kickoff on Fox, had fewer ads compared to the previous two games. No Indiana-based ads aired in Lincoln during that game.
The total number of ads increased as the season went on: From a mere 90 seconds during the Sept. 5 matchup with Ohio to 465 seconds during the Michigan State matchup during week 4.
The Michigan State game was the only one that had a significant number of ads from a non-Nebraska race, with Senate and gubernatorial race ads from Michigan airing. That state’s Senate race has captured national attention with Abdul El-Sayed’s attacks on incumbent Sen. Mike Rogers.
Edward Timke, an assistant professor of advertising and public relations at Michigan State University, studies how advertisers adapt to changing consumer behavior.
“We’re in an environment where attention spans are shorter, and so ads often need to really grab people’s attention,” Timke said. “A lot of that comes with theatrics.”
Given the broad audience that comes with live sporting events, Timke said advertisers are more likely to take the spaghetti-against-the-wall approach.
While some football fans may balk at the politicization of ad time during games, Timke said brands and politicians have used the audience as a means to further political agendas and for brand definition.
“Smart campaigns and organizations recognize that live sports remain one of the last few remaining shared cultural events where millions of Americans watch live,” Domenic Re, the political director of the pro-GOP Senate Leadership Fund, told Axios in September.
Back in Nebraska, ads about the governor’s race between incumbent Jim PIllen and Lynne Walz were the second most frequent, with a total of 5 minutes of advertising.
Across all races, attack ads outpaced positive ones. Most positive ads sought to inform viewers about the candidate by painting their side as hardworking Nebraskans. Ads on the offensive aimed to paint the opposition as disingenuous and liars.
These rhetorical strategies were most evident in the Nebraska Senate race. Incumbent Pete Ricketts used more repetition than his opponent, airing all but one ad multiple times. Dan Osborn debuted a new ad nearly every game, with a mix of attacks on Ricketts and criticisms of the status quo in Washington.
While the losses to Indiana and Oregon have not been kind to Nebraska fans, there is one small saving grace: Saturday’s game against Washington was the last one before the Nov. 3 midterm election.
“What I’m hearing is a lot of people just want this cycle finished,” Timke said. “They’re looking forward to the day after the election when those ads shut off.”
For the remaining regular season games, expect more Liberty Bibberty.
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1 Comment
I think it’s very interesting that Dan Osborn is attacking Ricketts based on the fact that he served on the pardons board and actually pardoned people.
The horror! How *dare* the pardons board allow people who have fulfilled their sentences and committed no new crimes in over a decade to go through a highly formal process to apply for a pardon, resulting in a board of elected officials voting for or against approving their application.
But actually, the exact opposite is what they typically complain about Republican governors for doing, when they ignore the pardons process and refuse to pardon anyone. It seems you just can’t win with these leftists. If you refuse to pardon ex-cons who complete their sentences and just want a second chance to live a normal life, then you are a heartless monster. But if you actually do pardon someone, based on a careful and fully legal selection process, they trot out the alleged victim from three decades ago to tell the world about how awful it is that you set a violent psychopath on the loose (even though he was already on the loose since he completed his sentence years ago)!