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The findings come from a joint project between Nielsen Monitor Plus and The University of Wisconsin, which claims that the study is the first ever comprehensive analysis of Presidential campaign political television advertising in all 210 US media markets.

Despite total adspend reaching £100m to date, 60% of Americans live in areas where no Presidential TV commercials have been aired since March. However, TV viewers in Ohio's four largest media markets were more likely to see ads in the Presidential contest than viewers in any other area of the country, except those in Kansas City.

The study also found that the Kerry campaign is reaching more voters more often than the Bush campaign in most of the top media markets in battleground states.

While Democrats outspent Republicans almost across the board, the data shows that Bush, Kerry and allied-group advertising track very close together. All parties targeted Ohio and Missouri over other states, women over men and older voters over younger voters. Jeff King, managing director of Nielsen Monitor-Plus, noted that young viewers are notoriously difficult to reach through TV advertising.

Among the few markets where the Bush campaign out-advertised Kerry and his Democratic allies was in Miami and several of the markets around Florida -- the disputed state during the last Presidential election in 2000.

Meanwhile, the Kerry campaign has made Ohio and Missouri its top advertising targets. In contrast to the Bush campaign, volume of ad buying on the Democratic side has varied significantly between markets.

Both campaigns have favoured local news in their media buying, which accounts for 40% of each campaign's presidential advertising. Following these two categories, both campaigns also spent more money on daytime shows such as 'The Oprah Winfrey Show'.

In many states, such as big population centres likes California, New York and Texas, there have been few if any Presidential campaign ads because the parties know which are "safe" seats and how the electoral votes will go. Instead, the study found that spend is going where the race is going to be close.

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