Voters turn on but tune out political ads

US voters are becoming oblivious to the political ads dominating the airwaves during this election campaign, according to a study of media consumption habits.

Nearly a third of likely voters had not watched live television in the past seven days, according to a June poll conducted by Say Media, a digital publishing company, in conjunction with two political advertising consultancies and two pollsters that represent both Democrats and Republicans. Respondents watched an average of 20 hours of video a week, but nearly half of that time was on platforms that make it easy to avoid commercials, such as the web or digital video recorders. Of respondents who own DVRs, 85 per cent said they skipped ads at least three-quarters of the time. The 2012 campaign has seen a surge in political advertising paid for by super-political action committees and other outside groups enabled by the Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United ruling in 2010. But the study’s findings illustrate how changing habits of media consumption are making it harder for candidates to reach voters with TV ads alone.