Politics has become all about the ads.

A new study by Philly Political Media Watch finds that during evening newscasts leading up to the 2014 midterm elections the airtime given to political ads dwarfed stories about political issues by a ratio of 45:1.

The study—paid for, in part, by the Democracy Fund and the Rita Allen Foundation, and with analysis provided by the Sunlight Foundation—examined newscasts in the Philadelphia viewing area for the last two months of the 2014 campaign and found that the vast majority of political advertising aired during local nightly news programs. But while those broadcasts may have been packed with political ads, the news segments were largely devoid of political issues.

The Philadelphia market dominates three states: Pennsylvania, Delaware and Southern New Jersey, and the study found that even in non-competitive races in that area, candidates continued to spend heavily throughout the course of the last few weeks of the campaign. The big winner of this trend?  The companies that own the television stations.

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