Call it an “advalanche,” but watching television these days is not much fun, if you live in Ohio. Every commercial break it seems has a political advertisement about the presidential campaign, leaving residents beside themselves with frustration.

In just one week in August, 18,482 political ads were broadcast in Columbus, Ohio. The daily average came to 2,640.

“Every commercial break, you get five political ads in a row,” Ohioan Diane Ogden told the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The campaigns of President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney consider Ohio a must win state, resulting in multimillion dollar ad buys.

How important is Ohio? Every president since 1964 has won the Buckeye State, giving it the longest such streak in the nation. Obama is reportedly a head of Romney in the polls by an average of 4%.

For Ohioans and others who live in battleground states, such as Florida, Colorado, North Carolina, Virginia, Nevada and New Hampshire, the bad news is that the real advalanche has not yet begun. According to research by Kantar Media, the majority of a campaign season’s TV ads come in the final six weeks of the contest.

One big difference between the Democratic and Republican ads is who’s paying for them. Kantar’s figures show that since April, 91% of Obama ads have been paid for by the Obama campaign or the Democratic National Committee, with only 9% being funded by outside groups. On the Republican side, on the other hand, outside groups have paid for 55% of the pro-Romney/anti-Obama ads, while the Romney campaign and the Republican National Committee have footed the bill for only 45%.

-David Wallechinsky, Noel Brinkerhoff

To Learn More:

Must-Win Ohio is under Siege (by Thomas Fitzgerald, Philadelphia Inquirer)

Ad Avalanche: 43,000 Political Spots a Day Until November (by Elizabeth Wilner, Ad Age)