MUMBAI: With general elections officially beginning today, TAM AdEx’s latest data set reveals the political ad insertions made by political parties across various traditional media. As per the data shared for 1 to 30 March 2019, the political ad insertions made on television saw a rise of 7 per cent as compared to the numbers from the same period in 2014. TV, in 2019, had 55 per cent of the political ad insertions. The sharp growth of advertisements on TV came at the expense of radio, which saw a decline of 7 per cent. Radio got 40 per cent ads while print media stayed constant at 5 per cent.

With elections getting closer, parties seem to have increased their reliance on TV as a mass medium. Interestingly, in another set of data, released by TAM last month, it was revealed that television as a medium had seen a dip of 53 per cent (indexed number) in political ad insertions between 1 January and 16 March 2019 as compared to the same period during 2014 polls. Radio had noted a striking growth of 14 per cent in political ad insertions, during the same period.

The general election is scheduled to be held in seven phases from 11 April to 19 May 2019. The counting of the votes and declaration of the results will happen on 23 May.