The Sponsor Ledger

Who pays for the news · cumulative capture · as of 2026-07-21

Read this first — four things, before the counts

These counts are cumulative across 707 capture sessions — every ad break the desk has logged on three channels, accreting as the recorder runs. Capture was not continuous: each channel’s counts are counts of its captured hours (stated per channel below), not of the network’s full air. Still not a representative sample of any network’s ad economics.
The counts are uneven by tape length (CNN 1950 ad blocks, MS NOW 1819, Fox News 1858). No cross-channel ranking should be read into these numbers; a bigger count here is more captured hours, not a finding about a network.
Categorization is automated — each ad is machine-labeled, so a category line is a rough cut, not a hand-audited taxonomy.
The desk reports what aired and who paid for it: ad-load, category mix, top advertisers, and the ad copy itself. These are counts and shares — never a verdict on the networks.

5627ad blocks logged across three channels over 242 captured hours (707 sessions, not continuous). Each figure below is a count or a share of that tape — what aired and who bought it — never a charge against the channel it ran on.

Most of the desk’s beat is the coverage. This rail is simpler and more mechanical: it counts the ad breaks and who bought them. For each channel it logs how much of the airtime was advertising, which categories of advertiser showed up most, and who ran the most spots — then it prints the ad copy so the count is something a reader can check, not something the desk asserts. It follows the money and stops there; what a reader makes of who is paying is their own.

CNN

Counts below are over 67.5 captured hours across 316 sessions — capture was not continuous.

30%of program+ad time was ads

1071.4ad minutes

2535.3program minutes

1950ad blocks logged (n)

Category mix · airings by category

insurance226legal226pharma193financial168food129auto83streaming62software54home42

Top advertisers · airings over 67.5 captured hours

Advertiser	Category	Airings
Optima Tax Relief	legal	53
Ethos	insurance	49
Tax Relief Advocates	legal	46
Progressive	insurance	32
Ramp	streaming	31
Cars for Kids	charity	29

MS NOW

Counts below are over 80.5 captured hours across 220 sessions — capture was not continuous.

26%of program+ad time was ads

1022.3ad minutes

2979.7program minutes

1819ad blocks logged (n)

Category mix · airings by category

legal253insurance211food139financial136pharma130auto81education73streaming68home34

Top advertisers · airings over 80.5 captured hours

Advertiser	Category	Airings
Ethos	insurance	57
Optima Tax Relief	legal	51
Wesley Financial Group	legal	50
California Psychics	psychic	48
University of Maryland Global Campus	education	44
Tax Relief Advocates	legal	36

Fox News

Counts below are over 94.3 captured hours across 171 sessions — capture was not continuous.

26%of program+ad time was ads

1022.3ad minutes

2839.0program minutes

1858ad blocks logged (n)

Category mix · airings by category

insurance226legal226pharma194financial149food105auto68streaming68software51merchandise40

Top advertisers · airings over 94.3 captured hours

Advertiser	Category	Airings
Ethos	insurance	54
California Psychics	services	41
Rush Tax Resolution	tax	41
Optima Tax Relief	legal	39
Tax Relief Advocates	legal	39
Wesley Financial Group	legal	38

The receipts

A short verbatim line from the top advertisers’ own ad copy, pulled from the transcript the desk logged. This is what “the desk counts what actually aired” means in practice — the receipt is the ad itself.

“Hey, I'm Mike Slater.”

Ethos insurance 160 airings

“National Intelligence as a The tax code is famously complicated.”

Optima Tax Relief legal 143 airings

“They tell you to be afraid, to be scared, and they try to frighten you into calling.”

Tax Relief Advocates legal 121 airings

“I'm Chuck McDowell, founder of Wesley Financial Group.”

Wesley Financial Group legal 115 airings

“One report is still incomplete because you're waiting on one last receipt.”

Ramp streaming 95 airings

[OUTPUT] Sponsor Ledger: 5627 ad blocks logged across 3 channels over 242 captured hours (707 sessions, not continuous) — per channel, ad-load (ad vs program minutes), category mix by airings, and top named advertisers, with verbatim ad-copy receipts. Cumulative captured tape, not continuous and not a network’s ad economics; counts, never a verdict. probability mass ≠ 1.0.