The Sponsor Ledger

Who pays for the news · cumulative capture · as of 2026-09-18

Read this first — four things, before the counts

These counts are cumulative across 3768 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 21060 ad blocks, MS NOW 15355, Fox News 19491). 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.

55906ad blocks logged across three channels over 3227 captured hours (3768 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 1061.6 captured hours across 1442 sessions — capture was not continuous.

29%of program+ad time was ads

11746.7ad minutes

28175.0program minutes

21060ad blocks logged (n)

Category mix · airings by category

legal2637insurance2450pharma1902financial1780food1216software884streaming801auto800charity509

Top advertisers · airings over 1061.6 captured hours

Advertiser	Category	Airings
Ethos	insurance	630
Optima Tax Relief	legal	576
Tax Relief Advocates	legal	524
Ramp	streaming	459
Wesley Financial Group	legal	447
Nampons	pharma	403

MS NOW

Counts below are over 1075.5 captured hours across 1243 sessions — capture was not continuous.

22%of program+ad time was ads

8707.2ad minutes

31702.4program minutes

15355ad blocks logged (n)

Category mix · airings by category

legal2089insurance1552financial1322pharma1159food870education657streaming616auto573software459

Top advertisers · airings over 1075.5 captured hours

Advertiser	Category	Airings
Ethos	insurance	554
Wesley Financial Group	legal	482
University of Maryland Global Campus	education	375
Optima Tax Relief	legal	363
Tax Relief Advocates	legal	333
California Psychics	psychic	322

Fox News

Counts below are over 1089.5 captured hours across 1083 sessions — capture was not continuous.

28%of program+ad time was ads

11118.5ad minutes

29164.0program minutes

19491ad blocks logged (n)

Category mix · airings by category

legal2168insurance2054pharma1890financial1719food850streaming735auto724software695charity394

Top advertisers · airings over 1089.5 captured hours

Advertiser	Category	Airings
Tax Relief Advocates	legal	508
Ethos	insurance	496
Rush Tax Resolution	tax	413
Optima Tax Relief	legal	400
California Psychics	services	357
Wesley Financial Group	legal	327

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 1914 airings

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

Tax Relief Advocates legal 1626 airings

“Attention, if you owe money to the IRS, this is an urgent message.”

Optima Tax Relief legal 1381 airings

“Hi, I'm Chuck McDowell, the timeshare cancellation guy and founder of Wesley Financial Group.”

Wesley Financial Group legal 1292 airings

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

Ramp streaming 1044 airings

[OUTPUT] Sponsor Ledger: 55906 ad blocks logged across 3 channels over 3227 captured hours (3768 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.