Data Access - Wesleyan Media Project

The Wesleyan Media Project (WMP) is pleased to provide scholarly access to Kantar Media/CMAG tracking data and video files covering all broadcast television political advertising from the 210 media markets in the United States. Wesleyan Media Project coding is also available for all federal and gubernatorial airings that have been publicly released.

To gain access to a particular year of political ad data, please follow the instructions below. Each data set costs $20. The nominal fee ensures WMP has resources to cover needed administrative and web maintenance costs of making the data available to scholars.

What Comes with Your Purchase

Zipped Stata files broken out by level of race (e.g., President; US Senate; US House; Governor; and down ballot, which includes all other state and local races, including judicial). Each row in these data sets represents a unique airing of a specific ad.
Zipped SPSS files containing the same data as the Stata files
Zipped folders containg a .wmv or .mp4 video file for each ad (10-20 video files are typically missing in each cycle).
Download the variable matrix, which shows the variables available in each data set
NOTE: The 2010 data is divided up differently, with a separate spending file

See below for data availability by year and levels. Data from 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2022 start on January 1 of the year prior to election day up to election day (e.g., 1/1/2011 – 11/5/2012). Data from 2006 and 2010 cover January 1 of the election year up to election day.

Due to contractual obligations with our data provider, data can only be purchased by members of academic institutions, for academic purposes.

Guidance on how to deal with WMP data for replication policies
WMP would like to remind our users that the data agreement with Kantar Media/CMAG prohibits scholars from providing access to the underlying data in publication materials, even for the purposes of replication. In order to comply with journal replication policies, we recommend that scholars 1) provide syntax that includes a call to the original public file and modifies it for use in their analyses, and 2) include a note indicating how others can gain access to the data by signing a user agreement of their own.

Guidance on how to cite WMP data in publications
Each individual WMP dataset is released with its own citation, and WMP would like to remind our users that the agreement they sign requires the dataset to be cited in all publications that utilize it (see individual codebooks below for details on each specific citation). We are also aware, however, that many scholars use multiple datasets for over-time analyses and that some journals have limitations on the number of references that can be cited. In the event that multiple datasets are used and citations need to be limited, we recommend that users construct a combined citation in the following format as a replacement for multiple citations:

Fowler, Erika Franklin, Michael M. Franz, Travis N. Ridout, {add all other authors on any individual dataset in alphabetical order here}. {Year of Latest Dataset Used}. “{Insert All Years of Datasets Used} Political TV Advertising.” Combining Versions {Insert Version Numbers for Each Datasets Used in Order by Year} [dataset]. Middletown, CT: The Wesleyan Media Project, Wesleyan University.

So, for example, if the 2018-2022 datasets were used, the citation would be:

Fowler, Erika Franklin, Michael M. Franz, Travis N. Ridout, Laura Baum, Colleen Bogucki, and Breeze Floyd. 2025. “2018, 2020, and 2022 Political TV Advertising.” Combining Versions 1.0, 1.0 & 1.0 [dataset]. Middletown, CT: The Wesleyan Media Project, Wesleyan University.

Political Ad Airings Data

2006 data set is from 1/1/2006-election day and is only from the top 100 media markets. *2010 data set is from 1/1/2010-election day from all 210 markets.
	U.S. Senate, U.S. House, Gubernatorial, and "down ballot" races	Presidential
2004 and earlier	Access via Wisconsin Advertising Project
2006*	Apply for access below Download 2006 Codebook	--
2008	Access via Wisconsin Advertising Project
2010**	Apply for access below Download 2010 Codebook	--
2012	Apply for access below Download 2012 Codebook	Apply for access below Download 2012 Presidential Codebook
2014	Apply for access below Download 2014 Codebook	--
2016	Apply for access below Download 2016 Codebook	Apply for access below Download 2016 Presidential Codebook
2018	Apply for access below Download 2018 Codebook	--
2020	Apply for access below Download 2020 Codebook	Apply for access below Download 2020 Presidential Codebook
2022	Apply for access below Download 2022 Codebook	--
2024	Contractually, cannot be made available until after 2026 elections. Sign up to be notified.	--

Other Data Sets

Years	Type	Codebook	Notes
2013-2018	Health Insurance TV Advertising	Download PDF	Apply for access below
2011-2012 & 2015-2016	Population Health Messaging in Political Ads 2012 & 2016 Used in Fowler et. al. 2019	Download PDF	Apply for access below Note: These data are at the ad level, meaning each row is a unique ad. If you want information on when and where the ads aired, or the ads' video files, you'll need to purchase the ad files for the 2012 & 2016 cycles separately.

How to Apply

To request data, please fill out the online form below or contact us regarding a mail-in option.

Please note that applications may take up to 3-4 business days (more during holidays) to process as our agreement with Kantar/CMAG requires manual verification of your identity. We apologize that we cannot automatically grant data access.

Option 1: Online Submission (see below)

Before filling out this application form, please create an account with Figshare. Starting in 2023, WMP is using Figshare to distribute data. You need a Figshare account in order to access the WMP data. Existing WMP data users need a Figshare account to apply for new data, but can still access older data on the WMP site for the time being.
Fill out the online form below.
After filling out the form, please go to the WMP store to pay ($20 per dataset).
We will be in touch to provide your access once payment has been received.

Option 2: By Mail
If you would like to buy data by mail, please reach out to us via our Contact Us page. Due to changed work arrangements, mail delivery is a bit more difficult so we can’t accept applications by mail without prior coordination.

Online Submission

After filling out the form, please go to the WMP store to pay ($20 per dataset). We will be in touch (usually within 3-4 business days) to provide your access once payment has been received. Submitting the form below constitutes your acceptance of the data use agreement (see links in the form).