Company Corners Market on Political Ads

[Rose Siding]

ARLINGTON, Va. -- In a nondescript office building just south of Washington, researchers watch hundreds of political ads captured daily from the nation's television airwaves.

The ads and details about them are shipped to campaigns, parties and interest groups, providing strategists timely snapshots of their opponents' and allies' on-air activities.

Campaign Media Analysis Group, a political ad tracking service, has the marketplace cornered, sending information each day to Republican and Democratic party committees, many House and Senate candidates and several national interest groups.
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The company started in the early 1990s as the research arm of National Media, a Republican media powerhouse. In 1997, Evan Tracey left that firm to create CMAG, hiring ex-Capitol Hill staffers and one-time campaign aides from both sides of the aisle. Since then, the company has grown, becoming a division of commercial ad tracker TNS Media Intelligence last year.

Despite Tracey's GOP background, CMAG is nonpartisan with clients from all political persuasions. "We're in the business of politics, we're not political," Tracey said.

http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-tracking-ads,0,5974524.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines