A total of $81,780,000 was spent on advertising from September until voting day by Australia’s political parties, with Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party unsurprisingly topping the list.
Nielsen has tallied up the total ad spend across TV, print and radio following Saturday’s election.
Although the United Australia Party was by far the top spender, on $53,615,000 since September 2018, between Labor and Liberal it was almost neck and neck.
Labor narrowly edged out the Coalition, with a total spend of $14,450,000 as opposed to $13,300,000.
The Greens rounded out the list with a comparatively modest $320,000 spent since September.
Nielsen also tracked the week on week expenditure during the frantic six-week campaign.
The final week drew a large spike in ad spend, as Clive Palmer forked out $8,940,000 to gather some last minute votes.
Labor and Liberal also upped their spending in the final week, spending $3,070,000 and $2,740,000 respectively.
Although his expensive advertising campaign was largely ineffective, in that the United Australia Party was unable to win a single seat, at least Palmer was true to his word.
In January, a United Australia spokesperson told the Sydney Morning Herald that the mining magnate would spend “in excess of $50 billion” on advertising during the campaign.
