Of all the downsides of an incredibly long election campaign i thas to be the tiresome ads that bombard TV viewers at prime time.

In the first week of the campaign, the two major parties hit us up with a collective $700,000 worth of ads. However, things went decidedly quiet in week two. According to research by ad analytics firm Ebiquity and published in Fairfax Media, the electorate and TV viewers only had to suffer $167,767 in the second week (that was last week). It’s believed both parties are gearing up for a final ad onslaught in the remaining weeks to the July 2nd polling day.

The spend study comes on yesterday’s report from media monitoring firm Meltwater that showed the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, not only creeping up in the polls but creeping up in the media mentions too (both in the news and via social).

If you believe the Liberals thus far, then Labor’s promises are costing 20 times what they’ve promised (a blow-out to the budge bottom-line approaching $60 billion!!!) However, it’s the Libs outspending Labor in the ad spend stakes.

Interestingly, the Greens haven’t spent a cent on TV ads thus far and there has been a small spend by the Liberal Democrats on Pay TV.

According to Ebiquity, the Liberals have spent $668,000 running the rather tedious “Strong New Economy” ad featuring Turnbull.

Labor’s spent $298,000 promoting its 100 positive policies, and $177,000 on its ad attacking Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull for being “seriously out of touch”.

The Liberals have spent $673,058 so far in TV and print advertising, compared with Labor’s $475,044 thus far.

The Ebiquity study has found that Sydneysiders have had to suffer the most from the ads, the city receiving 40 per cent of the ad spend, followed by Melbourne (26 per cent), Brisbane (17 per cent), Perth (11 per cent) and Adelaide (6 per cent). This may mirror forecasters’ expectations that the marginal seats in Sydney’s west will play a big role in who’s PM on July 2.