His Finest Half Hour

Hendrik Hertzberg breaks down how Obama got a bargain deal on his half-hour infomercial:

Obama’s half hour was the equivalent of sixty thirty-second commercials. The average price of a thirty-second prime-time ad on NBC is $102,928. On CBS it’s $116,729. Therefore, to buy a half hour in thirty-second increments—the usual procedure, at which no one bats an eye—on both networks would cost…let’s see…$13,179,420.