LOS ANGELES - American television viewers seeking a respite from the torrent of presidential campaign advertising in the run-up to the Super Tuesday primaries will find this coming Sunday’s Super Bowl broadcast blissfully free of political messages.

That’s because as of Tuesday, the Fox network had sold out all its available advertising time for the National Football League championship — the biggest U.S. television event of the year — and not a single spot was purchased by a political campaign.    

The News Corp-owned broadcaster insists, contrary to some previous reports, that it never banned such ads for the Super Bowl. Instead, network officials said no campaign or media buyer ever seriously approached Fox to discuss the possibility of making a national ad buy for the Feb. 3 matchup between the undefeated New England Patriots and the New York Giants, or for the pre-game or post-game telecasts.

The sky-high price of Super Bowl spots may have had something to do with that. The average cost for a 30-second spot this year was running around $2.7 million, with prices earlier this month climbing as high as $3 million, industry sources have told Reuters.    

Speculation about Super Bowl political ads was fueled this year by the rare coincidence of a national telecast expected to draw well over 90 million viewers just two days before voters in two dozen states cast ballots for Democratic and Republican nominees for president. Moreover, the two teams playing in the big game hail from states with primary contests on Feb. 5.   

The Washington Post reported last week that the media teams of at least two Republican candidates had contemplated a possible Super Bowl ad purchase as a way of reaching a mass audience in one fell swoop.

But with some campaign coffers running low on resources, the smart money seems to be on sticking with a strategy that targets TV ad dollars in local markets where candidates have the greatest chance of picking up votes, and delegates.   

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

- Photo credit: Reuters/Rick Wilking