On Wednesday, Oct. 29 at 8pm, less than a week before you cast your vote for freedom or dictatorship, Barack Obama's campaign will air half-hour commercials on both NBC and CBS. In booking the airtime, not only did Obama throw Ben Silverman's future into turmoil by bumping the unwatched Knight Rider off its regular time slot, but he also pumped nearly $1 million into the coffers of each network. At NBC, he will pay $891,250 for the privilege, and at CBS he will spend $961,000. Those prices, of course, are ridiculously discounted — and that's because federal law requires political candidates to be provided the "lowest unit cost" for airtime on a broadcast network (different from cable). Which means they get airtime on the mad dirty cheap.

But just how cheap? Well, consider that NBC will charge advertisers $3 million per 30 seconds during the Super Bowl next year, where nearly 100 million viewers are expected to show up.

So, let's use some fuzzy math and say that Obama will capture just 20 percent of that audience across both networks, or 20 million viewers. So, while 30 minutes of Super Bowl airtime would cost $180 million, or $36 million for just 20 percent of the audience, Obama will spend just 5.55 percent of that sum for the same thing. Oh, and while his programs won't leave anybody with a giant ring to wear, it could determine who gets to live in the White House. So that's sort of a big deal.