WASHINGTON, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has spent 5 million US dollars to run advertisements during U.S. television live coverage of the Beijing Olympic games, according to a news report on Thursday.

    The AdAge magazine report said that Obama's campaign ads would appear on the NBC network and its affiliated stations that are to broadcast the Olympic Games starting Aug. 8 in Beijing.

    It is the first significant network TV buy of any presidential candidate in at least 16 years, said the report.

    However, the Illinois senator and the TV network both declined to comment on the report.

    The NBC said earlier that it has planned a 2,900 hours of live coverage on the coming Beijing Olympics Games, top the total U.S. TV hours, 2,562, for all previous Summer Games combined.

    According to its TV schedule, the thousands of hours of live coverage would include all 32 swimming finals and the team and individual finals in men's and women's gymnastics.

    Obama and his Republican presidential rival, John McCain, are projected by the Campaign Media Analysis Group to spend about 800 million dollars in TV ads this year, compared to the 500 million dollars spent for the 2004 presidential election.