Obama campaign buys prime-time TV special in October

By Caren Bohan

GEORGETOWN, Ohio (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's campaign has purchased a half-hour slot on prime-time television on October 29, six days before the U.S. election, a campaign official said on Thursday.

The campaign has deals with CBS and NBC to run the special, while Fox will also air it if the network is not broadcasting a baseball World Series game that day, Obama senior adviser Linda Douglass said.

She said the campaign was negotiating with other networks to run the half-hour program, but declined to say how much the total budget was for the purchases.

A network executive who declined to be named said that amount of time during prime time would cost about $1 million to $1.5 million.

Obama, who faces Republican John McCain in the November 4 election, has outstripped his rival in fundraising, bolstered by his decision not to take public funds and thereby avoiding federal spending limits.

Obama, who has made the financial crisis the central theme of his campaign, declined to say whether the date of his television special -- the 79th anniversary of the catastrophic 1929 stock market crash -- was significant.

"We're going to be talking about it tomorrow," he said in response to a reporter's question.

(Additional reporting by Gina Keating in Los Angeles; editing by Patricia Zengerle)