Media chronicler Andrew Tyndall just released his tally of stories that received the most coverage by the network evening newscasts last year.

Here's the top ten, along with the total number of network minutes devoted to each story:

Gulf of Mexico oil well gusher (1410)

Haiti killer (426)

Afghanistan fighting continues (416)

Healthcare reform legislation (307)

Winter weather (249)

Unemployment stuck near 10% (216)

midterm elections overview (193)

Toyota jammed accelerators (188)

Airline anti-terrorist security (172)

Chile copper mine rescue (142)

What jumped out to me was how the historic and epic legislative battle over health care reform, which was both a political and health story, barely scored more airtime than reports about winter snowstorms.

And then there was this tabulation of how much coverage last year's midterm election races received:

MIDTERM ELECTION TRENDS

year (three nets) 1990 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010 House Races 94 167 63 100 152 127 All Other Races 164 286 121 156 224 539 Midterm Totals 258 453 184 256 375 666

That certainly confirms my long-held suspicion, that the Republican-led midterms received just an orgy of media coverage that far outstripped any other previous election cycles.