Plus Pages

Friday, October 6, 2017

Report: CBS Offers TV's Best Ad Bargains


The cost of advertising in prime-time broadcast TV has nearly doubled in the last five years, and the ever-shrinking supply of ratings points for sale will only continue to elevate pricing, according to AdAge.

According to Nielsen estimates, the average cost of reaching 1,000 viewers via network TV is now $42.90, almost twice the $24.08 CPM broadcasters fetched in 2012. And while the ratings crunch will keep ad rates at nosebleed levels, there are a few bargains to be found.

At this juncture in the new broadcast season, CBS appears to be the smart buy for advertisers looking to get their messaging in front of as many viewers as possible without busting their budgets. Based on media buyer pricing estimates for each individual program that aired in Week 1 (Sept. 25-Oct. 1), the average 30-second spot on CBS cost around $134,584 a pop, and while that was slightly higher than the ABC ($126,517) and Fox ($118,148) rates, CBS also delivered an average audience of 9.5 million viewers in that seven-day span, eclipsing the deliveries at ABC (5.8 million) and Fox (3.14 million).

While the math is a bit wonky, if you were to assign a sort of virtual CPM based on those rates and deliveries, it would cost advertisers roughly $14.16 to reach 1,000 CBS viewers, a steal compared to ABC's $21.81 and Fox's $37.62. (NBC, which aired five of the 10 priciest shows in Premiere Week, commanded around $183,549 per :30 while averaging 7.78 million viewers. If you use the same CPM math applied to the other three nets, that put NBC's cost of reaching 1,000 viewers at around $23.59.)

No comments:

Post a Comment