TV cost per viewer per hour
March 5, 2010 2:27 AM Subscribe
How much does an advertiser pay per viewer per hour of prime time tv?
I'd quite like to have advert free tv. DVD box sets are expensive, and I'd be interested in what advertisers are paying per viewer per hour/episode of tv. Say 24 or Curb Your Enthusiasm or something similar.
I'd quite like to have advert free tv. DVD box sets are expensive, and I'd be interested in what advertisers are paying per viewer per hour/episode of tv. Say 24 or Curb Your Enthusiasm or something similar.
I think this is one of those things that's kept relatively secret for competitive reasons. If X found out how much Y way paying for a spot on Z and it was higher or lower than they were paying, they could use that as negotiation leverage the next time they buy time with Z. Also, the rate is hugely dependent on the time slot, nature of the snow, ratings of the show, demographics of the show's audience, and so on.
And Curb is on HBO which doesn't have advertisers.
posted by Rhomboid at 5:33 AM on March 5, 2010
And Curb is on HBO which doesn't have advertisers.
posted by Rhomboid at 5:33 AM on March 5, 2010
Well, the 2010 Super Bowl was going for $2.3m/ 30-sec slot, and drew 106.5m viewers. That gives you $720 / million viewer-seconds . I think that's a relatively low price for super-bowls (prices dipped, viewers stayed).
posted by FuManchu at 6:00 AM on March 5, 2010
posted by FuManchu at 6:00 AM on March 5, 2010
The final Seinfeld episode drew $2+m / 30s for ~130m viewers, giving $520 / million viewer-seconds in 1998, about $700 / million viewer-seconds in 2010 dollars . That article has a slew of other prices for shows back then, which you could probably look up ratings on, and find non-premium prices back then.
posted by FuManchu at 6:11 AM on March 5, 2010
posted by FuManchu at 6:11 AM on March 5, 2010
Best answer: 1) This is generally a secret, for competitive reasons, as Rhomboid indicates.
2) This varies widely, not only from station to station, but from show to show, and even episode to episode. A premiere or finale will bring a higher price than a normal episode, and a show with good ratings will cost more than one on the verge of getting canceled.
3) But we can still do some work with averages. In Q3 2009, the average cost of a 30-second prime-time TV spot on a national network was $84,000. Cable cost a mere fraction of that, with the average at $10,000 a spot, but they also tend to attract a mere fraction of the viewers. The most popular cable shows attract way less than half of the most popular network shows.
Crunching the numbers, that means that for an average hour of prime-time network TV, which contains about 15 minutes of advertisements, a network would bring in an average of about $2.5 million. The big four networks--ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox--run between an average of 7 and 11 million households per hour, with the smaller draws presumably drawing a smaller price. But even the most generous calculation would seem to indicate that the networks are "charging" no more than $0.50 per viewing household. Twenty-five cents is probably a better estimate.
Totally back of the napkin calculations, but I think they're in the ballpark.
posted by valkyryn at 6:39 AM on March 5, 2010 [3 favorites]
2) This varies widely, not only from station to station, but from show to show, and even episode to episode. A premiere or finale will bring a higher price than a normal episode, and a show with good ratings will cost more than one on the verge of getting canceled.
3) But we can still do some work with averages. In Q3 2009, the average cost of a 30-second prime-time TV spot on a national network was $84,000. Cable cost a mere fraction of that, with the average at $10,000 a spot, but they also tend to attract a mere fraction of the viewers. The most popular cable shows attract way less than half of the most popular network shows.
Crunching the numbers, that means that for an average hour of prime-time network TV, which contains about 15 minutes of advertisements, a network would bring in an average of about $2.5 million. The big four networks--ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox--run between an average of 7 and 11 million households per hour, with the smaller draws presumably drawing a smaller price. But even the most generous calculation would seem to indicate that the networks are "charging" no more than $0.50 per viewing household. Twenty-five cents is probably a better estimate.
Totally back of the napkin calculations, but I think they're in the ballpark.
posted by valkyryn at 6:39 AM on March 5, 2010 [3 favorites]
valkyryn's numbers are about half as expensive as the numbers I used above, so yea, I think the range is within an order of magnitude of what he has.
posted by FuManchu at 7:38 AM on March 5, 2010
posted by FuManchu at 7:38 AM on March 5, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by turkeyphant at 4:55 AM on March 5, 2010