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Advertising

Broadcast Ad Rates

Broadcast Ad Rates

You can use SRDS or Standard Rate & Data Service to identify who the local TV or radio stations are, but because there are too many variables, broadcast ad rates are always negotiated.  Here are some of the variables: 

  • Time of day (daypart)
  • Length of spot
  • Number of repetitions
  • Size of the expected viewing/listening audience
  • Local vs. national audience
  • How close to airing time the purchase is negotiated

Estimate broadcast ad rates:

To get an idea of the likely range for broadcast media ad rates, a rough calculation you can use is this:

Estimated ad rate = cost-per-rating-point X audience measurement rating

For TV, the audience measurement rating is the Nielsen rating; for radio, it's the Arbitron or Nielsen rating. That presents you with two new quests,  finding the CPP (cost-per-rating-point), and finding the audience measurement rating.  See below for more information about these tasks. 

Calculate the CPP  CPP is an advertising cost calculated by dividing the cost of one or a series of commercial by the size of the audience, expressed in rating points. For example, if the cost of a commercial is $50,000 and the rating for a program is 12, then the cost per point is $4,166.67 ($50,000 divided by 12).

Find TV ratings for top 10 broadcast, cable and syndicated shows http://www.nielsen.com/top-ten/#tv

Find radio ratings Nielsen ratings for radio stations in Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA) http://ratings.radio-online.com/content/arb135

Additional Information:

Information on radio market populations.

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