It’s definitely not an outlet yet for Indies, but it can make a reasonable extra amount for the Networks. You’re talking about an extra $4M for a season of HEROES for example. While no where near great, it’s a start.

The advertisements on the internet are different and have much more potential. Web is a two way street. Viewers can submit feedback, network, etc. And some networks try to take advantage of it, make their viewing platforms more youtube-like. What’s amazing to me is that they neglect all of this when it comes to advertising.

I’m a 26 year old guy. By the industry standards, I’m one of the people hardest to reach by ads, and it’s true. I’ve spent 2 days configuring my self-made media center to automatically skip all ads. I’ve watched a total of maybe 120 seconds of advertising since the Superbowl. I just looked up that the system is set to record about 50 TV shows (out of which around 30 are primetime broadcast shows). I’m addicted to TV, and I watch almost no ads. I may not make much (yet), but I have no serious expenses either. No house, no wife, no children. The above description doesn’t make me unique in any way, for a person of my age. There are advertisers out there who should want to reach me and, more importantly, by whom I ACTUALLY WANT TO BE reached. But I’m not willing to suffer through hours of irrelevant commercials to see the ones that I’d actually like to see.

There’s so much potential in interactivity in advertising that’s just not used that I cannot understand. Couple of ideas, in case I’m not being clear here:
(the following are written as if I was addressing, e.g. ABC, which I’m obviously not, but you get the point)
- Let us tell you who we are (if we want to): where do we live?, what do we drive?, do we have dogs?, what kind of movies do we enjoy?, what kind of music?, are we single, married, divorced? age, gender? [Result: Ad showing new CD of your favorite artist. Trailer for a romantic comedy (which you love)]
- I will see 8 ads, but if I let you look at past 50 of my google searches in an anonymous manner, you’ll show me only 4? Wow, OK. [Result: A link to an ebay auction selling an aquarium stand? Great! (and % of the sale goes to the network)]
- I’m online. Let me use that fact. I just saw a trailer for a movie I want to see. I want a link to a page with local showtimes. I want a link to get a ticket. [% of that sale goes to the network] On the same note: ads for music must have links to amazon and itunes. [Again % of sales goes to the network] For crying out loud, if I can spend the 30 sec I have to watch the ad in a productive manner (like, say, spending money you’ll get part of, make it easy for me)
- Let me rate ads. There are some I like. There are genres of ads; add “show me more ads like that” button. Let me share the ads I like with friends, while I discuss the show. Heard of virus advertising? If I really hate the ad, let me get rid off it forever.
- That’s a nice car. Cool, there’s a link to a 3d interactive tour inside it. And you can do a test-drive online. Awesome. Plus there’s link to schedule a ride in the real life, local dealers? Nice. Oh, and btw, let me use the feedback feature: next time show me more fuel-efficient cars made by American producers, in this price range. Used cars are fine, sure.

I think it’s pretty clear where I’m going with this. I like TV and I have nothing against reasonable advertising. There are a few ads out there I like. I look at the sponsored links in google. What I don’t like is the ‘throw mud at them and see what sticks’ method of advertising which seems to be prevalent. The new generation, the one that grows up on internet, the Web 2.0 generation, won’t stand for it. We want choice and we want it now. And if we have it, we can take an awesome product made by little company to new heights, with TV networks sharing (possible big part of) the profits. And we won’t mind that either, since they’re making this awesome show.

What’s the point of researching “who watches show X?” if (some) viewers are willing to tell you what they want to be told about in terms of advertising?

This post got way out of hand, sorry about that. Hopefully it was somewhat of an interesting read. Hope it doesn’t seem like a rant. It certainly seems a quite off topic, sorry about that too.

–Simon

I know that for most networks and most shows $25 CPM is fantasy. For me, the better number is the average cost of a 30 seconds spot across the entire lineup (and I’d guess FOX is doing at least $250,000 right now) but getting into that explanation wasn’t something I wanted to do. Even this limited usage of numbers probably made more reader’s heads pop off than I was aiming for

A typical hour of network primetime contains about 22 30-second national commercials. The rest of the non-program time is filled mostly with promos and local time.

The $25.00 CPM is way too high. That would be a ballpark Household cpm these days. A persons 2+ CPM would be in the area of $12-15. That’s just for primetime, other dayparts are generally much lower.

Additionally, unit prices and CPMs quoted by the industry for network television are “gross” numbers. Ad agencies take commision on these gross dollars, meaning the networks’ actual take is actually about 15% lower.

Your thesis that itunes viewing doesn’t amount to a hill of beans still holds, however.

When will last weeks top 20 broadcast shows be up?