How Much Does TV Advertising Cost?

TV Costs less than you might think, and you only pay for what you get.

In simple terms, the cost of a TV spot is a combination of factors:

• The agreed cost per 1,000 views (CpT)
• The number of views (impacts)
• The time length

Using this method of trading we only pay for what we get, which is great news for our clients.

A few random examples of what a 30″ spot might cost…

• Spots on small, specialist stations it could be as low as £5 (or even free!)
• A spot on DAVE in daytime £100
• A spot on DAVE in peak £300
• A spot on Channel 5 in daytime £300
• A spot on Channel 5 in peak £2,500
• For a full ITV network spot in Coronation Street you’d be paying roughly £30k – this would vary according to the number of people watching that day.

At Chase Media there is no minimum spend and we’re specialists at helping brands who are new to TV. We can help with every step of the process, from creative production, clearance, planning/buying airtime, analysis and even help with optimising your paid search so you get the full benefit of your TV campaign.

Example Client Spend: 

One of clients, Jane Plan, starting using TV with a test of just £10k. We have worked with them for over 12 years and they now spend several hundred thousand pounds a month, using our tailored approach. See their case study here

Example Spend: £10k

• For £10k deployed in daytime television you could afford over 4 million views of your TV ad.
• If the same investment was used for an ‘all time’ campaign, including peak, this might be closer to 2 million.
• At certain times of the year, prices are very low, for example immediately after Christmas. At this time of year we could to buy up to 6 million views of your ad for £10k.

Other complications include:

• Time lengths. Longer ads cost more. Thirty seconds is the standard, longer ads cost pro rata more, but ads that are shorter than thirty seconds cost more per second (e.g. a 10″ ad cost half what a 30″ ad would’ve cost in the same break, rather than a third, as you might expect)
• Regional pricing (London, for example, costs more to target than other regions)
• Trading audiences – some programming can only be traded against certain demographics, for example M1634 for live football, which would be a much higher rate than the adult CpTs we’d need to pay for daytime TV.
• Certain placements within ad breaks.
• One off event programming, for example X-Factor finals, could carry a premium.
• Date of approval – sometimes late bookings can carry a late booking penalty.

Streaming Platforms

We can also help with the planning and buying of BVOD (Broadcast Video On Demand) campaigns on platforms such as ITVX and ALL4 as well as programmatic options such as SKY’s Adsmart. We help to appraise the relative benefits of these options compared to linear TV, helping our clients make the right choice to match their unique objectives.

As a rough guide, using ITVX as an example:

• We would expect a starting CpM (which is effectively the same as a CpT) to be around £35.
• This would enable the brand to target regionally, but not by any other attributes.
• Other refinements would cost more, for example, targeting by affluence or by content type might attract another £10-£15 premium. We can help you answer the question “Is the improved targeting worth the higher price for my campaign objectives?”

We Make Using TV Easy