TV Advert Transmission

The UK TV advertising market is worth over £1.5 billion a year. Targeted TV advertising or regional TV advertising costs vary significantly based on your ambition and the scope of your creative. However, Space City always pitch 3–4 concepts of varying budgets and scales, in order to provide you with a rounded array of options. The cost of TV media will vary based on various factors. The media buyer company you select will discuss the following:

• Your desired reach
• The frequency of your ad
• The channel selection and other market factors. 

Typically, the majority of your TV advertising costs will be spent on the media so that you can target and reach relevant audiences with your message.

The CPM (the cost for every 1000 impressions) of your TV advert will vary based on the following factors:

• Seasonality – these costs vary monthly (summer tends to be cheaper than autumn for example)
• The trading audience – TV channels trade with agencies against many audiences
• Advertiser demand – if there’s a high demand for TV advertising in the marketplace, you will pay more
• Creative length – 30 seconds is the industry standard for TV advertising campaigns. If the length of your commercial is shorter or longer than this, the costs will vary accordingly. The advert will need to be a multiple of 10 seconds in the UK marketplace.
• Time of day – certain times of the day are more expensive than others. For example, buying daytime TV advertising between 9 am-5:30 pm is cheaper than buying all-time campaigns.
• Regionality – ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky allow you to target specific areas of the UK. Generally, this will come at a higher cost per thousand than using the national-only stations.
• Broadcast or Video-on-Demand (VOD) – the majority of broadcasters offer catchup and VOD services; you can tailor your airtime to more specific audiences through VOD but again cost per thousand impressions will be a lot higher than broadcast channels.

Of course, you will receive more traffic if advertising on a large scale. However, let’s say for argument’s sake that your business offers local products or services. This is when regional TV advertising comes in handy and also allows for cost savings. Advertisers can reach a large proportion of their ideal audience weekly with TV.

Here is the percentage of viewers each week who view television:

94.5% of all individuals

95.7% of all adults

95.6% of all ABC1 adults

92.5% of 16 – 34-year-olds

95.2% of men

96.5% of women

97.1% of households with children

It’s clear regional TV advertising holds a lot of opportunities.

A typical media buyer’s transmission form will likely contain:

• The station –  If your TV station has a +1 sister channel, this will also be included
• Timeframe – the actual period of the campaign, AKA the viewing date’s start and end. This can be as short as one day or can cover a whole month
• Weekdays – this shows which days of the week the campaign will be delivered. TV is flexible so you do not have to advertise seven days a week but can focus on specific days that are most effective against KPIs.
• Daypart – this is the time(s) of the day the advert will be broadcast. You can buy different periods of the day to suit your campaign.

A Space City TV advert transmission form typically looks like this:

• Clock number – the clock number is a method of differentiating each individual version of your advert. Why have different versions of your TV advert? Well, let’s say you want to test which TV channels deliver the most traffic to your product or service. You can create different versions of your adverts that vary in telephone number or offer graphics or endboard calls to action, meaning you can track which channels are delivering the most reward.
• Transmission site – this is the umbrella company that owns the stations you want to deliver your campaign to, e.g. Sky, Channel 4, ITV etc.
• Station – this is the specific channel your TV commercial will be sent to

At Space City, we charge for the number of ‘playouts’, the final version of an advertisement that is ready to be broadcast or distributed on various media channels. This is why we can’t quote for transmission before receiving your station’s list.