As I watch several different episodes from multiple channels, trying to provide fun information, I can’t seem to get over the amount of commercials.  Obviously, the time of day brings larger and smaller audiences, respectively.  From a marketing perspective, I think of the people watching each show - or the demographic.  As an example, NBC’s “30 Rock“, targets the 18-49 year old group as does “The Office“, “CSI”, etc. 

Knowing each demographic and when they are watching is important to advertisers.  It is also very expensive.  A specific ad placed randomly throughout the day will be less expensive than primetime tv at a specific time, such as 7:00pm for CBS’s, “60 Minutes”.  According to Wikipedia, there can be as much as 15 minutes per one-hour episode of commercials.  If each commercial is 30-seconds to 1-minute, then we are witnessing 15-30 commercials an hour!  When the SuperBowl comes around, and we hear those amazing statistics about cost per ad, such as $2 Million for each commercial in the 1st quarter, I will let you know how many are for the sporting event. 

What is your opinion of having so many ads per episode?  Do you find most of them useful?  How do you view the new interactive ads asking viewers to watch an episode, find a clue, then go to their Web site and enter the answer resulting in a reward? 

In my opinion, I think that is good marketing.  Reward the viewer for enjoying not only the tv show and episode, but sitting around for the ads as well.  Everyone wins in that picture!

MEDIA METROPOLIS

Tags: 30 Rock, 60 Minutes, ABC, CBS, NBC, The Office

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 7th, 2009 at 9:25 am and is filed under 30 Rock, CSI-NY, Comedy Shows, Drama Shows, Lost, Prime Time TV, The Office. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.