Television

Television is everywhere: in our living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens, cars, stores, classrooms, health spas, on our computer screens, ...everywhere.

While Television has much in common with Radio as a broadcast medium, they are very different in usage habits, cost, audience, audience measures, buying and scheduling patterns and so on.

To understand how to schedule and use television and other media for effective advertising, we should begin by looking at the audiences and their usage habits.

The U.S. Population is currently at 288, 033, 073 people acording to the U.S. Census Bureau's population clock. http://www.census.gov/ With the world population at 6.2 billion, this equals 4.65 % of the world's people.

The U.S. population lives in 104.7 million households (HH's), with an average of 2.62 people per house and with 25.5% of the households being single resident. (2000 census http://www.census.gov/statab/www/part1.htm) What is it Now?)

Television Audience Habits:

Television Sets and Family Demographics

• 97.6% of all HH's have at least one television (102.2 television hh's out of 104.7 hh's) (only 9% of HH's had televisions in the 1950's)
• 76% have more than one television in the HH
• 76% of HH's have cable television http://www.nab.org/television/
• 22% have four or more television sets in their house
• The average number of sets is about 2.36 per HH
• 87% have remote controls
• For Comparison, about 93% of HH's have a telephone, and 82% a VCR
• For families with children 2-17 years old: 97 per cent have a VCR, 70 per cent have a computer, 68 percent have video game equipment, 52 per cent have online access, and 42 per cent have a newspaper subscription
• 86% have a television in there bedroom
• In the bedrooms of children between 8 and 16 years old: 57 per cent have a television set; 39 per cent have video game equipment; 36 per cent have cable service; 32 per cent have a telephone, 30 per cent have a VCR; 20 per cent have a computer; and 11 per cent have access to the Internet
• Low-income families (income of less than 30,000 per year) are much less likely to have computers, Internet access, or newspaper subscriptions compared to middle income ($30,000-$75,000 per year) and high income (over $75,000 per year) families. They are almost equally as likely to have a video game system. Low-income families are more likely to have children with television sets in their bedroom.

Viewership Habits

• The average HH watches 55+ hours of tv per week; 7.3 hours/day
• The average person watches 3-5 hours per day with kids being generally the least at 3.1 and peole over 55 years old at 5.2 hours per day
• Approximately 2/3 of the audience leave sthe room at some point during commercials
• Approximately 25% of the viewers watch teh screen at any particular time during commercials
• 73% say they "channel surf, of "graze, watching more than one show at once.

Media Description

• About 88% of all television HH's have cable or satellite
  http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/08/cable_satellite.html
  (http://www.ncta.com/industry_overview/aboutIND.cfm?indOverviewID=58&prevID=1)
• Market share for television viewing is split approximately Network 38%, Cable 54%, Independents 7%, PBS, 2% http://www.cabletvadbureau.com/
• limited airspace (supply), especially prime time
• good reach & frequency
• supports awareness & attitude objectives
• best for short, simple messages
• poor for targeting specific audiences

Television Buying & Scheduling

• Standard length is 30 seconds
• length ranges from 10 seconds to infomercial
• cost per insertion ranges from $10-$1,000,000 per 30 second ad, once (Superbowl is up to as much as 2.1 million for 30 seconds)

• overall budget is high, cost/person about 1/2 cent, CPM = $5-15
• 1 to 6 months lead time
• can buy exact time & date per show
• seasonal, 3rd quarter lowest cost, 4th quarter highest cost
• Dayparts - aka Time periods:
• Early Morning: 6 am - 9 am
• Daytime: 9 am - 4 pm
• Early Fringe: 4 pm - 7 pm
• Prime Access: 7 pm - 8 pm (6 pm - 7 pm Sundays)
• Primetime: 8 pm - 11 pm (7-10 pm in midwest)
• Late Fringe: 11 pm - 1 am
• ROS: a mix of dayparts that id defined differently by each station
• special rates
  • Good customer discount - save 10-40%
  • Guarantee - ratings or receive makeups/credit
  • Pre-emptible - bumped if outbid
  • Opportunity buy - low rate, scheduled as can be fit in

Greater Bay Area Media
http://www.baywideweb.com/Bay-Area-Television-Stations.shtml

Santa Cruz and Monterrey Bay Areas
http://www.cruzio.com/local_info/news_media.html

The Santa Cruz Media List
http://members.cruzio.com/~spitzer/mediaList.html

Network System

• Producer of Programs
• Network Wholesaler
• Local Retail Affiliates
• Viewers

• Producer of Programs
• Syndication Wholesaler
• Local Retail Independents
• Viewer

• Producers of Cable Programs & Network Wholesalers
• Regional Cable Wholesalers
• Local Cable Retailers
• Viewers

National

• Networks
• Producers of Cable Programs
  

Local

• Local Affiliates - some space by F.C.C. regulation
• Independents - all of their space
• Regional Cable Wholesalers - may sell local space

Regional

• Regional Cable Wholesalers
• Network Regional Feeds