• by Wayne Friedman , July 16, 2013

Looking to help TV marketing executives take much of the guesswork out of evaluating TV program ad campaigns, TV audience-targeting company Simulmedia is offering a historical calculator that delivers promotion programming cost benchmarks.

Using historical TV rating analysis of some 500 programs over the last four years, Simulmedia has developed a "cost per converted viewer" calculator allowing TV marketers to evaluate efficiency of their paid-media schedule for a TV program.

“We are always hearing interest in benchmarks -- it’s not guesswork any more,” Dave Morgan, chief executive officer of Simulmedia, tells Media Daily News.

The cost per “converted viewer” (CPCV) calculates the total cost of media divided by the number of people who saw a TV program advertisement, then tuned in to the show live -- watching at least 6 minutes.

For example, using a broadcast network top-level paid TV campaign for a new drama with a $5 million budget for a fall launch has grabbed an average of 881,834 “converted” among adults 25-54 viewers. That has yielded a cost per converted viewer of $5.67. Looking at the launch for a new broadcast comedy with a $2 million budget, for example, has produced some 649,350 “converted” adults 25-54 -- a CPCV of $3.08 each.

A new cable drama with a $500,000 paid-media budget has pulled in, on average, 142,857 adults 25-54 with a CPCV of $3.50. The same budget for a cable reality show yielded 111,607 adults 25-54 with a cost of $4.48.

Among other media placements, broadcast and cable TV marketers typically buy TV media for their program promotion efforts on cable networks -- through local cable operators, cable sales reps, or cable networks themselves. The calculator uses historical media data from the two weeks leading up to the premiere. Only off-channel and off-sister network media is included. The adult 25-54 demo is used for all campaigns. Broadcast seasons are defined as: fall, August to December; midseason, January through April; and summer, May through mid-August.

Simulmedia says the historical data comes from more than four years of viewing data -- anonymously -- from 50 million set-top boxes, with pricing data from Kantar Media, Nielsen, and other data from the U.S. Census.

In a given year, some $6 billion is spent -- or placed in value -- for TV program promotion, estimates Morgan. About 80% comes from “in-house” network inventory. Around $1 billion comes from paid media (including some barter arrangements some networks -- mostly cable -- may have with each other). About $600 million is spent on TV.

Overall, Morgan continues to be a big proponent of TV, especially when it comes to TV program promotion. “It really bothers me that some TV marketing executives on resting the laurels of what worked in the 80s and 90s,” he says. “TV is so much more powerful today.”

Although there is a more fragmented TV-media market, Morgan says the good news is there is much more data for TV marketers and other general interest marketers to use to get better results.

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