Broadcast TV Season: Fall Ad Airings Rise 23%, TV Ads Grow To $6.93B
- by Wayne Friedman , December 14, 2023
Although the writers' and actors' strikes made a dent in the prime-time business for major TV broadcast networks -- especially for scripted entertainment shows -- national TV airings of commercials on them grew 23% over a three and-a-half-month period, largely due to added sports programming.
The five English-language broadcast networks -- ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and The CW -- had a total of 183,180 airings from September 1 through December 12 versus 148,440 airings in the same period a year ago, according to estimates from EDO Ad EnGage.
This led to the growth of national advertising impressions collectively for those networks -- 19% higher to 589.21 billion.
National TV advertising spend was 16% higher -- $6.93 billion versus $5.96 billion.
These gains -- airings, impressions and spend gains -- were partly due to ABC adding a full schedule of very highly rated “Monday Night Football” football games during the period -- this as a consequence of needing fresh prime-time programming due to the strikes that ran from the spring/summer into the fall. It added 10 games to its primetime schedule.
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EDO Ad EnGage estimates ABC took in $1.65 billion in national TV ad revenue (vs. $1.03 billion for the same period in 2022), while NBC came in at $1.83 billion (vs. $1.69 billion in 2022); CBS, $1.95 billion (vs. $1.49 billion); Fox, $1.49 billion (vs. $1.74 billion); and The CW, $75.96 million (vs. $51.74 million).
Interesting stats, Wayne. As you reported, according to this source the number of commercials that were shown---"airings"---rose 23% while the number of commercial "impressions"---ad messages on-screen---increased by 19% and the ad spend was up 15%. Hmm?
So this tells us that the "audience" gains didn't match the increase in ad clutter---"airings", meaning, I assume, that despite the advent of higher rated football, there was a fairly large average minute rating decline as an all-content average. As for the ad spend, much of this was determined in last summer's upfront, which saw minor CPM declines, so that's a partial explanation for the more modest increase in ad revenues. A lower demand fourth quarter scatter GRPs may also have played a role in these findings---if they are reasonably accurate.