Get your fan gear ready because football season is upon us. Not only does this mean gathering with friends and family to root on the home team, but also tis the season that advertisers love most.
For those in the advertising industry, that means more viewers willing to watch ads during primetime TV spots. Many media buying agencies are counting on Sunday Night Football as well as Thursday Night Football TV spots, coupled with some of the network’s biggest TV shows airing on the same nights, to bring in the most viewers. The special thing about these primetime spots are that they are live so viewers can’t fast forward through commercial ads while it is airing- which is great news for advertisers. Advertisers are also willing to pay premium prices to run ads during these times because the costliest shows are the ones with the most viewers watching live this season, as AdAge put it.
These 2015-2016 predictions are based off the TV rankings from the 2014-2015 TV season ratings for the 18 to 49 age groups, or C3. The top spots were held by NBC Sunday Night Football with 7.3 million viewers from the 18-49 group, followed by FOX’s show Empire with 7.1, and CBS Thursday Night Football with 5.9, and not to mention CBS’s Big Bang Theory coming in with 5.6 million C3 viewers according to Deadline.
Ad buyers and sponsors started using a measurement called C3, which stands for commercial ratings-plus-3. The C3 measurement accounts for the number of viewers between the ages 18 and 49 who watch a certain show and do not skip the ads, as explained by Variety. This measurement has turned into a great tool for advertisers and the networks, especially since DVR use has drastically increased over the years. The increase of DVR has docked program viewership as well as the reach that the commercials have.
Sources:
http://adage.com/article/media/football-big-bang-tv-s-expensive-ad-buys/295130/
http://adage.com/article/media/tv-ad-prices-football-king/244832/
http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/sunday-night-football-empire-tv-advertising-1201544806/
http://www.statista.com/statistics/216526/super-bowl-us-tv-viewership/
http://deadline.com/2015/05/2014-15-full-tv-season-ratings-shows-rankings-1201431167/
