As economists analyze the implications of the biggest monthly spike in U.S. consumer price inflation since the 1990s, advertisers are also bracing for an uptick in ad-price inflation across the major media, especially digital. Global ad prices are now projected to rise 4.0% this year — up a full point from the 3.0% rate of media ad-price inflation projected by ECI Media Management when it released its last outlook in April.
An audience distracted by the 2016 presidential election and turned off, perhaps, by the absence of star NFL players and better match-ups migrated away from NFL broadcasts last season — which saw overall viewership dip by 8%. Nonetheless, advertisers for the most part are willing to pay more to sponsor the sport than they did last season. Meanwhile, the cost of a 30-second ad in NBC’s Thursday Night Football is up 3.7%, to $524,047. And the cost of a 30-second spot in ESPN’s Monday Night Football has hiked 3.6%, to an average of $385,000.
National TV ad prices fell slightly coming into the new year after ending 2015 on a down note. Prices fell one point to an index of 126 in January, continuing a downward trend that began when December 2015 crashed 17 points from an index of 144 in November 2015, according to the Real Cost Index, a collaboration of MediaPost and SQAD enabling readers to track the supply and demand of national TV advertising time based on cost indexing.
Fox is seeking as much as $500,000 for a 30-second ad in the debut of 24: Live Another Day, a much–ballyhooed revival of its groundbreaking spy drama, and between $325,000 and $350,000 for a spot in subsequent episodes, according to people familiar with the situation.
American Idol and Sunday Night Football reign supreme, while prices for Grey’s Anatomy and Desperate Housewives slip. Find out how much advertisers are paying to slot their 30-second commercials into some of today’s most popular primetime series.
