Comments on: Which TV Shows Generate The Most Advertising Revenue?

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 05:42:28 +0000

Louisa, 24 is just behind Law & Order:SVU at #21. 18-49 avg. of 4.812 million, airtime of 1,440 minutes, Index of 0.29.

Chief, here’s a link to that Forbes article, your memory was correct, they had Idol #1 and 24 #2. Their methods were different, and they were estimating advertising revenue per half hour, which is different than per show which is what I tried to do. If you take into account the different methods and objectives, the lists match up pretty well.

It’s worth reading for those interested.

http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/08/television-advertising-american-idol-business-media-tv-moneymakers.html

By: Louisa

Louisa — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 04:15:51 +0000

Bill, where does Lost fall in that list? Thanks

By: Chief

Chief — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 01:12:08 +0000

Forbes already figured this up for the top 10. I recall that American Idol and 24 were #1 and #2 respectively on the list.

By: Mikey

Mikey — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:40:27 +0000

I would love to hear the case that Major League Baseball is dying slowly.

If you factor in regional cable viewing, more people watch baseball now than at any time in history. It’s not even close. MLB sets a new attendance record most years. Franchise values go up every year.

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:39:37 +0000

George, this chart includes national broadcast prime-time programming only, since only football is in that category on a regular basis other sports would not appear. That’s not to say they don’t make plenty of money on local channels or cable networks.

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:35:54 +0000

drac, it’s very likely that the 18-49 rating for each show tracks most of the differences in ad rates. As for different commercial loads, you’re right, this doesn’t take that into account. That’s data that’s not easily (if at all) publicly available.

By: drac

drac — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:20:19 +0000

ah, what? u r assuming every show get the *same* ad rate for air time??? also, each show has different levels of ad time vs programming time.

By: Jay

Jay — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:45:24 +0000

This may be as good or better an indicator of chances for renewal than the Renew/Cancel index; though of course it is already a strong correlate. Costs of the shows and who bhears the brunt of them would seem to be thwe terra incognito only the privleged can get to. This kind of info is good for the summer doldrums.

By: George

George — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:44:17 +0000

Nice to see no Major League Baseball, I think it’s dying slowly.

By: jocor

jocor — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 04:45:42 +0000

No 24 huh?

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 02:37:54 +0000

Happy for Sabado Gigante!

By: Kermonk

Kermonk — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:29:23 +0000

TMN (Too many numbers *g*)

By: nepps

nepps — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:42:08 +0000

I notice that Knight Rider is not on that list. Remember that Ford sponsored the heck out of the backdoor pilot and the series.

So from these numbers shown, I presume that since the ad revenue made from that deal was not very high, that led to NBC not renewing for season two.

What a shame.

Visit knightrideronline.com

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:25:37 +0000

Kathy, as I noted in the post, because of the method (ratings x total airtime), it’s pretty much impossible for a 30 minute show to make this list. That’s a limitation of such a “show” based look. Two highly rated 30 minute shows together make as much revenue as a similar 60 minute show, but not individually.

By: Kathy

Kathy — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:14:03 +0000

Interesting that there are no comedies-30 minute shows on the list. I was expecting to see Two and a Half Men and the Office on this list.

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 22:44:35 +0000

hessian, impossible for us to do. While relative revenue is pretty easy to estimate from ratings, costs are finger in the wind stuff for anyone with just public information.

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 22:43:30 +0000

Which TV shows make the most money is a different post. that’s why this post was titled “Which TV Shows Generate the Most Advertising Revenue”!

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 22:42:57 +0000

j, not so for CBS, but for the others, good point.

By: hessian

hessian — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 22:41:49 +0000

Now, factor in licensing fees and production budgets…

By: j

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 22:25:22 +0000

The top show for each network is reality.

By: zomg

zomg — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 22:10:41 +0000

dont forget that sabado gigante also has ADS presented by the hosts throughout the entire program !! along with regular 30 second ads !!

By: Someone who posts

Someone who posts — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 22:09:46 +0000

I think most sporting events will be on the top of the list usually because they are usually on longer, plus with the frequent timeouts and quarter breaks you’ll get lots of airtime for ads.

I personally do not know why such shows American Idol and Dancing With The Stars could be on the high on the list, I sometimes see companies repeat their ads on the same commercial break of such shows (e.g. Coca-Cola showed 4 ads one time in 1 commercial break), them having high ratings just doesn’t cut it for me, if time length is another factor in the key here.

I think next season we would see CBS dominate the list entirely, see no NBC but football, and see 2 ABC shows, 3 FOX shows, and 3 CW shows.

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:42:54 +0000

ABC’s Saturday Night College Football has a slightly above average (for ABC) adults 18-49 demo average viewership, but the reason it makes this list is because its run time of nearly 2,500 minutes (41+ hours) is large compared with most other shows.

By: Sean

Sean — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:37:39 +0000

College football doesn’t have a good 18-49 demo? Or is that just because its on Saturday night??

By: thedemonhog

thedemonhog — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:24:56 +0000

Interesting, an 18-49 list without The Office and Lost.

By: melbye

melbye — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:10:03 +0000

That odd UNI network is on the list and CW is not, haha

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:10:03 +0000

I think what Alejandro was suggesting was that it would be interesting to see what it looked like not only if you calculated as a function of minutes, but also weighted those minutes based on the number of airings.

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:07:58 +0000

Alejandro, I likely wasn’t clear in the copy, but you can see in the table that the total minutes during the season were used in the calculations.

By: Alejandro Sacasa

Alejandro Sacasa — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:05:44 +0000

Interesting post. I might also multiply the total minutes by the total transmissions during the season. That would raise Sabado Gigante’s standing in the list, since it runs every single week, while lowering the totals for Saturday and Sunday Night Football which ran for about 20 games each?…