When I read that the television networks were going to be running more 15-second commercials and fewer 30-second and 1-minute commercials, it sounded like good news. I should have known better.
They aren`t going to shorten the total length of time they take trying to sell us something, they`re going to run more commercials, some of which will be shorter.
If there are more commercials, it`s going to seem longer, more irritating and more disruptive, even though the total time they occupy is the same. Television with commercial clutter may be killing the goose laying its golden eggs. A lot of people are already turning down the sound or switching to another channel during a commercial.
On many television shows, the networks are already pushing us to the limit of our patience. To begin with, the networks consider an hour to be 58 minutes long, because they give 2 minutes out of every hour to their affiliated local stations to do with as they please. Many of the stations use at least part of that time for commercials.
During the three hours of prime time every evening, the networks give their local stations about another minute during the body of the hour. They also give their affiliates a minute at the end of the hour. That`s 4 minutes gone.
There are 8 minutes and 20 seconds of commercials in the average prime-time hour. Add that to the four minutes they`ve already deducted from the program, and you have an hour that`s a little more than 47 minutes long.
The average 30-second commercial on television in prime time costs $130,000. You can bet the networks will be getting more than half that for the 15-second spots. The most expensive time on television is during the Super Bowl. It costs $500,000 for a 30-second spot.
It wouldn`t surprise me if the networks started selling Super Bowl spots 5 seconds at a time instead of in 15-second segments. If the publisher wanted to advertise a book I`d written, it would cost him $80,000 to flash it up there for 5 seconds.
