How much would it cost to air commercial?

How much does it cost to produce and air a low budget commercial?

• Would like to know the typical cost for a low-budget commercial to air on local channels for a specific region.

• Answer:

  In terms of production, you can really spend as much or as little as you want. I've worked with clients who shot a very low-budget commercial themselves, with minimal editing, for as little at $5,000. Of course, it shows in the final product. You can tell it's a low-budget spot. Oftentimes, that can back-fire on you, as consumers will assume that you're not serious. In terms of the advertising cost, you ask how much it costs to air on "local channels in a specific region." That's a lot of ground to cover in terms of providing you an answer, because it depends on a number of factors: 1) What length is your commercial spot? (30 seconds? 15 seconds? A long-term two-minute spot? An infomercial?) 2) Are you going to run the spot on broadcast stations only, or on cable? Cable tends to be less expensive than broadcast in terms of a total out-of-pocket cost, but also tends to be less cost-efficient in terms of the cost to reach each viewer (referred to as a "CPM" or "Cost Per Thousand") 3) If you're running on cable, are you only going to run in specific zones/areas in a given market, or do you want to run throughout the entire market? 4) What markets/geography do you want to run your spot in? Markets like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, etc., are much more expensive (on an out-of-pocket basis) versus smaller markets such as, for example, Medford OR or Lubbock TX. 5) Who is your target audience? You'll need to have done research on this to know how best to reach them. Assuming that you're already done this research somehow to figure out that you should be using television, your next step would be to figure out what time(s) of day are best to reach them. This will affect your costs as well - Primetime is more expensive than Daytime, generally speaking. So, until you define your "region" (what markets), your mix of cable and/or broadcast and/or satellite, the length of your commercial, what times of day your spot will run, etc., no one could really answer "how much it will cost?"