What is the process of getting a commercial to air on the television?

I will make this VERY short.

Lets remove the stations that have a “standard”. Mainly christian Television.

It comes down to money. The numbers depending on the market you want to air in. Those numbers are all over the place. From $150 a half hour to over a million for a 30 second spot.

It is pretty simple. Contact the advertising department of the network or station you want to air your commercial on. Ask them what time slots are available and how much.

Then you cut them a check, hand over your reel and cross your fingers.

Thanks @ChazMaz. How long is it able to air? Is this up to the station or the owner of the commercial?

It is up to the owner. Keep paying it will keep playing.

Ok if it is running and running and the viewers are sick of seeing it and enough complain. You might not get a contract renewal.

I have never seen that happen for a commercial. Clients usually remove it or update it before it gets that far.

You have to research your target market, meaning who is that market, what channels do they watch? On what days of the week and at what times? What does this market like about your product already? What features of your product would appeal to that market? Your company would already be working with a media buying company or an ad agency to answer some of these questions in conjunction with your marketing department.

Then, either that department or an outside production company writes and produces a commercial. Once your company approves it, that part is the same as producing any film or video, with actors, directors, grips. PAs, location, contracts, etc. And then the commercial is edited, music tacked on, graphics put in, etc. etc., just like any ordinary production.

Once production and post-production are finished, the media buying company/ad agency contacts the networks you want to show your commercial on and negotiates a price for a certain number of showings during certain time periods (or as it’s know in TV-land, a daypart) for a certain amount of time, say 4 times an hour from 12p-3p on Saturdays for 9 months for Valvoline, or something like that, because they know the target market will be watching NASCAR. Do you see? Outside companies take at least 15% of the total fee you’re paying to the network on top of what you’re paying the network.

National ads for corporations get more exposure and time on the air because they can afford to pay for it. It’s an economy of scale thing. The local car dealership in your town, for example, probably has a standing deal with the local stations to have an ad on in the middle of the 6pm newscast and they just renew it every year. Different types of ads have different deals.

I used to work in TV and corporate media. It’s amazing, we didn’t cover this in my TV classes at uni at all. You learn it by osmosis once you work in the business.

@ChazMaz So, I’m guessing Taco Bell must pay for a lot of time slots because their freakin’ Black Taco commercial played nearly every damn commercial break!

@erichw1504 – You got it in one. If you have the money you get the air time.

Yep. And, as @aprilsimnel said, media buying companys takes care of the big fish.
Like Taco Bell. So it does cover every channel on the planet.

Then you are brainwashed to buy that friggin Taco. :-)

@ChazMaz Yea… speaking of Taco Bell… I’m hungry and tacos sound pretty good right about now.

Basically, it works like this: Commercials are called spots. Spots run either :15 seconds, :30 seconds or 1:00 minute. You buy time on television stations for so many spots over so many days, with a certain amount of frequency. The cost is dependent upon how much money you’re willing to spend. There is a role in ad agencies called media buyers whose role is to negotiate a contract with various channels to get you the most exposure they can for your budget. It is an art. A good media buyer can often get you all sorts of free air time, based upon the relationship with the station and how much they buy.

The components of a commercial are creative, production, and air time. Depending on the industry, creative for ads are often provided by a large corporation, such as car dealer ads. The “canned” spot will have a hole in the middle of it called a donut that allows room to put local information in, like location, dealer name, etc. For national ads, advertisers go through ad agencies and production houses to have ads created. For local companies, often the production is done at a television station production studio. You can usually tell these ads because the production and talent are usually low budget. Television ads are sent to various stations by a traffic coordinator, and they are sent by e-mail these days, with a document called an insertion order. This specifies what ad is running and when.

Television stations are required to keep logs of when the ads run, and the times. When they bill for the contracted time, they will include the log of when the ad ran, and if they provided free spots for the ad to appear.

With a budget, advertisers usually opt to skimp on production costs in order to purchase more frequency of airing. This explains why you tend to see badly produced ads a lot. Air time is more expensive in prime time, and during popular shows. The cheapest spots are late at night. Depending on the demographic of the audience for product being sold. the balancing of air time for the commercial wants to have a concentration when the targeted audience is most likely to be watching.

@PandoraBoxx – GA

But… “A good media buyer can often get you all sorts of free air time”

There is no such thing as free air time. :-)

@PandoraBoxx There’s a commercial for this store called Weekends Only that is only open from Fri – Sun and all it is, is this guy turning on a light and saying “It’s Tuesday, we’re closed.” (depending on the day Mon – Thu) and then turns it off and they show their logo. So, it’s only about a 5 second commercial.

Yes, it usually goes. 5, 10, 15, 30, 60, 90

It really depends on the type of buy you’re doing. National commercials are done usually in 13 week buys (IIRC). For the scale it sounds like you’re doing, contacting your local folks.

A normal 30 second national spot is easily a mid six figure cost to produce.