Marketing on Television, Broadcast? or Cable?

Essay by leeparsi May 2004

download word file, 5 pages 5.0

Downloaded 94 times

MARKETING ON TELEVISION BROADCAST? OR CABLE?

INTRODUCTION

The focus of this issue analysis is on the television industry. Historically television's success has depended upon its ability to attract both audiences and advertising dollars. Presently, broadcast television continues to attract the bulk of television advertising dollars. Cable television, continues to grow and gain market share and is now slowly emerging as a significant and important advertising medium. Although both the cable and broadcast television industry have had tremendous growth on both fronts over the past several decades. Recent data suggest that the cable industry has been more successful at attracting audiences than it has at attracting advertising dollars. This short study will examine the pros, cons and factors of both broadcast and cable television and how media buyers utilize television to spend their precious advertising dollars.

MY ANALYSIS OF THE TELEVISION INDUSTRY

Compared to broadcast the cable television industry attracts a much smaller portion of advertising dollars.

In 2003 cable's 50 percent audience share was accompanied by only 37 percent television advertising dollars. This disparity between broadcast and cable television is particularly pronounced at the local level, where local broadcast stations significantly outperform local cable systems in terms of attracting advertising dollars.

PROS AND CONS OF BROADCAST & CABLE TELEVISION

Three primary benefits of cable television as an ad medium are:

Geographic targeting,

Demographic targeting

Low cost.

(1) Geographic Targeting; because cable systems are local franchises, they typically cover a much smaller geographic area than a broadcast station. Advertisers using cable television are able to precisely target a very defined geographic region that is not possible using broadcast television, so the advertising money spent is more efficiently. (2) Demographic Targeting; another benefit cable has over broadcast television is the potential increased demographic targeting capabilities. Typically local broadcast television has on...