When you consider the various ways that COVID has disrupted the TV advertising business this year, the Upfronts are where the effects may be the most enduring. Will media buyers be wooed again with live performances by A-list celebrities? Probably. But now that networks, media agencies and brands have been forced to carry on without them, the more interesting question is whether the Upfronts will continue to play such a dominant role in TV ad sales. (Consider that they accounted for 73% of network ad buys during the 2018-2019 TV season.)

As we head into winter and the pandemic continues to rage, the next few months are ideal for staying at home and catching up on all your favorite shows and even some new original programming. The big question is: Which streaming service should you subscribe to? Consumers have an ever-increasing buffet of options to pick from.

The following video provides an overview of currencies of measurement and sale in TV and video advertising, ad targeting, the ad-tech stack and digital standards. It’s the third in a series of educational videos Furious has produced in collaboration with Beet.TV. To explore Furious’ TV101 Dictionary, which is a companion piece to this series, please click here. Here’s a sampling of Part 3:

When you examine how television advertising is bought and sold, it’s striking how many of the systems — and players — first became relevant when TV emerged as a dominant medium in the 1950s yet persist today.

Take the Gross Rating Point (GRP), which is still the prevailing metric for traditional TV advertising impact even though advertisers gripe about its limitations — specifically, the fact that it’s a calculation of reach, not performance. Or Nielsen, which has been the dominant provider of TV measurement for more than six decades and is now competing against Comscore, a company rooted in digital, to establish viable metrics for cross-platform viewing.

The Business of TV & Video Advertising, Explained

TV advertising once represented a world unto itself, distinct from other media channels. Audiences sat in front of their TV sets and watched programming at scheduled times. Commercials were sold by national broadcasters, local affiliates, cable networks, and distributors, usually on a GRP basis. Advertisers were content to leverage TV for reach — without drilling down into who exactly they were reaching. The vocabulary of TV advertising was insular and consistent.

As you know, that train has left the station.

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Between 1950 and 1970, the Big Three networks (namely CBS, NBC and ABC) accounted for 95% of primetime viewing, and the transaction layer of TV advertising was relatively simple. For the most part, you had only networks, agencies and brand marketers in the mix, not layer upon layer of intermediaries as we have now.

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As the media landscape expands and the technical needs of organizations grow, partnering with highly specialized experts is increasingly necessary to succeed. The amount asked of individuals today is so much greater than it was in the past that having true domain expertise in every facet of your role is nearly impossible. But how do you ensure you’re working with the right people? With so much on the line, what steps can you take to set yourself up for success?

Below is a list of questions to ask yourself while engaging with outside resources to set your team up for success.

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The most important asset to any sales organization is talented salespeople. What’s their most important asset? Time.

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Now that summer has come to an end, it's time to revisit our goals for 2019. To help you attack the rest of the year, and set your media sales organization up for success in 2020, we are pleased to announce the release of our new white paper, “Spinning Data Into Gold: How Data Science Improves Earnings per Share for Media Sellers.”