Standard advertising rates aren’t often talked about because the standard isn’t so standard. A media group, for example, that buys spots or places ads for several clients can buy spots in bulk and negotiate for a lower rate or get more “freebies” or “values”. In effect, a brand can get more exposure for the same amount of money that other businesses that used a media buying company that didn’t have as many clients that spend a lot. Ratings also affect the rates, the higher the rating, the more expensive the spot. Same thing is true with newspapers and radio. So what you will read below are the published rates. Published rates are the rates that media stations give to the public. Media buying groups can negotiate for lower rates and values. The rates are guides so you can make estimates for your advertising plans. Have fun with standard advertising rates.

Standard Advertising Rates: Local TV Rates

John Roland, CEO of Extreme Reach said that as of the fourth quarter of last year, 34 percent of local TV stations in the United States had adopted HDTV, and there was a growing rate of HD adoption in a couple of key advertising categories during the quarter as well. The report, based on compilation of data from 7500 TV client brands, production companies and broadcast destinations, reveals that two vertical advertising categories, retail and automotive, saw the greatest growth in HD adoption during the last quarter of 2010.

That being said, it is not such a bad idea to advertise on local tv shows. The rate varies between $50 – $30,000 per spot. Pricing is based on time of day, length of TV spot (15 sec, 30 sec, 60 sec), your chosen TV show, the size of the viewing audience and the kind of negotiations.

You can target customers by demographics, networks and specific community.

Standard Advertising Rates: Local Radio Rates

Every state has a different rate and every station has a different rate depending on the time of day, ratings, length of ad, etc. Estimated rate for radio ads is $ 10.00 – $900.00 per 30 sec.

Standard Advertising Rates: Local Newspaper Rates

Typical Cost: $200 (for local ads) to $20,000 (for local or national ads), depending on the publication, ad size and your contract with the publication.

A paper is divided into columns. Newspaper ads are sized according to: how many number of columns wide and a certain number of inches long. Multiplying the two numbers together will give you the number of “column inches” of your ad, which determines the ad’s cost.

Let us assume, your ad covers three columns in width and is five inches long (15 column inches), and you’re paying $30 a column inch, that ad will cost you $450.00 (15 column inches X $30.00). This is true for print ads in any newspaper, whether it’s daily or weekly.

You don’t always have to place in a daily newspaper, you can go for a subscription-based, weekly neighborhood publications. You can purchase one area, two areas or all that are available.

Papers will have special sections (holiday, home improvement, landscaping and so on) throughout the year, and you may want to place on something appropriate for your business. Your sales representatives or agent should also contact you to let you know what’s in the works. It’s a good idea to place ads in these special sections even if you’re not regularly in the publications–your competitors will.

Standard Advertising Rates: National TV Rates

National TV spots will cost more money. It’s not a bad idea to create a virtual national TV spot by hooking up with many local cable channels or advertising locally on national cable channels. But if you have to buy commercials on a national network, check out below. Click the image to enlarge it.

Standard Advertising Rates: Advertising Agency Rates

‘Agency of Record’ is a term used to identify the advertising agency that a company uses. It should only be applied in cases where a company has one agency handle all of its advertising.

An advertising agency charges a client for time and effort spent in selecting and supervising production work done by suppliers like printing, photoengraving, photography, commercial recording, filming, and film editing. The amount charged is usually 17.65% of the gross production cost. This is called the Agency Commission.

The advertising agency will also get a commission for the spots that the client places through a media placement agency. The media allows the agency a 15% discount (16.67% for outdoor advertising), based on the gross advertising rate billed to the client. (The discount also serves as incentive to the agency.) So if you spend $2 million on advertising placed through an ad agency, the agency commission is $300,000 and the balance of $1,700,000 is paid to the media.

Standard Advertising Rates: Recommendations

If you are a small business, go for local placements but use a media buying agency because they will be able to get discounts and other values that you can’t have if you do everything yourself.

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