In broadcasting, traffic is the scheduling of program material, and in particular the advertisements, for the broadcast day. In a commercial radio or TV station there is a vital link between sales (of advertisement or commercial space) and traffic in keeping the information about commercial time availability.
The station sales department sells airtime to its customers. It is not unusual in a single hour for 18–20 minutes to be commercials.
The process begins with the programming department laying out a program schedule. Some programs are pre-recorded and air locally, some come from syndicators or networks. Some programs such as sports, news, and entertainment specials air live as they are happening. The traffic department schedules all of the programs and program elements and merges it into a traffic log.
The traffic department receives orders from the sales department, who sells airtime to advertisers and places those commercial into available airtime slots called commercial breaks ("avails") at the best possible rates. The traffic department generates a daily log of programming elements programs, commercials, features and public service announcements. The log defines when they are scheduled to be aired. The log will be used by the on-air operator who actually plays the commercials. A copy of the log after the fact (sometimes called an AsRun Report) is used for reconciliation to determine what actually aired and then can be sent to accounting to bill the advertisers..
Typically a broadcaster uses a broadcast management software system that allows for automation between departments. Some software systems are end-to-end and manage the whole spectrum of tasks required to broadcast a television or radio station, others specialize in specific areas, such as sales, programming, traffic, or automation for master control.
Process
The traffic process starts by a salesperson making an agreement with a customer about a campaign. The agreement is called a sales order and it defines the dates when spots (advertisements) are run and the commercial terms of the campaign. The sales order usually also defines the product group in order to avoid conflicts in scheduling, for example, where two fast food vendors have a spot in the same break.
At the station, a traffic person collects the sales orders and enters them into a computer system that will help to generate the daily logs. The traffic person also links the sales order with the possible media, such as an audio tape which contains the actual spot. When all the material is finished, the traffic system will be updated with parameters that define how the campaign will be run: in which dayparts there will be spots, how the spots are placed within a break, and what other separation criteria in addition to product groups there may be.
Related Research Articles
Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a specific good or service, but there are wide range of uses, the most common being the commercial advertisement.
A television advertisement is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization. It conveys a message promoting, and aiming to market, a product, service or idea. Advertisers and marketers may refer to television commercials as TVCs.
An infomercial is a form of television commercial that resembles regular TV programming yet is intended to promote or sell a product, service or idea. It generally includes a toll-free telephone number or website. Most often used as a form of direct response television (DRTV), they are often program-length commercials, and are typically 28:30 or 58:30 minutes in length. Infomercials are also known as paid programming. This phenomenon started in the United States, where infomercials were typically shown overnight, outside peak prime time hours for commercial broadcasters. Some television stations chose to air infomercials as an alternative to the former practice of signing off, while other channels air infomercials 24 hours a day. Some stations also choose to air infomercials during the daytime hours, mostly on weekends, to fill in for unscheduled network or syndicated programming. By 2009, most infomercial spending in the U.S. occurred outside of the traditional overnight hours. Stations in most countries around the world have instituted similar media structures. The infomercial industry is worth over $200 billion.
Broadcast automation incorporates the use of broadcast programming technology to automate broadcasting operations. Used either at a broadcast network, radio station or a television station, it can run a facility in the absence of a human operator. They can also run in a live assist mode when there are on-air personnel present at the master control, television studio or control room.
Pay-per-click (PPC) is an internet advertising model used to drive traffic to websites, in which an advertiser pays a publisher when the ad is clicked.
Email marketing is the act of sending a commercial message, typically to a group of people, using email. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing. It involves using email to send advertisements, request business, or solicit sales or donations. Email marketing strategies commonly seek to achieve one or more of three primary objectives: build loyalty, trust, or brand awareness. The term usually refers to sending email messages with the purpose of enhancing a merchant's relationship with current or previous customers, encouraging customer loyalty and repeat business, acquiring new customers or convincing current customers to purchase something immediately, and sharing third-party ads.
Direct response television (DRTV) is any television advertising that asks consumers to respond directly to the company — usually either by calling a toll-free telephone number, sending an SMS message, or by visiting a web site. This is a form of direct response marketing.
Music scheduling systems are employed to sequence music at radio stations. Although these systems were originally implemented by manual index card methods, since the late 1970s they have exploited the efficiency and speed of digital computers. They are essential tools for broadcasting by music radio stations.
In the United States, commercial radio stations make most of their revenue by selling airtime to be used for running radio advertisements. These advertisements are the result of a business or a service providing a valuable consideration, usually money, in exchange for the station airing their commercial or mentioning them on air. The most common advertisements are "spot commercials", which normally last for no more than one minute, although extended versions, commonly running for up to 45, 60 or more minutes, are termed "informercials" because they delve deeper into detailed information on and stories about commercial product or service offerings.
The WB 100+ Station Group was a national programming service of The WB—owned by the Warner Bros. Entertainment division of Time Warner, the Tribune Company, and group founder and longtime WB network president Jamie Kellner—intended primarily for American television markets ranked #100 and above by Nielsen Media Research estimates. Operating from September 21, 1998 to September 17, 2006, The WB 100+ comprised an affiliate group that was initially made exclusively of individually branded cable television channels serving areas that lacked availability for a locally based WB broadcast affiliate and supplied a nationalized subfeed consisting of WB network and syndicated programs; in the network's waning years, the WB 100+ group began maintaining primary affiliations on full-power and low-power stations in certain markets serviced by the feed.
In broadcasting, channel playout is the generation of the source signal of a radio or television channel produced by a broadcaster, coupled with the transmission of this signal for primary distribution or direct-to-audience distribution via any network. Such radio or television distribution networks include terrestrial broadcasting, cable networks, satellites, IPTV, OTT Video, point-to-point transport over managed networks or the public Internet, etc.
Advertising media selection is the process of choosing the most efficient media for an advertising campaign. To evaluate media efficiency, planners consider a range of factors including: the required coverage and number of exposures in a target audience; the relative cost of the media advertising and the media environment. Media planning may also involve buying media space. Media planners require an intricate understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of each of the main media options. The media industry is dynamic - new advertising media options are constantly emerging. Digital and social media are changing the way that consumers use media and are also influencing how consumers acquire product information.
The CW Plus is a secondary national broadcast television syndication service feed of The CW. It is intended primarily for American television markets ranked #100 and above by Nielsen Media Research estimates. The service is primarily carried on digital subchannels and multichannel subscription television providers, although it maintains primary affiliations on full-power and low-power stations in certain markets.
Almost all radio stations today use some form of broadcast automation. Although some only use small scripts in audio players, a more robust solution is using a full radio automation suite. There are many commercial and free radio automation packages available.
In broadcasting, local insertion is the act or capability of a broadcast television station, radio station or cable system to insert or replace part of a network feed with content unique to the local station or system. Most often this is a station identification, but is also commonly used for television or radio advertisements, or a weather or traffic report. A digital on-screen graphic, commonly a translucent watermark, may also be keyed (superimposed) with a television station ID over the network feed using a character generator using genlock. In cases where individual broadcast stations carry programs separate from those shown on the main network, this is known as regional variation or an opt-out.
Brokered programming is a form of broadcast content in which the show's producer pays a radio or television station for air time, rather than exchanging programming for pay or the opportunity to play spot commercials. A brokered program is typically not capable of garnering enough support from advertisements to pay for itself, and may be controversial, esoteric or an advertisement in itself.
91.7 WCUC FM is an American fully operational, FCC-licensed, non-commercial educational, student-run radio station under the Department of Communication that is operated with the intention of being a student learning lab for Clarion University of Pennsylvania.
Marketing automation refers to software platforms and technologies designed for marketing departments and organizations automate repetitive tasks and consolidate multi-channel interactions, tracking and web analytics, lead scoring, campaign management and reporting into one system. It often integrates with customer relationship management (CRM) and customer data platform (CDP) software.
Major annual or one-time televised mega-events can draw large viewership and significant interest from regional, national, and international advertisers. Advertisers strategically unveil major marketing campaigns in conjunction with televised mega-events and create memorable advertising content with high entertainment value. Some mega-event advertising, such as during the Super Bowl, even attracts a subset of viewers interested primarily in the advertising content. This type of advertisement is an increasingly common television phenomenon as televised mega-events become more popular and available globally.
TV advertisements by country refers to how television advertisements vary in different countries and regions.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
