The Ratings of a College Football Game Mean a Lot to Advertisers

Ratings are a Percent of All Possible TV Households

     The overall ratings of a television show demonstrate how many of the total televisions on or off are tuned into the program in the average minute.  This means that it is viewed as the amount of people tuned in per minute out of all possible televisions.  Ratings are a key attribute that advertisers look at when assessing whether or not to spend money on a certain timeslot or program/station.

Advertisers Look at Ratings to Boost Income

      The reason advertisers look to television ratings so much is because in order to book a good time and program/station for an advertisement, the advertiser must know how popular that time and program/station is.  According to pbs.org, “Ratings are used like currency in the marketplace of advertiser-supported TV.”  This means that if an advertiser wants to reach the audience, the audience needs to be reachable.  If advertisers were constantly putting ads only on television shows that had few viewers, most of the country would not see any of these advertisements.  Say Viagra advertised last Saturday night on ABC during the Wisconsin at Nebraska football game, they would be advertising on a station rated 1.2, which reached out to 4.01 million viewers.  Now say that instead, Viagra only advertised on Fox which showed the Texas at Oklahoma State game, this station was only rated at 1.1 and it only reached 3.57 million viewers.  Four hundred and forty thousand viewers would not have seen the commercial if they watched Fox over ABC which is a large amount of people.  Now obviously Viagra has already been a popular item on the market for years but that many viewers would mean a lot to a smaller or brand new company.

Television Is Now Becoming Popular on Mobile Devices as Well

     Television has recently been introduced to the world of mobile devices such as, tablets, iPhones, Androids and laptops.  According to USA Today, primetime shows such as TBS, ABC, and HBO are being changed by the movement from television to mobile television.  Users can now watch television by streaming it to their mobile device which makes it easier to be connected to the TV which should increase overall television ratings and views.  This means that the market is expanding further for television, look at the app Ustream which allows the user to stream television anywhere.  This app is available for any mobile device essentially, so maybe mobile television is going to be how the next generation bases their television viewing or maybe it is just a trend that will die out soon, the answer should be coming soon.