For TV ads, who's the link between me and the stations?

berlinfool

berlinfool

Well-known member
Hi guys,
I'm producing yet another TV ad for this legal company. The delivery to the TV stations is done by an agency and they really don't know what they're doing. They don't know anything about formats so I always get last minute calls to fix something, deliver it in a different codec and it's nerve wrecking.
So I'm thinking about picking some new clients directly, without an agency.
But I don't know anything about how TV stations handling things and I will need to tell my prospective clients how the whole process of putting out a TV ad works and what they can expect.
There must be a middle man between me and the Stations, right? They would also know about all the fees in different markets and so on.

I live in Los Angeles.

Thank you,

Jan
 
That middleman is the ad agency.

So if you want to do that work directly, yourself, you'd pretty much want to be an ad agency. Which also means you could get a commission on the airtime that the client buys, but -- do you want to be in the ad agency business?
 
Mmh, not really.
But I really want to approach clients and not agencies. Maybe I need a different kind if agency? Where do I look for them?
The reason why I'm asking is because my little company needs way more clients and I want to be proactive about it and more in control.
Can I just walk into an agency and ask them if they want to handle the distribution? Is that how it works?
As you can see, I have no clue.
 
Make the Client decide on "Deliverables" up front. If they change - you get more money to deliver something different.
 
berlinfool said:
There must be a middle man between me and the Stations, right? They would also know about all the fees in different markets and so on.
Click to expand...


Sometimes it's an account rep for the station, who is basically a salesperson who sometimes includes commercial production services (done in-house or by referral) in media buys.

But really, there ARE production companies that provide full production services (including creative) directly to companies, but you (or your clients) would have to speak to an "account rep" to determine costs for media buys.

Agencies have big markups on everything they provide to their clients and the markup on media buys is considerable.

.
 
Chris Santucci said:
...the markup on media buys is considerable.

.
Click to expand...

Not if it's a legitamate agency. Agencies typically make 15% on the media buys, but they don't make that by marking it up. Here's how it works:

If a client spends $100,000 with Station A and AgencyXYZ buys their media, AgencyXYZ will either pay for the $100,000 - 15% directly to the station (paying only $85,000) then bill the client for the full amount ($100,000), or the client pays the $100,000 and the station pays the agency 15% ($15,000).

A good agency can often get their clients a lower rate than if the client bought direct from the station, plus they can track it to ensure it runs when necessary and secure make-goods if it doesn't.

If agencies marked up the media, clients would go directly to the station to buy because it would be cheaper. The markup is on the placement services and production (if the production isn't in house), not the media.
 
Butcher said:
If agencies marked up the media, clients would go directly to the station to buy the media.
Click to expand...

And that's what they have started to do in recent years. And it's killing the larger agencies. The markup on media is what drives the big agencies (even with the discounts they receive). Commission on the other stuff (including million dollar production) is small potatoes in comparison.
 
Butcher said:
A good agency can often get their clients a lower rate than if the client bought direct from the station, plus they can track it to ensure it runs when necessary and secure make-goods if it doesn't.
Click to expand...

Yes, they can, especially since they already have a history of buying for other clients and have pre-existing relationships with stations. And, they can also fudge the buys and tell the client they're getting a great deal.

Butcher said:
If agencies marked up the media, clients would go directly to the station to buy because it would be cheaper. The markup is on the placement services and production (if the production isn't in house), not the media.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure that's always the case especially when a client is only paying for a low budget spot and there isn't much to be made on production. Clients tend to feel like they need the agency to deal with production and the station as most have a perception that THAT is how things are done.

There are advantages to using a "legitimate" agency for sure, but if a production company can build a relationship with a sales rep by buying for its clients, I'd guess the exorbitant mark ups generally associated with using an ad agency would start to be very much not worth it.

.
 
Chris Santucci said:
And, they can also fudge the buys and tell the client they're getting a great deal.
Click to expand...

I don't know what kind of agencies are in your area, but if they're doing that they deserve to lose their clients and go under. Any agency worth a damn will build a relationship with its clients and always do the right thing, not play a shell game with the numbers to milk the client. Especially since the client can always call their station reps directly. One of those phone calls and suddenly the agency has lost the client and has put themselves at risk for fraud charges.

I work for an agency. We have in house production (which is my job). I can't speak for all agencies, but I know that we don't mark up our media--we make either the standard 15% commission from the stations or less, depending on the client and our agreement with them. We also get lower rates in probably 90% of the buys we place because we buy so much media, and charge full rate for our production (unlike the TV stations, where it's often free and looks like it). We brought our production internally so we don't have to mark up what another company charges us, making us very competitive with other production companies in town.

That sucks, though, if the agencies in your area are that shady.
 
berlinfool,
First, if you are in the LA area, Time Warner or Charter are the main cable suppliers.
Both will accept uploads to their servers for insertion into the broadcast schedule.
There is no need to supply BetaSP tapes anymore. I repeat: No more tapes!
I create an uncompressed master of my spots for archiving and a high bitrate (15mbs) MPEG2 stream in Sony Vegas for uploading to the TW site. Their compressionist then "flips" it (basically re-compressing your file to a 3.5mbs bandwidth) into their server. If you QC your work carefully, the quality is very good, as they do nothing further to correct your stuff.
Just be sure your black levels are correct and you pump up the chroma level a tad.
My average 30 second upload is about 57MB.

Secondly: The ad sales dept. ...more specifically your sales rep, is your link to the company.
If you are the client's "agency of record" (yes, you will have to have the form signed by the client authorizing you in this capacity) you will qualify for an agency discount of 15% off the retail spot prices charged to the end client. This is your profit.
Be aware that "retail" can change over time, depending on placement or the popularity of a show. TW and Charter sell time in "zones". Zones with a larger number of cable subscribers are more expensive.
A good rep will also keep you apprised of sports packages, etc., which may be of value to your clients.

Hope this helps.
Ken
the Screen Skins guy
 
Most stations and cable systems I've interacted with require an "agency" to have at least three different clients airing with them to qualify as an agency and get the agency discount / rebate ...

FWIW thats is for one major and two back wood markets in Texas ... maybe different elsewhere
 
kplo said:
berlinfool,
There is no need to supply BetaSP tapes anymore. I repeat: No more tapes!
I create an uncompressed master of my spots for archiving and a high bitrate (15mbs) MPEG2 stream in Sony Vegas for uploading to the TW site. Their compressionist then "flips" it (basically re-compressing your file to a 3.5mbs bandwidth) into their server. If you QC your work carefully, the quality is very good, as they do nothing further to correct your stuff.
Just be sure your black levels are correct and you pump up the chroma level a tad.
My average 30 second upload is about 57MB.


Hope this helps.
Ken
the Screen Skins guy
Click to expand...

Hello Ken,

The local TV station we work with asks us to deliver Mpegs and I always complained but I guess this is common practice huh?. I hate working the whole loop of FCP>Vegas to get an MPEG. I think that what I hate about it is that I haven't been able to fine tune it to make it look as good as the original. I will try your chroma level tip. Any more tips you could share?

Thank you

Carlos
 
Part of my work is acting as a middle-man between production-houses (mostly UK) and local ad-agencies (who then deliver what I deliver to the broadcasters).

Agencies are completely clueless and frustrating to deal with. For example, I constantly get requests to deliver HD material on Beta-SP. Eons ago someone told them that Beta-SP was professional, so insist on everything being delivered on Beta-SP -- when the broadcasters just dump the material into a digital format. They have no conception of quality, and sometimes put commercials to air that were only low-res previews.

I'll most likely waste half of today running around looking for the last remaining BetaSP tapes in the city. Arrrgh!!!
 
Agencies are completely clueless and frustrating to deal with.
Click to expand...
And most of the local TV stations are not better. I gave up discussing things with them and just send out Beta SP tapes. It saves me hours of my time.
 
I don't know how it works in L.A. but where I live we have a local cable provider......Our local cable provider actually has a branch of the company that does commercials. When I do freelance commercials for people, I then get in touch with the cable provider and relay the price options to the customer. Then the customer can determine how much airtime they want to buy. Easy enough you jsut have to figure out who to talk to.
 
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