Oct 3, 2017

TV commercials keep shrinking

Data: Nielsen 2017 Commercial & Advertising Update; Chart: Andrew Witherspoon
Data: Nielsen 2017 Commercial & Advertising Update; Chart: Andrew Witherspoon

Commercials of non-traditional lengths have been increasing. Almost 6% of all commercials aren't 10-, 15-, 30-, or 60-seconds long during the first half of 2017, according to Nielsen's 2017 Commercial & Advertising Update.

  • Avg. primetime commercial on broadcast last season: 14:37 minutes
  • Avg. primetime commercial on cable last season: 16:08 minutes

On TV, Fox debuted the first six-second ads earlier this year at the Teen Choice Awards for reportedly $75,000 each. Online, social giants like Facebook and Snapchat are commissioning research that touts the effectiveness of ads in the first two seconds.

TV commercials struggle to reach millennials: Per Adobe's latest Media Habits Survey provided exclusively to Axios, between 34% and 49% of viewers constantly use another screen when commercials are on TV and 79% of millennials are distracted by other devices during commercial breaks either "most of the time" or "all of the time."

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