We’ve broken down TV advertising costs into media buying (TV ad slots) and TV advert production (costs of making adverts).

If you’re looking for media buying or TV advert production information please visit our Media Buying and Advert Production pages.

A question we’re asked a lot: How much does it cost to advertise on TV?

Answer: There are two television advertising costs: buying adverts the spots between TV shows in the UK. Rates for the smaller digital channels start around £50 to £150 for daytime and £150 to £300 for peak time. TV adverts during Good Morning Britain or Lorraine can cost between £3,000 – £4,000. And production costs for actually making the TV advert. These can range from around £25,000 for a straightforward TV commercial to £250,000 for a blockbuster TV advert with top stars and a famous music track.

It’s possible to start your TV advertising campaign for as little as £70K. With TV advertising delivering an average of £1.79 returned for every £1 invested in the first 3-6 months. Television advertising can really turn sales around.

New to TV Advertising packages

Are you new to TV Advertising? We offer a launch package for brands who are looking for TV advertising. We can make a stylish animated DRTV advert for £20K and provide a national media package starting at £50K.

We’ll get your advert in front of UK viewers. Fill in the form to submit necessary details, and we’ll get in touch.

As a Video Production Agency, we’re capable of delivering TV adverts and a full range of social media assets.

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TV Advertising Cost Update for 2020 – COVID-19

According to the World Advertising Research Centre WARC global TV advertising spend has fallen by around 13% in the period after the COVID-19 outbreak. Some categories of advertisers are down much more. Leisure and entertainment TV advertising is down around 28%. The travel and tourism sector has seen a 31% reduction in TV advertising spend.

The outbreak has meant that channels such as ITV are missing much of their regular income from sports and live entertainment media sales. ITV is fighting back and has been offering substantial discounts. These discounts provide hope to smaller players concerned about TV advertising cost.

These discounted TV advert slots are a great incentive. Brands who have thought about adding TV advertising to their marketing efforts can now test the waters with a smaller investment than before. Another change brought on by COVID-19 has been the increased TV viewing figures. These two factors combined means that smaller companies can now get their products and services in front of millions of potential customers for much less than ever before.

TV Advertising – How much does it cost?

Media planning is crucial to the success of your television advertising campaign. Toast build bespoke media packages to ensure the TV ads we create are seen by the right people, at the right time and on the right channels. Before setting out to build a successful TV advertising campaign, it’s important to develop a robust media planning strategy.

Deciding which TV channels offer the best fit with your brand’s demographic makes sure your TV advertising costs don’t go to waste. If you’re new to TV media planning and need more information on the process of advertising on TV do get in touch.

abel and cole advert
innocent smoothies tv advert
credit karma tv advert

Media planning guideline figures

The numbers listed are a guide to the average price paid for a 30 sec TV advert on UK TV networks. Pricing does vary throughout the year.

Advertise on ITV

Good Morning Britain or Lorraine ads cost are around £3,000 – £4,000
Daytime slots on ITV are around £3,500 to £4,500 and peak time slots can cost from £10,000 to £33,000.

If you’re looking for the most significant marketplace to show your adverts, you can’t do better than to advertise on ITV. Shows like Good Morning Britain offer one of the most extensive commercial opportunities in the UK. Whether you’re planning a massive TV advertising campaign or trying to target a micro-region ITV allows media to be purchased flexibly. 

ITV has an intelligent family of channels which help campaigns hit tighter demographics. Channels like ITV Be show mainly a reality-based output or CITV show kids programming. Whatever your market there’s probably an ITV channel for you.

Advertise on Channel 4

A 30-second slot on daytime TV can cost between £1,000 to £2,000 peak rates for shows such as Hollyoaks and Catastrophe are around £10,000 to £20,000.

Advertising on Channel 5 is less expensive than other networks

A slot in daytime usually costs around £800 to £1,600. Peak time ad breaks can be had for £2,500 to £4,500 in shows like Big Brother.

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Advertising on Sky

With their smaller viewing figures, the cost of advertising on TV with Sky is naturally lower, an ad slot in daytime shows on Sky costs around £150 to £250. Advertising during the peak time costs about £650 to £1,150. Sky Adsmart is a great platform that allows advertisers to target their ads to a select group of viewers. For more information about Sky see our Adsmart page.

Other digital channels can be a great place to advertise your brand:

Rates for smaller digital channels can be around £50 to £150 for day time up to £150 to £300 for peak time. Great if you know your audience is watching those channels.

How much does a TV advert cost?

From the numbers, you can see a TV advert campaign running for a month can easily be had for £30,000. If you want to target a wider audience, you can spend £200,000 and advertise on ITV.

Budgets can go up; if you absolutely must get in front of a vast X-factor audience, you’re looking at spending millions on media. Hopefully, this has answered the question, How much is TV advertising? The other cost is production, more on that below.

*Data sourced from Thinkbox and TheDrum

allplants advert
drtv example
Graze TV advert

It’s all about the Return on Investment

At Toast we always look to deliver high ROI for our clients. TV advertising is the best medium for producing not only short term returns, with an average of £1.73 returned for every £1 invested in the first 3-6 months.

Over time the cumulative effect TV advertising has on your brand’s reach increases this to an average ROI of £4.20 after three years. TV delivers 71% of total advertising-generated profit over three years despite TV currently commanding 54% of average advertising budget. – Thinkbox Profit Ability study 2017.

TV advertising costs UK

A media buyer handles the process of buying advert slots on TV channels. Toast has close links with many buyers who we use to manage our media buying process. The average cost of getting one person to see your advert in the UK is around 0.6p. 

TV Media Budgets

Information from Thinkbox shows that 60% of TV advertisers spent less than £250K on their TV media buying budgets in 2017. Getting brands in front of huge TV audiences is no longer exclusively for the more prominent brands with large budgets. Advertising your company next to one of the big brands in a TV advert slot helps to build trust in unknown companies. Advertising is a great way to create mass appeal.

The numbers also show that 1,072 advertisers had a media budget of less than £50k in 2017, TV is becoming more accessible. This increased affordability contrasts with the changes that have been happening in Pay Per Click advertising. The lack of platform choice in PPC advertising has started to drive costs higher, and a single click can now cost upwards of £20.

BVOD Advertising – A bright new star

Broadcaster Video-on-Demand (BVOD) and advertising on BVOD is a great way to reach people that watch less linear TV. BVOD adverts are often non-skippable, so your advert gets the viewers full attention without all the screen clutter which fights for attention on YouTube.

The statistics of TV watching

A report from Thinkbox, the TV advertising industry body, states that:
The average viewer in the UK watched a total of 3 hours, 51 minutes of TV a day in 2015.
16-24s watch over twice as much TV on other devices than the average viewer.
TV accounts for 76% of video consumption in the UK.
SVOD services, including Netflix and Amazon Prime, and other services combined account for only 4% of video viewing.

Tracking your ad’s effectiveness

One of the greatest revolutions in TV advertising has been the recent innovation in tracking the viewing of TV adverts. Previously the best way to measure a TV ad’s effectiveness was to use something like an offer code on the endframe which could attribute sales to TV advertising. Advert tracking has now progressed to online software which can determine how well a media plan is performing.

Tracking software can correlate a TV ad running with hits on a website or an increased sales spike in an E-commerce platform. It is possible to track the effectiveness of a TV ad campaign and make adjustments to the placements of ads. Making changes to the media plan in the weeks after launch can get the best ROI from a media budget.

Getting a Direct Response

Advertising on TV is excellent at both direct response (a call to action) and brand recognition. Direct response using TV advertising has become even more potent due to second screen watching. Viewers often watch TV with a tablet or smartphone nearby. A viewer seeing a URL during a direct response TV advert now has the perfect platform on hand to interact with your website.

Offering a tailored URL from the TV advert cuts down any friction a viewer might experience. Rather than arriving at a website’s home page and navigating to the specific product page. A special URL can direct the viewer straight to the product.

With a regional TV media buying strategy and DRTV advertising, unique URLs make sure the right message gets to the viewer.

*Stats sourced from Thinkbox and BARB.

Production Costs – How much does a TV advert cost?

Below you’ll find top-line packages that shows what’s achievable at different levels. TV remains the most effective form of advertising there is and is now more accessible than ever. Get in touch with one of our producers to discuss!

Intro to TV Advertising

We have extensive experience working with new-to-TV brands, managing many successful TV and digital tests. If your production budget won’t quite stretch to live-action, we would suggest a 2D motion graphics treatment. Like the recent commercial we produced for Alpharooms or a simple character animation like Ancestry.

alpharooms tv advert
Alpharooms TV Advert
ancestry dna tv advert
Ancestry DNA TV Advert

TV Advertising Packages for Start-ups

Our start-up packages are perfect for brands who have already successfully tested on TV and digital and are ready to make a more substantial media investment for their next campaign. At this level, we would expect to be able to start thinking about a live-action shoot. Toast was lucky enough to work on Innocent’s first-ever TV advertising campaign. A simple shoot in a park with a chicken launched a global brand.

innocent smoothies tv advert
Innocent Smoothies Advert
Allplants TV Advert
Allplants TV Advert

TV Packages for Challenger brands

Our challenger brands package is suited for a brand looking to transition into a household name. This level should open the doors to a more elaborate shoot, like the stop motion advert we produced for Tootle.

TV advertising costs for Loaf TV Advert
Loaf TV Advert
Tootle TV Advert
Tootle TV Advert

TV Advertising Packages for Established brands

Our packages are for established brands looking at brand building rather than brand awareness and direct response. Further investment into production will allow for a high-end live-action shoot with very high production values or integrated 3D graphics like Cancer Research.

CRUK TV advert
Cancer Research Campaign
Wayfair TV Campaign
Wayfair TV Campaign

Working with Toast

Get in touch with Toast if you’d like to talk to Toast about TV media buying. Or you’ve got a script, and you’re wondering how much does it cost to produce a TV advert in the UK. Use the contact form on this page to tell us about your project.