The Fox network is reportedly charging between $5.5m (€4.9m) and $5.6m for an in-game Super Bowl LIV commercial for the showpiece event at Hard Rock Stadium, Miami, on Sunday, February 2, 2020.
This compares to CBS charging $5.2m for a 30-second spot at the 2019 event, AdAge reports.
Fox’s ad sales efforts have been boosted by the National Football League’s ratings increase this season. But the main reason why Fox is charging more than CBS is because there will be fewer ad breaks – four per quarter rather than five – following an agreement with the NFL.
“I don’t want to give the number, but [the ad sales team] is quite confident the pricing will certainly be the highest cost per 30-second ad in a Super Bowl to date. So we are very pleased with that,” Fox executive chairman and chief executive Lachlan Murdoch told investors last week.
Murdoch added that Fox had already sold out its ‘A positions’, referring to the first commercials to air in each individual ad break.
According to reports, CBS earned $382m in ad sales for the 2019 Super Bowl, down from $408m (NBC) in 2018 and $419m (Fox) in 2017. The viewing audience for Super Bowl LIII was an average of 98.2 million viewers, the smallest total since 2008.
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