Ad break timing

Hello there

I have long wondered how are the advert breaks timed so precisely on ITV1?

With different regions having different adverts, how is a time for a break arrived at and who decides which adverts are to be shown?

Edward

It's a dark art called "trafficing", Edward.

Nothing to do with drugs or motorways.

I've had a quick Google and failed; perhaps somebody else on here can provide a link.

How come certain advert breaks couldn't be networked, because flicking around certain regions from time to time, the actual same version of the advert is shown, even though it's shown at different times.

You could have designated breaks for 'network' stuff, then other breaks for local stuff.

Seems strange that they can still regionalise ads, but give up on a proper regional programme schedule, like what they used to do!

I may be well off beam, but the South East Macro region (Anglia/ Meridian/ Channel) seem to have a logical co-ordinaterd break structure. Simul-cast macro-regianal ads co-exist with regional and sub-regional ones in the same break.

A similar logical arrangement appears to exist in the ex-GMG North regions (Granada/ TTTV/ Yorks/ Border).

CP, Central, Westcountry, HTV and (is it?) ITV Wales, all seem to have their own patterns.

Apart from instances where regional retailers pre-empt ads into prime regional slots, I can't see why a logical macro-regional pattern couldn't subsist throughout, with assigned sub-regional time slices.

As I am writing this thouigh I can see the flaw in my argument. Supposing advertiser "A" had been allocated a slot in a prime pitch on the South-East macro-region. Advertiser "B" comes along and pre-empts "A"'s slot, but only in the Anglia region. So at transmission time "A" has its airtime in Meridean and Channel, but has to accept a less popular slot in Anglia, having been bounced by "B". This means that the Anglia break where "A"'s ad has been displaced to would also have different content to Meridian'sbreak at the same time. Both the Meridian and Anglai versions of the second break would consist of different "national" advertising.

Dunno if this comes anywhere near the truth... or helps? Its just a thought.

(Ok.... I admit that I'm a bit of a spotter with nothing better to do with a Sky box than trawl through ITV regions).

Scottish TV East and West have different adverts. You occasionally see a second or so of an advert playing even after it's finished in the East.

Not state a draft point but mayby ITV give all the reigion A set time for each ad break, like during the bill 1st break wil 3mins, 2nd will 3.45 sec long and so on.
I can't see how it can be that hard to firgue out?

and each area liek central, scottish can do what there liek with in space of time, althourgh threr will have set number of ads THAT MUST BE SHOWN at section times

Even if the time allocated to each break is a nice even number like 3 minutes, it still would take a lot of effort to fill it seamlessly, surely?

With modern technology I can see how this might be streamed from a server and time exactly, but how did it used to be done when adverts game off vt?

I used to work in Traffic at 2 of the major UK Radio Groups, and the process is very similar to that in TV. Indeed many Radio Traffic people either come from or move into their TV equivalent roles.

Take an example such as this:
All the Group's stations come together into 'network' overnight.
To begin with, each individual station will schedule it's own adverts into pre-determined ad breaks (with a maximum number of ad 'spots' available in each break).
Then when the 'ad logs' are completed, a systemwide process of 'balancing the logs' is set in action.
What this does is the key - it goes through the complete 24 hours of a day, making each break match according to whichever station has the longest break in each instance (hope that makes sense).
For those stations which don't have enough ads in their break to make up this duration, 'filler' ads are inserted to make up the difference.
These filler ads are essentially random free spots to any advertiser who is already on air in paid-for spots at that time of the day. The viewer will never know, and the advertiser gets a free bonus! Therefore it's always better to have a full ad-break than a half-empty one. The same number of ads will play, but there would be less free ones!
If there aren't any available, that's when the fall-back of programme promotions come in (in TV terms, if you ever notice a break full of trailers - chances are that's what's happened: not enough ads available to make up the break).

Now that ITV are always in 'network', the 'balancing' is done for the whole of the day.

Hope that makes some kind of sense...

Ahh, so thats why Emmerdale had no adverts in its break last Sunday. Just trailers.

Looks like adevrtisers don't want to pay money for the early evening sunday slot. Or whatever ITV are asking for in the Emmerdale slot.

There hasn't been any ads in the middle of Sunday's Emmerdale for months. It's so ITV can maximise ad time in the 7.30-11.00pm slots which gets very high ratings most weeks.

> With modern technology I can see how this might be streamed from a server and time exactly, but how did it used to be done when adverts game off vt?

Around 5 seconds extra time for the adverts, and a reliance on the skill of the tx controller to fade to black at an appropriate time relative to the length of the break (the length of spare time is going to relate to the number of ads played as it was more difficult to fit things into exactly 10/20/30 seconds etc and have the required 12-frame gap between ads). They'd also vary the length of time each ad was held at the end.

In other words, it was a bit of a black art, and one reason why ITV never really looked quite as slick as other channels.

In-vision continuity was a device used a lot to cover gaps and timing inaccuracies between programmes back in the 80s and earlier.

Often they dont have adverts at all on a Sunday from before the regional news at 6.25pm until after Emmerdale has finnished.