How Many Ad Impressions Does One Hour of TV Create?

Three big questions re: ad loads on TV:
1) What share of our TV viewing time is ad-supported?
2) How many ad impressions does one hour of TV create?
3) How many TV ads do we see each day?

What share of our TV viewing time is ad-supported?

🚨New data alert: Nielsen added high-level advertising metrics to its Gauge report. My models estimate these numbers, but it will be useful to have a regular release of data to track over time.

Share of total TV time according to Nielsen:
1) Ad-supported - 72%
2) Ad-free - 28%

Share of ad-supported total TV time:
1) Linear - 58%
2) Streaming - 42%

Known unknown: I assume the above data from Nielsen only focuses on the Gauge's broadcast, cable, and streaming parts.  This may be incorrect.  To compare these, I removed the “other category” and reapplied the share so everything adds up to 100%.

Quick math on ad-supported linear TV:
1) 72% of all TV is ad-supported
2) 58% of ad-supported time is linear
3) 42% of all TV time is ad-supported linear
4) 82% of all linear TV is ad-supported

Quick math on ad-supported streaming TV:
1) 72% of all TV is ad-supported
2) 42% of ad-supported time is streaming
3) 31% of all TV time is ad-supported streaming
4) 63% of all streaming TV is ad-supported

Mr. Screens checks his math: In a previous edition (SOTS #415), I estimated streaming's share of TV ad impressions. To do that, I had to make a few assumptions.

The difference between my previous estimate and the new Nielsen data:
1) Ad-supported share of TV time - +5%
2) Streaming share of ad-supported TV - +3%
3) Share of streaming that is ad-supported - +8%

How many ad impressions does one hour of TV create?

Quick math on ad impressions from one hour of TV:
1) 72% of all TV is ad-supported
2) 43m of TV viewing is ad-supported
3) 11m of ads per hour of ad-supported TV
4) 9m of ads per hour of total TV

How many TV ads do we see each day?

Quick answer: 85 30s spots per day

Quick math on TV ads per day:
1) 5.0 hours of total TV viewing
2) 8.5 minutes of ads/hour
3) 42.7 minutes of ads/day
4) 85 30-second spots/day

Average TV ad spots per day:
1) Linear - 67 (78%)
2) Streaming - 18 (22%)
3) Total - 85