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How do TV Serials earn revenue?


Deji Joseph

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A network or station buys a show, then sells air time to advertisers who think the show will hit their demographic. That's how the first dollars are made.

 

Syndication is the resale of a show by the studio or property owner. It's like you renting a movie from Netflix or Blockbuster with the intent to show it to lots of people. You then follow the advertising model by selling air time to advertisers.

 

Video sales are like book sales. You need a publisher to author your project, then you can sell it on the market or to retailers.

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In the US it all boils down to advertising. They use the Nielsen rating system to track how many people (in the small group of Nielsen members) watch the show, then take that number and extrapolate the nationwide number of viewers. If they don't have enough viewers the show gets pulled, doesn't matter how many copies they sell on DVD it's all about live viewership.

 

The system is so flawed it's crazy. Take a show like Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles for example. It was hugely popular amongst late teens, early twenties males. But they put it on Friday nights when everybody goes out, so they all PVR it. Which doesn't count as a view because it's assumed you will fast forward the commercials. So then advertisers pay less and the show gets pulled.

 

Now that was a few years ago and I don't know if they've changed the rules about PVR and I don't know what affect things like iTunes sales have had on the TV industry. So it may be a little different now, but the majority of the revenue is still from advertising and DVD and online sales aren't enough to keep a show on the air.

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Guest AndreaAltgayer

Oops, sorry guys! Slow computer...:)

Hi DJ,

Over here in South Africa and the UK (and I can imagine most other commonwealth countries), when it comes to public broadcasters, the TV series earn their revenue from advertisers, but also from TV licenses issued by the broadcaster. If they are broadcast on Satellite TV, then it is earned from advertisers and viewers' monthly subscriptions.

Hope this helps!

 

Andrea

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