For the first time, CBS will be livestreaming every commercial that airs during 2016’s Super Bowl 50. No longer will you need to be sitting in front of your TV to see the best, big-budgeted advertisements of the year. Your phone or tablet can do the job, too.
This marks a big change from last year’s game, which aired on NBC. Only 18 of 70 total advertisers elected to air their commercials during the online broadcast, which resulted in online viewers being treated to only a few of the ads during the game. But next year, every ad that appears on TV will also appear online “as close to real-time as possible,” Variety reports.
Securing a spot for a 30-second Super Bowl commercial isn’t cheap. NBC’s asking price for each time slot reached a high of $4.4 million and that doesn’t even include the cost for multi-casting to both TV viewers and online viewers. CBS is going to up the ante for air-time cost during this year’s game to something “north of $5 million.” But the kicker with this deal is that the advertisers can’t opt-out of showing their ads both TV and online. It will cost them more, but every single, glorious ad will be viewable online.
More people than ever watch video on their tablets and phones. And while television networks have had a tough time owning up to that fact, especially as it pertains to how each can calculate and monetize on ratings, this move by CBS is going to make a lot of football and Super Bowl commercial fans happy come February 2016. It’s also going to set a new standard for other broadcast companies to live up to in years to come.
Via The Verge
