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The Choice of Commercial Breaks in Television Programs: The Number, Length and Timing

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  • Wen Zhou

Abstract

This paper examines the choice of commercial breaks by a television network in a monopoly setup. It is assumed that viewers dislike commercials, while the network seeks to maximize the total audience for these commercials through its choice of the number, length, and timing of commercial breaks. The model predicts that commercial breaks become more frequent toward the end of the program, and that the length of breaks is single‐peaked. When the television program becomes more popular, the network runs commercials more frequently, and redistributes commercials so that late breaks become longer while early breaks become shorter.

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  • Wen Zhou, 2004. "The Choice of Commercial Breaks in Television Programs: The Number, Length and Timing," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(3), pages 315-326, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jindec:v:52:y:2004:i:3:p:315-326
    DOI: 10.1111/j.0022-1821.2004.00228.x
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    1. S. Siddarth & Amitava Chattopadhyay, 1998. "To Zap or Not to Zap: A Study of the Determinants of Channel Switching During Commercials," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(2), pages 124-138.
    2. Cancian, Maria & Bills, Angela & Bergstrom, Theodore, 1995. "Hotelling Location Problems with Directional Constraints: An Application to Television News Scheduling," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(1), pages 121-124, March.
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    Cited by:

    1. Kenneth C. Wilbur, 2008. "A Two-Sided, Empirical Model of Television Advertising and Viewing Markets," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(3), pages 356-378, 05-06.
    2. Yong Liu & Daniel Putler & Charles Weinberg, 2006. "The welfare and equity implications of competition in television broadcasting: the role of viewer tastes," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 30(2), pages 127-140, September.
    3. Yong Liu & Daniel S. Putler & Charles B. Weinberg, 2006. "A Reply to “A Comment on ‘Is Having More Channels Really Better? A Model of Competition Among Commercial Television Broadcasters' ”," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(5), pages 543-546, September.

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