After 13.5 hours of video learning and nine multiple-choice exams, I’m now a card-carrying TV Master, thanks to Thinkbox.
Obviously, trying to condense everything that I learned about TV consumption habits, creative effectiveness, measurement and buying into an article would be a nightmare. It would also be largely pointless exercise, given that Thinkbox’s online course is already free.
But I’m compelled by a severe case of ‘freshly-minted expert syndrome’ to share at least some of my new knowledge, so here instead are some interesting facts and figures that I jotted down during my lessons.
If you, too, would like a better understanding of the UK’s TV marketplace, you can register for the TV Masters course here.
- UK broadcasters spent £5.6bn on developing TV content in 2024, which is more money per capita than any other country in the world. Another reason — along with our superior electrical plug design — for Brits to feel proud.
- On average, TV ads cost £7.32 per thousand exposures. A centre ad break during a popular show, like Gogglebox, which is watched by 4 million people, costs around £30,000.
- Lingering on the brand for more than three seconds at the end of a TV ad increases memorability by 3% and delivers 11% more emotional impact. When our brains detect a narrative ending, they transfer what they’ve just seen or heard into their memory in a process called conceptual closure. During this period, people are unresponsive to new information. So, if you want people to remember the end frame, you need to give them a bit of time to finish mentally buffering first.
- The Pareto Principle is alive and well in the land of YouTube, where the heaviest quartile of users make up 87% of total viewing. That means 75% of YouTube viewers only watch five minutes of videos per day.
- In the UK, online brands spend more on TV advertising than any other business sector, investing £765m in 2024. Procter & Gamble is the biggest individual spender, though, at £275m.
- 30-second linear TV ads attract 1.7 billion views on any given day in the UK.
- Distracted viewers still typically have 60% of their visual attention left over for ads — but 72% of their auditory attention. That’s probably because our hearing is an early warning system, and we can’t control or focus what we hear like we can with what we see.
- People are more receptive to ads for products they want, as opposed to things they need, in the evenings. This preference is especially pronounced on Monday and Friday evenings. People are strange, aren’t they?
- August is the cheapest month to advertise on TV in the UK.
- Channel 4’s Contextual Moments research (2018) shows contextually relevant ads are 20% more effective than those placed willy-nilly — or, at least, those which are placed only with regard to a programme’s audience demographics, not its content. Similarly, Thinkbox data shows that 62% of viewers will consider buying a brand that’s sponsoring a show when it is perceived as a good fit with the programme, but only 32% when it is an odd pairing.
- You’re not allowed to advertise during broadcasts of royal ceremonies in the UK. As far as I’m aware, there is no specific law forbidding royals from doing product placements during said broadcasts, but I suspect it would be frowned upon.
The Autumn 2025 TV Masters course is now open for enrolment here.
