Quick reminder: TRPs are calculated by dividing estimated impressions by the audience size and multiplying by 100. If your audience sees one ad on average, that equals 100 TRPs. If they see ten ads on average, that equals 1,000 TRPs.
The key phrase is on average. TRPs don’t tell you how often people actually saw the ad.
100 TRPs can mean:
Everyone saw the ad once, or
10% saw it 10 times
Both scenarios look identical in TRPs.
Historically, the “gold standard” in politics has been 1,000 TRPs. With today’s fragmented viewing habits, 1,000 TRPs often creates wastefully high frequency on a small segment of voters.
How do voters consume TV?
In Impressions to Ballots #4, we saw that 66% of American households watch TV. TV is still a powerful reach vehicle.
But 25% of households account for 89% of linear ads. The same pattern holds for persuadable voters.
Among persuadable voters in the 17 Toss Up House Districts:
66% watch some TV
21% are heavy TV viewers
Back in September, linear spend was evenly split in the battle over California's mid-cycle redistricting proposition, with both sides spending roughly $11M over the month.
We measured reach and frequency of these ads, from both sides, amongst likely voters.
The result was a frequency imbalance:
Heavy TV Viewers: 79% reached, average frequency of 85
Light TV Viewers: 68% reached, average frequency of 22
Non-TV Viewers: as expected, saw no ads on linear TV
What do Light TV Viewers Watch?
Sports, lots of sports.
Heavy TV viewers are spending many hours each day watching TV. Light TV viewers watch an average of 2 hours per week.
Looking at December viewing among persuadable voters in the Phoenix media market (AZ-01):
Of the 26 broadcast programs reaching 5%+ of the audience:
24 were football games or related shows
The other two were New Year’s Eve Live: Nashville’s Big Bash and an NBA game
Go Deeper: State of the Screens #453
How does this impact your media plans?
Ignore heavy TV viewers - they will see your ads no matter what
Ignore non-TV viewers - they will never see your linear ads
Plan for light viewers
Practically, that means:
Remove Heavy and None from the audience
Recalculate TRPs and budget using the smaller audience size
Use Advanced TV Insights to find what light viewers actually watch and buy those programs first. If budget is limited, prioritize the highest-indexing program
Highest Index = The programs that your audience is more likely to watch than the 18+ population.
Remove heavy TV viewers from your Streaming/Digital audiences to control frequency
This strategy focuses spend where it matters: light viewers, not people already saturated with frequency.
What does this mean for political buyers?
Plan for viewership - 1,000 point goals don’t lead to the same results as they once did. Every media plan should reflect the viewership habits of the audience.
Budget across screens - Siloed, unmovable budgets waste campaign resources. Budget should be fluid and move to the best performing mediums. Vendor ego aside.
Measure - If you don’t know the reach and frequency to your audience, how can you make effective budget decisions?