I notice from this chart in advertising age (which requires an annoying complex if free registration form) that there's been a giant jump in the CPM (cost per thousand viewers) of a 30 second Superbowl ad. From 1968 to 1998 it hovered close to $10 in constant dollars -- or about a penny per impression.

Then there's a big jump (thanks in part to Fox and the dot-com boom) and now it's up to $25. But they're still paying, even though the $10 figure is more common for regular TV.

As I have noted elsewhere, part of the revolt against TV advertising is that it's a terrible deal for the viewer. They get a penny (2.5 cents in the superbowl) to show you an ad. So if you watch a full hour of ads (ie. almost 4 hours of TV) you get in return $1.20 worth of programming (wholesale price.) $1.20/hour is an illegally low wage. Even with superbowl ads it's still below minimum wage but we watch them because they are more entertaining.

This increase I think comes from several factors. First of all these ads have a cachet -- the fact that you advertised in the superbowl expands your reputation more than an ordinary ad does.

But mostly, because these ads have a reputation for being above average and less repetitive, many go out of their way to see them rather than go out of their way to avoid them. And that certainly seems to be worth the premium. It is another pointer to the prediction I made earlier this week that we might eventually see TV shows that demand better quality from their advertisers.

That pays off because if all the ads on a show are filtered for how useful or entertaining they are, it improves the odds the viewer will watch all of them. Google surprised everybody by demanding that its adwords customers do good ads that get clicked on. The idea of a publisher refusing an advertisers money was shocking (though it makes perfect sense here, because they are charging per click, and if you aren't getting clicks, they aren't getting good revenue from their space -- effectively enforcing a CPM while calling it pay per click.)

I keep waiting for adcritic to return using bittorrent.