MEDIA BUYING GLOSSARY

1. Advertising
Advertising is paid, one-way communication through a medium in which the sponsor is identified and the message is controlled. Variations include publicity, public relations, product placement, sponsorship, underwriting, and sales promotion. Every major medium is used to deliver these messages, including: television, radio, movies, magazines, newspapers, the Internet, and billboards.

2. Cable/Cable television/Cable tv
Cable television is a system of providing television to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through fixed optical fibers or coaxial cables as opposed to the over-the-air method used in traditional television broadcasting (via radio waves) in which a television antenna is required.

3. Cable Network
The term “cable network” is something of a misnomer. While usually national in scope, cable networks are not television networks in the defined sense (as are, for instance, CBS or NBC), since they provide a full national schedule and do not need to act through individual local stations in each media market. However, individual cable and satellite providers that carry them are sometimes called “affiliates”, in recognition of the agreements required for these providers to carry each channel.
Examples of cable networks include USA Network, ESPN, and Nickelodeon. HBO and Showtime are classified as premium television services, not cable networks, as they are commercial-free and not included in standard multichannel cable packages.

4. Cost per point/CPP
The cost, per 1 percent of a specified audience, of buying advertising space in a given media vehicle.

5. Cost per thousand/CPM
The cost, per 1000 people reached, of buying advertising space in a given media vehicle.

6. Gross rating point/GRP
Reach times average frequency. This is a measure of the advertising weight delivered by a vehicle or vehicles within a given time period.

7. Interactive/Interactive media
The online, Internet, or web environment is the primary interactive media for advertising. It is dubbed interactive because the user, or advertising target, can typically interact with the content and advertising.

8. Local advertising
Advertising to a local merchant or business as opposed to regional or national advertising.

9. Local Rate
An advertising rate charged to a local advertiser, typically a retailer, by local media and publications, as distinguished from a national rate that is charged to a national advertiser.

10. Media
The forms of publication. Traditional advertising media include newspapers, magazines, billboards, radio and television. Digital interactive advertising media started with the Internet, but is quickly spreading to television, cellular devices and outdoor locations.

11. Media Buyer/Media Buying (Advertising Buying)
An individual working directly for an advertiser, or for an agency, charged with the responsibility of negotiating and purchasing advertising space.

12. Media Buying Services
An organization that specializes in buying media time and space for advertisers. Some media buying services also engage in media planning activities for their clients.

13. Media Planning/Advertising Media Planning
Media Planning are those activities that, after having received an objective, defines targets, identifies key factors and elements essential in attaining these objectives while keeping in mind these factors; and then selecting various media based on past experience (either by self, through research or through external help) while sticking to a reasonable budget. This process, in its entirety forms the entire spectrum of Media Planning Activities.

14. Media Research/Research
A study of internet, television, radio, print and other media for the purpose of reaching the optimal consumer audience.

15. National advertising
Any advertising that is placed by a company, organization, or individual that operates on a national or regional (multistate) basis. Some of the advertising may be placed directly with local advertising media, but it is likely that this advertising would be part of the nationwide advertising effort of the company, organization, or individual.

16. National television/National tv
The price charged to national advertisers for space and time in local advertising media. Traditionally, newspapers, radio, and television stations have charged higher rates for national advertising than for local advertising.

17. Reach
The number of different persons or households exposed to a particular advertising media vehicle or a media schedule during a specified period of time. It is also called cumulative audience, cumulative reach, net audience, net reach, net unduplicated audience, or unduplicated audience. Reach is often presented as a percentage of the total number of persons in a specified audience or target market.

18. Frequency
The number of times a person, household, or member of a target market is exposed to a media vehicle or an advertiser’s media schedule within a given period of time. This number is usually expressed as an average frequency (the average number of exposures during the time period) or as a frequency distribution (the number of people exposed once, twice, three times, etc.).

19. Spot television/Spot TV/Spot
The purchasing of radio and television time on a local or market-by-market basis. This contrasts with the purchase of nationwide exposure by using national television networks or national cable television channels.