The hidden fees of TV advertising

Without you realizing it, the bill for a TV commercial can quickly become expensive. The reason? The hidden fees that apply during the production and launch of your television campaign. And that can be a blow when your budget is tight. So get ahead of the game and find out what hidden fees apply in TV advertising.

Article Summary: Hidden fees of TV advertising

1. The different fees to anticipate in TV advertising
   
2. The fees applied for a classic TV spot
   
3. The fees applied for a sponsorship billboard
   

The fees of a TV ad is not limited to the price of creating your ad and buying the media that will support your campaign. On the contrary: additional fees are almost always added to your advertising budget. Although few in number, they can quickly represent an inconvenience, especially if your budget is limited:

• ARPP declaration fee
• Technical costs for coordination and broadcasting
• Sending fees 

All these fees do not apply at the same time for the broadcasting of a TV ad, they depend on the nature of the TV campaign you plan to make: classic TV advertising or sponsorship TV advertising.

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The declaration fees to the ARPP

Before being able to broadcast your advertising spot (classic and segmented), a TV channel must be assured that your advertising respects the legislation in force in terms of communication. It is not the TV channels' advertising agencies that are in charge of the verification of the classic advertisements broadcasted on the small screen, but a specialized organization: the ARPP (Autorité de régulation professionnelle de la publicité : Authority of professional regulation of the advertising).

The ARPP is the organization which is in charge of the regulation of the advertisements diffused on television. It is thus to him that falls the task to validate the commercials before their diffusion on television.

And you will have understood, if we talk about it in this article, it is because this service is not free. It is necessary to count at least 203 € for the validation of a classic advertisement.

The ARPP fees are paid by the person who submits the TV spot to the organization for evaluation: this is generally the advertiser. Nevertheless, it is possible that certain agencies include this service in their fees or have advantageous rates by being an ARPP member. Ask your agency for information before signing your contract.

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Sending fees 

The simple sending of an advertising spot is not as simple as that: the main advertising agencies ask advertisers to go through specialized platforms for sending files: PEACH or ADSTREAM. These platforms are obviously paying: up to 75 € HT for a standard sending and 150 € HT in express sending.

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Technical fees for coordinating and airing TV spots

In addition to the fees of sending and declaring to the ARPP, the advertiser must pay the technical fees of coordination and broadcasting. These costs finance the following 

• production coordination,  
• quality control and creation of formats suitable for broadcasting (called PADs - prêt à diffuser : ready to air) for sending to the antennas (TV and digital), 
• archiving 
• SACEM (Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers) declaration.

The price of the PADs varies according to the agencies that invoice it (because yes, not all agencies go through the process of adapting the spots): between 200 € and 1,900 €.

Sending fees 

Just like for a classic advertising spot, the channels' advertising agencies can ask you to go through PEACH or ADSTREAM to send your sponsorship billboard. It is however not as systematic as for the sending of a spot: most of the advertising agencies ask to send them directly the billboards by e-mail in .XMF format.

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The technical fees of coordination and airing of billboards

The billboards are not subjected to a validation by the ARPP, it is the legal services of the television agencies which are in charge of checking the conformity of the billboards which they can be brought to diffuse. This verification obviously entails additional costs for the advertiser. These are in addition to the technical fees of coordination and broadcasting: 

• the editorial and legal validation of the billboards by the lawyers, 
• processing of billboards upon receipt by the platforms, 

These fees apply to each new sponsorship device: no additional costs are to be expected in the event of billboard rebroadcasting.

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