Are ESPN & Disney Maliciously Extending Ad Breaks?

This goes deeper than the lockout

I recently watched a video from What Chaos! that had me thinking - Are ESPN & Disney Maliciously Extending Ad Breaks?

The podcaster reports that ESPN+ ad breaks are extending longer than the over the air broadcasts ad breaks.

This is something that ESPN does know is happening.

Is this intentionally malicious?

It wouldn’t be a surprise to see Disney sucking every last dollar out of their already paying subscribers, especially considering the current Youtube TV blackout.

But, this might simply be a function of OTT/CTV ad delivery.

Oftentimes when I’m watching a live broadcast over the air, I notice that ad breaks are cut short.

There are many reasons why the live broadcast might get off schedule.

I’ve seen broadcasters continue their analysis INTO the ad break and acknowledge this happening. I’ve seen broadcasters cut off mid sentence by the ad break.

I’ve also seen broadcasts come back from an ad break early. Sometimes the game is in progress and they need to recap what was missed. Or, they come back early to squeeze in a feature story or ad read.

Ultimately, the producer on set has the control to bring the broadcast in and out of ad break any time they see best fit.

Here are some anecdotes from ESPN broadcasters:

How do broadcasters know when to cut to break and what do they do during break?

Ad reads out of a commercial break.

Live events are unpredictable, unlike streaming a re-run, which OTT/CTV inventory was initially designed to do.

This can put OTT/CTV ads at a disadvantage during live events, considering most of their inventory are targeted 30 second ads that can take a few moments to load while the over the air broadcast is carefully curated.

Broadcast TV often includes contract clauses that allow for ads to be cut short or skipped altogether.

Publishers provide make-goods (a similar value ad) or a repayment credit if the ad doesn’t run in full.

Broadcast TV also has remnant spots when inventory isn’t sold out.

It feels like the ad that gets cut short is one you’ve already seen. I’d wager these are remnant spots.

Broadcast TV is old and hard to target.

You might see local ads take over the national broadcast for a moment in an attempt to make a national broadcast more targeted and allow the local channels a chance to sell some inventory. This can cause a delay in the live broadcast due to different inventory requirements or delays in the transfer.

During broadcast ads many ad agencies deploy tracking software to be sure their ads run as planned in each market.

If a discrepancy is found the advertiser can request a reduced rate or a make-good.

side note: you don’t see this happen during re-runs or movies on cable where ad breaks have a perfect allotted time.

More notably the Super Bowl, where each ad break is carefully curated and where make-goods don’t exist.

Broadcast TV falling behind the action is not an option. Relying on a make good or cutting short a remnant ad is part of the game.

How is OTT/ CTV different?

OTT/CTV ads are targeted and different for each viewer.

This is why advertisers like OTT/CTV, but it’s still catching up during live events, literally and figuratively.

Many advertisers buy OTT/CTV without knowing where or when it will run, they just know WHO it will target.

Ad agencies can’t track each ad break as easily since they’re all different.

With OTT/CTV a full ad delivery is required, that’s actually one of its primary selling points, a guaranteed targeted household impression.

Cutting one of these ads short could make for big problems if a publisher was caught doing this.

Once a broadcast is behind, it’s easy for a broadcast producer to cut an ad to catch back up, but OTT/CTV doesn’t share the same luxury.

The main difference is the live broadcast is curated by a human, where OTT/ CTV fills expected ad time with targeted ads.

Technically speaking, the stream actually can fall behind and pick up where the action begins, but this means the feed is no longer live.

‘Live’ streams can have trouble catching back up to live - especially when they can’t cut ads and want to make sure viewers don’t miss any of the action.

Disney isn’t in a situation to cut these ads short, unless they want to shift the paradigm of OTT/ CTV advertising for live events. Until that happens I expect viewers to get the short end of the stick here.

What’s the solution?

The age old answer would be for streaming services to begin a remnant-like program or include contract clauses for live event ads. However, OTT/CTV was supposed to be the end of broadcast specific sales and discounted remnant spots. It allowed for full priced targeted ads to be delivered during any broadcast.

OTT/CTV advertisers pay to target a specific household, not a specific broadcast.

Some advertisers like Comcast are beginning to sell “premium” inventory for live events.

I think streaming services need to re-evaluate how they are selling live event inventory.

They could have a pool of advertisers on performance based contracts, where the publisher only gets paid when a business result happens for the advertiser, such as a call or app download.

This allows the publisher to run these ads when the broadcast is running behind, and it doesn’t create a problem if this ad is cut short.

P.S. I think Disney knows this is an issue, doesn’t have an immediate fix for it, and would rather upset viewers than advertisers.

David Lammers works with a national agency while he grows the newsletter and PothosAdvertising.com

With more than 5 years of experience in the industry, David writes about the ideas and experiences of a junior in the modern advertising landscape.