The “new normal” in TV commercial production

“New normal” is the new hot term in the business vernacular, and the world of TV commercial production is no exception. A producer I know recently gave me an inkling of what this “new normal” might look like. She told me that TV commercial budgets are aggressively being slashed, and of course we are well aware that TV commercial production is declining in Los Angeles — this we already knew. But what is also happening is that clients are making production companies cram more than one TV spot into one shoot day. She had recently returned from a job in which they had to shoot three commercials in one day. “It was an intense day,” she mused. No kidding.

Video production is not immune to this phenomenon. On top of all this is the bizarre belief held by some clients that just because you are making something for the web, it will cost less, despite being substantially longer than the classic 30-second TV spot.

“It’s a 2-minute piece of branded content but its production will cost less than a 30-second spot because it’s for the Internet, not for TV.” That’s their reasoning. Interesting times indeed.