Cheap Linear TV CPMs

Sean Frank discusses the opportunity in linear TV advertising as an underpriced marketing channel with extremely low CPMs compared to digital platforms.

Key Points:

• Ad Arbitrage Opportunity:

  • Linear TV (traditional television your parents watch) has CPMs around $1
  • Compared to Facebook at approximately $15 per thousand views
  • "It's all just an attention economy"

• Why It's So Cheap:

  • Thousands of channels have emerged with very small audiences
  • Some channels have only around 800 viewers
  • Nobody's buying this ad space, creating the price opportunity

• Implementation Strategy:

  • Buy big blocks of random ad space
  • Target male demographics specifically
  • Purchase across multiple low-viewership channels

• Context:

  • Part of a broader strategy of finding underpriced attention
  • Smart marketers look for these arbitrage opportunities before others discover them
  • Similar to how newsletters were an early opportunity that Ridge Wallet capitalized on