Wireless carriers in the United States spent $291 million on TV advertising in December, a new study conducted by Fierce Wireless and iSpot.tv found. The largest brands in the country paid for 114 national TV ads that aired on 55,446 occasions over the course of the month. Verizon was the biggest spender during this period as the New Jersey company accounted for 31.4% of the figure listed above, spending over $91 million on 21 advertising spots in December. Verizon’s ads were aired 12,732 times last month, with the most expensive one costing the firm approximately $19.6 million. Verizon opted to use the largest chunk of its TV advertising budget in December on an ad promoting the company’s four-line plan with 20GB of data, as well as the Google Pixel and the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge.
AT&T was the second biggest spender in this segment over the course of the last month, with the firm spending $46.5 million on 18 TV ads that aired on 7,701 occasions. During the same period, T-Mobile and Sprint spent $44.3 million and $44.2 million, respectively. MetroPCS, a Texas-based prepaid wireless service provider, was the fifth biggest spender in this segment last month, as the company purchased approximately $23.7 million in TV advertising. The rest of the industry spent approximately $41 million on TV ads in December.
In total, Verizon and AT&T accounted for almost half of all TV advertising spending wireless carriers did in December. While the number of airings they received for their money is comparatively lower to that of other carriers, the difference can be explained by the fact that the two largest companies in the sector were likely looking to air their TV ads during prime times. This is further evidenced by the fact that Verizon generated 4.4 billion TV ad impressions in December, a billion more than T-Mobile and Sprint combined. Finally, the five companies seemingly focused their TV advertising efforts on sports programming, especially the NFL and the NBA. It’s expected that all US wireless carriers will lower their ad spending in January seeing how December is traditionally a period of aggressive holiday promotions that firms are more likely to advertise. A more detailed breakdown of this study is available at the link below.