CNN’s Republican debate ad prices soar amid Trump hype

CNN’s upcoming Republican presidential debate could fetch more than $150,000 per 30-second ad due to the massive audience expected, according to multiple reports. 

One anonymous ad media buyer told Ad Age the news network is charging as much as $200,000 per spot. And CNN competitors had heard the ads could cost in the range of $150,000 per spot, The Los Angeles Times reported. 

{mosads}The inflated prices come after Fox News broke all previous debate ratings records with its Aug. 6 debate that featured Donald Trump and nine other top GOP candidates. About 24 million people tuned in to watch the debate, which produced contentious sparring between Trump and the debate moderators that carried over into the following week’s news cycle. 

CNN has been hyping the debate with a particular focus on Trump, releasing a movie-style trailer last week touting the event as “round two.”

It is unclear whether CNN’s ratings will keep pace with the Fox performance, but some expect the Sept. 16 event to break CNN viewing records. Fox News generally receives higher ratings than other news networks. 

The reported figures are wildly above the price normally charged for a 30-second spot on cable news, but in line with a traditional prime-time broadcast. Ad Age reported that a normal prime-time spot on CNN generally costs about $5,000. 

Ad experts had predicted the prices would go up after last month’s debate, describing the industry as a “supply and demand” business. 

According to 2013 statistics compiled by Pew Research, typical programming on CNN ranges around a cost per thousand viewers of about $5.95. That is an average rate, which certainly increases for a major prime-time event. 

Those figures are just below the reported CNN rates for the upcoming debate, if the network is expecting Fox News-type numbers. 

That is still far below Super Bowl ad rates, which average out to a cost of roughly $35 per every thousand of viewers, about the same amount as a major hit show, according to Forbes.