Media Buying
Avail (Availability)
Unsold units of commercial time available for broadcasters to sell to prospective advertisers.
What is Avail (Availability)?
An Avail is an open slot on a station's log — a piece of inventory that has not yet been committed to a paying advertiser. Stations manage Avails like airlines manage empty seats: every daypart has a finite number, every unsold slot is revenue that can never be recovered, and dynamic rate adjustments are used to clear inventory as air time approaches.
For sales reps, Avails are the raw material of the pitch. The sales conversation usually begins with identifying a prospect's budget and daypart preference, then mapping that need onto the station's current Avail grid. Modern ad-intelligence platforms accelerate this by showing exactly which competitor-sponsored slots are vulnerable to being won back if a rep moves fast.
Why it matters
Spotwise alerts sales representatives to which competitor advertisers could be pitched to effectively fill an upcoming, unsold station avail.
Related terms
- Daypart— The specific time segments into which a broadcast day is divided for the purpose of selling advertising time (e.
- Direct Sales— Advertising inventory sold by the station's internal account executives directly to local business owners, completely bypassing advertising agencies.
- Remnant Inventory— Unsold advertising space that is typically sold at a steep discount at the last minute to avoid broadcasting dead air.
- ROS (Run of Schedule / Run of Station)— An advertising agreement where commercials are distributed randomly across all available dayparts and days.