Media Buying
Direct Sales
Advertising inventory sold by the station's internal account executives directly to local business owners, completely bypassing advertising agencies.
What is Direct Sales?
Direct Sales is the station's owned go-to-market channel: its own account executives calling on local and regional advertisers without an agency in between. The advertiser pays the full rate; the station keeps the full margin (no agency commission, typically 15 percent, gets clipped off the top).
Direct Sales is the highest-margin revenue a station can generate, but also the most labour-intensive. Every deal requires a rep to prospect, educate, pitch, close, and service a local business that may have no prior experience with broadcast advertising. Stations that invest heavily in sales enablement, intelligence tools, and CRM integration can materially accelerate their Direct Sales velocity — which is precisely the thesis behind platforms like Spotwise.
Why it matters
Yields higher profit margins as no agency commission is paid, but requires intense, highly consultative selling efforts by the local sales team.
Related terms
- Co-op Advertising (Co-operative)— An arrangement where a major product manufacturer financially subsidizes the advertising costs of a local retailer promoting their specific product.
- 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.
- Spot Television— Denotes all available commercial advertising time available for purchase from a local television station, encompassing both local and national spots.