Jack, I agree that allocating budgets across 209 DMAs and then negotiating, trafficking, posting and measuring it as a national campaign was virtually impossible even a few years ago, as much because of social engineering issues, not just mismatched systems, lack of automation, lack of standards, etc. However, today, the corporate and organizational resistance is melting and systems built in the data-driven linear world for national can be adapted to incorporate local broadcast pretty efficiently. Many of us have been doing it in some ways for some time, particularly relative to the diginets, which have been pretty agressive about being included in national programs. Finally, pricing flexibility and better management of preemption issues at local stations is also opening up.
Thus, I agree with Ed that integrating the local broadcast spots into national programs is not only essential for competition with the digital players, but is essential for upping TVs game in maximizing value for advertisers. Not only can hybridizing the campaigns now be done, it must be done.

Jack, it all depends on the situation a brand finds itself in. For many national brands precision geotargeting may be overkill or they rely on local store advertising to carry the ball regionally. For others, which target very afflujent consumers or certain ethnic groups, local GRP weighting laid in on top of national umbrella media buys can make sense.

As for execution, you need certain data. First, a pretty good indication of sales potential in each area. Second, an indicadion of how your national buys generate GRPs in each area. Third, you need cost per rating point data for each area for the kinds of TV you would use locally.

Given that info--which you would need anyway--even if you went to You Tube or Meta--it's a faiurly simple computer exercise--quite routine, I might add for those advertisers who do this not in all markets but in markets they consider key areas.  The computer figures out what the GRPs will be in each area for the national buy. Then it tries to add local GRPs--as cost efficiently  as possible--in those markets that are underdelivering media weight relative to the desired amount. Then, the buys are made locally, to the  reqired add-on GRP levels. As for markets where the national buys, themselves, overdeliver, there's little you can do about that.

All impressions are not equal but nothing has induced advertisers to make adjustments save attributions they can get. From digital. All I'm saying is the work of allocating budgets to stations within markets across 209 DMAs is immense and few actually do that anymore. Should they?  

Guys, are you saying that  a national TV advertiser who, somehow,  develops a sensible targeting strategy that  calls for certain amounts of GRPs in each market or more refined geographic area should forget  about buying time on  local TV stations--or spot cable---- and use You Tube and Meta instead to save the hassle of  TV time buying while still getting the assumed benefits of geographic targeting?

But what about measurement ? Do you simply trust the sellers to deliver what's promised? And what about commercial positionning --and zapping?And how about the kinds of program or editorial  content your commercials will be adjacent to? Last, but not least, what about all of those ad attentiveness studies that show social media as well as You Tube performing at far  lower levels than linear TV or CTV? Media Post just did a report on one of them.

Are all "impressions" really of equal value?

Jack, yep. Digital streamers sell geo ads all of the time. Plus, national programmers are pushing hard thise days on national linear addressable, so there is some movement. Just hopoding that the big M&A deals will, literally, force the linear TV silos to break down much faster.

Dave you are spot on. Buyers can go local without the hassle of dealing with local tv stations and all the work involved. It's just easier to ask Google or Facebook etc to purchase by geography using a few regions instead of hundreds of markets and thousands of stations -- and likely close to being as effective. Save the money time and effort and spend it on ads instead. 

Ed, excellent point about the challenge at the client side and the turnover at brand management as a key issue that has slowed down more progressive media strategies like integratinig national and local TV media guys. However, the other cross-current that is happening at the client (and agency) is the ascension of digital buyers and marketers who view media first through an audience and impression lense and don't spend much time feeling constrained by the disparate distrubtoin paths that get the ad to that person.

Thanks Dave. 

But I need to elaborate on this. When I point out that many national advertisers don't have a locasl market strategy, that's not because the large media buying agencies have pushed them away from spot TV as it's more expensive to handle. If a brand wants to use spot TV it pays a higher fee that covers the buying/servicing costs and yields a profit to the buying agency. The problem is high turnover of brand management ---hence ignorancec about local market conditions and sales potentials---and a lack of interest in tailoring media weight for each of 200 local TV markets. Many advertisers don't have a feel for whether such weightings would pay out--so they don't bother.

Regarding the quality of local market ratings, this is not because the networks wanted it so. It's because of the costs of coming even close to the national level re panel size at the local level are too great for the stations as a group to bear relative to the small amounts of national ad dollars invovled.

While interesting, studies on so-called news deserts seem a bit print-biased and negate the fact that what qualifies as "news" in very small markets isn't really "journalism."  Like someone's son achieving Eagle Scout, the high school football team winning the regional title.  Sometimes that's really all the news that happens in a town of 4,000.  When the last printed newspaper in a county shuts down, Northwestern and other schools declare it a news desert despite the fact that local radio stations still exist and that many of them have viable news operations with journalists. Quite a few even have news-only websites unbranded to the stations. In fact, the article cited in the Northwestern study talks about Dunn County, ND, as a news desert and never mentions https://www.newsdakota.com/category/news/, a standalone website with real journalists covering news throughout the region. In Nebraska, a dozen counties listed are considered news deserts, yet the Rural Radio Network https://ruralradio.com/rrn/ covers local and regional news for all of them.... again, with real journalists. These sites are not only popular (if thousands of Facebook followers are an indication), but also something that weekly newspapers are typically not: profitable.

Great points Ed, Spot on. I think that two major factors drove the three poins you mentioned. One, the major holdcos were consolidating their positions and pushed hard to make national a simple of a wholesale buy as they could, and adding in local spots added way to much compliexity and friction and so they pushed back. Two, the national sellers didn't want the local station owners to get into their swim lane, to they pushed hard and, among other things, worked hard to keep the national and local measurements very separate.
On both of the above counts, we now see less capacity to resist and, relative to the second, some real incentives to embrace rather than resist. It will be interesting to watch.

I enjoyed Bad Bunny's halftime show was entertaining I got a lot of dancing and having fun even know I didn't know what was said since I don't know Spanish wanted some English or subtitles as well. Thanks Joe for translating what Bad Bunny songs were in English.

Dave, for many decades, the TVB and others have made the rounds of national TV advertisers and their agencies suggesting the notion of integrating national TV buys with local ones--the latter weighted by geographic targeting factors. Everywhere they were told that their ideas were well put and very interesting--but over the same period of time the average TV station has seen its share of national spot business dwindle relative to its local ad revenues--not increase.

Several factors are involved.

One is the changing nature of national advertisers. At the outset and for about 20 years, they were heavily cigarette, automotive  and packaged goods and they invested  in spot TV. But now there are many  new players who think national and are much less concerned with  geographc targeting. Worse, few of these companies have a sound market by market sense of what works, what the ROI might be if they increased local ad spend on top of national buys, ,etc.

Another issue concerns the look of the buys and their merchandisability. Increasingly,  the new breed of national advertiser is concerned about the context and associations or imagry that national buys on well publicized programs gives them. In contrast, buying various amounts of GRPs locally in syndicated game shows or talk shows or  news----all reaching mostly old consumers---- isn't all that inviting a prospect. And let's not forget that the local market ratings are primitive compared to their national counterparts.

Finally, national TV is "fun"--the upfront portion, in particular. And buyers often advance their careers by seeking jobs with the big time sellers they befriend and do business with. But spot buying isn't "fun"--it's a grind. If you try to convert a national time buyer into a spot buyer for a lot of his/her time, you will meet resistence. They will assign the spot part to beginners and trainees and do the more interesting --"fun" --- buying themselves.


My point is, yep, in theory, you are right. But  real world considerations will probably work against it--even if I happen to agree with you.

I am not a fan of the NFL, largely because they spent decades denying their players were suffering from excessive brain injuries, but if they choose the half-time show in ANY way to protest what the Trump administration has been up to with ICE - and its racism in general - then kudos to the NFL. 

There have been plenty of latino performers in the past at halftime during the SuperBowl.

I personally question wny you and Adam follow the race card/angle when there should be none.  "Make the Super Bowl even more relevant to segments of the American culture that historically have been underrepresented."

Who is underrepresented?  24% of the NFL consists of white players, 56% black, and the rest mixed or other races.  That's basically the opposite of the general population. Why does the superbowl halftime need to be agenda driven? 

It's almost an even split of men and women who watch the SuperBowl and roughly 10% are under age 18.

Seems like everyone has a different opinion on who the halftime show is supposed to entertain, but according to Seth Dudowsky from the NFL who leads the music initiative, they choose artists who offer "Cultural Relevance,  Broad Appeal, Performance Value, and a
Clean Track Record."

Did the NFL follow its own rules for the halftime performer? Bad Bunny's audience certainly does not tick the "Broad Appeal" box based on his social following and those who buy his music, but it ticks everything else.  Is that good enough?  I guess it was good enough for the NFL.

@Artie White: Hmm, also worth noting that MediaPost covered "Bad Bunny" in 33 articles leading up to the Super Bowl, according to our internal search engine:

https://www.mediapost.com/publications/search/?q=%22Bad+Bunny%22

Bad Bunny was Spotify’s most-streamed artist worldwide in 2025 (and around #5 in the U.S.) with about 19.8 billion streams. That placed him ahead of Taylor Swift, The Weeknd, Drake, and Billie Eilish. 

So based on the stats in this article, if only 14% of people in the U.S. speak Spanish at home, that means millions of people in the U.S. enjoy his music regardless of their level of comprehension of the lyrics.

As a lifelong music fan, I personally don't need to understand every single word to understand the sentiment of the performance and be entertained. Subtitles are not essential to music. But that's just me.

Bad Bunny was the 5th most streamed artist in the U.S. in 2025 (and #1 worldwide!) on Spotify. To say that you never heard of him before the Super Bowl just means you aren't paying attemtion to current popular music. To be fair, that describes me as well. But clearly he is very relevant to millions of younger Americans, a majority of whom don't speak Spanish.

@Laurie Sullivan: Muy interesante! Or as Tito Puente might have said, "Oye cómo va!" Also think it's worth noting that about a dozen of Santana's most prominent songs were entirely in Spanish. Oh bueno!

https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/santana-en-espa%C3%B1ol/pl.d81496cc97e34e55aba48f23b7fb83fc

Complete marketing play by Rimas, in my opinion, because he declined to tour the U.S. I never heard of him before the Super Bowl, and my grandchildren are half Latino. We dance through the house singing Santana's songs, not Bad Bunny's. Viva la Santana!

Thank you for writing this. Santana would have been a better choice. 

I didn't understand what Bad Bunny was saying since I don't speak Spanish wish there was some songs spoken in English was great to see Lady GAGA & Ricky Martin. Looked like a lot was dancing and having a good time that is what I got from the halftime show and I had no problem with him touching his croch.

I think no one would've gotten arrested if Bad Bunny had a US tour in my opinion.

Article was right on the money. 
Why do an entire show in spanish with zero subtitles or explanation of the songs, the theme or the purpose leaving the majoirty of the audience in the dark?  I was disappointed and surprised that the NFL chose this direction.   Sure, some viewers may've got some entertainment value if  they like dance, but it unequivocally alienated and ostracized too many people who wanted to enjoy and understand the show.  With so many potential "universal" artists available, a very poor decision.

Thanks Joe. This is the correct take. Also, the lyrics translation put Bad Bunny firmly in the safe zone relative to past halftime performers like Janet Jackson, Madonna, or Shakira.