The booming TV commercial business: By the numbers

The economy is in the doldrums, network TV is increasingly irrelevant compared to cable, and advertisers are scaling back like just about every other business — right? Not according to a few new surveys of the TV advertising market, which is actually growing. Sunday night is the most expensive night to advertise, followed by Thursday. Friday is at the bottom of the heap. And live TV shows do better than pre-taped ones. What else can we learn about cash-cow commercials? Here, a look at the numbers:

$512,367

Average cost to run a 30-second ad on NBC's Sunday Night Football

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$502,900

Average cost to run a 30-second ad on Fox's American Idol on a typical Wednesday night

$640,000

Top cost to run a 30-second ad on American Idol, as the show nears its season finale

$320,669

Average cost to run a 30-second ad on Idol rival The X-Factor (Wednesday, Fox)

$29,000

Average cost to run a 30-second ad during CW's Nikita (Friday), a network primetime low

$2.7 million

Average cost to run an ad during Super Bowl XLII

47

Percent of marketers who have upped their TV ad budgets since 2009

23

Percent of marketers who have cut their TV ad budgets since 2009

82

Percent of marketers who say TV ads are at least as good a return on investment as in 2009

57

Percent of advertisers worried about TV viewers being distracted by web surfing or text messaging

$20 million

The most expensive ad ever made, from Guinness

$3.2 billion

Predicted cost for all political advertising in the 2012 election cycle

20

Percent increase in TV ad spending predicted for the presidential race

Sources: Advertising Age (2), New York, Broadcasting & Cable, Masters in Advertising