If you search for a price list for TV advertising, you will find either pages with prices per second dated 2019 or agency offers without any figures. Commercial TV advertising is not sold according to a price list and is not sold by the second. Let’s examine how it is actually sold.

Why There Are No Public Prices

TV channels are required to publish rates only for political advertising because this is required by election legislation. That is precisely why all the public tables with prices per second that can be found online relate to election campaigns and are dated to election periods. Commercial placements are sold through media agencies under individual agreements, where the final price depends on the volume of the client’s annual budget, the contract term, and the conditions of the particular season. As a result, two advertisers can pay amounts that differ several times for exactly the same placement.

How TV Advertising Is Sold

The key difference from all digital channels lies in the unit of measurement. You are not buying seconds or airings, but rating points, meaning the percentage of the target audience that saw your commercial. One rating point means that 1% of your target audience saw the commercial. The budget is calculated by multiplying the required number of points by the cost of one point. This leads to a logic that may seem counterintuitive: the channel is not selling you airtime, but a result in the form of reach. That is precisely why cheap nighttime airtime is not a good purchase, because the rating at that time is close to zero.

What This Means in Practice

An advertiser comes with an objective, for example, to reach 70% of women aged 25–45 with a contact frequency of four times. The agency calculates how many rating points are required for this and multiplies that number by the current cost per point for this audience. Next, a placement schedule is created across channels and time slots to achieve the required number of points at the lowest possible cost. In other words, you do not choose a specific program and a specific time. You buy reach, while the distribution across airtime is the agency’s job.

The Only Publicly Available Figures

To give you an idea of the scale of the figures, I will provide data on political advertising that channels published during election campaigns. It is worth stating immediately that these are figures from the 2019 election period, meaning they are outdated and do not reflect current commercial conditions. I am providing them exclusively to explain the pricing structure. The most expensive was airtime on a major national channel during the evening prime time, at approximately UAH 5,658 per second from 18:00 to 19:00. A 30-second commercial at that time cost approximately UAH 170,000, while a one-minute commercial cost more than UAH 300,000. Other major channels during prime time cost approximately UAH 1,000–2,700 per second. The cheapest time on the same channel cost approximately UAH 366 per second at 5 a.m. On the public broadcaster, prices were significantly lower, at approximately UAH 70 per second during prime time and approximately UAH 12 at night. The main thing these figures show is that prices within a single channel can vary by approximately 15 times depending on the time of day.

The Actual Entry Threshold

Here is the most useful figure from current sources. According to advertising agencies’ estimates as of 2026, the entry threshold for television is measured in hundreds of thousands of hryvnias, including commercial production. For comparison, the entry threshold for search advertising and social media targeting is approximately UAH 10,000. In other words, the difference between the cheapest and most expensive advertising channels in Ukraine is approximately two orders of magnitude.

What Is Included in the Budget Besides Airtime

Advertisers who calculate only the placement cost underestimate the final amount by approximately half. Commercial production is a separate expense, and for national airtime it is rarely cheap because the requirements for image and sound quality are high. Adapting the commercial to different durations, meaning 30-, 20-, and 15-second versions. The agency’s commission, because it is practically impossible to get airtime on a channel independently. Music rights if a composition is used in the commercial. Effectiveness research if you want to measure the results. Creative testing before launch.

When Television Makes Sense

It works for mass-reach objectives, meaning launching a new product on the national market or maintaining awareness of a major brand. It works for mass-market products with a low price point, where every percentage point of reach converts into sales. It works when your audience does not spend time on the internet, meaning older age groups and residents of small towns. It does not work for narrow niches because you pay for the channel’s entire audience, while the segment you need may account for only a few percent. It does not work for small businesses because the same money spent on digital channels generates many times more measurable inquiries. It does not work for products with a long decision-making cycle, where what is needed is not a single contact but a series of touchpoints.

The Main Difference from Digital Advertising

This is worth understanding before making a decision. On digital channels, you can see how many people clicked through, how many submitted an inquiry, and how many made a purchase, meaning you calculate the cost per customer. On television, you see reach and contact frequency, but the connection with sales is indirect and is measured through separate studies. This does not mean that television does not work. It means that it is measured using different tools and evaluated over a different time horizon. The practical conclusion is that if you need a measurable result within a month, television is not the right choice.

Lower-Threshold Alternatives

Regional channels cost several times less than national ones, and they can make sense for local businesses. Sponsoring a program instead of running direct advertising often costs less for the same volume of exposure. Product placement in programs. The TV channels’ own online platforms, meaning advertising on video services where targeting and measurable statistics are available. Advertising with major video bloggers provides comparable reach among younger audiences for a fraction of the budget.

How to Find Out Your Price

Define your objective in terms of the audience, meaning exactly who you want to reach, what percentage of the audience you want to reach, and at what frequency. Contact several media agencies for commercial proposals tailored to this objective. Compare the proposals by cost per rating point rather than by the total amount, because different agencies may include different volumes. Clarify what is included in the price and what is charged separately. Ask about seasonality because costs vary significantly depending on the period, and the fourth quarter is the most expensive.

Summary

There are no publicly available prices for commercial TV advertising in Ukraine because it is sold through agencies under individual agreements, while public rate cards exist only for political advertising and date back to election periods. What is purchased is not airtime but rating points, meaning the percentage of the audience reached. That is precisely why cheap nighttime airtime is not a good purchase. According to agencies’ estimates, the actual entry threshold is hundreds of thousands of hryvnias, including commercial production, meaning approximately 100 times higher than the threshold for digital channels. This is what makes television a tool for major brands rather than small businesses.

Sources

An estimate of the entry threshold for television from an advertising agency as of 2026. Data on the cost of political advertising on Ukrainian TV channels from publications by the CHESNO movement and public media during the 2019 election campaign, presented as a historical reference for the pricing structure.