BizSugar.com › Management › Advertising: Don't Spend More to Get Less - Businessweek

You can buy 30 seconds of ad time in the upcoming Super Bowl telecast for about $4 million. That’s up from $3.8 million last year and a mere $2.2 million in 2000. I guess Fox Sports (FOXA) didn’t get the memo that the economy is still sluggish.

Or perhaps it did. The network can get away with charging premium prices for ads in the Super Bowl because of its uniquely massive audience. It’s the only place left where you can reach more than 100 million people in one shot (and expect them to pay rapt attention to boot). But media inflation isn’t the exclusive domain of the Super Bowl; the cost of advertising in every medium continues to rise. I can’t think of the last time a media rep dropped by my office to announce a rate reduction.