Content Cost per Hour
Average production or licensing cost per hour of content
What is Content Cost per Hour?
Content cost per hour is the average spend for each hour of content produced or acquired. It shows how much a media business pays to fill its schedule or library.
Content is usually the biggest cost for a media business, so understanding the cost per hour helps plan budgets and choose what to commission.
How this KPI is measured
- Function
- Finance
- Sub-function
- Content Economics
- Industry
- Media & Entertainment
- Type
- Lagging
- Impact
- Financial control
- Unit
- $ per hour
- Measurement frequency
- Quarterly / Annual
- Formula
- Total content spend / Total hours of content produced or acquired
How to calculate it
Divide total content spend by total hours of content produced or acquired.
For example, if a broadcaster spent 12,000,000 to produce and acquire 400 hours, the cost per hour is 30,000.
Split by genre and by produced versus acquired, since costs differ widely between drama, news, reality and licensed programmes.
Where it is used
Budgeting content
Plan schedule costs.
Comparing genres and sources
Find best value.
Judging return
Read with audience and revenue per hour.
How to improve it
Tips and common mistakes
- The cheapest hour is not the best if nobody watches.
- Compare like genres.
- Include all production and rights costs.
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