Reference library · Inventory pricing
Ad Inventory (Avails)
Ad inventory (avails) is the set of spots, placements, or impressions a seller still has open to sell within a given period, channel, or platform, before a booking deadline closes it out. Planners and sellers check avails to know what capacity remains uncommitted at any point between plan approval and flight start.
Worked example
A regional TV channel's 20:00-22:00 primetime break has capacity for 40 x 30" spot-equivalents per week. Three weeks before flight, 31 are already booked by other advertisers, leaving 9 avails. The rep marks the break 78% sold (31/40) and quotes the remaining 9 at a premium CPT before opening any to rate-card discount deals.
How it is used
Sellers publish avails to agencies through rate cards, rep calls, or programmatic supply feeds so buyers know what's still open before a deadline; digital and addressable platforms expose avails live via API as impression counts by placement and date. Planners pull avails before finalizing a schedule, since a plan built against stale avails can collapse if another buyer books the same slots first. The recurring mistake is treating a quoted avails figure as fixed capacity rather than a number that shifts hourly as holds convert to bookings or lapse.
The common mistake
Avails must be re-checked close to the booking deadline, not taken from an earlier quote, because holds and cancellations change the real number continuously.