Reference library · Media planning
Daypart
A daypart is a defined block of the broadcast day — such as early morning, daytime, access, prime time, or late night — used to group TV inventory because audience size and composition shift by time of block. Planners buy, price, and report against dayparts rather than individual time slots, since a broadcaster's rate card and delivery guarantees are built around them.
Worked example
On a mid-size Romanian channel, Prime Time (19:00–23:00) delivers Adults 18-49 at a CPP of €120, while Daytime (09:00–16:00) delivers the same target at a CPP of €25. A plan buying 50 GRPs in Prime Time and 100 GRPs in Daytime spends 50 x €120 = €6,000 plus 100 x €25 = €2,500, for €8,500 across 150 GRPs (blended CPP €56.7). The split shows the planner trading Prime Time's stronger reach and composition against Daytime's far cheaper points to hit both budget and delivery targets.
How it is used
Planners set daypart mix at the plan brief stage, weighting spend toward dayparts that match the target's viewing patterns and the campaign's reach-versus-frequency goal, then track delivery against each daypart separately in post-buy analysis. The recurring mistake is assuming daypart boundaries are standard across channels or markets; each broadcaster defines its own start and end times for 'prime' or 'access', so a plan built on one channel's grid can misprice or misdeliver on another.
The common mistake
Confirm each broadcaster's own daypart boundaries and rate card rather than assuming a shared industry-standard grid.