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Audit GRP delivery against the contracted plan

This job produces a verified GRP delivery variance for a finished flight against the contracted plan, with any make-good GRPs or cost quantified. It feeds the decision to accept the flight as delivered, invoice a make-good, or escalate to the seller's account team.

What you need first

  • Contracted flight schedule with target GRPs/TRPs by spot and daypart, from the signed insertion order
  • As-run log (affidavit) listing every spot actually aired, with date, time, channel and program, from the seller/broadcaster
  • Post-buy audience ratings for the actual air dates and target demo, from the panel currency (AGB Nielsen, GfK, Kantar or equivalent)
  • Target audience definition used in the buy (e.g. Adults 25-54), from the media plan
  • Delivery tolerance and make-good clause from the contract
  • Contracted cost per GRP (CPP), from the rate negotiation, to value any shortfall

The procedure

  1. Reconcile the as-run log against the contracted schedule to confirm which spots actually aired
  2. Match each aired spot to its post-buy rating for the contracted demo, producing actual GRP per spot
  3. Sum actual GRPs across the full flight to get total delivered GRP
  4. Calculate delivery variance as (delivered minus contracted) divided by contracted
  5. Check the variance against the contract's tolerance band to determine pass or fail
  6. Value any shortfall in GRPs at the contracted CPP to quantify the make-good owed
  7. Log spot-level exceptions (pre-emptions, wrong daypart, missed dates) as the audit trail supporting the finding

Worked through with numbers

Contracted: 40 spots, Adults 25-54, national TV, 4-week flight, target 800 GRP, CPP €450. The as-run log shows 38 spots aired, two pre-empted (one in week 2, one in week 3). Post-buy ratings for those 38 spots sum to 748 GRP delivered. Variance = (748-800)/800 = -6.5%. Contract tolerance is plus or minus 5%, so this fails. Shortfall = 800-748 = 52 GRP. Valued at the contracted CPP: 52 × €450 = €23,400 make-good owed, payable as bonus spots or cash credit. A result inside plus or minus 5% closes the audit with no action; a result outside it moves straight to the make-good clause.

Where it goes wrong

  • Pull ratings for the exact contracted demo, not the household or 'all adults' figure the affidavit often defaults to; using the wrong demo overstates delivery.
  • Audit GRP-weighted, not spot-count-weighted; a seller can air the full contracted spot count in cheaper slots and still under-deliver total GRPs.
  • Sum GRPs across the whole flight before judging variance by week; a +15% week and a -15% week average to zero but can mask bonus weight loaded into a cheaper period.
  • Apply the tolerance band at the level the contract specifies, per week or per daypart, when the clause says so; netting shortfalls across dayparts can hide a daypart-level breach.

How to know it is right

Independently re-sum the per-spot post-buy ratings from the raw panel data, not the seller's affidavit summary, and confirm it ties to the 748 GRP total before signing off.

Terms used

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