Remember Steve Austin? The Six Million Dollar Man? Well, if you hawked him at cost, you would still only be able to buy about 90 seconds of ad time on this year's two most anticipated television events. Joe Millionaire? He'd have to go dutch and split your typical 30-second spot.
Yes, advertisers are paying just over $2 million to air half-minute commercials during next week's Super Bowl or May's series finale of Friends. Despite the breadth of cable programming that now spans hundreds of channels, sponsors are willing to pay up nicely for the big winners. They just happen to be doing so in record fashion.
For General Electric's
So who wins? Anheuser-Busch
No, if you had to nail one big Super Bowl winner, it might very well be a sleepy energy company by the name of Reliant Resources
Will you be watching the Patriots and Panthers on Super Bowl Sunday or have you made other plans? How do you think Friends will wrap up its series? Any good midseason replacements on the broadcasting horizon? All this and more -- in theTelevision Banterdiscussion board. Only on Fool.com.