Host-Read Negotiation: Rate, Rights and Make-Goods

Rate is the smallest thing on the table. Across recent host-read deals we have moved published rates by 15 to 25 percent, and in most of them the rights we added were worth more than the discount was. The terms worth more than the rate: Category exclusivity, written narrowly and with named competitors rather than a category label a network can reinterpret, covering a window either side of your read rather than the episode alone. Embedded versus dynamically served reads, which is the term buyers most often give away for nothing: an embedded read stays in the back catalogue and keeps accruing downloads for years, while a dynamic read is pulled when the flight ends. On a show with a healthy catalogue that difference is worth a meaningful multiple of the same nominal CPM over eighteen months, and networks price the two identically far more often than they should. Position defined by timestamp, not by the word mid-roll, which on a fifty-minute episode can mean minute eight or minute thirty-four. Script approval turnaround stated in business days, with a named person on both sides. The host's explicit right to decline a line, written in, because a host reading copy they do not believe is worse for you than no read at all. Repurposing rights for the host's audio in paid social, scoped to named channels, a term in months and a maximum clip length. Renewal at a fixed rate if you exercise inside a stated window, which is where a good second flight is won. How make-goods get written: Against certified delivery, on a stated window, with a threshold and an automatic remedy. Our default is 90 percent of contracted downloads measured to IAB Tech Lab v2.2 inside thirty days of publication, remedied with additional inventory on the same show rather than credit against a future buy you may not want. Shortfall on a bonus impression is not a shortfall. Ambiguity here is not an oversight by the network, and the clause is nearly always accepted when you ask for it in writing at the point of the first offer rather than at signature. Reads we will not buy: An endorsement from a host who has not used the product. We send product three weeks ahead of the record; if the host will not use it, we buy an announcer read at announcer rates and stop calling it an endorsement. Scripts requiring a host to state an outcome claim in the first person, which in beauty and in education is both the most requested and the most damaging thing on the brief. Twelve-month prepayment. Bonus impressions offered instead of a rate reduction. Any deal where the host's own words are pre-scripted line by line, because the reason the format works is the only reason to pay for it. Not a fit: One show, one flight. Our fee is not worth it to you and we will say so. Deals needing signature this week, since the terms above are won by asking early and waiting. Brands who want a specific sentence said regardless of whether the host agrees with it. How the work runs: We negotiate under your name or under ours, whichever gives you the better position, and we tell you which we think it is. You see every counter before it is sent. We keep a rate history per show and per network, so the second year opens where the first year closed rather than at the published card. Legal review of the insertion order sits with your counsel; we mark the clauses that matter and the ones we would sign.