An Exploratory Study of Television Advertising Practices: Do Profitability and Organization Size Affect Clearance Formality?

The 1991 study by Jan LeBlanc Wicks surveyed 476 commercial television station sales managers to examine if advertising clearance policies were influenced by station profitability and organization size. The study found that more profitable stations had more formal clearance practices, including a greater number of policy areas, a wider range of policy sources, and a higher likelihood of banning certain types of ads. While larger stations also tended to have more formal practices, organization size did not significantly affect the form of policy communication. The study concluded that profitability leads to more formal advertising clearance practices and that larger stations tend to have more formal practices, though not in all respects. Limitations of the study included low variance explained by the regressions and the potential for response bias, with suggestions for future research on the effectiveness of formal ad clearance policies and other factors influencing advertising clearance formality.