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American Idol Will Cost You

So how much do those endless commercial breaks cost companies during prime time? It looks like booking a spot on `American Idol` will cost them top dollar. For the third consecutive year, Fox`s rating king will charge between half a million to 700,000 for a 30-second spot. Tuesday nights performance shows will cost the most, and the results show on Wednesday will remain the second priciest hour of TV.

During the finals this past year, companies who wanted a piece of `American Idol` had to fork over a mind boggling amount of $1.3 million but still remained in the shadow of Oscar ads which, starting in the year 2000, went for $1 million and climbed higher in recent years. It might still take a while for `Idol` spots to surpass the Superbowl`s claim to fame, after the latter raked in $2.5 million per ad during the Superbowl break.

Advertising Age, a trade publication, observed that some marketers will pay significantly less for a spot, when the show returns in January, depending on the number of spots they buy on it throughout the season and their overall ad commitment to the Fox network.