Build a radio advertising planning template or borrow one?

What to take away

Build one if you need a single page for one campaign and a named approver; borrow a structure if you want the six headings, a filled row and UK clearance names before you start.
The template is a working document, not a form. Keep the objective and measurement fields at the top and review them quarterly.
The six sections are objective and audience, station and slot list, budget line, creative and approvals, measurement, and compliance and due diligence.
Compliance sits in the template. Include Radiocentre copy clearance for radio, Clearcast for TV, and a line for Ofcom and ASA checks.
If you would rather plan the whole campaign before the template, work through the radio advertising: strategy and planning guide for 2027 first and lift its headings into your own grid.

Start from the booking sheet, not the brief

Most English teams already have a booking sheet. It lists stations, spot lengths and rates. What it rarely holds is why the campaign exists, and that is the field planners argue about in week three.

Booking sheet vs planning template

Booking sheet

Stations: listed
Spot lengths: listed
Rates: listed
Objective: missing
Owner named: no

Planning template

Stations: listed
Spot lengths: listed
Rates: listed
Objective: top row, dated
Owner named: yes

So treat the template as a booking sheet with an argument attached. One tab for the plan, one for the numbers, one for approvals. Nothing more elaborate than that.

The six sections every template needs

Objective and audience. One sentence on the outcome, one line on who hears it. Name the English region and the station type, for example a Manchester commercial station or a digital-only service.

Budget lines in one quarter

£400monthly production
£6,000airtime across the quarter
2separate budget lines

Six sections every template needs

Objective and audience
Station and slot list
Budget line
Creative and approvals
Measurement
Compliance and due diligence

Station and slot list. Station, programme or daypart, spot length, weekly weight, rate card, negotiated rate. Keep rate card and negotiated rate in separate columns so discount drift is visible.

Budget line. Production, media, contingency. For example, a team paying £400 a month for production and £6,000 for airtime across a quarter needs those as two lines, not one.

For UK benchmarks, Radiocentre publishes commercial radio revenue and listening data, and Ofcom's Communications Market Report gives market context. Station rate cards remain the only source for actual spot prices.

Creative and approvals. Script version, Radiocentre copy clearance for radio (and Clearcast for TV), sign-off name, date. Radio clearance is quicker when the script arrived with the brief attached.

Measurement. What you will count, from which source, on which date. Tying measurement to a named source keeps the claim defensible under the Data Protection Act 2018, which sets the statutory framework for personal data used in ad targeting and measurement.

Compliance and due diligence. A short line confirming the station and any intermediary are clear of outstanding regulatory action under the Ofcom Broadcasting Code and the ASA CAP Code. The ASA sanctions list is the practical place to check before signing.

Copy this table into your own sheet and replace the example row with your campaign.

Field	Example row
Objective and owner	Increase weekday breakfast bookings for a Manchester retailer, owner: marketing lead
Audience and region	Adults 25 to 54 in Greater Manchester, commercial local station
Station and slot	Station X, breakfast, 30 second spot, 10 spots per week
Rate card and negotiated rate	Ask station for current rate card; negotiated rate depends on daypart, spot length and weekly weight
Budget	Production £400 per month; airtime £6,000 for the quarter; contingency held back for overruns
Creative and clearance	Script v2, Radiocentre copy clearance for radio, Clearcast if TV, sign-off at approval
Measurement	Weekly reach and response code, source: station post-campaign report, review after campaign
Compliance	Checked Radiocentre, ASA sanctions list and Ofcom Broadcasting Code at sign-off

Where planners go wrong

They build the template around the media owner's rate card. That inverts the logic. The rate card is an input, not the spine.

They also leave measurement to the end, then discover the station cannot report on the metric that mattered. Put the metric in before the first call.

A third fault is version control. Two planners, two files, one budget. Keep one file with a date in the filename and a named owner.

TV and radio in one template

Only if the same person approves both. If radio sits with a different budget holder, keep it separate. Mixing the two makes the approval chain ambiguous, and ambiguity is what delays booking.

Review cycle for the template

Review the objective and measurement fields every quarter. Leave the station and rate columns alone unless your buying route changes. Frequent edits to structure cost more time than they save.

Glossary for new planners

Daypart.: A named block of the broadcast day, such as breakfast or drive.
Weight.: How often a spot runs in a period, usually expressed as a weekly total.
Rate card.: The published price before negotiation.
Clearance.: The station's check that a script meets the advertising codes.
Spot length.: The duration of a single commercial, commonly 20, 30 or 40 seconds.
Contingency.: Budget held back for overruns or extra weight.

Using the template without a training course

The template does not teach media planning. If your team needs objective setting and media selection, the CIM runs short courses, but the sample row above is enough to start.

If your campaign runs to a fixed window, pair the template with the radio advertising ninety day plan in England so the weekly rows match a known sequence rather than an invented one.

Common questions

What goes in the first row of a radio advertising planning template?

The objective, with a date and a named owner. Everything else, including station choice and budget, is judged against that sentence, so it belongs at the top where it is read first.

Do I need a separate field for regulatory checks?

Yes. One line recording that the station and any intermediary were checked against published sanctions information gives you a dated audit trail and takes seconds to complete.

Can I use a spreadsheet instead of dedicated planning software?

For most English campaigns under a few hundred thousand pounds, yes. A three-tab spreadsheet holds the plan, the numbers and the approvals without licence costs or training time.

Who should own the template?

The person who signs off the budget. Ownership sits with the approver, while the day-to-day filling in can sit with a planner or buyer.