Supply and demand. A basic economic principle that states…
The larger the supply of inventory I have of a product or service the larger the demand I need to support prices for that supply. 
If there is more demand than supply, it would be easy for me to raise my prices. In a free market, if I have a larger supply than demand, I may need to lower prices in order to create more demand so I can sell my inventory.
So, how does “supply and demand” apply to media outlets selling their advertising inventory? It would seem simple—if they have a lot of inventory to sell, they would sell it at a lower price. Or, if they had limited inventory, they would sell it at a higher price, and in many cases, they do price their inventory this way.
However, when humans are involved and businesses and salespeople are trying to maximize revenues and margins, things are rarely simple.
Check out Part 2 of this post to see how supply and demand affects media types differently.
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