Advertising for Middlesex County businesses.

Broadcast for the river corridor runs through the Hartford–New Haven television market, which Nielsen ranks 32nd in the United States at 1,060,910 TV households (2024–25 Local Television Market Universe Estimates). Middlesex County sits inside it — and for a shoreline business that is unusually convenient, because the customer you want is not in Middlesex County. They are in Hartford, Farmington or Cheshire in March, deciding where to spend July.

Market-wide reach, which is a liability for a business selling only to its own town, is the point here. One buy on the Connecticut stations — NBC Connecticut (WVIT 30), FOX 61 (WTIC), WTNH 8 and WFSB — puts an Old Saybrook restaurant or an Essex marina in front of the whole inland household base that drives down Route 9 every summer, months before they set off. Seasonality means the timing of the schedule matters as much as the reach.

Most small businesses cannot justify a solo-buy broadcast budget for a seasonal push. The Ad Share Program pools non-competing Connecticut businesses into shared commercial inventory, splitting the cost while each keeps its own spots in the rotation — which suits a shoreline advertiser who needs presence in spring and early summer rather than year-round. OTT streaming on Roku, Hulu and ESPN adds ZIP-level targeting for the towns that actually feed your traffic.

Production runs out of our Southington green-screen studio, 30 to 45 minutes up Route 9, or on location along the river when the water is the sell. Rich Conway brings 25 years of Connecticut broadcast to the spot, and the same team buys the media and reports on it — one quote, one accountable partner, rather than a production company and a media buyer pointing at each other.

Middletown is the exception to the seasonal pattern and worth planning separately. Wesleyan gives the town a year-round population with its own rhythm — term dates, family weekends, graduation — rather than a summer peak, and a Middletown restaurant or professional practice is often selling to residents rather than visitors. For those we usually weight toward ZIP-targeted OTT and radio over a market-wide television buy, because the whole Hartford–New Haven footprint is more reach than the business can use.