How to make a production schedule for a commercial.

A commercial production schedule has one honest starting point: the air date. Here's how producers build the schedule backward from it, stage by stage, with durations that hold up on real jobs.

Start from the air date and work backward

Everything in commercial production is negotiable except the air date. So don't plan forward from today, build a workback schedule: lock the air date, then place each stage behind it until you reach the bid. If the stages don't fit, you find out now, not in the edit.

The stages, with realistic durations

Durations vary by job, but for a typical single-spot national commercial, these hold up:

• Trafficking & delivery — 2–3 days before air. Closed captioning, slates, network specs. Never let this become an afterthought.
• Versioning & finishing — 5–7 days. Conform, color, mix, GFX, plus cutdowns and aspect-ratio versions.
• Client review rounds — 5–8 days. Two rounds minimum: rough cut and final cut, each with note time. This is the stage schedules most often under-count.
• Editorial — 8–12 days. Load footage, assembly, director's cut, agency cut.
• Shoot — 1–3 days. The shoot window itself, plus a travel/weather day if the job warrants it.
• Pre-production — 10–15 days. Casting, locations, wardrobe, art, and the PPM about a week before the shoot.
• Bidding & award — 5–10 days. Briefing production companies, reviewing bids, award, and contracts.

Count working days, then convert: 30 working days is roughly six calendar weeks once weekends and holidays are skipped. An 8-week runway from brief to air is comfortable; 6 is tight but doable; 4 means cutting review rounds and negotiating finishing in parallel.

What it looks like on a calendar

Here's a commercial laid out as a monthly calendar, color-coded by stage, the format brands, agencies, and production partners can all read at a glance:

Five rules that save schedules

1. Approvals are stages, not moments. “Client approval” is never one day. Book the round trip: send, review, notes, revise.
2. Put buffer where you control it. Editorial can absorb a day; the air date can't. Slack belongs mid-schedule.
3. Keep internal events out of client view. The brand doesn't need to see “internal PPM” or your bidding window. Filter what each audience sees.
4. One living schedule, not ten PDFs. The moment there are two versions in circulation, there is no schedule.
5. When a date moves, move everything honestly. A slipped shoot compresses post unless you re-plan; don't quietly eat the edit.

Spreadsheet, or production calendar software?

A spreadsheet can hold the first version of any schedule. It just can't keep up: date changes mean re-merging cells, colors drift, and stale copies multiply. Purpose-built production calendar software keeps one live, color-coded calendar, reschedules downstream stages in two clicks, and shares as a branded link. That's what Workback for commercials is, and the free production calendar template gives you the stages above out of the box. Start a free 30-day trial, no credit card required.