Booked is not aired: why a media plan does not prove delivery
A plan says what was purchased. Delivery is a specific insertion on a specific channel. Here is why the two get confused, and what a usable record looks like.
A purchase order is not a broadcast
A media plan is a purchase. It lists channels, windows and creatives. It does not say whether that creative occupied the feed at the time that was bought.
The gap is ordinary. Traffic changes, a spot is pulled, a regional cut airs instead, a make-good slips a day. Monthly dashboards flatten that into a number that looks finished.
Why the plan cannot be the proof
- Plans describe intent. Delivery is an event on one channel at one time.
- Many platform reports skip linear television and radio, or fold them into a modelled figure.
- A screenshot taken after the break is not a record written when the break ran.
- Disputes start when someone asks for one insertion, not a campaign average.
Teams that only keep the plan reconstruct the week from memory, a traffic email, or a clip someone happened to save.
What a usable record looks like
Channel, clock, duration and a piece of evidence that opens. That is enough for marketing, finance and counsel to look at the same row.
The record does not decide a make-good. It gives the conversation a timestamp instead of a guess.
How to use it
Compare booked flights with detected insertions on the channels you actually monitor. Classify matched, missing and unexplained. Attach evidence to the rows that matter.
What you get is a list of questions with proof, not an automatic credit. Whether a gap becomes a make-good depends on the contract and the other side.