It is just the number of people who are exposed to the medium and therefore have an opportunity to see or hear the ad or commercial.
Reach may be stated either as an absolute number, or as a fraction of a given population (for instance, "TV households", "men", or "those aged 25–35").
It seeks to maximise its reach to ensure all licence fee payers are receiving value.
In addition to reach, frequency of exposure is another important statistics used in advertising management.
When reach is multiplied by average frequency, a composite measure called gross rating points (GRPs) is obtained.