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by Staff -- Multichannel News, 2/8/2010 2:00:00 AM
Seeking Local Olympic Green
New York — The athletes’ preferred colors are gold, silver and bronze, but local ad-sales executives have their sights set on Olympic green.
Armed with units in CNBC, MSNBC and USA Network’s combined 240-plus hours of coverage from Feb. 12 to 28, local sales execs have significant inventory to sell, including taggable athlete spots and the chance to pitch “[Advertiser] is a proud local advertiser in NBC Universal’s coverage of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics Winter Games.”
“Clients know there is equity in sponsoring the Olympics on cable,” said NBCU senior vice president of marketing and sales strategy, TV Networks Distribution Brian Hunt, who noted some 400 have signed up to NBCU’s Olympic affiliate site, albeit some only for marketing purposes. “There is a lot of interest in the Olympics. We’re trending ahead of [the 2006 Winter Games in] Torino.”
Mike D’Ambra, national sales manager and director of sports sales for Bresnan Communications, concurred.
“We put [the local ad sales package] out in November and there was a strong response,” he said. “In some areas, we are sold out.”
Marc Stein, area sales manager west, Comcast Spotlight New England, said the Olympics have been “a good seasonable business,” with sporting goods and ski manufacturers in tow, as well as ski resorts.
“Some skating centers also have been taking advantage of this,” Stein said, noting that the Games have drawn some new advertisers. “We’ll see if they become long-term clients.”
While Bresnan has written an Olympic order from a ski resort and Vann’s, an electronics retailer serving Montana, much of the action has come from a category where people are either trying to live vicariously through the rings, or just making nice with their loved one on Valentine’s Day.
“I just did an audit, and 32% of sales have been with jewelry-store clients,” said D’Ambra. “After that banks and credit unions have also been a big part.”
— Mike Reynolds
TNT Ups All-Star Promo Quotient
Atlanta — Turner Sports will look to take its marketing shots for TNT’s Feb. 14 National Basketball Association All-Star Game telecast outside the sports media arc to avoid a very cluttered marketplace due to promotion for the Feb. 8 Super Bowl and the Feb. 12 start of the Vancouver Winter Olympics.
While Turner will aggressively promote its overall All-Star game weekend festivities through league-related digital platforms such as “NBA League Pass,” NBA TV and NBA.com — as well as the various Turner cable networks — Turner Sports senior vice president of strategy, marketing and promotions Christina Miller said there are plans for what amounts to a double-digit increase in the number of All Star Game-related TV spots on non-sports broadcast and cable networks compared to last season.
Turner also will run ads in Entertainment Weekly and USA Today and other print outlets to reach a broader swath of consumers.
Turner will reach into the entertainment ranks, too, as R&B singer Usher is featured in Turner’s main All-Star game spot and will perform at the event. Grammy-award winning singers Shakira, Alicia Keys and Mary J Blige are also expected to perform during All-Star weekend.
— R. Thomas Umstead
FCC Grants Waivers For Huawei, Evolution STBs
Washington— The Federal Communications Commission on Feb. 3 approved waiver requests from Huawei Technologies and Evolution Broadband, exempting five more low-cost, limited-function set-tops for a three-year period from a rule prohibiting cable operators from using boxes with integrated security functions.
The waiver approvals come after the FCC last year OK’d similar digital-terminal adapters from Motorola, Cisco Systems, Pace, and Thomson (which has since adopted the Technicolor name), as well as two previous models from Evolution.
The devices cleared by the FCC were Huawei’s DC-730 and DC-732 set-top boxes; and Evolution’s DMS-2002-CA (an MPEG-2 SD DTA with integrated security from Conax), DMS-1004-CA (an SD MPEG-4/2 DTA with integrated security from Conax), and DMS-2002-U (MPEG-2 SD DTA designed to work in existing Motorola and Cisco cable systems).
Michael Vick Docu Draws 2.8M Total Viewers to BET
Washington — The Feb. 2 premiere episode of Black Entertainment Television’s original reality series The Michael Vick Project drew 1.6 million viewers, according to BET officials.
An encore presentation of the docu-series series drew an additional 1.15 million viewers, bringing the final audience score to 2.8 million watchers.
The Michael Vick Project stands as the number one BET original series telecast of 2010. The premiere episode also posted double-digit time slot gains of 46% versus last year, said the network.
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