Turner Shifts Ad Guarantees From Demos to Audiences

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Turner Broadcasting said it is replacing traditional demo guarantees for some of its ad sales with audience-based guarantees similar to digital-based advertising.

At its upfront presentation Wednesday (May 13), Turner introduced what it calls Audience Now, which allows advertisers to target viewers regardless of daypart. “In this new world, dayparts are dead. These are pure audience-based guarantees for television, just like you get in digital,” said Donna Speciale, president of ad sales at Turner.

Turner is hoping to generate premium pricing for those viewers, particularly those not watching in traditional primetime.

Audience Now is the latest step in a concerted digital strategy by the cable TV programmer designed to combine content and data. It also signals that while most TV networks at talking about data, Turner is ready to disrupt its traditional ad sales model in search of growth at a time when ad revenue growth is limited because increasingly viewers and ad dollars are going online.

At Turner, Audience Now joins a number of data products, starting with Targeting Now, which is moving from beta to wider availability during this year’s upfront. Targeting Now gives advertisers a more concentrated delivery of viewers within a target.

Read more at B&C.

Jon Lafayette

Jon has been business editor of Broadcasting+Cable since 2010. He focuses on revenue-generating activities, including advertising and distribution, as well as executive intrigue and merger and acquisition activity. Just about any story is fair game, if a dollar sign can make its way into the article. Before B+C, Jon covered the industry for TVWeek, Cable World, Electronic Media, Advertising Age and The New York Post. A native New Yorker, Jon is hiding in plain sight in the suburbs of Chicago.