TOP STORY
- Comcast: ‘Monster’ Market for On-Demand Ads
Comcast Spotlight expects its deal with Monster Worldwide Inc. to spur similar on-demand ad sales deals. But the MSO has already been successfully selling such ads locally for two-and-a-half years, according to Comcast Spotlight's Greg O’Brien. more » » »
GREAT IDEAS
- Learning To Listen Up
There are several reasons clients become frustrated with sales people, but none is more annoying than when a sales person doesn’t listen to what the client really wants, according Kelley Robertson, author of The Secrets of Power Selling and a columnist with Sales and Marketing Management. more » » »
Q&A: NCC’s Schaefer On DirecTV Deal
- Q&A: NCC’s Schaefer on DirecTV Deal
Last summer DirecTV cut a deal with National Cable Communications whereby NCC will sell local avails on DirecTV’s regional sports inventory. The entities said the partnership would be a win-win for both sides even though the satellite provider and the MSOs that own and contract with NCC directly compete for customers. NCC president Greg Schaefer spoke with Local Ad Sales contributor K.C. Neel about the deal. more » » »
BRIEFING ROOM
- Cablevision, Facebook Sign Up As ARF Members
Cablevision Systems, Rainbow Media, ABC Family and Facebook head a list of 34 members who have joined the Advertising Research Foundation since June, representing a cross-section of the advertiser/ad agency/media/research and academic communities. Cablevision is part of a large media group—including ABC Family and Disney Kids, Catalina Marketing, Fuse, National Cinemedia, PBS Kids Sprout, Rainbow Media and Tribune Media Net—that have just joined ARF. The new members also include such major advertisers as Hasbro, Eli Lilly, Kimberly-Clark, Mars, Novartis, UBS, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, and Bain & Company. more
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- Time Warner Cable Licenses BIAP Software For Advanced Ads
Time Warner Cable has signed a five-year agreement with interactive TV software developer BIAP for the use of BIAP’s ETV User Agent as part of the cable operator’s advanced-advertising platform. The license agreement, terms of which were not disclosed, will allow Time Warner Cable’s digital set-top boxes to run Enhanced TV Binary Interchange Format applications created by the operator or by television networks and other third parties. In addition, Time Warner Cable will use the BIAP ETV User Agent as part of the next version of its interactive program guide. more » » »
- Cable Pockets Healthy Share of Political Ad Dollars
Cable appears to have attracted 18% to 20% of the overall advertising spend by the candidates for president, according to Tim Kay, director of political strategy for National Cable Communications, which sells spot cable space for owners Comcast Corp., Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable. He estimated that cable also got 15% to 18% of the advertising for congressional and local races. In September, Evan Tracey, founder and COO of Campaign Media Analysis Group, predicted that the political ad spend will top out at about $3 billion, with $500 million of that spend on media other than broadcast television. But cable is splitting some of the non-broadcast buy with radio, he said. Local radio is “back in vogue,” he said, noting that in Washington D.C., Republican contender Sen.
John McCain bought radio instead of television. By Oct. 25, broadcasters in the swing states, including Ohio, Florida, Colorado and New Mexico “were saturated,” Tracey said, and campaigns had begun buying as much ad availabilities in Kentucky, North Carolina and Georgia as they could. more » » »
- Obama Ad Seen By 33.5 Million Viewers
Sen. Barack Obama’s 30-minute advertising buy on seven broadcast and cable networks attracted more than 33.5 million viewers on Oct. 29, according to Nielsen Media Research. The infomercial aired on CBS, Fox, NBC, Univision, BET, MSNBC and TV One. Among the cable networks, the ad drew its largest audience on MSNBC (2.1 rating, 3.54 million viewers). While the Obama campaign has not confirmed exactly how much the advertising spree cost, the Campaign Media Analysis Group pegged the multi-network buy at between $4 million and $6 million. More people, some 9.78 million, watched the Democratic presidential nominee’s infomercial on NBC. CBS was second with 8.6 million watchers, ahead of 7.14 million for Fox. MSNBC was next with 3.54 million, compared with 3.47 million for Univision,
whose total included 3.1 million Hispanics. BET and TV One counted 714,000 and 307,000 total viewers, respectively. African Americans accounted for 398,000 and 160,000 of the watchers on the ethnic-targeted services. more » » »
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AD BYTES
The stock market drop and general economic chaos so far haven’t led marketers to make big cuts in the first-quarter upfront advertising buys they made on broadcast and cable networks, according to TV Week. Media buyers and advertising sales executives say that with about 60% of advertisers accounted for, the amount of upfront buys canceled at this point is only a little above normal. Most marketers who buy broadcast in the upfront have an option to return 25% of the commercial time they bought in the first quarter 90 days before the start of the quarter. Some big advertisers have 60-day options. And some cable advertisers can exercise options closer to the beginning of the quarter. In most years,
advertisers take the option to return 3% to 5% of their upfront commitments.
If today's TV buying is the model for the future, advertisers are in trouble, according to Ad Age. Just about everyone agrees that in a video-on-demand world in which consumers control what they watch and when, the current broadcast advertising model is broken, or at the very least inadequate. What they don't yet agree on is the solution, leading to mass confusion as networks scramble to create their own measurements in a race to develop a standard for counting those precious eyeballs. The trouble is, they should be working together, not apart. At present, TV advertisers are willing to pay for three days' worth of viewers who see commercials in different programs, but both buyers and sellers acknowledge that this
standard has to develop further and could even change radically over time.
Television stations are finding as political campaigns end that Democrat Barack Obama's record $600 million fundraising isn't turning into an advertising bonanza, according to Bloomberg. A lack of competitive big-state Senate races, falling interest-group outlays and Republican John McCain's decision to accept campaign spending limits have led to a shortfall. Political ads were supposed to be the bright spot for station owners E.W. Scripps Co., Belo Corp. and Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. in a year marred by less spending by auto dealers. Instead, campaign spending on local TV will fall to $984.3 million from 2004's $1.05 billion, Cassino said. Total ad sales for local TV will fall 8% this year.
CBS’ primetime success story won’t likely stave off the pain of a downward trend in ad sales, according to Variety. More than any of its peers, CBS is so broadly exposed to the turmoil in the advertising market that investors braced for a tough quarterly report, with little relief in sight. And there's concern that the company's signature dividend payout may be in peril. For CBS, the overriding issue is that more than 70% of its revenue from TV, radio and outdoor is advertising-dependent at a time when consumers aren't buying and marketers are expected to pull back on spending, at least in the near term.
PEOPLE
ReelzChannel: Dan Kelly has joined as director, advertising sales, based in Los Angeles. He comes from Current TV, where he wad been director, advertising sales. Kimberly Hagan has moved from CW to Reelz as account manager, advertising sales, heading the Chicago office. Kim Duffy and Mark Campinell have joined Reelz as New York-based account executives. |
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