Oscar Proves Profitable For ABC

Oscar statue ABC may have found at least a partial buffer against declining prices in the Oscar telecast: increasing the number of minutes sold to the highest level since 2004. TNS Media reported that the network sold 26 minutes of ad time--up from 24 in 2007, and the most since 26 in 2004.

ABC inventory raked in $72 million for its Feb. 22 Academy Awards broadcast, the most since 2004, TNS Media says.

The increase this year also did not come at the expense of its own promotional time, which increased slightly to 6 minutes and 20 seconds--30 seconds more than a year ago. That was down, however, from 10 minutes in 2006.

Eighteen marketers participated in Sunday's awards show, with four--Hyundai, Coke, J.C. Penney and MasterCard--accounting for 55% of the 26 minutes.

Marketers traditionally have stayed in the show year after year, but this time, there were five new ones in one arena, including Sprint and Maytag. There were also two others--Walt Disney Pictures and Paramount--that took advantage of movie marketers being able to advertise on the Oscars for the first time.

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Two longtime heavy hitters pulled out of the awards: General Motors and L'Oreal.

On the ratings front, among a collection of 300,000 homes in Southern California, TNS was able to use second-by-second data to determine that 22% of those homes tuned in. Also, 15% of the audience watched the feed in HD.

As far as ad retention, a spot Hyundai placed at the start of a pod before the best director award scored the best.

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