• by Paul Gough , November 18, 2002

The first time Steven Spielberg explored the concept of UFOs, it resulted in the 1977 megahit Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Then a few years later he visited the topic again with a blockbuster called ET.

The Sci Fi network, which wasn’t even a dream when ET hit the screens in 1982, hopes the Spielberg magic works again when it airs his 10-part, 20-hour miniseries Taken beginning Dec. 2. The look at what happens to people who say they’ve been abducted by aliens is being billed as the largest miniseries ever.

Weeks before Taken starts, Sci Fi has already been taking money to the bank. “We’re sold out, we have been for a couple of weeks,” says Scott Collins, Sci Fi’s vice president of special programming.

Not that the network’s sales force hasn’t been working hard. Collins says Sci Fi started selling Taken a year ago. And the network has been contemplating the Spielberg series well before that, just after Spielberg decided he wanted to do a miniseries and decided Sci Fi was the place to run it.

Collins acknowledges that the Spielberg name was a big draw to advertisers. Most of his projects are movies; a previous miniseries, Band of Brothers, ran on commercial-free HBO. “Advertisers don’t always have a chance to embrace someone like Spielberg,” Collins says. The major sponsor is GM. Others include Radio Shack, Chili’s, T-Mobile, Acura, DreamWorks and Yahoo! Games on Demand.

Pamela DeScisciolo, vice president group director for national broadcast at Carat, says Taken benefits among advertisers because of the Spielberg name. Sci Fi contacted Carat about the opportunity with Spielberg for its client Radio Shack, and Radio Shack jumped at it.

“It seemed like a perfect fit,” she says. “The flighting for us worked very well. The fourth quarter is Radio Shack’s golden quarter. If there’s an opportunity for them, we’re going to check it out. This type of programming could only fit perfectly,” she says.

Sci Fi’s strategy was to try to sell well beyond the network’s typical advertisers and take this as the opportunity it was: To broaden its reach and to try to secure bigger commitments and value-added promotions. It’s a huge undertaking, with 2,100 spots. Instead of having upwards of 150 advertisers, there are fewer advertisers buying more, securing packages that move across all time spots and all 10 days. Collins says about half the spots have been sold to only five advertisers.

Radio Shack is running two spots per night, using its regular holiday commercials. It’s also a big part of every on- and off-air sponsorship opportunity for Taken. For its part, Radio Shack is using its own in-store promotional TV channel – RSTV – to run trailers.

“It seemed like a perfect fit,” DeScisciolo says. Sci Fi started selling Taken a year ago. And the network has been contemplating the Spielberg series well before that, just after Spielberg decided he wanted to do a miniseries and decided Sci Fi was the place to run it.

Collins acknowledges that the Spielberg name was a big draw to advertisers. Most of his projects are movies; a previous miniseries, Band of Brothers, ran on commercial-free HBO. “Advertisers don’t always have a chance to embrace someone like Spielberg,” Collins says. The major sponsor is GM. Others include Radio Shack, Chili’s, T-Mobile, Acura, DreamWorks and Yahoo! Games on Demand.

Pamela DeScisciolo, vice president group director for national broadcast at Carat, says Taken benefits among advertisers because of the Spielberg name. Sci Fi contacted Carat about the opportunity with Spielberg for its client Radio Shack, and Radio Shack jumped at it.

“It seemed like a perfect fit,” she says. “The flighting for us worked very well. The fourth quarter is Radio Shack’s golden quarter. If there’s an opportunity for them, we’re going to check it out. This type of programming could only fit perfectly,” she says.

Sci Fi’s strategy was to try to sell well beyond the network’s typical advertisers and take this as the opportunity it was: To broaden its reach and to try to secure bigger commitments and value-added promotions. It’s a huge undertaking, with 2,100 spots. Instead of having upwards of 150 advertisers, there are fewer advertisers buying more, securing packages that move across all time spots and all 10 days. Collins says about half the spots have been sold to only five advertisers.

Radio Shack is running two spots per night, using its regular holiday commercials. It’s also a big part of every on- and off-air sponsorship opportunity for Taken. For its part, Radio Shack is using its own in-store promotional TV channel – RSTV – to run trailers.