• Mediaweek, Wednesday, January 14, 2009 9:30 AM

Ad clients may be spending more marketing dollars on cable networks, such as Discovery Channel and ESPN, according to a poll of 225 ad pros by Beta Research. The survey found that 45% of respondents plan to hand over more money to Discovery this year, while 44% predicted they'd invest in more ESPN.

Along with queries about favorable programming environments, the survey focused on audience retention during commercial pods. Half the executives who do business with ESPN/ABC Sports said that the cable and broadcast properties rated very highly when it comes to effectively reducing commercial churn.

ESPN is generally one of the "stickiest" cable networks during commercial pods, as viewers tend to watch a great deal of its sports programming live and in real-time.

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