The two leading Spanish-language broadcasters will make upfront deals this spring, using the same currency as English-language networks. Both Univision and Telemundo will base guarantees on Nielsen's general-market ratings, as opposed to the niche Hispanic ratings they have previously used. The two networks will negotiate using the Nielsen Television Index (NTI), which provides ratings for the Big Four networks, according to people familiar with the matter. Previously, they had used the National Hispanic Television Index (NHTI), which tracks only Hispanic households. Telemundo, however, will still make deals based on NHTI if clients prefer to use it. "We do not feel the need to dictate one service or the other to our advertisers," said Steve Mandala, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Telemundo. Univision, which is for sale, declined comment. A third Spanish-language network, Azteca America, is also expected to use NTI, although a spokesman declined comment. In any case, ratings guarantees in the growing Spanish-language market will all use the general NTI data by September 2007, when Nielsen will drop the Hispanic NHTI metric. Instead, Nielsen will merge Hispanic homes into the NTI general sample, where they will account for about 10 percent of the overall pie. The year-early shift, particularly in Univision's case, is aimed at attracting more ad dollars by facilitating the buying process, since ratings will be used that advertisers may be more familiar with. The move may also have something to do with trying to raise a potential purchase price at Univision, since the company is on the block. "The benefit for Univision to switch now is to generate as much revenue as possible to make them look better as they're being sold, because it would happen next year anyway," said Alejandro Clabiorne, director of media for WING Latino and head of planning for MediaCom Latino. Although open for business using NTI, Telemundo's Mandala cautioned against a rush to jettison NHTI. "I believe the transition period has a utility that we should avail ourselves of," he said. Nonetheless, Mandala is a proponent of moving to general-market data. "Ultimately, it allows Spanish-language networks to position our audience delivery with complete transparency." Univision is the leading Spanish-language broadcaster by far, generating $1.5 billion in ad revenue last year--more than double Telemundo's $746 million, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus. Univision has been aggressive in trying to establish itself as a peer to the six broadcast networks in order to extend its viability as a place to spend more dollars--and tap into budgets other than ones earmarked solely for Spanish-language media. "We're confident that this move will validate Univision's ability to successfully compete against any network in the country, and provide us with a powerful tool to attract marketers that had previously been reluctant to advertise in Spanish," said President-COO Ray Rodriguez in a statement when the network announced in December that it would join NTI. Ratings give Univision some ammunition, at least compared to The WB and UPN. NTI prime-time ratings this season show that Univision outdraws both networks in both the adult 18-to-49 and adult 18-to-34 demos. Of course, the two struggling networks will combine to form the new CW network next fall, which could capture Univision's fifth-place status in the network rankings. In the adult 18-to-49 rankings, Univision trails the Big Four by considerable margins. But in the adult 18-to-34 battle, the Hispanic network is within a rating point of both CBS and NBC. On one level, Univision's bid for a greater share of the general ad market is vindicated by a disproportionately low amount spent in Spanish-language media. Hispanics make up 14 percent of the U.S. population, according to the U.S. government--but Spanish-language media accounted for only 2.9 percent of the $143 billion U.S. ad market in 2005, according to TNS Media Intelligence. "The argument is for the 150 of the top-300 advertisers who aren't buying Hispanic television, or those who aren't spending as much as they should," said Clabiorne. However, the market for Univision and its competitors is growing. TNS predicts that spending on Hispanic network television will grow by 10.4 percent in 2006, more than any other sector of the ad market. The growth reflects the boom in Hispanic buying power and marketers' desire to tap into it. Hispanic buying power is set to grow to more than $1 trillion in 2010--up 48 percent from last year, according to the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia. "The growth in terms of advertising has not mirrored the growth of the market," said Clabiorne, who believes moving to NTI will drive more revenue for both Univision and Telemundo. Still, Univision's bid to capture more dollars may be slowed by its limited appeal. "Traditionally, they've been a niche," said Lisa Quan, vice president and manager of broadcast research at Magna Global. "(Buyers) are not going to think if you go to Univision you're going to get the same broad audience as an ABC." The inevitable shift to NTI has sparked some debate within the Hispanic ad community, since it may prompt more general-market media buying shops to try and capture some of their business. Hispanic media executives acknowledged that the change may make it easier for large-scale general shops to buy Hispanic television, but said that Hispanic agencies will maintain a leg up in planning and strategy--which are increasingly receiving attention in the media arena. "You may have an agency that can get you a 'cheaper buy,' but that doesn't necessarily mean it's the best buy," said Lucia Fernandez-Palacio, West Coast media director for Dieste Harmel & Partners. "Insight is not a commodity," said Clabiorne. "Whereas the buying function can be reduced to a commodity, the nuances of the Hispanic market, the expertise of Hispanic planning, will always be at Hispanic advertising agencies."
Court TV is taking another step away from its roots by launching its first original scripted series. The network, which focused on live trial coverage and post-gavel analysis at its inception, will unveil a crime drama in the vein of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" this fall. The whodunit series, "'Til Death Do Us Part," tells the tale of a bride and groom--one of whom kills the other--in each episode. Viewers spend the show guessing who will be the victim and who the culprit as a character known as "The Groom Reaper" chronicles how a relationship goes from wedded bliss to murder. Besides the drama foray, Court TV--which announced new programming at a New York upfront event yesterday--has a slate of new reality shows on the docket. Several bear more than a passing resemblance to series on competitor A&E, including "SWAT USA" (not to be confused with A&E's more geographically limited "Dallas SWAT"), and "Bounty Girls" (not to be confused with A&E's more masculine "Dog The Bounty Hunter" or, for that matter, HBO's "Family Bonds.") "SWAT USA" promises an inside look at special weapons and tactics teams across the country, while "Bounty Girls" (a project still in development) focuses on an elite team of female SoCal bounty hunters who use brains and beauty to find criminals on the lam. Court TV may have trouble expanding its take during the coming upfront due to flat ratings. Prime-time performance this season in its target adult 18-to-49 demo is at a .3, the same as a year ago. The network's prime-time median age of 51.6 also skews high. That's the same as Lifetime, a network laboring to attract a younger audience, and just below the older-skewing History Channel at 51.9. The network is in 85 million homes, and is co-owned by Time Warner and Liberty Media, Other reality shows nearing launch are "On the Run," where the network highlights international manhunts by law enforcement arms such as the FBI and CIA, and "Missing Persons Unit," a real-life version of CBS hit drama "Without a Trace" that reconstructs the last two days of a missing person's life while breaking down hard-to-solve cases. In addition, plans call for an extension of the "Beach Patrol: San Diego" series, which launched in January, with "Beach Patrol: Miami Beach." Both shows follow lifeguards specializing in ocean rescue. Longer-form reality initiatives include several documentary films. There's "SPAM: The Documentary," about the criminal purveyors of mass e-mail, which the network says is "an insightful and often humorous investigation." And a look at Jan Lewan, "the Elvis of polka music," who sold out months of shows in Atlantic City, but was also a criminal mastermind. Longer-term, Court TV announced several other series in development, including "Divorce Story," a reality series following couples who use binding arbitration for the terms of their breakup, and "Call 911" which goes inside some of the most intriguing emergency calls. Several projects try to tap further into the public's fascination with paranormal activity. "Haunting Evidence," set for a June 14 debut, includes psychics trying to provide new insight into cold cases. And the still-in-development "Phenomena Police" will focus on a group of peace officers who investigate paranormal activity. Among the returning series the network announced are "Dominick Dunne's Power, Privilege and Justice," "Forensic Files," "Hollywood Heat," and "Parco, PI."
Meredith Publications announced the launch of a new magazine, Eat, targeting young working professionals--especially mothers--who want to prepare meals for their families on a limited budget, and often with no experience in cooking. "The tagline is 'easy family food,' and we're targeting families age 20-45 who have young children," according to Lois White, editor of Eat. "We're trying to give busy moms and dads creative, very doable recipes... This magazine is geared for someone who has less experience cooking--someone who may not have been taught by their mother how to cook because their mother worked outside the home." According to White, Meredith identified this market segment through reader surveys (both print and online) delivered via its other publications targeting women, including Fitness and Family Circle, as well as focus groups. Likewise, Meredith will push awareness of the new magazine through these publications, as well as supermarket promotions. If the magazine succeeds in its test phase, it will become a subscription publication in Fall 2006. White said the first issue includes 82 recipes that aim to please parents and children alike: "We have a section called 'we-like/they-like' where you have one recipe that you can modify to suit kids' tastes, but also adults' taste. For example, for the first issue we took a spaghetti sauce and provided two recipes, so you can just divide the sauce into two servings, with one half for adults and one half for kids." Overall, White said, "we're trying to serve busy cooks who want to make meals for their families so they don't have to go to fast food restaurants where the food might not be so nutritious." This is especially challenging, according to White, because "believe it or not, today's idea of cooking could be opening a box of macaroni and cheese and doctoring it up with some vegetables. People call that cooking." At the same time, White explained that the magazine has a noticeably different feel than other food magazines targeting gourmets with more disposable income: "They're more for people who have more seasoned palates... people who are looking to satisfy their adventurous palate with something new." By contrast, White went on: "We've positioned Eat magazine as the magazine for women who want to be involved in preparing what their families eat, but who still need help with planning, organizing, and executing the meals." Summarizing the magazine's sensibility, White said Eat "basically is about June Cleaver values reconciled with the facts of modern life."
In a move that may have major implications for the broader media market, American Business Media (ABM), an association of business-to-business media companies, has introduced a standard advertising RFP form that aims to clarify advertising goals, measurement methods, and key factors in the competitive environment for executives on both sides of media sales. The new RFP covers "target market industries," "how the client and agency will measure the success of the campaign," and "recommended overall media strategy" as well as its "rationale," close and open dates, editorial calendar, audit information, rate information, ad format and CPM targets, media research, and competing publications. Although ABM conceived of the standard RFP form and directed its creation, early on ABM partnered with the Association of American Advertising Agencies (AAAA), which was invited to serve an advisory role early on in the process, according to Ennen--and both ABM and AAAA are encouraging widespread use of the RFP, including mass media markets, in an effort to bring greater transparency to media sales generally. "This is not some top secret, closely guarded document--because we want everyone to use this," says ABM spokesman Steve Ennen. "The idea was to disseminate this as widely as possible--so yes, we definitely think mass market media could profit from this." According to Ennen, the RFP is usable for all types of media, not just magazines: "It's for all media. It's cross-platform, so it's perfect for integrated media campaigns, both from the perspective of someone trying to create a multi-platform campaign, and also for assessing the competitive environment." In the end, ABM and AAAA hope the new standard RFP form will prevent the "train wrecks" that result from conflicting client and agency expectations. "Ironing out expectations, and agreeing on methods, lets you finally have accountability," according to Ennen. "And it's accountability for all parties." The standard RFP form is downloadable from ABM's Web site at this address: http://www.americanbusinessmedia.com/images/RFP_Form.xls.
Dave.TV and Beyond Media, two emergent digital distribution networks, are set to mark the beginning of their content and technology sharing partnership tonight with the premiere of actor/director Adrian Grenier's short film, "Euthanasia." The film was co-produced by Grenier--star of HBO's popular series "Entourage"--and Beyond Media's partner company Beyond Media Content. The debut will only be shown to attendees of the Digital Hollywood Conference in Los Angeles, but next week will be available for download online at Dave.TV, according to Dave.TV CEO, Rex Wong. The companies are relying on the glitzy event to build excitement for a new version of Dave.TV's broadband content network, which is expected to launch by late April. Using Beyond Media's BeyondCast distribution technology, Dave.TV will go from an on-demand download service to a broadcast network of live streaming audio and video, which consumers can access online without downloading any software, said Wong. "The service we're about to launch will be like watching high-quality programming on your TV, but on your computer," said Wong. Dave.TV currently offers on-demand programming from more than 100 content channels, from National Geographic to Collegiate Images--a licensing and rights clearance agency managing the distribution of copyrighted content from colleges and universities. Also, while the companies are still in negotiations, Beyond Media and its partner company Beyond Media Content will likely distribute content over Dave.TV's network.
Thanks to shows like "High School Musical," Disney Channel edged out USA Network for the number one spot in prime-time viewers for March. Posting an average 2.2 household rating and 1.933 million viewers, Disney climbed 0.2 rating points--10 percent--from the previous month. During March, Disney kept in the game with "Musical," as well as high-rated shows "Cow Belles" and "Hannah Montana," the second and fourth best-viewed shows of the month. USA Network still improved slightly to 1.930 million from 1.920 million from its usual staple of shows--"Monk" and "WWE Entertainment." With its multiple airings, "WWE" took eight of the top 15 places in March. TNT drifted lower to a 1.8 household rating, from a 2.1 in February. It trended down to a 1.66 million viewers. Its top show in March was its mother ship off-NBC show, "Law & Order." ESPN scored well with a top pre-NCAA tournament game with perennial powers, North Carolina-Duke. ESPN increased slightly in viewers in March from February--climbing to 1.11 million from 1.01 million. The top-rated "Flavor of Love," from VH1--the reality show featuring Flavor Flav in his quest to find the perfect single woman among 20 contestants--continued its strong winning ways. It earned 5.8 million viewers, and a 2.6 household rating/6.6 share. All this gave VH1 just a little bump--up to 607,000 average viewers in prime time from 539,000. For some networks, the quarterly period ending in March brought good news--especially Discovery Channel and TLC--both of which suffered double-digit percentage ratings declines last year. Discovery Channel grew 13 percent to an average 1,091,000 viewers in the first quarter 2006. Most of its increases came with older viewers--a 20 percent gain among viewers 25-54; 14 percent among men 25-54, and 33 percent among women 25-54. Shows such as "Mythbusters" and "Dirty Jobs," and specials such as "Grizzly Man," helped improved the picture. TLC saw prime-time viewers climb 11 percent to 832,000 and household ratings rise 17 percent. New series "Little People, Big World" and returning series "Miami Ink" and "What Not to Wear" were the highlights.