Following some embarrassing football fumbles, NBC appears to be making a comeback into the ratings game with some foreign aid. NBC finished second to CBS in the prime-time Nielsen Media Research ratings last week due largely to the performance of "The Weakest Link," with host Anne Robinson. The show's premiere last Monday drew 15.1 million viewers and the audience jumped to 17.5 million on Wednesday. It was such a solid showing that NBC announced Tuesday it had ordered another 13 episodes of "The Weakest Link," for a total of 26 shows. While ratings for the XFL championship game on Saturday rebounded a bit from the record depths of the past few weeks, it was still the lowest-rated show of the week among the top three networks. The good news is, XFL is now off the schedule and will be replaced by movies on Saturday nights. CBS won the week primarily due to the continued strength of "Survivor" and "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" on Thursday night. CBS beat NBC on a night that NBC aired original programming Thursday for the first time since at least 1987. For the week, CBS averaged 11.8 million viewers (8.1 rating, 14 share), NBC had 11 million viewers (7.5, 13), ABC had 10.3 million (7.1, 12), Fox had 8.7 million (5.4, 9), UPN had 3.7 million (2.4, 4), the WB had 3.5 million (2.3, 4) and Pax TV had 1.4 million (1.0, 2). NBC's "Nightly News" won the evening news race with 9.3 million viewers (6.9 rating, 15 share), followed by ABC's "World News Tonight with 8.6 million viewers (6.8, 15) and the "CBS Evening News" with 7.9 million viewers (6.0, 13). For the week of April 16-22, CBS's "Survivor II," and NBC's "ER," NBC, tied for fist place in the primetime race at a rating of 16.5. They were followed by "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," CBS, 14.8; "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" (Sunday), ABC, 13.1; "The Practice," ABC, 12.0; "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" (Tuesday), ABC and "Weakest Link" (Wednesday), NBC, tied at 11.7; "Barbara Walters Special," ABC, 11.6; "Friends," NBC, 11.4; and "Law and Order," NBC, 11.1. - Anya Khait may be reached at anya@mediapost.com
Many companies have tried developing and marketing online tools for buying offline media, and most have failed, with New York-based eMadison being the latest casualty (MDN - https://www.mediapost.com/enews.htm?s=80448.) But that hasn't put a damper on the entrepreneurial spirits of folks at TX-based BOA Worldwide, who just launched the latest online buying system for TV spots - Avail Me. Representatives of the company are in Las Vegas this week, introducing the site at the annual National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) trade show. Here's how it works. The system is geared toward local TV stations and unwired networks, which list their premium avails online. Media buyers submit bids on them and the highest bid wins. Emails are sent to the winner and the station notifying them of the winning bids. Anyone can go to Avail Me, but only registered buyers and sellers can access the avails page. Buyers register at the site and receive a password. Once registered, they can submit what kind of avails they're looking for and will be notified by email when they are available. Meanwhile, sellers can look at reports to determine what buyers are interested in and compile avail bundles that meet their needs. The system, "fixes the speed to market problem. It gets premium bundles in front of buyers quicker," says Paul Gautier, Avail Me's CEO. Buyers go to the "My Avails" page to see a list of avails and find details about them on the next page, including the station or media offering them, the program they run with, their open and close dates and the current bid. For example, a premium avail called "Longhorn Homecoming" is available from DEMO, an Austin, TX station. The avail is described as the UT homecoming, which is the broadcast of the University of Texas homecoming football game. The open and close dates are listed, along with the current bid. There is also a value added feature, which lists the additional components advertisers get with their buy. Buy "Longhorn Homecoming" and get sponsorship of the radio broadcast, a banner flown over the stadium, collateral, including fliers placed under car windshields at the stadium and a Web banner ad on Austin360.com. The company calls this feature the first online resource for value added avails. Value addeds are "an important part of the advertising package that generates additional revenue," says Gautier. He says buyers don't consider a deal complete until they get value addeds, but stations "are ill equipped to negotiate them, so this is a tool they can use to give buyers what they want." Availme.com helps stations develop creative value addeds that make their avails more appealing. Value addeds can be anything from free vacations to baseball tickets but they can also relate to the advertising, such as premium placements like the first commercial break during a Survivor episode. Stations pay a fee to Avail Me for selling avail bundles. The fee is determined by market size, Gautier says, although he wouldn't disclose any numbers. While avails are bid for online, no actual sales occur online. "The rep is still in on the deal," Gautier notes, explaining that Avail Me was built "to help the reps, not replace them." He says transactions occur the way they always have, with buyers submitting insertion orders and bills sent directly to buyers. With Avail Me, sales are set up online, but transacted offline. Avail Me is just being launched, so it has no record to speak of. Gautier says it will proceed on a market-by-market basis with five markets signed so far: Reno, NV, Sacramento, CA, Austin, TX, Beaumont, TX and Victoria, TX. He says most or all of the stations in each market have been signed. "We want to be in all sizes of cities," he says. The company is signing up new markets at the NAB show. - Ken Liebeskind may be reached at kenrunz@aol.com
Researchers at eMarketer have just released their most recent eAdvertising report, which shows that despite the Internet advertising industry seeming to be on life support, there are no serious signs of anyone getting ready to pull the plug. According to the widely quoted Jupiter Research study, at the end of 2000, almost three quarters of surveyed advertisers (73%) planned on spending more money on web advertising in 2001. eMarketer says that recent downturns in the economy may have drastically changed the actuality of those numbers, but it's the thought the counts - at least 4 months ago, advertising on the web made sense. Despite all recent downturns, eMarketer says that essentially, online advertising has already become a significant part of integrated marketing strategies, and dollars are being shifted to it. The report outlines three fundamental economic and technical drivers of web advertising: 1) Online advertising still holds out the promise of becoming the ultimate targeted communications vehicle. 2) Technology is evolving to allow for richer advertising content through increased broadband penetration. 3) It is now possible for consumers to make actual transactions through banner ads and email. That being said, there are still major barriers to online ad growth: 1) Not all target audiences are wired (at least not to the same degree). 2) The online audience is highly fragmented. 3) Branding is questionable on the web. 4) Bandwidth problems limit creative options. 5) Internet users tend to be goal-directed, so anything that gets in their way, including ads, is perceived as an intrusion. 6) Advertisers have not cracked the problem of integrating online and offline advertising. 7) Personalization technology raises issues about privacy, and the use of personal information. EMarketer says these seven barriers are being worked on, and should fall in time. - Adam Bernard may be reached at Adambernard@mediapost.com