In the wake of advertising cancellations in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, newspapers are recouping some of their losses with sympathy ads. Papers in the cities where the attacks took place are all running sympathy ads. The New York Times has been full of them the past few days. "It's unusual to see the number of ads and the size of ads appearing in situations like this," says Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis. Many of the ads have been full page. Mathis is unsure of how many there have been. The ads offer condolences for the deaths that have occurred and praise the heroic efforts of firefighters and other emergency workers. Regular Times advertisers like Tiffany have bought sympathy ads along with a wealth of advertisers who have never used the Times before, including Oklahoma City and Kuwait. The sympathy ads started last Thursday and have increased since then. Mathis is unsure how long they'll continue. When asked whether advertisers are paying normal rates for sympathy ads, Mathis said rates are based on size and frequency, which indicates normal rates are being paid. There has been a pull back in regular advertising in the Times, in the travel, financial services and other categories, Mathis says. The Washington Post has also run many sympathy ads since last Friday, mostly from regular advertisers and foreign governments, including Kuwait, Canada and Germany, according to vice president business manager Ted Lutz. The ads come after "millions of dollars were lost" from planned advertising pulled by travel, financial and other categories, Lutz says. Besides traditional sympathy ads, many advertisers, including Giant Food, Chevy Chase Bank and Hecht's department stores ran ads to solicit contributions for relief funds they created. The Post ran its own ads to support relief efforts, Lutz notes. The Post charged normal rates for the sympathy ads. "We didn't play around with the rate structure," Lutz says. "There wasn't time and we didn't think it was called for." A few sympathy ads have also run in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Two local department stores, as well as United Airlines and Gateway computer ran ads, according to Janice Crile, national advertising manager. The paper had lost much of its regular advertising, with 90% of Sunday travel advertising and most domestic and European auto ads gone, she says.
Television networks ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox are talking about organizing a television industry benefit broadcast for Friday night to raise money for relief and recovery from the terrorist attacks. The goal is to show the planned two-hour special on as many broadcast and cable networks as possible simultaneously, according to four industry executives who spoke on condition of anonymity Monday. Such an event is believed to have no precedent within the U.S. television industry. It's not clear yet whether the networks would set up their own organization to collect donations or steer funds to an established group. The broadcast, which would salute heroism, would undoubtedly feature many entertainers, although no names have been made public yet. Broadcasters were scrambling Monday to put the event together. After President George W. Bush asked Americans to get back to work, television networks on Monday moved toward a more normal schedule. Even the soap operas returned after being off the air for a week. The broadcasters all covered live the opening of the New York Stock Exchange Monday morning. - (AP)
The broadcast networks returned to a semblance of normal programming over the weekend, although news specials outdrew entertainment offerings. According to preliminary nationals from Nielsen Media, the weekend's most-watched programs were Sunday's "60 Minutes" on CBS (14 million viewers), a two-hour news special on NBC (11.3 million) and a one-hour ABC news special (10.6 million) -- all focusing exclusively on last week's attacks. Fox also did well Saturday with a related two-hour "America's Most Wanted" special (preliminary 9.4 million). The NBC and ABC news specials and "America's Most Wanted" aired without commercials. Various estimates put the total loss of advertising revenues to the networks at upwards of $600 million over the six-day period since Sept. 11. And with the U.S. economy headed into a possible recession, it could be well into 2002 before the networks get their ad rates back to where they were before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But commercial breaks were back across the board Monday. The nightly newscasts on the Big Three broadcast networks were taking commercial spots, as were "Dateline NBC" at 8 p.m. and a 10 p.m. news special on ABC. The ABC special was one of the programs substituting for the canceled "Monday Night Football" game between Minnesota and Baltimore. Most of the networks' weekend attempts to offer diversions in the form of light, inoffensive entertainment programming ("Touched by an Angel," "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," made-for-TV movie repeat "Growing Up Brady") met with relatively meek ratings. The only entertainment program that really clicked was Fox's repeat of theatrical "Mrs. Doubtfire" (10 million), which gained viewers throughout the night. Overall, Nielsen estimates that roughly 37.2 million viewers watched the broadcast networks on Sunday (up from the previous week's 35.6 million), with the spike primarily attributed to the extra news coverage. Saturday's estimated 28.8 million viewers on the major networks was down slightly vs. the previous week. Nielsen has also issued estimates for cumulative primetime viewing of news coverage on Wednesday and Thursday. On Wednesday, 54.8 million people watched an average minute of primetime on the four broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox) and five news cable channels (CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, CNN Headline News and CNBC), while Thursday drew roughly 52.8 million. Nearly 80 million people watched in primetime on Tuesday, the day of the attacks. - Reuters/Variety