Providence, R.I.-based Lin TV Corp. witnessed stronger local and political ad revenues in the first quarter. Local revenues, which include net local advertising revenues, retransmission consent fees and TV station Web site revenues, gained 16% to $67.7 million. National spot advertising gained 4% to $23.1 million, and overall advertising sales rose to $104 million from $101.5 million. Lin says six of the top ten advertising categories increased in the first quarter of 2012 compared to the first quarter of 2011. Overall core local and national time sales, excluding political sales, improved 6% in the first quarter of 2012. The automotive category -- typically the largest TV category for any station or network, representing 26% of local and national advertising sales in the first quarter of 2012 -- gained 15% in the first quarter. Automotive's year-ago share of company business was 23%. As with many TV stations groups, Lin TV witnessed a surge in political advertising -- more than doubling its take over the first quarter of 2011 to $2.9 million compared to $1 million. The company says 82% of its collection of ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC affiliated stations were either the highest or second-highest-viewed television channels in their local markets.Interactive TV related business rose 41% higher to $7 million.
As DirecTV offers another promotion for its Sunday Ticket offering, the company’s top executive said Tuesday the NFL package is a customer attraction and retention device, not a profit center. “Given that the costs of the product are increasing, our view is use it as a loss leader, and we'll go from there,” said CEO Michael White on an earnings call. DirecTV is in the middle of an exclusive deal with the NFL, where it pays what reportedly amounts to $1 billion a year in rights fees through the 2014 season. Any new deal would surely include a massive increase and cable operators are likely to try to peel the package from DirecTV, which has had it since 1994 and used it as a key brand differentiator. CEO White suggested that DirecTV would look to re-up with the NFL, but with fewer games on Sunday afternoons when Sunday Ticket is available, the value to the company may be diminished. “With any programming that we're looking at, as things are available through more channels, games moved to Thursday night … I think we'd love to keep it exclusive and very, very narrow,” he said. Last fall, DirecTV offered Sunday Ticket free to new customers, who signed a two-year contract. (A similar free offering will come this summer.) In April, it began offering current customers Sunday Ticket for $199.95, more than 40% below the 2012 price. Those who took advantage of the free offer last fall will remain as DirecTV customers, but the satellite operator faces the challenge of getting them to pay for DirecTV on top of that.
It’s iced tea season, and Lipton, perhaps the best-known brand among tea makers in the U.S., has teamed up with country artist Lady Antebellum for a new marketing campaign that attempts to leverage the positivity of the band’s persona with that of the drink. The campaign, which marks a coming together of Unilever (Lipton’s parent company) and the Pepsi Lipton Partnership (which distributes ready-to-drink teas under the Lipton brand), is the largest advertising undertaking Lipton has seen in several years, according to a company representative. (She declined to give numbers, but said spending would be double the outlay of last year.) The Lady Antebellum spots promote both the ready-to-drink tea as well as a new Tea & Honey to-go powder. In one commercial for the ready-to-drink tea, the band is shown backstage preparing to appear in front of a “hot” crowd. As they drink a bottle of Lipton iced tea, their bodies fill with silhouettes of water, tea leaves and sunshine. “When you put goodness inside, you can’t help but shine on the outside,” says a voiceover. A second commercial, for the Tea & Honey to-go powder, depicts the band delayed by a broken down tour bus on a hot day. After drinking a glass of instant iced tea, the band heads to a park for an impromptu performance. Both spots end with the tagline “Drink positive,” which is intended to express the spirit of both the brand and the band. “Lipton and Lady Antebellum share a positive and approachable style, and we’re excited to bring the ‘Drink Positive’ spirit to life—together—in a big way this year,” said Marc Hanson, an executive with the Lipton Pepsi Partnership, in a statement e-mailed to Marketing Daily. In addition to the commercials (which will each run in 15- and 30-second versions), the group will appear in a series of behind-the-scenes tour webisodes. In the videos (a first for the band), the group engages in a series of challenges to determine which band member knows the others the best. The campaign also includes print, radio, digital and retail elements as well as a Facebook sweepstakes that will offer fans a chance to meet the group in Nashville and win live music downloads. Lipton is also supporting the band’s benefit concert for Henryville, Ind., a community hit by devastating tornadoes last month. Lipton will match every $1 donation received through the cause’s Web site, www.rebuildinghenryville.com, up to $50,000.
Strong advertising revenue growth continues for the likes of Walt Disney’s cable networks, as well as its broadcasting network for its fiscal second quarter. And more is coming. “We are anticipating a strong upfront,” says Bob Iger, president and chief executive officer of Walt Disney. Current scatter activity at ABC network is showing cost-per-thousand viewer prices [CPMs] up 20% over upfront. In its second quarter ending March 31, Cable network revenues grew 12% to $3.2 billion, with broadcasting revenue climbing 2%. ABC network advertising sales were up 6%, with ABC station advertising sales down 8%. ABC stations had lower programming costs during the period due to the syndicated “Oprah Winfrey Show” leaving the airwaves last September. The company said it also saved money due to lower daytime and news production costs at the network. Operating income was up 37% to $229 million. ESPN contributed heavily to the growth at its cable unit, with operating income 11% higher to $1.5 billion. ESPN also witnessed big advertising revenue growth from higher rates, which included a shift in the timing of Rose Bowl, Fiesta Bowl and NBA games for its fiscal second quarter. Disney’s Iger, president/CEO of Walt Disney, says 40 million subscribers can now access its WatchESPN app on mobile devices. For its studios' entertainment business, quarterly revenues sank a big 12% to $1.2 billion, with the unit swinging to an operating loss of $84 million for the period ending March 31, 2012, from a $77 million operating income in the second quarter of 2011. A big failure with “John Carter” caused a writedown -- as well as the recent resignation of its studio chief Rich Ross. Yet Disney witnessed record-breaking results for the just-opened “The Avengers” film -- now at $700 million-plus worldwide. With little surprise, Iger confirmed there would be a sequel for “The Avengers.” Disney’s Parks and Resorts revenues improved 10% to $2.9 billion, with operating income gaining 53% to $222 million. At Tokyo Disney Resort and Hong Kong Disneyland Resort, business improved, but declines were seen at Disneyland Paris. Consumer products gained 8% to $679 million with operating income up 4% to $148 million. Merchandise licensing picked up from Minnie, Mickey, “The Avengers” and Princess merchandise. Interactive Media revenues gained 13% to $179 million, with operating losses cut to $70 million from $115 million due to better business from social and console games. Overall, Disney revenue was up 6% to $9.6 billion, with operating income 10% higher at $1.9 billion.
Social marketing firm Vitrue said it has expanded its relationship with NBC Sports, which will give it a role in facilitating social media operations related to the Olympics this summer. The company began working with NBC Sports on the NHL earlier this year. Vitrue manages social media operations that stretch from Facebook to Twitter to Pinterest to Instagram. In addition to serving as the backbone for the Olympics social media splurge, its efforts will include work with the Golf Channel and “Sunday Night Football.” The Vitrue services cover publishing and management as well as analytics. “Sports are inherently social -- truly today’s ‘water cooler’ experience -- and NBC Sports continues to deliver an engaging social connection to extend that experience with their viewers,” stated Reggie Bradford, Vitrue CEO. Vitrue said it has launched an NHL on NBC Instagram channel and helped increase “average engaged users on Facebook by almost 70%.” Vitrue says “Getting a “Like” on Facebook an be a heady experience for brand … But after that initial attraction, your fans may start feeling a need for the relationship to grow and progress.” The company says it has 1.2 billion “likes turned into love.” Clients include American Express, McDonald’s and AT&T.
The Nielsen-funded Council for Research Excellence (CRE) said it will look at ways to upgrade the diary measurement process – which continues in small markets -- by using comparisons with larger markets that use advanced Nielsen technology. So the research will at least partly turn Dallas and Albuquerque-Santa Fe into diary markets. Part of the search is to determine whether set-top-box (STB) data would help provide better data in diary markets such as Alexandria, La. and Rapid City, S.D. and dozens of other markets -- as well as to determine ways to track viewing on non-TV devices in homes that may not be considered TV homes by Nielsen. This is to some extent in line with what Nielsen is looking to do with regard to adding some STB data into its ratings via a new product that could come out as soon as this fall. In the CRE study, Dallas (a local people meter market); Albuquerque (a people meter market); and a Paducah, Ky. market (diary) will be employed. The trio were selected because of various factors such as the amount of homes without pay-TV service and demographic makeup. There are also issues involving homes with cell phone users. This month, a group of homes in Dallas will use a diary method and non-TV homes in all three test markets will use a “modified diary.” Homes without TV sets in all markets will be sent a questionnaire and asked whether they have another viewing source. Those who respond “yes” will be sent a “modified diary” and asked to track viewing on the alternate devices. (Dallas has been identified in previous CRE research as a market with a large number of non-TV homes.) Data collected in conjunction with Research Triangle Inc. will be compared to standard Nielsen LPM, metered and diary market information in pursuit of ways to upgrade. Ceril Shagrin, executive vice president at Univision Communications, who serves as chair of the CRE, stated that there is a need to learn “whether return-path data can improve diary measurement, and how much ‘TV program’ viewing is now done -- and on what devices -- in what are currently defined as ‘non-TV homes.’ “By making comparisons of diary-based measurement to meter-based measurement and set-top-box information-- and conducting specific follow-up studies with non-responding as well as non-TV homes-- this effort should provide new insights into responders and non-responders of the address-based sampling diary service,” she added.
The national TV marketplace should be included in every Economics 101 textbook as the paradigm of supply and demand. It’s been noted before that for years, inventory (ratings) has been declining rather steadily and pricing (ad rates) have been increasing (save some recessionary bumps). In an Advertising Research Foundation presentation Wednesday, Horizon Media’s top researcher Brad Adgate illustrated just how much ratings and costs have been moving in opposite directions, citing Nielsen data. In February of the 1991-92 TV season, ABC, CBS and NBC all had 18-to-49 ratings averages above a 7.0, while Fox was close to a 6.0. The total cost for 400 gross ratings points (100 on each network) was $5.4 million. Moving 10 years ahead, February ratings had declined to the point where only NBC was above a 5.0, while ABC and Fox were notably below a 4.0. Yet the total cost for 400 gross ratings points (100 on each network) had more than doubled to $10.9 million. This season, none of the Big Four had an 18-to-49 average in February above a 2.5. Total cost for those 400 gross rating points (100 on each network) was $20.5 million -- not far from doubling again. Over that span, the cost per rating point rose from $13,586 in 1991-92 to $27,295 in 2001-02 -- and to $51,304 this season. In a separate realm, Adgate’s presentation offered a fascinating upfront history courtesy of information from Erwin Ephron’s Ephronmedia. Some highlights: - The first time an advertiser received a guarantee based on a CPM was in 1967, and it was American Home Products. - In the 1975-76 season, J. Walter Thompson boycotted the upfront, feeling CPM increases of 25% were too high. It made the wrong call. Clients bought lower quality shows at higher rates in the scatter market. - A movement to abandon the upfront received some traction through an Association of National Advertisers forum in 1992. That did not work.
Is it possible the concept of truly commerce-enabled interactive television is nothing more than a myth? From my perspective -- specifically that of a consumer -- I’m starting to think that’s the case. The most hyped fantasy involving interactive television is the promise of “hot-spotting,” or commerce-enabling TV shows. The idea is that a consumer will see an outfit that’s being worn by a celebrity on a show, pause the show, and buy the outfit through image-embedded tagging. Many companies have tried this, and almost as many have found a way to make it a reality, but consumers aren’t buying it. It’s not caught on online, and I’m not sure it’ll catch on through television anytime soon. The reason is deeper than just the commerce-enablement. The root of my point is that consumers don’t really want it -- they’re not in the habit. Consumers like TV for a specific purpose: as a diversion and escape. When most of the people I know sit down to watch TV, they’re winding down from a hectic day, looking to pass the time and disengage until they go to sleep. If you’re a parent, you know exactly what I’m talking about. The idea of looking to interact, and even potentially looking to spend money? It’s starting to feel a bit far-fetched. I’m not completely knocking the concept of interactive TV as a whole, though I do think it will be many years before a truly interactive TV experience catches on to the masses. I’m just saying that we as an industry need to adjust our expectations for what we think the future of television is going to look like. Socially enabled and digitally enabled TV are also close, but still not quite there, due to the same reason: Most Americans watch TV as an escape, and they don’t want to be high-touch. They don’t want to be bothered. There are some exceptions. Once in a while a show like “LOST” comes along where the viewer has to be highly engaged to understand what’s going on – but it’s definitely not the norm. Reality TV shows like “American Idol” do have viewer interaction through voting. Yet while audience votes do help drive who stays in the competition, they don’t have immediate impact. The result is delayed by 24 hours. Sports programming has the most promise of any of the areas that have tested interactive and commerce-enabled television to date. Sports are aired in real time and rarely DVR’d, can be socially enabled, and might even lead to being commerce-enabled due to the immediacy of the content. And the sports audience is indeed looking to supplement the experience with stats, etc. They’re not passive. They’re highly engaged and very high touch. That interaction can be measured, and it can be utilized in a deeper fashion by the leagues, etc. The element still to be addressed is the habit of the consumer/viewer. What are the habits that need to be changed? What environment has to be created for consumers to watch a show and spend money while they’re in a relaxed, passive mindset? That habit needs to be addressed before programmers will be able to create an environment ripe for the future of commerce-enabled interactive TV. My bet: There needs to be a sea change in the TV landscape in order for this to happen. If I were a betting man, I’d say it’s still 15 years away.
Marketers aim to pick the right video advertising inventory. In that regard, Nielsen says the amount of national TV inventory rose 14% in 2011 over the previous year. Decades ago, one might have viewed this added “glut” of TV ad inventory as a problem. Now there are other pressing problems such as time-shifting, viewer erosion on broadcast, and an even bigger concern: not enough hoarding shows on cable. In this regard, we would like to know if there is extra inventory in important stuff. Is there another prime bit of inventory in ABC’s “Modern Family”? Or perhaps in the NFL? Nielsen also says overall TV advertising spending continues to climb -- on cable (totaling 60-plus networks), up 5.4% to just over $21 billion in 2011, as compared with $21.1 billion for broadcast (on a much smaller group of channels. Broadcast networks’ advertising take was virtually the same in total revenue, down 0.5% in 2011 versus 2010. Total TV spend was up 7.5% over a five-year period -- $71.8 billion in 2011 from $66.8 billion in 2007. Mind you, this hasn’t seemed to stop Internet advertising coffers from climbing; online video is projected to get to around $3 billion by the end of 2012. Spot television is one area that hasn’t recovered as yet, down from its 2008 high of over $25 billion. Nielsen says spot TV in 2011 was $23 billion. All this suggests that TV advertising -- national, local and regional -- will still look valuable in the coming years. Some would say this is about the idea of “scarcity” -- what is perceived as more valuable video ad inventory. For years, the growth of non-program time on broadcast and cable networks has continued to inch forward. But there’s less talk of inventory glut as a problem. A couple of years ago, Fox senior advertising executive Jon Nesvig attempted to scale back ad inventory in a couple of shows. He wanted to give national advertisers what they had asked for -- more value and less clutter. But marketers didn’t come running. So Fox abandoned the plan and resumed normal commercial loads. But adding more national commercial inventory now? Is that so bad – when viewed against a seemingly unlimited supply of advertising inventory on the Internet?
The show isn’t on the air yet. Yet there are protests in anticipation of Howard Stern’s stint as a judge on NBC’s top-rated summer show, “America’s Got Talent.” If you are an NBC executive, you might say privately, “Thank you!” Marketing-wise, this is a plus for NBC, which has already been touting the show. One print ad shows other judges Sharon Osbourne and Howie Mandel covering Stern’s mouth. A TV promo shows the judges driving around with prospective talent being sucked onto the car like a magnet as it’s being driven. One group says Stern is associated with a "decades-long penchant for profanity." Mind you, did Stern offer profanity on other TV appearances he has made -- like on late-night shows and on PBS? Yes, he’s regularly on CBS’ “Late Show with David Letterman,” NBC’s “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” and even PBS’ “Charlie Rose.” Did you hear him speak profanely then? Hmm… I’m sure we would have heard about it. Big time. Stern is a smart guy and, more importantly, knows what his TV persona is. Stern will be tough and direct. But we have seen other judges do the exact same thing, like perhaps one Simon Cowell. It was Cowell who hired Stern to be a judge on “America’s Got Talent,” which he produces. NBC expects many more viewers due to Stern -- but perhaps not those you mighr expect. NBC says research has shown the show could grow its young women viewers. One pressure group, the one that would tell you some parents in the U.S. are on their side, is sending warnings that this “family” show – “America’s Got Talent” -- could take a turn for the worse. It warned some 91 companies who have advertised on the show in the past that they’ll be wasting their media dollars. Protest and boycotting before anything happens? If we could pre-arrest all possible criminals, many people would be happy. The movie “Minority Report” worked for some.
Last week’s jaunty episode, “At the Codfish Ball,” got its name from a Shirley Temple movie in which the pint-sized star struts her stuff. Whereas this week’s opus, “Lady Lazarus,” refers to a Sylvia Plath poem about suicide and the Holocaust. Hello, Mad Men! So it’s no surprise that this latest installment, written solely by big show-daddy Matthew Weiner, seemed a bit more hollow and unsettling than last week’s epi-palooza. Perhaps that’s what Weiner was going for: that we feel the emptiness that Don feels, now that Megan has, like a lady Lazarus, resurrected herself as an actress. His joy and security blanket have, overnight, been ripped from him, and now he’s staring into the abyss. (That empty elevator shaft he peered into once Mrs. Draper left the office seemed a bit too obvious, right?) Tellingly, the episode ends with beautiful shot of an empty living room, which, given Megan’s new life, is now more of a stage set than a home. Still, “LL” was cleverly loaded with allusions to downfalls and head games. SCDP gets the Head Ski client, Don and Peggy go to see the “head” of desserts, Don listens to psychedelic Beatles’ music at the end, which offers, as people used to say in the late ’60s, a “head trip.” And in other “Mad Men” news, a bunch of hollow men lose their footing. But the fun parts came with the fake stuff. First there were the suggestions of fake Beatles songs and the hilarious names of all the faux-moptop groups, like the Merseybeats and the Zombies. (And the story within the story of whether to pay for the real thing, which apparently Matt Weiner did, royally -- $250,000 -- for the use of “Tomorrow Never Knows.”) The whole Beatles setup was very telling. The Chevalier Blanc client wanted a commercial parodying the “chaos and fun” of “A Hard Day’s Night” which had come out at the height of Beatlemania, in 1964. But, as Don found out by the end of the episode, even two years later, the Beatles had moved from lighthearted to dark pretty dramatically. Megan told him to listen to the most difficult, and psychedelic, song on the Revolver album -- which apparently John Lennon wrote after tripping on LSD and reading from “The Tibetan Book of the Dead.” The song had nothing to do with the client's spot (which seemed to parody the idea of a Hai Karate ad from the time showing a guy being attacked by frenzied women, with the tag line “Be careful how you use it."). Really, Megan could have suggested a far less dangerous Paul McCartney song from that album, “Good Day Sunshine,” but that wouldn’t have brought up the old guy/young woman dissonance now inherent in their marriage. While we’re on the subject of music, Don asks, “When did music become so important?” I took it that he meant buying actual songs and not making up advertising jingles. It seems to me that the trend of buying the rights to actual pop music wasn’t widespread until the very late ‘70s or early ‘80s -- when Ford used music from “The Big Chill” to introduce the Taurus and appeal to Baby Boomers, right? And the use of indie music in ads picked up steam in the mid- to late ‘90s. Agreed But back to fake (the very basis of advertising?), I loved everything about the Cool Whip introduction, a product literally made out of air and chemicals, so phony it required a new designation, that of a “dessert topping.” The first riff, between Megan and Don, was magic. And then the pretend pitch by the pretend couple (Don and Peggy) in the pretend kitchen went off with quite a few hitches. The juxtaposition was brilliant. Afterward, Peggy tells Don to shut up and stop blaming her for Megan’s leaving. Peggy was right; she did spend time training Megan, and the whole working-with-the-boss’-wife deal, to begin with, put Peggy in a ridiculously unprofessional position. But the reality was that she was as ill-equipped to sail through those lines with Don as Pete is clunky with the skis. Sadly, Peggy needs to grind it out; she’s a workhorse, and Megan’s a thoroughbred racehorse (to use a rather sexist analogy!). Megan is indeed one of those “girls who is good at everything,” as Peggy said.(And I thought from the original story line that Megan might end up as Mary Wells, who also married well and had a theatrical background.) Megan even cooks barefoot. The stew she was making was Boeuf Bourguignon, a recipe from Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” which was what all sophisticated hostesses were serving at the time. The rest were mastering the art of Clarence Birdseye -- with good reason; the Julia version, at least, required a total prep and cook time of five hours! Don tastes the dish (it’s too hot), but then Megan doesn’t have time to share a main meal or even a dessert -- she has to run out to a nighttime acting class I must say that Ginsberg’s reaction to learning that Megan was leaving to be an actress was strange. He asked whether she got the clothing and shoes for free. It had Holocaust overtones to me. Likewise, when he reacted so violently to the fake Beatles song from the ‘30s. It seemed to hit a nerve in his Martian background. For an episode that seemed empty on the surface, there really is too much to chew over here. But let’s get to Pete Campbell, the great entitled one and master of self-sabotage. The show opens with Pete on the train reading “The Crying of Lot 49” (a piece of fiction from 1966 that brims with literary references.) But more importantly, just three lines into the opener, there goes Pete, talking suicide! (And he sure does cry a lot in this episode.) Can we talk about Pete and his side dish? The whole thing was creepy and infuriating. Insurance agent Howard is pretty repulsive when he brags about the hot side dish in his Manhattan apartment who’s 24. Turns out his main dish, his wife, is Alexis Bledel, the quite gorgeous (and no longer adolescent) Rory from “Gilmore Girls”! But unlike the girlfriend, wifey is considered old at what, 30 at the most? And isn’t she too classy for Howard? Perhaps she and Pete can relate because of the breeding/outward propriety angle. As with most of Don’s affairs, the interaction between Pete and Beth is pretty artful and symbolic, if oddly stilted. For one, I can’t get over how “Mad Men” is filled with attractive, middle-class married women prowling downtown bars and parking lots in search of strangers to have sex with. (Betty, too!) I guess it’s supposed to show how unhinged they were by their suburban robo-wife lives. But I can’t quite see that happening with the moms I knew from that generation and period. (Or perhaps all those trips to Loehmann’s were code for something else?) One thing that didn’t add up was why Beth was there in the first place. She seemed to know that her husband wasn’t coming home. Was it all a setup? In keeping with Beth’s seeming emptiness and oddness, some of her lines were as prim and stiff as her outfit and pearls. That was a match for Pete’s repeated, “It’s a lovely house.” But before they get to the house, Beth proves that Pete is not comfortable in the driver’s seat. (She’s in charge.) Once they arrive, Pete says, “I’m not going to leave you until I’m sure you’re not hysterical.” But in the end he’s the sobbing one. She’s cut off and distant, and talks about her fear of the city and hobos (hobos again!) and the fact that from space, the earth looks so “tiny and unprotected.” Is Pete in this for the sheer escape, to one-up Howard, or as some sort of death wish, in terms of being caught by Trudy? He doesn’t seem to know, but as ever, he feels angry and unacknowledged. There’s a great scene in which Campbell asks Harry why women always get their way. ”Why do they get to decide?” he asks. Harry says, “They just do.” The episode focused on gender power struggles amidst political power struggles (Vietnam and Mao are mentioned), all around a popular culture cycling as fast as a Maytag. It ends with the Beatles song for which John Lennon was the artist, offering a piece of himself in the midst of change. And it looks like, for the moment at least, Megan Calvet (the name she auditioned with) is at ease, exercising her rights, and listening to her other daddy.