Big TV Network Groups' National Ad Revenues Sink 35% To 50% In April
- by Wayne Friedman , May 22, 2020
April, the first full month of COVID-19 disruption, witnessed major legacy TV network companies being hit with massive 30% to 50% declines in national TV advertising revenues.
During the month, major TV advertisers significantly reduced advertising on prime-time entertainment and other daypart programs. Contributing to the decline was a lack …
Wayne, the news is not good, as you say, but at the same time the "big TV network groups" are certainly reducing their programming costs---especially for sports but, I expect, for other genres by virtue of greater reliance on reruns. So this, too, must be factored into the P&L equation. If a given TV network suddenly can't offer sports, it is probably not paying the leagues' very high fees for the rights to carry their games and substituting other, much cheaper, fare instead. The substitute content will attract ad dollars---though not nearly as many of them and, usually, from a totally different breed of CPM fixated "bottom feeders". In any event, the sudden decline in ad spending, may not translate into a corresponding hit in the profit columns.