Again, it's Adam and I wanted to post another NATPE story following its conclusion. This story says how the overall theme of everything is dismal, but the fact of the matter was that thje people we talked to who were there said differently! Maybe the overall market is looking pale in comparison, but there is still much to be excited about!
By Harry A. Jessell
TVNEWSDAY, Jan 30 2009, 3:47 PM ET
In one sense (and perhaps only one), the NATPE conference that just wrapped up in Las Vegas's Mandalay Bay Hotel was a roaring success.
As any good trade show should, it revealed a clear picture of the state of the TV broadcasting business.
Unfortunately, it's not a pretty picture, sort of like the one Dorian Gray had stashed in his attic. It's marred by plummeting revenue, layoffs and cuts in service — all kinds of ugly stuff.
Maybe that's why so many broadcasters stayed away from the conference. Who wants to dwell on that picture?
The biggest broadcasting event at NATPE was a luncheon and panel session hosted by B&C. Many a discouraging word was heard.
Among others, the panel featured the top executives of two of the nation's largest TV station groups — Dennis Swanson of Fox and Ed Wilson of Tribune.
Both conceded that broadcasting was in a deep hole. Wilson could hardly have done otherwise, with his company hiding in Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
And both more or less conceded that the business is unlikely to snap back to its old self, even after the economy does.
Swanson was particularly gloomy, saying that stations have to adopt new "cost structures" in line with the new reality of diminished revenue. "That's the highest priority we have."
Everybody who works at a TV station knows what that means — layoffs. HR's angel of death has already passed over many, if not most, TV stations and could come again. I could launch a new Web site devoted to stories of producers, anchors and other station rank and file getting the heave ho.
I suppose it's the good broadcaster these days who replaces fired workers with technology or compensates for them with new ways of doing business.
So, Swanson talked about Fox's initiative to pool local news gathering resources with other broadcasters and Wilson talked about cross-platform selling and motivating sales people to dig deeper for local ads.
The new cost structure also apparently means that stations are less willing to pay hefty license fees for first-run syndicated programming. That has put a major drag on the syndication business and real commerce at NATPE.
Only two big-budget shows are firm goes for the fall — Sony's Dr. Oz and Debmar-Mercury's Wendy Williams.
CBS had to withdraw a promising talk show featuring TV evangelist T.D. Jakes even though it had Tribune lined up in the big markets, reportedly because it couldn't squeeze sufficient fees out of the smaller markets.
Program Partners may be able to forge ahead with its Marie Osmond talk show, having finally found outlet in New York (WNBC) and Los Angeles (Tribune's KTLA), but it still has big holes to fill in the top 10 markets.
Post-NATPE, Twentieth's Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? remains on the bubble.
The new reality may also affect renewals as they come up.
Over breakfast, a syndicator and I speculated that Oprah would not be coming back when her current contract expires in 2011, not because her ratings are dropping (although that's part of it) or because she has better things to do, but because stations will no longer be willing to pay enormous weekly license fees for any show, not even Oprah.
So, after all these years, will Oprah accept a salary cut commensurate with those reduced licensed fees? Don't think so.
Other perennials like Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune may also find that the cash isn't there when they come up for renewal. Fortunately for CBS, those shows' appeal is not based entirely on the fat salaries of their hosts.
NATPE's big keynoter was Tom Rogers, the CEO of TiVo, who did all he could to break the spirit of any remaining broadcaster/optimist by predicting the end of advertiser-supported TV as we know it when DVR penetration hits 50 or 60 percent and more than half the people have the ability to skip commercials.
"In two to three years, the TV industry is going to face an advertising crisis that is more severe for it than this current financial crisis," he warned.
"You need to take this threat as immediate," Rogers said. "The entire landscape of TV consumption is about to be turned on its head."
Remember, folks, this was the keynote.
NATPE itself served as a metaphor for the troubles of broadcasting. Despite an excellent program that included top TV execs (the likes of ABC-Disney's Anne Sweeney and NBC's Ben Silverman) and showcased technology that could one day save the day, it was unrecognizable to anybody who attended even three or four years ago.
NATPE contends that 5,000 people registered for the show. Maybe so, but it was way too few to inject any energy into either the exhibit floor or the hotel suites. Every day was Thursday.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Media & Marketing: Marketers Take Search Ads Beyond Search Engines
Hey class, its Aaron Friedman, one of the lead bloggers for the week and I am posting a Wall Street Journal article about new online marketing strategies. The article is entitled "Media and Marking: Marketers Take Search Ads Beyond Search Engines" and describes a shift in online ad purchasing from search engines to other increasingly popular forms of digital media. The shift is the result of marketers re-thinking of how to most effectively boost their online exposure in an age where the Internet is at our fingertips. The article uses Pizza Hut as an example of one of the many marketers who have shifted their placement of advertising in digital media. Pizza Hut started to buy ads tied to search engines, but more recently exteneded their online marketing to social network sites and cell phones. I felt that the article was relevant because we are all consumers of media and the marketers impact us all. Also, an overwhelming number of college students have Facebook profiles, which contain ads linked by marketers based on information revealed in profiles by Facebook users. Every time a Facebook user checks their profile they are exposed to this new shift in online marketing. Two questions from the article emerge: What is the current effect of this shift in digital marketing? How could it redefine the way marketers are able to influence consumers?
Media & Marketing: Marketers Take Search Ads Beyond Search Engines
-- Media & Marketing: Marketers Take Search Ads Beyond Search Engines --- Facebook, MySpace, iPhone Figure in Efforts by Pizza Hut, Others to Boost Online Exposure While Controlling Costs
By Emily Steel
694 words
20 January 2009
The Wall Street Journal
B4
English
(Copyright (c) 2009, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
Marketers, seeking to boost their online exposure while keeping a lid on costs, are looking beyond Internet search engines such as Google and Yahoo to find new places for their search ads.
The trend reflects a change in the way consumers are navigating the Web. More online searches now take place on YouTube, the popular video site owned by Google, than on Yahoo, the No. 2 Web-search property. The change has companies including Pizza Hut, Universal Pictures and Monster.com rethinking their search marketing strategies.
Even as No. 1 search engine Google's share of the online ad market -- including search ads -- continues to grow, marketers have started shifting ad purchases to other digital media, from social-networking sites to mobile phones. "Search is being redefined in a lot of different ways," says Peter Hershberg, managing partner at Reprise Media, a search marketing agency owned by Interpublic Group.
In search-engine advertising, marketers bid on key words in a continuous auction. When a consumer searches for any of the words, the marketer's ad appears above or next to the results, depending on the amount the company bids and an algorithm the search engines use to determine an ad's relevance to a particular search.
For the past few years Pizza Hut has bought ads on the major search engines tied to pizza-related searches, such as "cheese pizza" and "pizza delivery." Placing bids on those terms pits the Yum Brands restaurant chain against many competitors, including Domino's Pizza, Papa John's International and even local pizzerias, which have made search advertising an important piece of their own marketing. The auction system for the ads ultimately increases the price each pizza marketer pays when a consumer clicks on an ad.
Lately, Pizza Hut has started working with its agency, WPP's Group M Search, to expand its search-ad buys to new areas. The chain started buying mobile search ads to pitch its products. And to publicize the launch of a new whole-grain pizza, Pizza Hut is creating a promotion and buying ads through Facebook. While the Facebook ads aren't technically search ads, they are part of a broader effort to boost the company's profile in the nonpaid search results consumers get when seeking online information.
Over the past decade, search has evolved into the biggest category of online ad spending in the
On Facebook and MySpace, marketers don't buy ads tied to search terms. Instead, the ads are linked to information that users reveal about themselves on the sites, such as their age, hobbies or other personal interests.
Universal Pictures, a unit of General Electric, has started working with its digital agency 360i to buy sponsored video ads on YouTube to promote its recent film releases. Recent YouTube searches for "horror film" or "scary movie," for instance, display a link to a sponsored video for the supernatural thriller "The Unborn." Clicking on the ad takes visitors to a spot on YouTube where they can watch a movie trailer or other promotions for the film.
Job-listing site Monster.com, meanwhile, is testing a search-ad program for mobile searches done on the iPhone. "It just seemed like a no-brainer, that we would want to be able to access users on their smartphones and do that through a proven environment," says John Federico, vice president of global media at Monster.com.
NATPE Convention Floor Surprisingly Slow
Hey it's Adam again. I wanted to post this since Dr. Pitts is currently spending his time at NATPE. The article details the lack of participation in this year's event in comparison to previous years. I think it will be interesting to hear what Dr. Pitts has to say when we speak with him tomorrow regarding what the situation is like in Vegas!
NATPE Convention Floor Surprisingly Slow
While most executives at NATPE said attendance at this year’s conference would be down from the past, the lightly populated convention floor still came as a surprise to veteran attendees.
The floor itself, which opened Tuesday at NATPE ’09 in Las Vegas, appeared to have less foot traffic than usual, while business seemed slow at the new restaurant on the floor.
Other restaurants around the convention center were easily accessible with little wait, a rarity at previous NATPE conferences.
Syndication executives have been hesitant to even go down to the floor after hearing how light traffic it is.
“I’m scared to go look,” one executive said on Tuesday.
The rough economic times and low attendance already are impacting next year’s NATPE convention, as NATPE President-CEO Rick Feldman announced during the keynote address increased access to suites for distributors.
“It is a tough decision for us to abandon the NATPE floor, but the times call for tough decisions,” he said.
Mr. Feldman said the Mandalay Bay this year had limited the number of floors given over to suite space to about half a dozen. He said he hasn’t been told exactly how many floors the convention will get for suites next year, or what the convention floor layout will look like.
He said it could shrink the show floor slightly or dramatically, or just nix the convention floor completely.
News coming out of the convention hall Tuesday was equally light, mostly comprised of sporadic clearance announcements for minor shows.
“Is there even any news to report?” one publicist joked.
Talent appearances are scarce, with the most notable thus far being Wendy Williams, whose talk show is set to launch this fall from Debmar-Mercury.
In talking about her new show, she said it will be very similar to the show that aired during a six-week, four-market test run last summer.
The main changes, she said, will be a more comfortable couch for the guests and better chairs for her audience.
Ritch Colbert, a principal with Program Partners, said NATPE has been beneficial to the deal-making process. Program Partners is in the midst of trying to pick up clearances for “Marie,” starring Marie Osmond.
Mr. Colbert said he’s heard complaints from buyers about budget concerns regarding programming, but he stressed that NATPE is still important in order to make face-to-face meetings with the syndication world.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Making Every Second, or $100,000, Count
Hey guys, it's Adam Kimble, one of the lead bloggers for this week. I found this article out of the New York Times, and it's talking about the Super Bowl and ad costs. I figured what better of a way to kick off the sales discussion than with the one of the ultimate television sales! This was pretty interesting because despite the economy at this current moment in time, it is still costing $3 million for every 30-second spot. That is a hefty price, and is surprisingly larger than last year's cost for an ad. However, given the popularity of the Super Bowl and the size of the audience, businesses are still shelling out the money. As one businessman said, "what people want right now is to step back, pause, and refresh a little." Not to mention that many advertisers are kicking off campaigns and looking for a solid start, which leads them right down this path. No matter how you look at it, you can't shake the stigma of Super Bowl ads...
Making Every Second, or $100,000, Count
MARKETERS that advertise on the Super Bowl are always seeking more bang for their buck. This year, with each 30-second commercial during the game estimated to cost a record $3 million — yes, $100,000 a second — and the recession threatening to dampen viewer enthusiasm, the sponsors are intensifying efforts to amplify the force of what they plan for Super Bowl XLIII.
“Especially in this economy, people are saying, ‘I’d better get my money’s worth,’ ” said Andrew Graff, president and chief executive at Allen & Gerritsen in Watertown, Mass., which conducts an annual survey online, with New England Cable News, on the Super Bowl spots viewers consider most meaningful.
So a first-time Super Bowl advertiser, the General Electric Company, intends to make its commercial the springboard for an elaborate campaign — in print and online as well as on TV — focused on innovative ideas “now” in areas like energy and the environment.
The campaign, from two Omnicom Group agencies — BBDO Worldwide and Goodby, Silverstein & Partners — promotes G.E. products like Smart Grid energy technology as “innovation you don’t have to wait for” rather than far-off fantasies. The various aspects of the campaign, including digital holograms, online films and a special Web site, are all scheduled to go live on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 1.
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A returning sponsor, the Coca-Cola Company, is using the Super Bowl to help introduce an “Open happiness” campaign for its flagship soft drink. The campaign, by Wieden & Kennedy, will be supplemented by everything from short spots on “American Idol” to 16-ounce bottles of Coke at lower, recession-friendlier prices of 99 cents each.
In addition to two commercials during the game for Coca-Cola Classic, there will be a Coke Zero spot created by Crispin Porter & Bogusky, part of MDC Partners.
Another returning advertiser, the E*Trade Financial Corporation, is surrounding its Super Bowl spot with a variety of Internet initiatives, including some that will begin on Facebook and YouTube (youtube.com/etrade) on Friday and on Twitter early next week.
The E*Trade commercial will bring back a character from two popular spots the company ran in the game last year, a talking baby wise beyond his years. The campaign, which also includes ads in newspapers and movie theaters and on Web sites that range from A (AOL) to Y (Yahoo), is by the Grey New York unit of the Grey Group, owned by WPP.
“It’s more than a 30-second spot,” said Nick Utton, chief marketing officer at E*Trade in New York. “The Super Bowl is part of a total plan.”
“This environment is very different from what it was last year, so we spent a lot of time thinking about this,” he added. “And we’ve done extensive testing to be doubly sure, triply sure, all the elements of the mix are right.”
Similarly, G.E. pondered the decision to make its Super Bowl debut at such a tense moment, said Judy Hu, global executive director for advertising and brand at G.E. in Fairfield, Conn.
One reason the company is going ahead with the campaign, she said, is that it has what she called a “positive, optimistic” spirit. The Super Bowl commercial, by the BBDO New York office, features a song by the Scarecrow (Ray Bolger) from the 1939 film “The Wizard of Oz” and concludes with the company’s upbeat “Imagination at work” theme.
“We try never to do depressing commercials,” Ms. Hu said.
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Another reason to proceed, Ms. Hu said, is that G.E. wanted to address what company executives perceived as “an impatience” among consumers “to fix things now” in critical realms like reducing energy use.
“Bringing in a new agency was really helpful” in framing the approach, she added, referring to the Goodby, Silverstein work on the digital aspects of the campaign. Among the elements are the holograms and the special Web site, which will be found at plugintothesmartgrid.com.
Goodby, Silverstein was “a recent addition” to the G.E. roster of interactive agencies, which is composed of five or six shops, said Jen Walsh, global director for digital media at G.E.
The coming Super Bowl will be the third year in a row that Coca-Cola is advertising Coke Classic during the game after an absence of almost a decade. Coke Zero, a sugar-free soda, is getting its first Super Bowl berth.
As for the advisability of making so large an ad investment these days, “we know we’re living in challenging times,” acknowledged Joseph V. Tripodi, senior vice president and chief marketing and commercial officer at Coca-Cola. “What people want right now is to step back, pause and refresh a little.”
(Clever marketer that he is, Mr. Tripodi’s remark quoted a famous Coke ad slogan, “The pause that refreshes,” which a rival soft drink, Pepsi-Cola, is echoing in a new campaign of its own, “Refresh everything.” Pepsi-Cola is also likely to advertise during the Super Bowl with one or more commercials from TBWA/Chiat/Day, part of the TBWA Worldwide unit of Omnicom.)
“The cola wars are revved up again in a way they haven’t been in a decade,” said John D. Sicher, at Beverage Digest, a trade publication.
“It’s to the benefit of both companies,” he added, because flagging sales of colas means that “both companies need to talk about the products and convey it’s fun to drink them.”
To that end, Mr. Tripodi said, the idea of the new “Open happiness” campaign for Coke is to offer consumers “more of a call to action” than the previous Coke campaign, which carried the theme “The Coke side of life.” The new ads include paeans to product attributes like refreshment and quenching thirst.
In one spot scheduled for the Super Bowl, insects conspire to swipe a bottle of Coke Classic from a youth sleeping in a park. A second spot, commenting on the popularity of online and onscreen avatars, suggests that a bottle of Coke Classic can restore some human interaction to the interactive world.
Among the other advertisers on Super Bowl XLIII, to be broadcast by NBC, are Anheuser-Busch InBev, Audi, Bridgestone, CareerBuilder, Cars.com, Castrol, Denny’s, DreamWorks Animation, GoDaddy.com, H&R Block, Hyundai Motor, Monster.com, PepsiCo and Teleflora.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Digital shift pushed back by Dems
Despite aggressive media campaigns and other precautions American still not adequately prepared for Digital shift. Will they ever be?
The New York Times
Published: Jan 09, 2009
Democrats Seek Delay in TV Shift
The New York Times
Published: Jan 09, 2009
The nation’s broadcasters may not complete their long-awaited switch to all-digital TV next month, after all.
On Thursday President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team urged Congress to extend the Feb. 17 cutoff date for analog broadcasting, injecting new uncertainty into a switch that has confused customers and cost the government more than $1.3 billion in subsidies.
Several television networks and high-ranking Democrats supported Mr. Obama’s proposal, although it remains unclear whether a change will be made.
Ending analog signals will affect millions of television viewers who own old televisions. Those sets will not be able to receive over-the-air television signals once the mandated upgrade to digital transmission takes place, unless their owners buy converter boxes, which the government is subsidizing.
In the most significant sign to date of concern about the impending transition, John D. Podesta, the chairman of the Obama transition team, said the Congressional financing to support the change was “woefully inadequate.”
Echoing concerns from consumers groups, Mr. Podesta said in a letter to Congressional leaders that the Obama staff had found major difficulties in the transition, which was authorized by Congress in 2005.
He said a federal coupon program for discounts on the cost of converter boxes has, at least temporarily, run out of funds, forcing more than one million coupon requests to be put on a waiting list. To date, 18.8 million coupons have been redeemed; some have expired without being used, and as more expire, new ones will be made available.
Mr. Podesta said that the number of requests — possibly hundreds of thousands each day — could overwhelm the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which is running the program. The coupons are worth $40, and the most basic converters cost about $50.
Mr. Podesta also described as insufficient the government’s plans to handle the expected rush of inquiries as Feb. 17 draws near and indicated that Mr. Obama’s proposed stimulus package would include funds to address the problems.
Several high-ranking Congressional members said the recommendation should be considered swiftly. Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia and chairman of the committee on commerce, science and transportation, said he would support delaying the analog cutoff “until we can do it right.”
But some prominent Republicans rejected the recommendation. In a statement, Representative Joe L. Barton of Texas said that “ditching the deadline” would amount to panic. “We don’t need to bail out the DTV transition program because it isn’t failing, and reintroducing uncertainty to the switch will make things worse instead of better," Mr. Barton, a ranking member of the House committee on energy and commerce, said.
Neither Mr. Podesta nor any of the lawmakers indicated the length of a potential delay.
The end of analog broadcasting will free up spectrum for use by wireless companies and public safety agencies. A big advertising campaign by the government and the broadcasting industry, complete with messages on the side of a Nascar race car, has asked consumers, “Are you ready?”
Still, Nielsen Media Research estimates that 7.8 million households, representing 6.8 percent of homes with television, were not ready as of December because they had not upgraded any of their television sets. Unless members of those households purchase new TV’s or converter boxes, they will lose service when the analog signals are shut off. Homes with cable or satellite service will not be affected, only those with old antennas.
The owners of major networks, including NBC Universal and the News Corporation, have indicated that they support a delay. After all, they could see a drop in audience if many TV sets suddenly go dark.
Local television stations in many markets have held digital TV tests, temporarily turning off their analog signal and informing viewers of the impending change. During one recent test in Knoxville, Tenn., Debra Krause Dandaneau, found that the television and antenna she had purchased did not work without a converter box. She requested a coupon for a converter box in October, but it had expired by the time it arrived in the mail.
She has waited four weeks for a new one.
“Now, I wonder ‘Will that coupon be delivered?’ ” she said, adding that she has a Ph.D. in physics and that “this has been difficult and frustrating.”
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