Posted on 12/11/2007 5:00:19 AM PST by abb
Facing a severe ratings decline and disgruntled advertisers, NBC is taking the unusual step of offering cash back - rather than additional ad time - to compensate for the shortfall. When the major networks fail to deliver the prime-time ratings they promised advertisers, they almost always offer extra ad spots, or "make goods," as reimbursement.
But ad buyers said NBC is in a tough position because it is so far below its ratings guarantees. What's more, it doesn't have enough spots to give away after having sold much of its available inventory.
NBC's overall ratings for November "sweeps" slumped 20 percent from the year-earlier period, Nielsen figures show. The key 18-to-49 demographic was down 14 percent.
"NBC has no chance," said one ad buyer. "They are missing by so much."
The network is returning an average of $500,000 per advertiser, according to trade pub MediaWeek, which first reported the news. A spokeswoman for NBC declined to comment.
Such a move a few years ago would have been unthinkable. But NBC is a fourth-ranked network mired in a dismal fall season that failed to produce any breakout shows.
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(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
The reason why DVD sales are slowing down is who wants to watch those recent liberal-leaning movies and TV shows on DVD?
Yes. And remember this little talk almost 10 years ago. Prophetic, as it turns out.
http://www.libertyroundtable.org/library/essay.drudge.html
Anyone With A Modem Can Report On The World
Address Before the National Press Club
by Matt Drudge, June 2, 1998
Here's the problem. I often record a few weeks of a series and watch them in row or over a couple of days. This isn't being picked up even though the shows are eventually being watched.
I also don’t have to make more room to store them, along with all the old VCR tapes I’ve yet to convert to DVD :-)
.......thanks to all who responded to my net-to-TV hook up question...it sounds doable but rather than screw it up by trying to do it myself I’m gonna get my 18 yo grandson involved...he can straighten out hi tech gadgets as fast as he can get his hands on them.
They (the liberal media and the liberal journalists who write about them) STILL DON'T GET IT......and they never will.
If they ever do, their very lives would explode into fragments never to be put back together again.
Leni
http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=122495
Lingering Strike Threatens $9 Billion Upfront Market
If Walk-Out Continues Through January, Nets Could Be Short on Shows
By Brian Steinberg and Jean Halliday
Published: December 10, 2007
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — If the writers strike continues until January, it will endanger the $9 billion TV upfront market.
Marketers and agencies have tried for years to change the way TV time is bought and sold, arguing that committing such a large portion of their budgets ahead of the start of the fall season no longer makes sense. And it’s looking increasingly like the Writers Guild of America strike could be the catalyst for retooling the annual May upfront process.
Ed Gentner, senior VP-group client director at MediaVest USA
“If we don’t have any [next-season pilots] developed and we are at the end of the first quarter, I have to believe that’s when everyone is starting to think that the upfront may be in jeopardy,” said Ed Gentner, senior VP-group client director at MediaVest USA. “Once you get beyond January, the traditional network development presentation that is generally in March is probably going to be off.”
Less shrimp come May
Networks typically spend millions of dollars to hype their fall schedules, wooing advertisers during upfront week in May with song-and-dance numbers and huge bowls of shrimp. Those celebrity-studded confabs could be delayed or even canceled next year due to the strike, but some deals still would get done. Without a robust slate of original dramas and sitcoms, however, there won’t be so many.
“If you can’t line up your marketing needs with program availability, you can’t do a deal. It’s irresponsible,” said Jason Kanefsky, senior VP-group account director at MPG.
This is “the quiet before the storm,” said an auto-company marketing executive who requested anonymity. “The longer the strike goes on, the broader the impact.” Already the pipeline is far from brimming. “This time of year, there are usually 70-plus pilots and shows that are in production. They don’t have that bulk of work,” said one executive producer.
Carol Barbee, executive producer of cult favorite “Jericho” on CBS, said while her show would only benefit (a full season is already in the can), the damage could wreak havoc beyond the upfront. “If this goes past January, [the networks] have lost the entire development season, which means that they’ve lost all the new shows and the midseason replacements.”
Network executives, cognizant of continuing negotiations, were not available for comment. But instead of bringing marketer and agency executives together in May for a presentation, networks most likely will opt for a series of private meetings to lay out plans for the summer and beyond. Many advertisers’ budgets are locked in for the rest of 2007, and networks have largely been able to keep original programming on the air. Reality shows and replacement programs are due in 2008. Some of them are of high quality, such as Fox’s “American Idol” and Showtime dramas that could land on CBS. Marketers can judge in early to mid-January, when options open to move around previous ad commitments or even ask for cash back.
Getting ahead
The upfront has shown signs of erosion for the past two years. Johnson & Johnson gained notice by not taking part in the May brouhaha so it could deploy marketing dollars closer to the timing of its business planning. A goal of NBC Universal ad-sales chief Mike Pilot is to get advertisers to discuss ways to tie promo messages to various shows earlier in the cycle.
If the networks manage to do deals in a series of individual meetings, freed from the pressure of getting all of the deals done following group presentations, marketers and agencies may decide they like that way of doing business better.
The strike could accelerate recognition that consumers don’t “revolve around prime time and the networks’ new seasons anymore,” said Rino Scanzoni, chief investment officer for WPP Group’s Group M media-buying consortium. With people using DVRs and watching programming online, a better system of buying and selling needs to be put in place. If the strike were to help people see that, he said, “that might actually be a silver lining.”
The bias in their news has soured me on the entertainment product. Why should I financially support adveryisers who keep traitors in business?
While you are at it, have the eighteen year old head over to Puzo.org. I never rent movies anymore.
and yet their news departments still have just enough energy to try and control the outcome of presidential elections.
I have found myself surfing the morning too.
The fox “fair and balanced” is just about “equal time for idiots”. Never a complete story or a story that gets to the real facts.
They discussed the fact a ccw holder saved the day and to be “balanced” gave unfettered time to an idiot who essentially advocated it is better to have people die. But that was “equal time balance”.
There is simply no factual morning show out there. CSpan can be good at times but the kooks call in with their “impeach everyone” websites.
Free Republic does nicely as a "hard" news aggregation site. Within 10 minutes I can find out what's really happening world-wide and what's important. We can find information here faster than any editor in any newspaper or broadcast studio anywhere. If it isn't posted on Free Republic, it really isn't news...
The network is returning an average of $500,000 per advertiser, according to trade pub MediaWeek, which first reported the news. A spokeswoman for NBC declined to comment.
Such a move a few years ago would have been unthinkable. But NBC is a fourth-ranked network mired in a dismal fall season that failed to produce any breakout shows.
but it gets dangerous trying to post to FR while driving...
.
Here’s another problem. When you say “watched” do you mean the show, or the show AND the commercials?
Olbermann was on the football game commentary sections the other night. It was all I could do to refrain from screaming at him, but my hubby was watching the game. That “man’s” voice grates on and on. You can just hear him calling another conservative “the worse person in the world!” What a drama queen he is. When the score finally got too silly to watch, we changed channels.
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