You are viewing the archive: “Advertising Upfront Market”

TV Networks Will See Just Mid-Single Digit Growth In Upfront Ad Prices: Analyst

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Tuesday May 29, 2012 @ 6:18am PDTTags: Advertising, Advertising Upfront Market, TV Upfront Market

With sales cooling in television’s scatter advertising market, negotiations underway now for the huge upfront market  will generate less than networks would like Nomura Equity Research’s Michael Nathanson predicts this morning in his thorough quarterly  review of ad trends.  He forecasts that overall U.S. sales will grow 5.6% in 2012, making him more optimistic than ZenithOptimedia (which projects U.S. sales +3.6%) and MAGNA Global (anticipating +4.0%). Television will be +6.6% this year with help from the additional spending for the 2012 election campaigns and the Summer Olympics — but will decelerate to +0.9% next year. Demand in the broader marketplace “seems to be stable,” he says, after rising 5.3% to $19.2B in the first three months of this year vs the same period last year. The 11.8% boost in Q1 online sales to nearly $5B accounted for much of the growth. But television was up 6.0% to $10.2B.  The return of NBA games, following the basketball league’s lockout, helped cable networks to lead  the way, +7.9% to $4.8B. But the major broadcast networks enjoyed a 5.0% bump to nearly $3B. Nathanson says that Fox’s ratings struggles with American Idol (and not including the network’s boost from the Super Bowl) offset the mid-to-high single digit growth at CBS and ABC. READ MORE »

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Advertisers Aren’t Ready Yet To Move Lots Of TV Spots To Online Video: Analyst

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Wednesday May 16, 2012 @ 6:19am PDTTags: Advertising Upfront Market, Big Deals TV, Internet TV

AOL, Hulu, Yahoo, and Google’s YouTube are among the companies that provided so-called “newfront” presentations to advertisers this year — sales pitches urging them to divert to Web video platforms some of the billions that they plan to spend on conventional TV. Some major advertisers including GM and Samsung Mobile have said that they expect to do just that this year. But while that’s made this upfront season interesting, “we think it is still too early for online video to be meaningfully disruptive to TV,” Barclays Equity Research analyst Anthony DiClemente says in a report this morning. He notes that most viewers still flock to TV much more than the Web: The average person spent 153:19 hours a month watching the tube in Q4 — with another 11:44 hours going to time-shifted TV — according to Nielsen data. But they devoted just 4:34 hours watching Web video, and 4:20 watching videos on mobile phones. Things are changing slowly. Monthly television watching was down 46 minutes from the average at the end of 2010, more than made up by the 1:17 hours added to timeshifted TV. But Web videos were only up 11 minutes, and there was no change in video viewing on mobile phones. What accounts Read More »

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Wall Street Predicts CBS Will Lead Upfront TV Ad Sales In A “Boring” Year

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Friday May 11, 2012 @ 7:25am PDTTags: Advertising Upfront Market, TV Upfront Market

It’s in almost everybody’s interest to try and gin up excitement for next week’s major TV network upfront presentations: The celebrities are lined up, and the shrimp and booze ordered, in an effort to entice ad buyers to conditionally bet billions of dollars on shows that haven’t been written yet, and ratings points that can’t be accurately measured. Wall Street analysts say that CBS will be the big winner in light of its strong ratings. For example, Credit Suisse’ Spencer Wang predicts this morning that CBS will record commitments of $2.8B (+4%), followed by ABC at $2.4B (+2%), Fox at $2.0B (+2%), NBC at $1.7B (no change), and CW at $477M (-1%). But for the most part, analysts are preparing to yawn. ”As it currently stands,” RBC Capital Markets’ David Bank writes this morning, “broadcast year 2012/13 is setting up to be a ‘boring’ year for network TV advertising, with few surprises.” He reflects the consensus view that advertisers are less likely to be stampeded into making deals than they were last year. The economy looks wobbly — nobody knows how the European debt crisis will play out — and overall TV ratings continue to slide. Demand from auto companies is robust “but likely will decelerate,” Bank says. Meanwhile pharmaceutical companies have been standoffish “and likely will continue to remain so for the foreseeable future” with fewer new products teed up and some major patents due Read More »

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Booming Auto Ads Could Drive Record Upfront TV Sales: Moody’s

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Tuesday March 27, 2012 @ 7:35am PDTTags: Advertising, Advertising Upfront Market, Big Deals TV, Moody's Investors Service

Actually the debt ratings service projects an “advertising windfall” for virtually all traditional media in a report this morning that says auto makers will sell 14M vehicles this year, up 9.3% vs 2011. That should especially delight TV … Read More »

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Upfronts: Fox Offers One-Stop Ad Shopping For TV And Digital

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Monday May 16, 2011 @ 1:53pm PDTTags: Advertising Upfront Market, Fox, Toby Byrne

Fox executives told advertisers today during its upfront presentation that it will embrace digital platforms by offering opportunities to buy spots that will run on a TV show anywhere it airs — including digital sites such as Hulu. Fox Broadcasting President … Read More »

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Upfronts: It’s All About Ads & The Economy

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Monday May 16, 2011 @ 8:58am PDTTags: Advertising Upfront Market, Broadcast Upfront Market, Network TV Advertising, TV Advertising, TV Upfront Market, Upfront Presentations

Just about everyone says that the 2011 upfront ad sales season that kicks off this week will be a record-setter. Barclays Capital analyst Anthony DiClemente expects advertisers to commit about $9.2 billion for prime time spots at ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC … Read More »

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Big Media’s 1Q Earnings Roundup: Cash

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Thursday May 12, 2011 @ 6:03am PDTTags: Advertising, Advertising Upfront Market, Big Media Earnings, Cars 2, CBS Les Moonves, Chase Carey News Corp, Cinemark Alan Stock, First Quarter Earnings, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Kung Fu Panda 2, Netflix Online Streaming, Olympics, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Premium VOD, Steve Burke NBC Universal, The Hangover II, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Viacom Philippe Dauman

The money is flowing again into Big Media. Just about every media CEO who recently spoke to Wall Street analysts about this year’s 1st Quarter earnings said that ad sales are up and consumers are spending. “Viacom … Read More »

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UPFRONTS UP! Car, Cellular, Banking Want Primetime: May Be Strongest Since 2003

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Wednesday April 13, 2011 @ 1:26pm PDTTags: Advertising, Advertising Upfront Market, Broadcast Upfront Market, ESPN, NBC, TV Upfront Market, Upfront

Cable channels are already making upfront presentations to advertisers, and those sales efforts will accelerate on Thursday when Discovery Communications introduces its fall shows. According to new forecasts out this week which do not take into account the deepening NFL labor strife, cable channel sales could hit $9 billion during the coming 2011 upfronts, up 11.5% over last year. As for broadcast, Miller Tabak analyst David Joyce projects a 14.9% increase to nearly $9.9 billion for the Big Four networks’ primetime schedule unveiling next month. Media services firm Zenith Optimedia also said this week that it expects double-digit gains in cable and broadcast sales. Car, cell phone, and banking service companies – eager to take advantage of the thawing economy – could make this upfront ad-sales season one of the strongest since 2003. Auto companies normally account for about a quarter of TV ad sales but were in a deep slump during the economic crisis giving the TV honchos fits. Now they’ll likely drive the market once more. They’re introducing 65 new models this year vs. 60 in 2010, and only 40 in 2009. Read More »

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