COMMENTARY

For A Stronger 'Build Back Better' Campaign - Add 1 Key Word

• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, 10 hours ago

Legendary ad man Donnie Deutsch says the whole “Build Back Better”marketing effort from the Biden Administration is short on one word: economy.

Deutsch mused on MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House” last week that a phase that keeps coming back -- when it comes to political messaging and voter motivation.

“It‘s the economy, stupid,’ from the Clinton campaign,” he says. So, he wonders, what about The Power Economy Bill, The People’s Economy Bill or The Economy’s Future Bill?

Deutsch adds: “Go back to Obamacare. It was a health-care bill ... Civil Rights? There was a civil-rights bill. This is an economic bill, and you need to own it that way. It’s not a spending bill, a spending bill can be a dirty word.”

Then MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace puts Deutsch on the spot: Make us a TV ad -- right now. To his credit, Deutsch riffed on a rough sketch of what the TV ad might look like -- improvising on the spot.

He suggests: “It’s a dark America. It was what we inherited. It was Covid. It was an economy in ruins. It was January 6th [the date of the insurrection of the Capitol.].”

“Then all of a sudden, this economic future bill has shed light. It has created jobs. It gives pre-K [and] child tax care credits. It’s saving the world from climate change. These are the things powering our economic future. It’s morning in America again.”

No doubt many voters know the word "infrastructure." Still that word can be fuzzy to many, if not cumbersome in a TV ad. Better roads and bridges? Is that all it is? The Biden Administration wants it to mean more, like broadband service to rural U.S. areas.

On Friday, the House of Representatives passed a $1 trillion bill for this basic infrastructure work. But the bigger companion $1.75 trillion bill for social safety-net programs is still in process --- that's the "Build Back Better" part.

A modest campaign did start in July for the campaign -- a $10 million “Building Back Together”  effort on broadcast, cable TV and digital platforms in the Washington D.C. area.

It talked up good paying jobs, as well as promising clear drinking water, the possibility of free pre-K learning for kids to help their parents go to their jobs and expanding Medicare. Early on, there was a proposal for free community college.

A new kind of marketing campaign would, in theory, be a big help when it comes to the crucial midterm elections. Historically, the current President’s party has a tough time gaining more seats to the House of Representatives two years after the presidential election.

Longer term, a big impactful ad campaign -- running before the midterms -- would go a long way to rally the party faithful that the President and his administration is on the right track. It could also lift his approval ratings.

Improving economic and personal financial conditions is always something voters can engage with on their TV or other digital screens.

Also  find your missing TV marketing buzz words before the next election.

 

High-Priced Scatter Deals May Not Worry Brand Advertisers

• by Wayne Friedman , Yesterday

Big TV-focused brand marketers are now less concerned about price hikes in the scatter TV marketplace, according to a recent study from Advertiser Perceptions.

Thirty-eight percent of media-executive respondents made upfront deals to “avoid rate hikes in the scatter market” -- down from 49% a year ago, according to a June 2021 survey from the ad-business research company.

This comes after marketers rushed into the upfront marketplace this past summer, resulting in a massive 20% to 25% cost-per-thousand viewer (CPM) price increases. In addition, brand TV marketers shifted 20% to 25% of their budgets to TV network-associated premium streaming platforms.

The upfront market is where broadcast and cable TV networks can sell 65% to 75% of their inventory throughout the September-August TV season at reduced rates versus the quarter-by-quarter scatter market TV season that occurs throughout the year.

Marketers have traditionally placed a majority of the national TV budgets on networks to avoid higher-priced scatter deals.

Growing connected TV media deals may be having a major effect on business -- in terms of pricing and when to place messaging.

“CTV is altering the notion of a calendar,” says Erin Firneno, vice president, business Intelligence at Advertiser Perceptions.

“While advertisers are compelled to buy upfront to secure limited premium inventory, streaming programming does not follow the linear TV calendar. ... As audiences redefine prime time and programming, the companies that showcase a wider portfolio at the upfronts have a decided edge.” Firneno added.

At the same time, 68% of advertisers say they are willing to pay higher prices to lock in “video ad opportunities” -- up 19 percentage points from last year. This includes all video platforms -- linear TV, on-demand, streaming and digital.

Advertiser Perceptions surveyed 307 advertising executives in June 2021 — 50% marketer, 50% agency — who run national TV and digital video advertising.

The TV upfront market this past summer came after a weakened and uncertain national TV advertising marketplace in August/September -- just before the start of the 2020-2021 TV season, which was still in the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

Forecast: Discovery-WarnerMedia Among Top 4 Streamers, 200M Global Subs By 2026

• by Wayne Friedman , Yesterday

Discovery's acquisition of WarnerMedia could rapidly boost the combined company to 200 million streaming subscribers in four years, according to one media analyst -- placing it among a handful of direct-to-consumer premium players.

“The transformative WarnerMedia merger, once closed, will create value as a fourth major direct-to-consumer provider, with one of the most broad-based content offerings alongside Disney’s bundles,” writes Tim Nollen, media analyst for Macquarie Research.

He adds: “This could lead to nearly 100 million combined Discovery+/HBO subs in 2021 and 200 million by 2026.”

Discovery is working to align its technology platform with HBO Max -- which will include an ad-supported offering, co-marketing with HBO Max and distribution arrangements with local pay TV and telco operators.

Nollen says by the end of this year, discovery+ will be at 23 million subscribers, with HBO Max/HBO at 74 million. A total of around 100 million, including Discovery's other D2C businesses, such as Motor Trend (1.3 million) and Food Network Kitchen (800,000), would rank just below the 131 million for Disney+ and 222 million for Netflix.

He adds that about half of Discovery+'s 20 million subscribers are U.S.-based. In turn, half of those are subscribing to an ad-free option and the other half subscribe to an "ad-supported" option.

Discovery’s "ad lite" product results in $5 to $6 of advertising average monthly rate per user (ARPU) in the U.S. Adding in $5 per month for the base subscription cost results in a total of $10 to $11 in ARPU.

For investors, he says, this is a deal they should not miss. “Current [Discovery] valuation looks too cheap to pass up here: the current ... stock price implies the combined company is worth $115 billion and is thus trading at 10x ’21 EV/EBITDA.”

A 10x "enterprise value-to-earnings before interest, taxes depreciation and amortization ratio," has historically been a cheap multiple for media companies to operate under.

Midday Monday trading of Discovery Inc. was virtually unchanged at $26.49. The Discovery/WarnerMedia deal is expected to close in the first half of 2022. The company will be named Warner Bros. Discovery.

 

Nielsen Begins Testing 'One' Methodology Internally, Sees Gracenote In The Metaverse

• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, 11 hours ago

Nielsen has begun internal tests of its new multimedia audience measurement methodology, Nielsen One, and will begin testing it with clients next year, the company’s top management executives said during a briefing with a Wall Street securities firm.

“Most of the methodology is built from Big Data sources like [connected TV] makers and Roku, but Nielsen’s panel remains vital to calibrating the data for fraudulent accounts, non-viewed content (e.g., streaming or set-top box showing video, but TV is off) and better accounting for underrepresented audiences,” BMO Capital Markets analyst Daniel Salmon disclosed in a report sent to investors late Monday.

The report describes Nielsen executives as characterizing Nielsen One as a “streaming-first orientation from the outset," and the core of David Kenny’s vision since becoming Nielsen’s CEO three years ago.

The report notes that the vision coincides with rapidly expanding demand from advertisers for ad-supported streaming inventory, which generally yields higher prices relative to other advertising buys. The Nielsen executives also characterized the increasing focus on privacy as a “tailwind for its overall business owing to the legacy in trusted panel use.”

Nielsen utilizes its own proprietary identity tracker for measuring audiences, though not for actually targeting them, but the report notes it can be used to “reconcile” other targeting tools like Universal ID 2.0 and/or Google’s FLoCs (federated learning of cohorts).

Nielsen disclosed is streaming meters are now being used by 18,000 of its targeted 42,000 panel base, with the majority expected to adopt them by next year.

In terms of Nielsen’s grander designs, management said the company’s Gracenote division, which watermarks digital content so it can be tracked and measured, is poised for growth across streaming services, online gaming, and even various “metaverse opportunities.”

 

Comscore Pushing 'Currency' Status For 2021-22 Upfront

• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, 9 hours ago

Comscore reported improved results for this year’s third quarter, and also took the opportunity to announce that it's in talks to get its measurement solutions used as currency during the next television upfront.

The company is “in the middle of discussions with national TV networks to use Comscore's measurement, as currency especially, as we move into next year's upfront market,” CEO Bill Livek told investors during the earnings call. “That follows our expanded relationship with Fox Networks and Viacom CBS for traditional linear currency that we announced previously.”  

The announcement is the latest move by Comscore to capitalize on marketers’ push to find alternatives to Nielsen.

Comscore, which uses set-top box data for audience measurement, has been picking up more media clients as the long-dominant Nielsen service has come under fire for undercounting viewers during the pandemic, which led to suspension of its national and local accreditation by the Media Ratings Council.

In April and August of this year, respectively, ViacomCBS and Fox announced as part of agreement renewals that they would use Comscore TV measurement as well as Nielsen measurement.

In September, ViacomCBS also struck a deal with advertising software/data company VideoAmp to provide an “alternative currency” measurement.

Last week, Univision selected Comscore as its exclusive linear local audience measurement provider for Hispanic TV stations it is acquiring in Washington, D.C. and Tampa and Orlando, Florida.

Over the past year, Comscore has used funds from a refinancing to acquire expanded data rights to improve its measurement stability.

Nielsen is pushing forward with Nielsen One, meant to combine data from digital and traditional linear broadcast, and is now testing the new solution’s methodology internally in preparation for an expected 2022 launch.

Comscore’s third quarter results included a 5% year-over-year increase in revenue, to $92.5 million — its first revenue increase since Q4 2019.

The company also narrowed its net loss to $1.9 million (2 cents per share) in the quarter, down from $11.1 million (16 cents per share) in Q3 2020.

COMMENTARY TV Oddities Of COVID Era Are Fading As Normalcy Returns

 

COMMENTARY

TV Oddities Of COVID Era Are Fading As Normalcy Returns

• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, 11 hours ago

It does not seem all that long ago that TV content and commercials flipped a switch and went into COVID-19 overdrive seemingly overnight.

But today, all of those commercials made up of home video clips made by ordinary folks quarantining at home, and the TV shows that took up similar pandemic-related themes are either completely gone or exceedingly rare.

One of the latter was the sitcom called “connecting …” (spelled with a lower-case “c”) which came and went last fall on NBC.

The show (pictured above) centered completely on a Zoom-like get-together of friends who felt isolated and sought to reconnect on a virtual videoconference (the brand-name Zoom was never used).

Give the makers of this show some credit for coming up with it in the first place. But not surprisingly, it was all talk and no action, just like real Zoom meetings.

The first TV Blog referring to the onset of the crisis that contained either the word “COVID” or “pandemic” appeared here on March 6, 2020, in a column about some of the news stories that week.

They included Chris Matthews’ abrupt resignation from MSNBC following allegations that he made lecherous comments to female co-workers and that week’s Super Tuesday Democratic presidential primary.

A distant third on the list: A pandemic that “appeared to be accelerating.” 

Searching through the “pandemic” columns, I came across one published three months before the pandemic upended our lives. 

This column from January 2020 reported on a new drama series premiering then on Fox called “The Passage” that turned out to be prescient (and also short-lived).

One of the show’s storylines had to do with “the spread of a lethal disease that so far has broken out only in China.” Coincidence? Probably.

But after mid-March, the TV Blog began its deep dive into all things COVID and their impact on television. As of this past September, 86 TV Blogs published since then contained either the word “COVID” or “pandemic” or both.

Among the recurring topics was TV’s reliance on video that in almost any another era would have been deemed unfit for broadcast.

This category comprised several forms of this kind of video that became commonplace during the pandemic.

These included the aforementioned home-made video clips shared on social media by ordinary people who were cavorting in their homes and backyards in an effort to fend off quarantine boredom; the shows that began to originate from the homes of their hosts, most notably the late-night shows; and the reliance on Skype, Zoom and other forms of virtual one-on-one communications for TV news interviews and cable news talk show appearances.

Concerning the latter category, this means of conducting interviews for TV news stories with commentators and experts appears to be here to stay even if the video quality of this kind of imagery is so substandard that it can actually repel viewership.

But for TV news, remote interviews like these mean that news crews need not be dispatched to interview these people with broadcast-quality cameras and other equipment, thus giving TV news departments another way to cut corners and save money. Always the dollars, right?

Columns on the shift of the late-night shows to the homes of Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel pointed out that the shows, at least at first, came across as slapdash and below par.

One TV Blog had a photo of Colbert doing a show from a bubble bath. On NBC, Fallon hosted “The Tonight Show” from a “desk” that had been built by his young daughters -- like Lucy’s “Psychiatric Help” stand in an old “Peanuts” cartoon.

The eventual return of the late-night shows to the well-equipped studios and theaters where they belonged was a welcome occurrence.

As for the motherlode of commercials that relied on all of that home-video footage in 2020, those are practically all gone now. In fact, when I happened to actually see one on TV recently, I asked myself: Are we really still doing this?

Hopefully the answer will soon be no.

Back with all the good news for you!

 Hi all: Sorry I dropped out late October for a bit as I was getting my heart fixed. Now I have 4 wonderful stents to keep me going into my 90s!!!!