Online Media Players Gun for TV’s Lost Viewers at NewFronts

Viewers at NewFronts

Todd Spangler

NY Digital Editor@xpangler  

Courtesy of iab

May 4, 2016 | 10:00AM PT

                                    

Online video is still the plucky, punkish younger cousin to TV’s rich uncle. But digital entertainment now has a firm seat at the big kids’ table on Madison Avenue.

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A diverse lineup of media players will tout new projects and initiatives to try to win the business of ad buyers and brand marketers at the 2016 Digital Content NewFronts, the industry’s version of the television upfront season, which runs May 2-13 in New York. Officially in its fifth year, the IAB-managed series of presentations will feature 38 companies (up from 34 last year) along with unofficial piggybacking events hosted by CAA, UTA and others.

“In the old days, it was kind of a sideshow,” says Pete Stein, head of Fullscreen’s brand group. “Now it’s center stage.”

In addition to mainstays like YouTube, AOL and Hulu, presenters new on the NewFronts schedule this year include AwesomenessTV, Turner’s CNN, Activision Blizzard, Mashable, Hearst, Playboy, NowThisNews, Woven Digital and SheKnows Media. “I feel like we are finally at a point where the TV money is tipping to online video — that’s why it’s important for us to be there,” says AwesomenessTV CEO Brian Robbins.

Digital video has grown in stature among media buyers, who today see the segment as more critical than ever to reach younger audiences, who watch less TV. Indeed, YouTube was ranked as the most important outlet by agency and ad execs for TV and video media buying — ahead of ESPN — with Hulu, Vice Media and AOL in the top 10, according to a survey by MyersBizNet.

At YouTube’s Brandcast event May 5, the company will highlight internal research that shows its punching power relative to TV. For example, in the U.S., 44% of YouTube viewers aged 18-49 do not watch primetime broadcast TV in an average week. “We are seeing the combination of success clients are having on YouTube, and the challenges they are having in getting [gross rating points] on television,” says Tara Walpert Levy, managing director of agency solutions for Google and YouTube.

Time spent watching traditional TV by consumers 18-24 has dropped roughly 34% between 2011 and 2015, according to Nielsen figures. “Those viewers are getting content and being entertained in other ways,” says Condé Nast Entertainment president Dawn Ostroff, who will show off a slate of millennial-focused programming at the CNE presentation.

And, as the NewFronts promise to abundantly illustrate, TV will be facing even more competition for eyeballs — and ad dollars — from the online-video realm. Time Inc., which has built a 5,000-square-foot studio space at its new lower Manhattan HQ to boost video production, will unveil an over-the-top video service with longer-form, lean-back programming that company execs have said will draw from People and Entertainment Weekly.

But the NewFronts just aren’t in the same league as the TV upfronts. “Very little money moves as a result of the NewFronts,” says GroupM head of digital investment Jon Hsia. The presentations are important for advertisers to understand how to target specific audiences on digital platforms, “but there’s no season for buying digital inventory.”

For Hulu, the NewFronts song-and-dance actually is like an upfront, according to senior VP of sales Peter Naylor. Hulu positions itself as a TV network that just happens to be distributed online. “We’re the first alternative to broadcast and cable,” Naylor says. “Today’s TV media plans have reached a ceiling … and we represent a way to extend and reassemble some of those lost ratings.”

Amid the NewFronts noise are parties, but not the huge, splashy affairs of years past. Disney’s Maker Studios and Yahoo are each holding private events for brands and agencies, scaled down from their former razzle-dazzle. Yahoo is keeping a low profile in general, given its recent retrenchment on content — and possible sale.

Apart from the festivities and possible deal-making, there’s plenty of value in the NewFronts as a chance to educate the market on the power of digital influencers and content produced specifically for Internet platforms. “Everyone under the age of 30 gets what we’re doing,” says Reza Izad, head of Americas for Studio71. “People over 30 intellectualize it but still don’t fully get it.”

CBS Stations 1Q Revenue Climbs 18%

 

Increases in political, retrans and carriage of Super Bowl 50 were drivers. Looking ahead, CEO Les Moonves says “we are in a very enviable position for this year's upfront, given the ongoing strength of our primetime lineup and a robust advertising marketplace. Plus, advertising is poised for even more growth in the back half of the year as political spending ramps up.” He adds that retrans is expected to surpass $1 billion this year.  

 

By Staff

    

TVNewsCheck, May 3, 2016 4:52 PM EDT 

      

CBS Corp. on Thursday reported results for the first quarter of 2016 that included an 18% increase in revenue from CBS Television Stations compared to the first quarter a year ago.
The company said the increase reflected the broadcast of Super Bowl 50 on CBS, higher political advertising sales and growth in retransmission consent revenues.

 

The company’s Local Broadcasting segment revenue of $649 million for the first quarter of 2016 were up 9% from $596 million in the same prior-year period. (The Local Broadcasting numbers include the CBS Television Stations and CBS Radio.)

Local Broadcasting operating income for the first quarter of 2016 increased 28% to $206 million from $161 million or the same prior-year period. The increase was driven by higher revenues as well as lower expenses as a result of restructuring activities the company put in place to create efficiencies.

"CBS delivered a spectacular quarter as we continue to execute on our strategy of creating and distributing the content that audiences have to have," said Leslie Moonves, chairman-CEO, CBS Corp. "We had double-digit revenue growth, and we set records in all key profit measures, with EPS coming in above a dollar for the first time in our Company's history. Advertising was extremely strong, growing 31% overall and 49% at the CBS Television Network, where we are on track to win the season in adults 25-54 and adults 18-49, as well as in viewers for the 13^th time in 14 years.

“Looking ahead, we are in a very enviable position for this year's upfront, given the ongoing strength of our primetime lineup and a robust advertising marketplace. Plus, advertising is poised for even more growth in the back half of the year as political spending ramps up. Our high-margin, non-advertising revenue streams are also on the rise, led by retransmission consent fees and reverse compensation, which are expected to surpass $1 billion this year. At the same time, our subscription streaming services, CBS All Access and Showtime over-the-top, are reaching new and younger audiences and are beginning to make a meaningful contribution to our results.

“As we grow our company on the strength of our premium content, we are also moving forward with our initiative to separate our radio business, which will unlock value for shareholders and further diversify our revenue streams. So across the board, we are turning in record results while we position the company for long-term growth. It clearly continues to be a terrific time to be a CBS investor."

Publishers Split On Ad Blocking Response

 

 by Erik Sass, , Staff Writer @eriksass1, May 2, 2016, 1:13 PM                                            
                                                   

There is no mistaking the general sentiment about ad blocking at MediaPost’s Publishing Insider Summit in Key Largo, where panel moderator Bob Garfield compared ad-blocking software providers to the Taliban in his opening remarks.

But as the following panel agreed, vilifying the opponent -- while doubtless satisfying -- does little to address this looming problem. So what should publishers do?

Forbes has been a leader in the publisher response to ad blocking, adopting what might be termed a “carrot-and-stick” approach. According to vice-president for advertising products and strategy Ann Marinovich, Forbes ran an experiment in which half the visitors using ad blocking software were invited to turn off their ad blockers or whitelist Forbes in return for a lighter ad experience, promising faster loading times and less data usage — or otherwise not be able to see the content.

Marinovich noted that 35% of the ad blocker users who received the message chose to turn off their blockers or whitelist the site – and that the these actually proved to be some of the most engaged visitors to the site, spending more time on the site and generating more page views than visitors who weren’t using an ad blocker in the first place.

Now all users that visit Forbes with ad blockers activated are presented with the same choice, and Marinovich reported that, “Since December, we’ve reclaimed 185 million impressions” that would otherwise have been lost to ad blockers. Nor has the “ad light” strategy been to detrimental to the bottom line as, reflecting their higher engagement,  “revenue per user has been ad par or higher” than users coming without ad blockers.

However, the panel also showed that many publishers remain leery of adopting even a moderately confrontational approach to readers, and some of this hesitation stems from the very structure of the new media ecosystem, where readers are often contributors as well, and tech-savvy types more likely to use ad blockers are also among the most valuable visitors.

On that note, Patrick McCann, vice-president of data science for CafeMedia, revealed: “We have two social networks and we have to be very careful because those users are providing content for us… Many of the people using ad blockers are social influencers and we have to be very careful not to drive them away.”

The oft-repeated nostrum that publishers and advertisers need to improve the user experience ignores the fact that ad blockers, far from advocating for consumers as they claim, have a good reason to hope that things remain the same.

As Newspaper Association of America CEO David Chavern pointed out: “Not all ad-blockers are created equal… If you’re a for-profit ad blocker, you don’t want improvement in the digital ecosystem, because you make your living off of a bad ecosystem.”

Similarly, publishers may not have the privilege of rejecting intrusive or data-heavy ads, as big platforms like Facebook, Google or Apple are able to do more or less by decree. McCann noted: “We don’t have the power of Facebook going to advertisers and saying you need to give us lighter ads. The publishers are the ones taking the heavy ads, the ten megabyte ads… You can’t just walk away from that.”

Of course, publishers may choose to rely on the big tech platforms to hold advertisers to these new standards, but this would in effect mean turning over their business to the platforms, diluting the publisher’s brand and undermining their relationship with the audience – something all the panelists agreed was problematic.

Publishers can also explore alternatives to the ad-supported model, but preliminary findings on this front aren’t particularly promising: Marinovich noted that among ad block users surveyed by Forbes, 80% said they would be unwilling to pay for content.

Why This Year’s TV Upfront May Be Unlike Any Other in Recent Memory

 

    

 

         

Brian Steinberg

Senior TV Editor@bristei
 

Variety

May 4, 2016 | 10:00AM PT

With billions of dollars at stake, TV’s annual upfront selling season amounts to a referendum on the health of the U.S. economy in general, and the television business in particular. In 2016, both sides of the buyer-seller divide are preparing for a welcome jolt.

For the past few years, the narrative surrounding traditional TV has been gloomy: As more viewers consume more television via new platforms, ad dollars have spread out far and wide. Indeed, by Variety’s tracking, Madison Avenue has not increased the money it commits in advance to TV since 2012, if not longer. Most concerning to industry veterans is the volume of viewing that is shifting to advertising-free services.

Related

Digital Ad Guru Joe Marchese Disrupts Traditional Business Models

But this year there’s a plot twist. TV spot prices in the scatter market have climbed significantly since last year’s upfront, prompting Wall Street prognosticators and ad-sales honchos to rub their hands in anticipation. All signs point to TV grabbing a bigger share of ad commitments this year — a turn of events that will spark jubilation in Hollywood and among TV’s New York-based ad-sales operations.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t questions about the medium’s health and the effectiveness of old marketing paradigms. And even if the money does return, the business continues to be in extreme flux. TV can’t return to the days when the networks could fill the screens with dozens of episodes of “B.J. and the Bear” and “Fantasy Island” and watch the money roll in.

In this Upfront In-Depth issue, we explore all of those angles. You’ll hear from the NFL’s Brian Rolapp, who is responsible for parceling out where football games are shown, both on TV and in the streaming realm. We take you behind the scenes of a new push by Madison Avenue to embed commercials so deeply into shows that they become indistinguishable from programming.
We visit with Fox’s Joe Marchese, a new force in the industry who is trying to develop alternate forms of advertising he hopes will help the major networks maintain their slices of the $70 billion TV advertising pie.

We also look at the state of play in TV ratings — will this be the year that C7 gets its big break? — and innovations on the horizon for cross-platform measurement spurred by the recent union of ComScore and Rentrak.

CBS Radio Will Not Be Kicked Out of The Building

 

May 4, 2016

 

 

 

 

CBS does not plan to lose any synergies it created by having some of its TV stations and radio stations located in the same building when the company spins off radio. COO Joe Ianniello (pictured) told investors that the company will make sure the new lease’s cover both entities. “There’s obviously a lot of stations that have call letters with our call letters on them, and so we’ll preserve that. We’re trying to add to both the profitability of the TV and radio stations, not make one go up and the other go down.”

Using Video In 2016

By Loyd Ford -

 

Video is not going away. You’ve seen this with Facebook Live, but you should be picking up on this just by looking at the difference in those things you share that are text, photo, and video.  We thought we would share a few ways to encourage planning to make your rock star videos come alive in 2016.

1. Think about your target audience and who you are going to help, entertain or engage before you begin. Try to focus on things that really connect with this audience.
2. Think about creating tension in your story before you turn on the camera. Tension will create interest and maintain it across a short video, if you do it correctly.
3. Have a beginning, middle, and end prepared even if you do vary from the plan. A good plan will give you a great base so that you are more likely to have an entertaining or attention-getting video of value.
4. Keep it brief. Of course, this rule is made to be broken if you are soooo interesting that no one cares how long it is (but this probably isn’t true so keep it short).
5. Think about the backdrop and think of your content as what you’re saying, doing, and what your background is because it all counts.

It is my belief that new opportunities pop up every day for radio to create more visuals to bring listeners back to the station because you’re fun. Do that and you’ll be successful in your social media.
It is also my belief that the talent in radio can be used to help target audiences in individual markets with everything from “projects” to sourcing things to recommending interesting activities and how-to activities. As always, you should work within the guidelines of your company and always within your own comfort on content, but the opportunities are there for personalities in radio to make the leap to visual and actually grow audience. Why not?

CBS Radio Revenue Declines 2%
Radio was a bit of a drag on the local broadcasting division at CBS in what was otherwise a very successful quarter for the company. We never get much color from the company about radio, what we did get from the financials was a short mention that revenue decreased 2%.

In his opening statement, CBS CEO Les Moonves did say the company was “moving forward with our initiative to separate our radio business, which will unlock value for our shareholders and further diversify our revenue streams.”

Overall, local broadcasting revenue was $649 million in the first quarter. That was a 9% increase over 2015. The growth was the result of an 18% increase at CBS Television Stations, reflecting the broadcast of Super Bowl 50 on CBS, higher political ad sales, and growth in retransmission revenue. By now it’s well known that CBS wants to spin off its radio division.

Nielsen Research Sheds Light On 'Live' Vs. Delayed Viewing

 

  by Adam Buckman, Yesterday, 12:00 AM                                            

Reality-competition shows get the most “live” viewing, while animated shows get the least of any genre of prime-time programming, according to Nielsen research unveiled Tuesday.

The research is part of a company effort to better assess the “total” audiences for individual TV shows beyond their seven-day time frame.

Nielsen’s “total audience initiative” is “designed to look at individual pieces of content and determine how consumers are getting to them — either through live TV, time-shifting through a DVR [or] some form of VOD,” said Glenn Enoch, senior vice president of audience insights for Nielsen.

Nielsen studied the ratings for viewers 18-49 for programming in five genres from November 2015 through March 2016. The five kinds of programming were reality-competition shows, serial dramas, episodic dramas, sitcoms and animated comedies.

(The research company won’t say which specific shows or networks they studied.)
Of the five genres, reality-competition had the highest level of “live,” time-period viewing, at 54%. Some 39% of reality-competition viewing was via DVR and 7% was VOD -- most of which was done within seven days of a reality-competition show’s first airing.

Or to put it another way, 88% of reality-competition viewing took place in seven days or less.
By contrast, only 51% of viewing for prime-time animated comedies, such as “The Simpsons,” took place within the first seven days, the Nielsen study showed. Plus, 26% took place in days 8-35 and another 24% took place between day 36 and day 118.

Serialized dramas were the only genre that came close to reality-competition’s level of live-plus-7-day viewing -- at 76%, Nielsen said. For the serial dramas, 37% of viewing was “live,” 42% was via DVR and 21% was via VOD, Nielsen said.

Nielsen officials explained that their “total content ratings” initiative is aimed at measuring audiences for individual TV shows, regardless of the platform or platforms they use to watch a show.
“We will be able to understand the audience [comparables] across time, across all platforms, and provide an unduplicated reach,” said Kelly Abcarian, senior vice president of product leadership for Nielsen.

“That’s what total content ratings is really bringing to the marketplace and to both sellers and buyers,” she said. “In a world where cross-media planning is one in which everyone is wanting to understand audiences, this is the way we’re shedding light [on audiences] in a very comparable way across all players."

Abcarian said that applies to a digital-first player or a traditional media client, and across all platforms, regardless of the set of metrics that traditionally are used in one channel vs. another. The goal is to "bring the data together so that both the buy and sell side can understand how to plan and sell on audiences across time, programming and sites.”

TV Ad Market Forecast To Wane Post-Olympics

Looks like most TV managers may have a hard and slow time recovering from political and working hard to get back those local clients who were abandoned during the political run-up to the election. Yes, managers have told me their clients understand political advertising times...but local-direct clients need to stay alive in their markets else all TV managers will have left for inventory one day is another political run-up and Olympics and perhaps escaping to alternative ad channel choices. Philip Jay LeNoble, Ph.D. CA

• by Wayne Friedman, Yesterday, 6:10 PM                                                                   

Will TV advertising slow in the second half of the year? Bernstein Research says TV advertising will weaken after big ad spending following NBC’s Rio Summer Olympics in early August.

 

“We face increasingly tougher revenue comps, generally,” says Todd Juenger, senior media analyst for Bernstein Research. Generally, there will be more difficult advertising comparisons to the strong second half of 2015, when the TV scatter market started to perk up. 

 

Juenger says: “The Olympics will suck audiences and ad dollars away from everybody except NBCU...[And] we will begin lapping all those Daily Fantasy Sports dollars.”

 

Juenger says that despite estimates of a strong TV upfront marketplace, this activity will be muted, as longer-term TV audience guarantees are changing. 

 

"While we believe agencies will put more money on the table at the upfronts, we believe they will only be willing to spend it on realistic audience guarantees. The guarantees from the past few years have been way too high."

 

"So while the reports coming out of the upfronts will be about increasing CPMs [cost per thousand viewers], ultimately, revenue is a function of price times quantity and we believe quantity has to come down."

 

In addition, he says TV audiences will continue to fall and digital platforms will continue to get bigger and better. The first months of 2016 showed TV spending up around 3% to 4%, depending against the same time period a year. 

 

Recently, senior media executives, such as David Cohen, president of IPG’s Mediabrands’ Magna Global, have said that TV spending -- for the 2016 year as a whole -- will be flat to only slightly up versus a year ago.