Something to share with local-direct clients proving the dependability of TV to deliver your client's media marketing message. Philip Jay LeNoble, Ph.D.

TV Ad Impressions Grow, Sports Programming Pushes Higher Results: iSpot.tv

• by Wayne Friedman , Today

Traditional TV programming viewership may continue to sink -- but TV advertising impressions keep growing.

Total day and prime-time TV advertising impressions are higher this season so far versus the year before -- up 6.8% (to 1.88 trillion) and 4.7% (to 678.2 billion), respectively, according to iSpot.tv.

Impressions data tallies a total 155 broadcast and cable networks from September 6, 2021 through May 8.

An impression, according to iSpot.tv, is defined as continuous viewing matched on a TV set for six seconds -- the shortest ad unit.

Data comes from across 51 million smart TV sets and set-top boxes, which is projected for “accurate representation of U.S. households.”

Higher advertising impressions were partly attributable to the growth in sports programming. NFL programming dominated the top program list for share in TV ad impressions with 9.1%.
College football was next at 3.8%, followed by college basketball (Men’s) at 2.5%; and the NBA with 2.1%.

Next come two TV network early news shows -- ABC’s “Good Morning America” with 1.8% and NBC’s “Today” at 1.5%.

Then comes Major League Baseball programming at 1.3%, followed by CBS’ “The Price is Right” at 1.2%; CBS’ “The Young and the Restless” with 1.2%; and ESPN's SportsCenter” at 1.1%.

CBS tallied the greatest share of total TV ad impressions by network at 16.5%, followed by NBC with 12.4%; ABC at 11.9%; Fox News Channel (8.9%); ESPN (5.4%); CNN (4.3%); MSNBC (3.8%); Univision (3.8%); and Telemundo (2.4%).

 

TelevisaUnivision Grows Linear TV, Streaming, Buying Hispanic Audiences A Major Goal

• by Wayne Friedman , 2 hours ago

TelevisaUnivision is not alone when it comes to offering new streaming platforms.

But it might be in a singular position in terms of how its linear TV viewing has been performing -- showing growth compared to other major TV sellers that may see flat results at best.

Donna Speciale, president of U.S. advertising sales & marketing at TelevisaUnivision, says that season-to-date, the Univision TV network is up 18% and 7% higher when looking across all of Univision’s broadcast and cable networks.

And that has helped bring in new marketers. Over the last year, Speciale says, 200 new advertisers for the company have been added -- including some key categories, as well as expanding with pharmaceutical and finance marketers.

But the job is not done: “Two hundred is amazing, but it is nowhere close to where we need to be," she says. “There are still hundreds [who haven’t bought in]”.

Even those that dip their toes in the overall Hispanic market should not just target viewers with generic, English-language advertising.

With Hispanic-Americans now comprising 20% of the U.S. population and expanding rapidly, marketers are focused on buying more Spanish-language TV.

“One thing I always say is 'reaching' is not ‘connecting'," she says. “They are definitely Hispanics who are bilingual. But hitting them at the heart of their language is Spanish. That passion point is unbelievable.” And that means buying on the likes of Univision.

All this comes as Univision is expanding its strong position into new streaming platforms -- ad-supported VIX and subscription service VIX+.

Speciale says Univision’s streaming effort is unique. “We are not reskinning Univision. We are not taking any of the content off of linear, putting it on the platform -- like other companies do.”

Now what is left is to push more advertising and higher budgets from existing TelevisaUnivision networks and platforms. That comes with new data tools.

Last year at its upfront presentation, Speciale said the company would be starting up its own first-party data graph for marketers to use, which she says covers 85% of all U.S. Hispanic households due to Univision's dominant Hispanic media platforms

This is extremely important, she says. In comparison, other first-party data sets from media sellers only get around a 55% coverage level at best.

Speciale says: “So how are you getting business outcomes and KPIs when you have half the representation of the people you are trying to reach?”

The good news for this upfront period for Univision is that over 90% of its viewing is consumed live -- and live TV programming still gets a premium for marketers.

“We have telenovelas that are on all time -- almost all original programming. We kind of had binging before binging was binging.” she says.

Overall, there is a different dynamic at work where networks are looking to drive strong viewing and advertising on their linear TV viewing to their own streaming platforms to maintain reach levels.

Speciale says: “We are not experiencing the same stuff as what is going on with other media companies.”

 

Digital Out-of-Home Ad Role Changing, Media Drives Performance And Actions, Study Finds

• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, Yesterday

GroupM, WPP’s media investment group, has released findings of the Sightline Global Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) survey on perceptions of DOOH advertising.

The study found that DOOH campaigns drive direct action by consumers. The data reveals that half of global audiences who have seen DOOH ads say they encouraged them to make a purchase “there and then.” DOOH ads also encourage them to search for more information online.

When asked to cite the most surprising findings, Oli Ford, managing partner Kinetic, a GroupM sister company, said the “impact on spontaneous purchases” and other things. “It’s encouraging that the data reinforces several things we understand as truth” such as being “trustworthy and memorable,” which is not necessarily how the industry has thought about the media, he said.

It turns out that survey participants cited DOOH as the top media that prompted them to take action in search. Using a baseline for search and, with the inclusion of out of home and specific search term, product or brands, the group saw an increase in the baseline as a direct result of seeing a DOOH ad.

Conducted by research specialist Kantar on behalf of Sightline, the advanced DOOH solution owned by media investment company GroupM, the new study surveyed the views of 11,000 people in 11 major global markets on a variety of different advertising channels, including DOOH, to assess how this form of advertising is perceived compared with other on and offline formats.

The goal: to discover more about how consumers in global markets perceive digital outdoor ads and to provide new insights into the role they might play in advertisers’ media plans.

Respondents who saw or heard each ad format in the last month were asked which attributes applied to the format. Some 28% who saw DOOH ads in the last month were most likely to say the media was the most innovative format, second only to cinema-goers in terms of associating the format with having the most creative ads.

Consumers overwhelmingly find DOOH ads to be current, interesting, and humorous. DOOH, they say, connects to social media channels, encourages them to search, and inspires interaction. About 37% cited the channel as featuring ads are “entertaining.”

The data also shows that DOOH outperforms other media channels, including TV, social media, and online videos, in creating a lasting impression on consumers, about 50% more memorable than social media.

When live data such as temperature or pollan data is used on DOOH ads, Ford said actions and interest rise. Location data like in an airport on DOOH ads increases the trustworthiness of brands, said Akama Davies, global practice lead for digital OOH at Xaxis.

Two-thirds of those seeing DOOH ads agreed said they “become part of the location” atmosphere, and 63% said it made their journeys more interesting. Some77% of those seeing DOOH ads believed DOOH ads were “quite” or “very informative” and 50% said that they connect them with their favorite social media channels.

The channel acts as a utility by adding value such as news, weather or traffic information, said Davies. He believes the survey findings validate the view that DOOH does not replace existing forms of ad media, but add its own unique value for marketers.

 

Stock Market Indices Plunge, Media Stocks Along For The Ride - Down

• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, Yesterday

Misery loves company, and Thursday's crushing close saw the Dow Jones Industrials sink 3%, while the S&P 500 index suffered a 4% loss, and Nasdaq gave back 5%.

Media stocks of all kinds -- including traditional, digital, ad tech -- have seen sharp declines since the first of the year, much more than the marketplace overall.

Even those newfangled companies -- such as Warner Bros. Discovery -- continue to get bashed around. Since its opening on April 4, its stock has dropped 26% to close at $18.88.

On Thursday, Netflix -- maintaining its profile as the poster child for all that is currently wrong with streaming -- was down 70% since the start of the year. It lost 8% on Thursday, closing at $188.32.

Those looking to catch up to Netflix -- like Walt Disney -- have had their own woes, losing 28% since the start of the year and off 3% on Thursday's big selloff to $112.61.

Shall we go further? Comcast Corp. has pulled back 20% year-to-date (and 3% on Thursday) to a $40.38 close. Charter Communications slid 30% year-to-date -- but was up 2% to $456.20 on Thursday, a rare gainer on the day.

The strongest of the big legacy companies -- Paramount Global -- has been down just 8% year-to-date (to $29.72 as of Thursday’s close). But the company has been trading at a low level for some time -- down 22% year-over-year, for example.

Streaming app distributor Roku was more on the Netflix train -- sinking a massive 56% since January 2022 and 7% on Thursday (to $102.45).

One rare company to show gains over the last four months -- big U.S. TV station owner Nexstar Media Group -- was up 6.4% $163.26 year-to-date (but still down 2% on Thursday).

Other TV station owners have not been as fortunate. Sinclair Broadcast Group was down 12% (to $23.68) year-to-date, while Gray Television lost 11% (to $19.32).

Digital media-based companies continue to lead the big declines: Meta Platforms (Facebook) has dropped 39% since the beginning of the year (to $208.28), while Amazon has lost 32% (to $2,328.14) and Alphabet (Google) has given up 20% ($2,330.11).

Overall, U.S. companies are heading in the same direction. The Dow Jones Industrials is down 10% for the year (to 32,997.97), while the S&P 500 Index has fallen 14% (to 4,146.87) and Nasdaq has sunk 22% (to 12,317.69).

As for media platforms looking to be buoyed by being brand advertisers in the near term -- either with traditional linear TV networks/stations, or those more flexible digital media options? Don't hold your breath.

As the Federal Reserve continues to fight inflation, and the economy faces ongoing challenges with lingering supply-chain issues, more lumps and bumps are surely on the way.

 Tegna scores big gain in revenue growth! Philip Jay LeNoble, Ph.D.\

Tegna Ad, Marketing Services See 10% Growth In Q1, Higher Political Advertising

• by Wayne Friedman , Yesterday

Although automotive continues to see ad spending weakness, TV station group Tegna says its advertising and marketing services business revenues were up 10% in the first quarter to $354 million.

This growth was largely attributable to higher advertising driven by the Winter Olympics and the Super Bowl on its NBC-affiliated TV stations. 

In addition, Premion --- the company’s OTT/CTV advertising sales division -- contributed to the higher advertising sale revenue.

Automotive advertising --- and some other categories -- continue to suffer from ongoing supply-chain issues as the economy struggles to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic period.

Political ad revenue has been spiking and is now at $18 million for the first three months of the year in anticipation of the coming mid-term elections in November, Tegna says -- up 80% so far from the period leading up to the 2018 midterms.

By comparison, in 2020, during the same three-month period leading up to the Presidential election, political advertising was at $47 million.

Tegna says overall its advertising/marketing services business is up 20% from the first quarter of 2020, while subscription revenue has inched up 1% to $392 million -- offset by subscriber declines and an interruption of service with Dish due to a carriage and negotiation dispute.

Total company-wide revenue for the quarter was 6% higher to $774 million.

 Congrats to Nexstar Group for quarter growth! Philip Jay LeNoble, Ph.D.

Nexstar Q1: Core Advertising Grows 4%, Political Ads Soar

• by Wayne Friedman , 4 hours ago

With growth in its first-quarter political advertising and the expectation of more midterm election ad revenue to come, Nexstar Media Group posted 8% higher total ad revenue to $451.8 million.

The company said there was “growth in nineteen of Nexstar’s top twenty-five advertising categories which more than offset continued weakness in automotive advertising.”

Automotive advertising -- for many years the leading local TV advertising category -- has been generally down since the first of the year.

National TV automotive spend was off 14.4% in April, according to iSpot.tv. Ongoing supply-chain issues have impacted the business, according to analysts.

Political advertising more than tripled -- up 340% -- to $23.7 million, which “reflects strong early mid-term election spending,” according to Nexstar.

The company's big moneymaker -- distribution revenues -- climbed 7.5% to $667.9 million.

In addition, Nexstar says there was a 19% improvement to $78.7 million in digital revenue. Results for Nexstar also include the publication of The Hill, which was acquired in the third quarter of 2021.

Nexstar company-wide revenue was up a solid 8.6% to $1.21 billion, while net income was 26% higher to $251.4 million.

Mid-day Tuesday’s stock price of Nexstar perked up 4% to $158.90.

 

'Effective' CPMs Climb As Prime-Time Ad Spending Declines

• by Wayne Friedman , Yesterday

Legacy TV has seen higher “effective” cost-per-thousand prices for deals in the TV upfront ad markets over the last three TV seasons, according to Standard Media Index (SMI) -- but with lower total upfront advertising spend in key dayparts.

SMI says the trend is expected to continue for the next TV upfront ad market, set to begin in a few weeks.

“This funneling of both supply and demand -- coupled with the supply crunch due to video’s digital migration -- will leave the legacy video publishers in a position of strength-from-weakness to (likely) maintain price growth,” according to the TV advertising research company.

Effective CPMs -- which are calculated as "delivered" CPMs for upfront advertising inventory -- rose to a 268 index, up 14 points from a year ago for all programming for the 2021-2022 TV season so far (October through February).

The eCPM index number is indexed to all TV programming. For the 2020-2021 TV season, it was a 254 index, while for the 2019-2020 TV, season it was 248.

The "supply crunch" has also dramatically resulted in an overall drop in legacy TV ad spending due to a shift of dollars to digital media.

For example, looking at five networks -- ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, and CW -- total prime-time ad spend (for non-sports programming) dropped to $1.7 billion, season-to-date (October to March). The total was $2.1 billion over the same time period last TV season, and $2.6 billion for each of the previous three TV seasons.

At the same time, average 30-second commercial unit costs for upfront programming continue to drop -- due to a lower supply of viewing gross ratings points.

The current TV season (October through March) is now averaging $55,000 for a 30-second commercial unit -- down from $59,000 from the previous TV season (2020-2021), and $76,000 for each of the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 TV seasons.

SMI captures between 70% and 95% of all media agency spend, with data coming from raw billing records of all media transactions. This includes television, digital, out-of-home, print, and radio.