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   <title>In Depth: Advertising</title>
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   <updated>2010-10-14T17:59:27Z</updated>
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   <title>Google, NBC Universal End TV Ad-Sales Pact Early; Agreement Allowed Google to Sell Cable Inventory</title>
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   <published>2010-10-14T17:53:46Z</published>
   <updated>2010-10-14T17:59:27Z</updated>
   
   <summary><![CDATA[By Brian SteinbergAdvertising AgeGoogle and NBC Universal have dissolved an intriguing ad pact they established in 2008 nearly a year before it was set to expire, dealing a setback to Google's ambition to become a big player in TV ad sales.Under terms of the pact, which was set to end in the fall of 2011, Google was allowed to sell advertising inventory on select NBC Universal-owned cable outlets -- such as Syfy, Oxygen, MSNBC, CNBC, Sleuth and Chiller -- with the potential to expand to other networks down the line. That was seen as an important step in Google's efforts to expand its reach beyond its main business, paid-search advertising on the internet, and get into TV in a significant way. For NBC, the agreement was described as a way to bring in new advertisers, particularly the local ones Google often deals with.Rather than expanding, however, the pact has ended early. &quot;We're not currently contributing inventory into the Google marketplace, but we continue to work with Google on multiple projects involving advanced advertising,&quot; NBC Universal said in a statement Wednesday.&quot;While we are no longer offering NBC Universal inventory through Google TV Ads, NBC Universal continues to be a great partner to Google,&quot; Mark Piesanen, director of strategic partner development for Google TV Ads, said in a statement. &quot;Both NBC and Google are committed to bringing more relevance to TV viewership and advertising. CNBC is an important partner in the launch of Google TV and we are working together on research studies.&quot; The two companies are also both investors in Invidi Technologies Corp., a company involved in developing the technology behind addressable TV advertising.The end of the arrangement, however, leaves Google without access to the broad inventory of a top-tier media company. It continues its TV-advertising efforts with satellite-providers DirecTV and EchoStar's Dish Network as well as some smaller cable outlets, including Hallmark Channel, Tennis Channel, Ovation and CBS College Sports.NBC and Google's ad-sales agreement was an unusual one. NBC Universal raised eyebrows by allowing Google to sell some of its cable channels' inventory. At the time of the deal's unveiling, ad-buying executives suggested Google wasn't getting its hands on prime ad inventory, but rather less desirable stuff.Under the terms of the pact, NBC was able to set a floor for pricing as well as quality standards. The company also maintained control over its inventory, so that if a Google TV ad were to pose a conflict with another advertiser on air, the Google ad would have to run in a different fashion.A person familiar with the situation said NBC Universal felt the Google ad system worked but that it added the most value to smaller, unrated TV networks. While Chiller and Sleuth were unrated when the pact was established, they are both rated now.]]></summary>
   <author>
      <name>Chuck Ross</name>
      
   </author>
   
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      <![CDATA[By Brian SteinbergAdvertising AgeGoogle and NBC Universal have dissolved an intriguing ad pact they established in 2008 nearly a year before it was set to expire, dealing a setback to Google's ambition to become a big player in TV ad sales.Under terms of the pact, which was set to end in the fall of 2011, Google was allowed to sell advertising inventory on select NBC Universal-owned cable outlets -- such as Syfy, Oxygen, MSNBC, CNBC, Sleuth and Chiller -- with the potential to expand to other networks down the line. That was seen as an important step in Google's efforts to expand its reach beyond its main business, paid-search advertising on the internet, and get into TV in a significant way. For NBC, the agreement was described as a way to bring in new advertisers, particularly the local ones Google often deals with.Rather than expanding, however, the pact has ended early. &quot;We're not currently contributing inventory into the Google marketplace, but we continue to work with Google on multiple projects involving advanced advertising,&quot; NBC Universal said in a statement Wednesday.&quot;While we are no longer offering NBC Universal inventory through Google TV Ads, NBC Universal continues to be a great partner to Google,&quot; Mark Piesanen, director of strategic partner development for Google TV Ads, said in a statement. &quot;Both NBC and Google are committed to bringing more relevance to TV viewership and advertising. CNBC is an important partner in the launch of Google TV and we are working together on research studies.&quot; The two companies are also both investors in Invidi Technologies Corp., a company involved in developing the technology behind addressable TV advertising.The end of the arrangement, however, leaves Google without access to the broad inventory of a top-tier media company. It continues its TV-advertising efforts with satellite-providers DirecTV and EchoStar's Dish Network as well as some smaller cable outlets, including Hallmark Channel, Tennis Channel, Ovation and CBS College Sports.NBC and Google's ad-sales agreement was an unusual one. NBC Universal raised eyebrows by allowing Google to sell some of its cable channels' inventory. At the time of the deal's unveiling, ad-buying executives suggested Google wasn't getting its hands on prime ad inventory, but rather less desirable stuff.Under the terms of the pact, NBC was able to set a floor for pricing as well as quality standards. The company also maintained control over its inventory, so that if a Google TV ad were to pose a conflict with another advertiser on air, the Google ad would have to run in a different fashion.A person familiar with the situation said NBC Universal felt the Google ad system worked but that it added the most value to smaller, unrated TV networks. While Chiller and Sleuth were unrated when the pact was established, they are both rated now.]]>
   </content>
</entry>

<entry>
   <title>Bill Abbott, President and CEO of the Hallmark Channels, Who Came Up on the Ad Side of the Business, On the Importance of Brand Strategy</title>
   <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://www.tvweek.com/news/2010/05/bill_abbott_president_and_ceo.php" />
   <id>tag:www.tvweek.com,2010:/news//1.41675</id>
   
   <published>2010-05-05T20:21:16Z</published>
   <updated>2010-05-05T21:14:01Z</updated>
   
   <summary><![CDATA[Clearly, over the past two decades, one of the smartest, yet unsung,&nbsp;ad sales executives in the TV business has been Bill Abbott, first at Fox Family and Fox Kids, and then at Hallmark. One of the hallmarks of his career, if you'll excuse the pun, has been his ability to mesh the brands he's been selling with the brands of his client in win-win situations that not not only make sense for those on both sides of the negotiating table, but for&nbsp;viewers and consumers as well.With Abbott's ascension to the top spot at Hallmark, as its President and CEO, TVWeek's Chuck Ross caught up with&nbsp;him to talk about brand stategy, particularly that of the Hallmark Channel, and its importance on the eve of the Upfront marketplace. An edited transcript follows.TVWEEK: Having covered the advertising and media and TV businesses for more than three decades, I&rsquo;ve always been struck that there are not more heads of networks who have come up on the ad sales side of the business. I was fairly close to Larry Divney, who came up from ad sales and eventually ran Comedy Central. Has the fact it doesn&rsquo;t happen more often struck you as well?BILL ABBOTT: You&rsquo;re right. It&rsquo;s odd to me why it doesn&rsquo;t happen more often. Ad sales provides such a great platform on how to learn the business. There&rsquo;s no business that ad sales really doesn&rsquo;t touch.TVWEEK: Absolutely.ABBOTT: You&rsquo;re intimately involved in the finances and economics. You&rsquo;re intimately involved in the ratings and the programming decisions that get made, and why certain things are scheduled and why they work. And certainly from a marketing point of view, there&rsquo;s no one better qualified to think about marketing than people who are out selling the product.So it&rsquo;s odd to me that more ad sales people aren&rsquo;t tapped to&nbsp;run networks.&nbsp;But then you look at history, and while there aren&rsquo;t that many&nbsp;out of ad sales, certainly some of the ones that have been the most successful in the business were out of ad sales. From Mark Lazarus, who used to be at Turner, to David Levy, who&rsquo;s there now, to Charlie Collier, who runs AMC, all remarkably successful in their own right.TVWEEK: Absolutely.ABBOTT: But that makes it all the more interesting why ad sales isn&rsquo;t a bigger breeding ground. I could not ask for a better area to have been trained within and have grown up within than ad sales and research, which is the better part of my background. The learning that you get from those areas is really critical to how you run the business.TVWEEK: Is running a network something in the back of your mind you&rsquo;d hope your career path would lead to at some point?ABBOTT: I think so. I think that I&rsquo;ve always felt like a research background certainly, along with the strategy and financial understanding of the business that ad sales provides, puts you in a position where you hope to gain more responsibility and take it to a new level. I&rsquo;ve been fortunate in that I&rsquo;ve been in management for a long part of my career, for almost 20 years.TVWEEK: How long exactly have you been at Hallmark now?ABBOTT: Just over 10 years, at this point, at Hallmark. I was at what was a combination of Family Channel, Fox Family and ABC Family over a 12-year period before being at Hallmark.TVWEEK: As you&rsquo;ve looked at how Hallmark has evolved, how did you decide where you wanted to take it and how are you going about taking it where you want it to go?ABBOTT: I think if you look at the channel we&rsquo;ve had remarkable success: a very highly-rated property that&rsquo;s grown distribution to be fully distributed over the years. We had a lot of product that was highly-rated, but wasn&rsquo;t necessarily tied as much to the brand as we would like.So, when I took over in May, we developed a new mission statement and vision around how we can celebrate life&rsquo;s special moments everyday, which we feel is very much is in line with what the essence of Hallmark really is.You look at the Hallmark television business and there&rsquo;s certainly their heritage and legacy and award-winning Hallmark Hall of Fame&mdash;the quality and the high ratings there, and that&rsquo;s a very important part of who we are that will ultimately be our Hallmark Movie Channel. It&rsquo;s in 35 million homes, on its way to 40 million pretty quickly here. It&rsquo;s becoming a strong service in its own right.And then we look at the Hallmark Channel, and we thought about what direction that might go. We came to the conclusion that, in terms of helping celebrate life&rsquo;s special moments everyday, we could really tap into that part of the Hallmark brand that up until now has not been reflected on TV.That would be holidays and events and cooking and decorating and different things people do everyday to celebrate life and that lifestyle category area. And so the direction we have gone in is really beginning to develop the channel towards more of that lifestyle celebration mood.TVWEEK: Can you tell me how that evolution led you to get Martha Stewart involved? I&rsquo;m assuming that as you were sitting there brainstorming about this lifestyle direction you wanted to move the channel towards that getting somehow involved with Stewart was high on your wish list.ABBOTT: We were fortunate that the stars were really aligned. If you sat for two weeks, you couldn&rsquo;t come up with a better name than Martha Stewart in terms of helping celebrate life&rsquo;s special moments everyday. She is the ultimate banner ad for that type of product.Fortunately, they also had been thinking about a little bit of a different business model in that syndication [which is the TV business Stewart was in] doesn&rsquo;t provide that consistent day and date opportunity that cable does. And as we developed our definition of who we wanted to be and we started having conversations with them, we started to make it a bigger proposition. And they started to see a bigger opportunity with Omnimedia and across the different talent that Martha has at Omnimedia and had really vested so well.So you begin to see that it&rsquo;s more than just &lsquo;The Martha Stewart Show&rsquo; and that you have the opportunity to develop a fully integrated lifestyle block on multiple platforms. And that lifestyle block speaks to the strengths of both Hallmark and Martha Stewart. That&rsquo;s really where the conversation went, actually very, very quickly once we got in the same room and we started to brainstorm about Martha.It wasn&rsquo;t &lsquo;Let&rsquo;s just take &lsquo;The Martha Stewart Show&rsquo; and move it from syndication to cable&rsquo; but, &lsquo;How can we make this a bigger, better partnership.&rsquo; And I give [Omnimedia Chairman] Charles Koppleman and Martha full credit for recognizing the opportunity and the value of what a 24/7 cable platform can do to help them develop their properties and products and how they can help us develop our channel.TVWEEK: Makes a lot of sense. As you look across the landscape, is something you pay attention to a lot the competition? Is it important to be real differentiated? Do you see Scripps as competition? Maybe the new Oprah channel with Discovery?ABBOTT: Certainly, Food Network and HGTV are the leaders in this category. They&rsquo;ve done a great job of branding themselves and really being consistent. That would be competition.Some of what Discovery has done would be competition. The Oprah channel is clearly undefined at this point, so it&rsquo;s really hard to view that as surely as competition.We can compete from day one with a personality and profile like Martha Stewart. We don&rsquo;t have to take a backseat to anyone in this lifestyle category. We feel that we will be competitive, if not better, quite frankly, right out of the gate than those channels who don&rsquo;t have a profile like Martha on their air. We still feel there&rsquo;s a lot of room in this area to navigate, and with our brand and our heritage and our ability to really represent so much of how people connect and people live day-to-day, we think we have a great opportunity to be highly, highly successful here.TVWEEK: Can you talk a little bit about how you&rsquo;d like to see advertising integrated in your vision?ABBOTT: There&rsquo;s no question as technology changes and changes the way viewers watch TV, we&rsquo;re all going to have to be a lot more responsive to the needs of advertisers. And I think you&rsquo;re seeing that on an evolutionary basis.I would say the death of the :30 has long since been overblown. But, the reality is we do need to be more responsive, we do need to look for unique ways in which we can embed an advertiser&rsquo;s message seamlessly into our product and into the development process. It&rsquo;ll make TV, I think, more valuable and certainly more appreciated. And it&rsquo;s creative, innovative ideas like that that we struggle with and work toward developing everyday.The lifestyle block is one that is particularly conducive to that type of activity. It&rsquo;s easier, I think, in lifestyle to place products seamlessly into the content. But certainly, we need to be true to our brand and we need to be carefully that we don&rsquo;t over do it and that we be sensitive to the value that we&rsquo;re creating for others when we do do it.TVWEEK: Can you talk a little bit about social media? That&rsquo;s obviously become a buzzword in the last year. Where you see Hallmark fitting with that phenomenon?ABBOTT: It&rsquo;s certainly real in terms of it being a phenomenon, but the real question is: What&rsquo;s the business model? We haven&rsquo;t certainly figured it out here, and that&rsquo;s one we&rsquo;re staying attuned to.Martha and Omnimedia have done a great job about being on the forefront of technology and having different applications around decorating and cooking and things that are really very, very relevant. As we develop our lifestyle area, we&rsquo;ll certainly play more in that space and whole digital arena as a rule. But, right now, it&rsquo;s not necessarily something we can point to as being a leader in.TVWEEK: Do you see the digital platforms as being more promotionally oriented and pointing viewers to the on-air products that you offer, or will they have a life of their own?ABBOTT: I see that as being a big change for us. That&rsquo;s one of the beauties as we move more towards this different side of the brand and are less focused and reliant on off-network acquisitions.When you&rsquo;re 100% reliant on scripted series that you acquire from a distributor, you have very little opportunity to play in the digital space. Here, we&rsquo;re going to have reasons to drive people to the Internet more than just information around what&rsquo;s on our air.We will have different opportunities to develop content that will speak to viewers&rsquo; interests in whatever we have on our network. And we&rsquo;ll make that a legitimate, vibrant business for us moving forward. It&rsquo;s something that we&rsquo;re thinking about everyday. It&rsquo;s something that we are very, very focused on.TVWEEK: As an independent channel, does it make sense in any way to do some sort of alliance?ABBOTT: We&rsquo;re open to forming relationships and partnerships, and you look at our partnership with Omnimedia, I would certainly put that in the alliance category, whether formal or informal.But, I think that the real issue there is that as our competitors get bigger and bigger and more complicated, ultimately some of what they have bought comes into question and they have to use their own leverage to leverage their own weaker sisters. You look at how big NBC is, and how big that whole organization will be with Comcast. There will be networks that they&rsquo;ll have to leverage to get favors in other cases. So there isn&rsquo;t an awful lot of room.You know, size cuts both ways. Too big, and you&rsquo;re in a position to have to protect your weaker properties. In a down market, being too big can be problematic, in that you&rsquo;ve got a lot of money to place on the agency side of the perspective, or you&rsquo;ve got a lot of different masters to satisfy.I&rsquo;m not so sure that that is necessarily, within the big companies, the way we want to go. With smaller organizations, certainly if we could develop some alliance that pullstogether some of those that aren&rsquo;t under big corporate umbrellas, that might be something smart to do. Overall, the big conglomerates probably are looking for alliances because they&rsquo;ve got an awful lot to leverage themselves. We wouldn&rsquo;t want to be part of anything where we would be the leveragee.TVWEEK: As we move closer toward the upfront, are there particular categories that you hope you&rsquo;ll do better in than you have in the past because of this new strategy?ABBOTT: We have already had an extremely high interest level from a number of categories, everything from automotives to financials to travel categories, that we have had a very difficult time playing in before.And there are many reasons for that. One is certainly the nature of the product is more geared toward potentially having different elements that could be incorporated within our actual content. And that our viewership will migrate much more towards a top 20 market, upper income level than we have been historically. So we are seeing a lot of activity from those clients that happen to target a more upscale adult 25-54 demographic than we have historically delivered. We are optimistic that we are going to have a robust upfront.TVWEEK: How important do you think measurement is going forward? How granular do we need to be?ABBOTT: It&rsquo;s critical. Speaking candidly, it&rsquo;s very frustrating to see so much fluctuation in the numbers and so much instability in the sample sizes where it&rsquo;s at.The question is what the right metric is. I don&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;s second-by-second or anything that extreme. But, I do think there&rsquo;s got to be a better way given where technology is. And frankly to compete with the Internet, I think it&rsquo;s very important that television develop some type of system that is more scientific and is more reliable, quite frankly, that what we have.This is very, very important. We&rsquo;re lucky we have people who are as brilliant as Reno [Scanzoni at Group M and TVWeek&rsquo;s 2010 Media Buyer of the Year] in the process who are on it. I&rsquo;m sure everyday, when he sees the numbers, it drives him as crazy as it does the rest us in the business. To be competitive moving forward as a medium, television needs to step up and figure out ways to gain a better understanding of what actually is going on out there.TVWEEK: Anything you want to add?ABBOTT: I think at the end of the day, we are in a great position with not only our lifestyle content but with our original movies. We&rsquo;re producing 24 original movies in 2010 with two of those on our movie channel. It&rsquo;s a big commitment to the Hallmark Movie Channel, which became measured in the second quarter and that is a growing and vibrant and viable property. Our holiday effort will continue here moving forward. We had our highest rated holiday in our history recently, and our Countdown to Christmas and Countdown to Holidays have been remarkably successful. We have a lot going on here other than just that lifestyle, Martha Stewart area. That&rsquo;s all very, very exciting and we&rsquo;re all optimistic about our future. #]]></summary>
   <author>
      <name>Chuck Ross</name>
      
   </author>
   
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      <![CDATA[Clearly, over the past two decades, one of the smartest, yet unsung,&nbsp;ad sales executives in the TV business has been Bill Abbott, first at Fox Family and Fox Kids, and then at Hallmark. One of the hallmarks of his career, if you'll excuse the pun, has been his ability to mesh the brands he's been selling with the brands of his client in win-win situations that not not only make sense for those on both sides of the negotiating table, but for&nbsp;viewers and consumers as well.With Abbott's ascension to the top spot at Hallmark, as its President and CEO, TVWeek's Chuck Ross caught up with&nbsp;him to talk about brand stategy, particularly that of the Hallmark Channel, and its importance on the eve of the Upfront marketplace. An edited transcript follows.TVWEEK: Having covered the advertising and media and TV businesses for more than three decades, I&rsquo;ve always been struck that there are not more heads of networks who have come up on the ad sales side of the business. I was fairly close to Larry Divney, who came up from ad sales and eventually ran Comedy Central. Has the fact it doesn&rsquo;t happen more often struck you as well?BILL ABBOTT: You&rsquo;re right. It&rsquo;s odd to me why it doesn&rsquo;t happen more often. Ad sales provides such a great platform on how to learn the business. There&rsquo;s no business that ad sales really doesn&rsquo;t touch.TVWEEK: Absolutely.ABBOTT: You&rsquo;re intimately involved in the finances and economics. You&rsquo;re intimately involved in the ratings and the programming decisions that get made, and why certain things are scheduled and why they work. And certainly from a marketing point of view, there&rsquo;s no one better qualified to think about marketing than people who are out selling the product.So it&rsquo;s odd to me that more ad sales people aren&rsquo;t tapped to&nbsp;run networks.&nbsp;But then you look at history, and while there aren&rsquo;t that many&nbsp;out of ad sales, certainly some of the ones that have been the most successful in the business were out of ad sales. From Mark Lazarus, who used to be at Turner, to David Levy, who&rsquo;s there now, to Charlie Collier, who runs AMC, all remarkably successful in their own right.TVWEEK: Absolutely.ABBOTT: But that makes it all the more interesting why ad sales isn&rsquo;t a bigger breeding ground. I could not ask for a better area to have been trained within and have grown up within than ad sales and research, which is the better part of my background. The learning that you get from those areas is really critical to how you run the business.TVWEEK: Is running a network something in the back of your mind you&rsquo;d hope your career path would lead to at some point?ABBOTT: I think so. I think that I&rsquo;ve always felt like a research background certainly, along with the strategy and financial understanding of the business that ad sales provides, puts you in a position where you hope to gain more responsibility and take it to a new level. I&rsquo;ve been fortunate in that I&rsquo;ve been in management for a long part of my career, for almost 20 years.TVWEEK: How long exactly have you been at Hallmark now?ABBOTT: Just over 10 years, at this point, at Hallmark. I was at what was a combination of Family Channel, Fox Family and ABC Family over a 12-year period before being at Hallmark.TVWEEK: As you&rsquo;ve looked at how Hallmark has evolved, how did you decide where you wanted to take it and how are you going about taking it where you want it to go?ABBOTT: I think if you look at the channel we&rsquo;ve had remarkable success: a very highly-rated property that&rsquo;s grown distribution to be fully distributed over the years. We had a lot of product that was highly-rated, but wasn&rsquo;t necessarily tied as much to the brand as we would like.So, when I took over in May, we developed a new mission statement and vision around how we can celebrate life&rsquo;s special moments everyday, which we feel is very much is in line with what the essence of Hallmark really is.You look at the Hallmark television business and there&rsquo;s certainly their heritage and legacy and award-winning Hallmark Hall of Fame&mdash;the quality and the high ratings there, and that&rsquo;s a very important part of who we are that will ultimately be our Hallmark Movie Channel. It&rsquo;s in 35 million homes, on its way to 40 million pretty quickly here. It&rsquo;s becoming a strong service in its own right.And then we look at the Hallmark Channel, and we thought about what direction that might go. We came to the conclusion that, in terms of helping celebrate life&rsquo;s special moments everyday, we could really tap into that part of the Hallmark brand that up until now has not been reflected on TV.That would be holidays and events and cooking and decorating and different things people do everyday to celebrate life and that lifestyle category area. And so the direction we have gone in is really beginning to develop the channel towards more of that lifestyle celebration mood.TVWEEK: Can you tell me how that evolution led you to get Martha Stewart involved? I&rsquo;m assuming that as you were sitting there brainstorming about this lifestyle direction you wanted to move the channel towards that getting somehow involved with Stewart was high on your wish list.ABBOTT: We were fortunate that the stars were really aligned. If you sat for two weeks, you couldn&rsquo;t come up with a better name than Martha Stewart in terms of helping celebrate life&rsquo;s special moments everyday. She is the ultimate banner ad for that type of product.Fortunately, they also had been thinking about a little bit of a different business model in that syndication [which is the TV business Stewart was in] doesn&rsquo;t provide that consistent day and date opportunity that cable does. And as we developed our definition of who we wanted to be and we started having conversations with them, we started to make it a bigger proposition. And they started to see a bigger opportunity with Omnimedia and across the different talent that Martha has at Omnimedia and had really vested so well.So you begin to see that it&rsquo;s more than just &lsquo;The Martha Stewart Show&rsquo; and that you have the opportunity to develop a fully integrated lifestyle block on multiple platforms. And that lifestyle block speaks to the strengths of both Hallmark and Martha Stewart. That&rsquo;s really where the conversation went, actually very, very quickly once we got in the same room and we started to brainstorm about Martha.It wasn&rsquo;t &lsquo;Let&rsquo;s just take &lsquo;The Martha Stewart Show&rsquo; and move it from syndication to cable&rsquo; but, &lsquo;How can we make this a bigger, better partnership.&rsquo; And I give [Omnimedia Chairman] Charles Koppleman and Martha full credit for recognizing the opportunity and the value of what a 24/7 cable platform can do to help them develop their properties and products and how they can help us develop our channel.TVWEEK: Makes a lot of sense. As you look across the landscape, is something you pay attention to a lot the competition? Is it important to be real differentiated? Do you see Scripps as competition? Maybe the new Oprah channel with Discovery?ABBOTT: Certainly, Food Network and HGTV are the leaders in this category. They&rsquo;ve done a great job of branding themselves and really being consistent. That would be competition.Some of what Discovery has done would be competition. The Oprah channel is clearly undefined at this point, so it&rsquo;s really hard to view that as surely as competition.We can compete from day one with a personality and profile like Martha Stewart. We don&rsquo;t have to take a backseat to anyone in this lifestyle category. We feel that we will be competitive, if not better, quite frankly, right out of the gate than those channels who don&rsquo;t have a profile like Martha on their air. We still feel there&rsquo;s a lot of room in this area to navigate, and with our brand and our heritage and our ability to really represent so much of how people connect and people live day-to-day, we think we have a great opportunity to be highly, highly successful here.TVWEEK: Can you talk a little bit about how you&rsquo;d like to see advertising integrated in your vision?ABBOTT: There&rsquo;s no question as technology changes and changes the way viewers watch TV, we&rsquo;re all going to have to be a lot more responsive to the needs of advertisers. And I think you&rsquo;re seeing that on an evolutionary basis.I would say the death of the :30 has long since been overblown. But, the reality is we do need to be more responsive, we do need to look for unique ways in which we can embed an advertiser&rsquo;s message seamlessly into our product and into the development process. It&rsquo;ll make TV, I think, more valuable and certainly more appreciated. And it&rsquo;s creative, innovative ideas like that that we struggle with and work toward developing everyday.The lifestyle block is one that is particularly conducive to that type of activity. It&rsquo;s easier, I think, in lifestyle to place products seamlessly into the content. But certainly, we need to be true to our brand and we need to be carefully that we don&rsquo;t over do it and that we be sensitive to the value that we&rsquo;re creating for others when we do do it.TVWEEK: Can you talk a little bit about social media? That&rsquo;s obviously become a buzzword in the last year. Where you see Hallmark fitting with that phenomenon?ABBOTT: It&rsquo;s certainly real in terms of it being a phenomenon, but the real question is: What&rsquo;s the business model? We haven&rsquo;t certainly figured it out here, and that&rsquo;s one we&rsquo;re staying attuned to.Martha and Omnimedia have done a great job about being on the forefront of technology and having different applications around decorating and cooking and things that are really very, very relevant. As we develop our lifestyle area, we&rsquo;ll certainly play more in that space and whole digital arena as a rule. But, right now, it&rsquo;s not necessarily something we can point to as being a leader in.TVWEEK: Do you see the digital platforms as being more promotionally oriented and pointing viewers to the on-air products that you offer, or will they have a life of their own?ABBOTT: I see that as being a big change for us. That&rsquo;s one of the beauties as we move more towards this different side of the brand and are less focused and reliant on off-network acquisitions.When you&rsquo;re 100% reliant on scripted series that you acquire from a distributor, you have very little opportunity to play in the digital space. Here, we&rsquo;re going to have reasons to drive people to the Internet more than just information around what&rsquo;s on our air.We will have different opportunities to develop content that will speak to viewers&rsquo; interests in whatever we have on our network. And we&rsquo;ll make that a legitimate, vibrant business for us moving forward. It&rsquo;s something that we&rsquo;re thinking about everyday. It&rsquo;s something that we are very, very focused on.TVWEEK: As an independent channel, does it make sense in any way to do some sort of alliance?ABBOTT: We&rsquo;re open to forming relationships and partnerships, and you look at our partnership with Omnimedia, I would certainly put that in the alliance category, whether formal or informal.But, I think that the real issue there is that as our competitors get bigger and bigger and more complicated, ultimately some of what they have bought comes into question and they have to use their own leverage to leverage their own weaker sisters. You look at how big NBC is, and how big that whole organization will be with Comcast. There will be networks that they&rsquo;ll have to leverage to get favors in other cases. So there isn&rsquo;t an awful lot of room.You know, size cuts both ways. Too big, and you&rsquo;re in a position to have to protect your weaker properties. In a down market, being too big can be problematic, in that you&rsquo;ve got a lot of money to place on the agency side of the perspective, or you&rsquo;ve got a lot of different masters to satisfy.I&rsquo;m not so sure that that is necessarily, within the big companies, the way we want to go. With smaller organizations, certainly if we could develop some alliance that pullstogether some of those that aren&rsquo;t under big corporate umbrellas, that might be something smart to do. Overall, the big conglomerates probably are looking for alliances because they&rsquo;ve got an awful lot to leverage themselves. We wouldn&rsquo;t want to be part of anything where we would be the leveragee.TVWEEK: As we move closer toward the upfront, are there particular categories that you hope you&rsquo;ll do better in than you have in the past because of this new strategy?ABBOTT: We have already had an extremely high interest level from a number of categories, everything from automotives to financials to travel categories, that we have had a very difficult time playing in before.And there are many reasons for that. One is certainly the nature of the product is more geared toward potentially having different elements that could be incorporated within our actual content. And that our viewership will migrate much more towards a top 20 market, upper income level than we have been historically. So we are seeing a lot of activity from those clients that happen to target a more upscale adult 25-54 demographic than we have historically delivered. We are optimistic that we are going to have a robust upfront.TVWEEK: How important do you think measurement is going forward? How granular do we need to be?ABBOTT: It&rsquo;s critical. Speaking candidly, it&rsquo;s very frustrating to see so much fluctuation in the numbers and so much instability in the sample sizes where it&rsquo;s at.The question is what the right metric is. I don&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;s second-by-second or anything that extreme. But, I do think there&rsquo;s got to be a better way given where technology is. And frankly to compete with the Internet, I think it&rsquo;s very important that television develop some type of system that is more scientific and is more reliable, quite frankly, that what we have.This is very, very important. We&rsquo;re lucky we have people who are as brilliant as Reno [Scanzoni at Group M and TVWeek&rsquo;s 2010 Media Buyer of the Year] in the process who are on it. I&rsquo;m sure everyday, when he sees the numbers, it drives him as crazy as it does the rest us in the business. To be competitive moving forward as a medium, television needs to step up and figure out ways to gain a better understanding of what actually is going on out there.TVWEEK: Anything you want to add?ABBOTT: I think at the end of the day, we are in a great position with not only our lifestyle content but with our original movies. We&rsquo;re producing 24 original movies in 2010 with two of those on our movie channel. It&rsquo;s a big commitment to the Hallmark Movie Channel, which became measured in the second quarter and that is a growing and vibrant and viable property. Our holiday effort will continue here moving forward. We had our highest rated holiday in our history recently, and our Countdown to Christmas and Countdown to Holidays have been remarkably successful. We have a lot going on here other than just that lifestyle, Martha Stewart area. That&rsquo;s all very, very exciting and we&rsquo;re all optimistic about our future. #]]>
   </content>
</entry>

<entry>
   <title>Here's What Joe Abruzzese, Ad Sales Executive Extraordinaire, Did That Changed the Ad Game </title>
   <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://www.tvweek.com/news/2010/01/heres_what_joe_abruzzese_ad_sa.php" />
   <id>tag:www.tvweek.com,2010:/news//1.39978</id>
   
   <published>2010-01-22T19:25:09Z</published>
   <updated>2010-01-22T19:26:52Z</updated>
   
   <summary><![CDATA[In 2002, Joe Abruzzese, then the top ad sales executive at the Tiffany Network, CBS, did a most extraordinary thing. He jumped to cable, taking the helm for ad sales at Discovery Communications.As one top media agency person told TVWeek at the time, &quot;It's a watershed moment. The ad sales departments at the cable networks are filled with former broadcast network managers,&nbsp;but it's an incredible statement that Joey has made leaving CBS, where he was well ensconced as the sitting president of ad sales, his relationship with Mel aside.&quot; In the eyes of many, Abruzzese's move legitimitized cable as an ad vehicle in a way it hadn't been before.The&nbsp;reference to &quot;Mel&quot;&nbsp;is to Mel&nbsp;Karmazin, who was running CBS at the time, and is known as a pretty tough executive. At a 2006 press conference announcing his coming to Discovery, Abruzzese, when asked about Karmazin, said,&nbsp; &quot;Mel made me better at my job.&quot; Then he compared Mr. Karmazin to a football coach, adding, &quot;After practice you're beaten up, but at the end of the day you're a better football player.''&nbsp;Subsequently, over the years, when asked about working for Karmazin, Abruzzese has been oft-quoted as saying that it was like the brutal first 20 minutes of &quot;Saving Private Ryan.&quot; Every day.The reason this anecdote is still worth repeating is that it goes to the core of what Abruzzese is all about. Clearly one of the best and brightest, he's also big on relationships. Relationships with the buyers and media agency managers up and down Madison Ave., as well as the managers inside the company at which he works.Today we present our recent interview with Abruzzese that we did as part of our special report in which TVWeek&nbsp;recently named Discovery Communications our Cable TV Programmer of the Decade. (If you want to read any of our other interviews for this special report, click here.)In the interview Abruzzese begins by talking about his relationship with the man who runs Discovery these days, David Zaslav--and he even talks a little about Karmazin. Here's the edited interview:If a client wants to get involved with Deadliest Catch, they can probably have four different platforms with it. So that's the promise of digital. What we're finding is that kind of thing is only about half our digital business. The other half is people who want to buy the Internet for demographics.﻿TVWeek: It was huge news along Madison Avenue when you came to Discovery from CBS. In many ways, it was a watershed moment for cable: The top ad sales executive at CBS, one of the storied broadcast networks, moving to cable. How many years have you been here now?&nbsp;&nbsp;Joe Abruzzese: Six years.TVWeek: So awhile. And clearly you were well established here when David Zaslav joined the company in 2007. Did you know him before he got here?Abruzzese: I did not. Since David has been here, though, I&rsquo;ve learned that he&rsquo;s an incredibly hard charger. Very smart. Knows our business. Gets concepts as quick as I&rsquo;ve seen anybody get concepts, and can get what you&rsquo;re saying in a nanosecond. You don&rsquo;t have to explain it, you don&rsquo;t have to have a long meeting.Also, you can get to him very quickly. He&rsquo;s very accessible. And he has great management skills and very trusting about what people do. We have very little differences, but when we have differences we talk it out. He solicits dialogue, he wants your opinion. We don&rsquo;t then vote, but he&rsquo;d definitely find the right solution.The difference between David and a lot of executives is that David looks at the company and says, &ldquo;What can this company be when it&rsquo;s going at full bore?&rdquo; I think that is something that is really terrific. As opposed to saying, Discovery&rsquo;s brand is great. TLC&rsquo;s brand is great, it&rsquo;s really saying, &ldquo;Okay, how much greater can they be? What other parts of the company can we make greater?&rdquo;Hard to compare him to Mel Karmazin [my boss at CBS]. But I would say this: When I worked for Mel, Mel taught me one thing&mdash;try to find the value in everything you sell. Mel&rsquo;s style points were a little low, but I will tell you that he brought out the best in people because he said, &ldquo;Find the value in what you have to sell.&rdquo; Whether it&rsquo;s an older demographic, whatever you have. David&rsquo;s kind of the same way. Find what values you have in what you sell. Also, find the value in the networks that are there now.There&rsquo;s a few things that are self evident. Take Discovery Health. It&rsquo;s a a pretty good brand, but somewhat limited, so we&rsquo;re turning it into the Oprah network. That&rsquo;s really unleashing value.Take Discovery Kids, which was somewhat limited, and now we're going to partner with Hasbro, which is phenomenal.Those kind of moves are changing our company. We changed Discovery Times into ID. And we&rsquo;ve gotten some traction. We started putting &ldquo;48 Hours&rdquo; on and it got great response. Now we&rsquo;ve invested a little bit of money and it&rsquo;s started to grow leaps and bounds.But when David got here he said &ldquo;How do we make this thing really big?&rdquo; So he hires Henry [Schleiff], an established executive, and we put money behind it.Now, walk over to Planet Green. Honestly, nobody is really in on the Green space, besides us. So as successful as it is, we have an island there. This is all within the last couple of years. Think about taking all the networks that had been limited. Limited value. Now it&rsquo;s great value. Along with rebranding Discovery Channel, getting TLC back on it&rsquo;s feet, not to mention Animal Planet.Take Animal Planet. At one point we took the tact with Animal Planet saying, it fits the portfolio because it fits parents with kids. Which is really wrong. Now it&rsquo;s Animal Planet, be what it can be. And Marjorie [Kaplan], who runs it, is doing a wonderful job letting it be what it can be in its own space, and it really doesn&rsquo;t have a competitor.So we have all these cylinders running. So David has pushed everybody to get the value in what they have. And I think there&rsquo;s a lot more. For example, we don&rsquo;t really interact very much with international but there&rsquo;s great exposure in international. We have a few deals with clients. It&rsquo;s not revolutionary but it could be. We&rsquo;re wide open for working together.TVWeek: Where else do you see value potential?Abruzzese: Probably Science. Science, right now is a great network. But we&rsquo;re looking at that next to say, &quot;Is that the next big Discovery Channel?&quot; And where does it fit? And does Science feed into Discovery? So science programming now sometimes hits off, goes into Discovery. So we have this feeder team.HD is a great network. Now everybody is into HD so it&rsquo;s going to find its own value. And it will. So David, instead of saying, &ldquo;Oh, we&rsquo;re doing great,&rdquo; says, &ldquo;What more can we do with everything we own? And that&rsquo;s the biggest difference that we have now with his being here.TVWeek: You&rsquo;ve spoken about the changes at the networks, and how they are unleashing value, which I realize you hope will also translate into more sales. What about your department. Any changes you&rsquo;ve made lately?Abruzzese: Well, our latest incarnation is that we&rsquo;ve established two new sales teams. And they are the emerging net sales teams. This is literally in the last six months. We have a male sales team, that is emerging networks which have a male skewing audience: Science, Military and HD. And we have a female sales team which is ID, Fit and Planet Green.So we&rsquo;re really trying to sell value as opposed to leverage. Again, trying to sell the value proposition as apposed to the leverage proposition. We don&rsquo;t just sell ratings because HD is not rated. Planet Green&rsquo;s not rated. So it&rsquo;s really the concepts of these networks.TVWeek: Does that make it that much more difficult?Abruzzese: Yes and no. It&rsquo;s difficult yet it&rsquo;s easier. It&rsquo;s difficult because you&rsquo;ve got to convince clients when I can&rsquo;t tell them exactly what they&rsquo;re getting, but here&rsquo;s the environment. And it&rsquo;s a targeted environment.But if you do just meat and potatoes, calculate CPMs and so forth, it&rsquo;s harder. But it&rsquo;s interesting. And where we are going to be in a year from now, I have no idea. But it&rsquo;s going to be better. It&rsquo;s going to be bigger.TVWeek: And as you&rsquo;ve transitioned now and continue to do so with some of these networks, are you getting new advertisers to come aboard? Because Discovery as a company has been around for a while&mdash;and in that sense its very well known on Madison Ave.Abruzzese: We have new advertisers. We just wrapped a deal up with Coleman stoves. Big deal with Coleman. I think one of the first times they&rsquo;ve been on. And they&rsquo;re big with Discovery. So we get a lot of new advertisers coming in now. We&rsquo;ve done a good job with that.But it&rsquo;s about bigger shares for advertising. If you look at all the metrics now, we&rsquo;ve worked really hard and we&rsquo;ve added value and we&rsquo;ve outpaced other networks in sales these last three or four months. About three or four quarters. If you look at what&rsquo;s happened with the broadcast networks, you can see what&rsquo;s happening. They&rsquo;re still into selling their old platforms which are coming down. We&rsquo;re building it up, and we&rsquo;re still getting the money. It&rsquo;s still coming over. And those are the reasons.We&rsquo;re also a little more strategic. One of the ways we&rsquo;ve done it, not to get too far in the weeds, is we have an essential negotiation team who controls pricing, planning, proposals. And you can&rsquo;t write a deal without going through this team. The team controls everything including DR [Direcrt Response], paid programming, ADU [Audience Deficiency Units] and so forth. So we evaluate the deals coming through. Is it better to sell it for cash, give it as an ADU, distribute it for DR for getting a better price? So that really makes it more strategic and we constantly are looking at all our options for the time we sell. What does the next month look like? The next quarter look like? And it&rsquo;s not just selling time. It&rsquo;s being more strategic about selling time.TVWeek: Please tell us how the Internet has factored into this, and how do you think it&rsquo;ll factor into ad sales moving forward.Abruzzese: To be totally honest, I think for everyone the expectations were a lot higher than the reality has been. The way I see it, if clients want extensions of what they&rsquo;re doing, the Internet is a great place to get the extensions. The Internet, mobile, VOD[Video on Demand], you name it.And if a client wants to get involved with &ldquo;Deadliest Catch,&rdquo; they can probably have four different platforms with it. So that&rsquo;s the promise of digital. What we&rsquo;re finding is that kind of thing is only about half our digital business. The other half is people want to buy the Internet for demographics. So, you&rsquo;ve got kind of a horizontal integration with networks, clients and shows, or vertical integration with demographics across our networks.So we&rsquo;re still trying to figure it out, and we&rsquo;re actually thinking about restructuring our digital sales team to find the best way to do this, and it would probably be in that form: A vertical and horizontal integration. To find which would make the most money.And as a company, we&rsquo;ve invested a lot of money in digital. We&rsquo;ll see if it pays off. If it doesn&rsquo;t pay off in actual cash, it may be paying off in effectiveness in advertising. And that&rsquo;s the hope.TVWeek: I think you&rsquo;ve given us a great snapshot of the ad sales picture here. Anything you want to add?Abruzzese: We&rsquo;ve covered so much! Getting back to David for a minute, I think David is a good guy who cares much about everyone&rsquo;s success personally as it is. And he really wants everybody to work together. There are really no silos here.#]]></summary>
   <author>
      <name>Chuck Ross</name>
      
   </author>
   
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   <category term="108" label="Discovery" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="12222" label="Joe Abruzzese" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   
   <content type="html" xml:lang="en" xml:base="http://www.tvweek.com/news/">
      <![CDATA[In 2002, Joe Abruzzese, then the top ad sales executive at the Tiffany Network, CBS, did a most extraordinary thing. He jumped to cable, taking the helm for ad sales at Discovery Communications.As one top media agency person told TVWeek at the time, &quot;It's a watershed moment. The ad sales departments at the cable networks are filled with former broadcast network managers,&nbsp;but it's an incredible statement that Joey has made leaving CBS, where he was well ensconced as the sitting president of ad sales, his relationship with Mel aside.&quot; In the eyes of many, Abruzzese's move legitimitized cable as an ad vehicle in a way it hadn't been before.The&nbsp;reference to &quot;Mel&quot;&nbsp;is to Mel&nbsp;Karmazin, who was running CBS at the time, and is known as a pretty tough executive. At a 2006 press conference announcing his coming to Discovery, Abruzzese, when asked about Karmazin, said,&nbsp; &quot;Mel made me better at my job.&quot; Then he compared Mr. Karmazin to a football coach, adding, &quot;After practice you're beaten up, but at the end of the day you're a better football player.''&nbsp;Subsequently, over the years, when asked about working for Karmazin, Abruzzese has been oft-quoted as saying that it was like the brutal first 20 minutes of &quot;Saving Private Ryan.&quot; Every day.The reason this anecdote is still worth repeating is that it goes to the core of what Abruzzese is all about. Clearly one of the best and brightest, he's also big on relationships. Relationships with the buyers and media agency managers up and down Madison Ave., as well as the managers inside the company at which he works.Today we present our recent interview with Abruzzese that we did as part of our special report in which TVWeek&nbsp;recently named Discovery Communications our Cable TV Programmer of the Decade. (If you want to read any of our other interviews for this special report, click here.)In the interview Abruzzese begins by talking about his relationship with the man who runs Discovery these days, David Zaslav--and he even talks a little about Karmazin. Here's the edited interview:If a client wants to get involved with Deadliest Catch, they can probably have four different platforms with it. So that's the promise of digital. What we're finding is that kind of thing is only about half our digital business. The other half is people who want to buy the Internet for demographics.﻿TVWeek: It was huge news along Madison Avenue when you came to Discovery from CBS. In many ways, it was a watershed moment for cable: The top ad sales executive at CBS, one of the storied broadcast networks, moving to cable. How many years have you been here now?&nbsp;&nbsp;Joe Abruzzese: Six years.TVWeek: So awhile. And clearly you were well established here when David Zaslav joined the company in 2007. Did you know him before he got here?Abruzzese: I did not. Since David has been here, though, I&rsquo;ve learned that he&rsquo;s an incredibly hard charger. Very smart. Knows our business. Gets concepts as quick as I&rsquo;ve seen anybody get concepts, and can get what you&rsquo;re saying in a nanosecond. You don&rsquo;t have to explain it, you don&rsquo;t have to have a long meeting.Also, you can get to him very quickly. He&rsquo;s very accessible. And he has great management skills and very trusting about what people do. We have very little differences, but when we have differences we talk it out. He solicits dialogue, he wants your opinion. We don&rsquo;t then vote, but he&rsquo;d definitely find the right solution.The difference between David and a lot of executives is that David looks at the company and says, &ldquo;What can this company be when it&rsquo;s going at full bore?&rdquo; I think that is something that is really terrific. As opposed to saying, Discovery&rsquo;s brand is great. TLC&rsquo;s brand is great, it&rsquo;s really saying, &ldquo;Okay, how much greater can they be? What other parts of the company can we make greater?&rdquo;Hard to compare him to Mel Karmazin [my boss at CBS]. But I would say this: When I worked for Mel, Mel taught me one thing&mdash;try to find the value in everything you sell. Mel&rsquo;s style points were a little low, but I will tell you that he brought out the best in people because he said, &ldquo;Find the value in what you have to sell.&rdquo; Whether it&rsquo;s an older demographic, whatever you have. David&rsquo;s kind of the same way. Find what values you have in what you sell. Also, find the value in the networks that are there now.There&rsquo;s a few things that are self evident. Take Discovery Health. It&rsquo;s a a pretty good brand, but somewhat limited, so we&rsquo;re turning it into the Oprah network. That&rsquo;s really unleashing value.Take Discovery Kids, which was somewhat limited, and now we're going to partner with Hasbro, which is phenomenal.Those kind of moves are changing our company. We changed Discovery Times into ID. And we&rsquo;ve gotten some traction. We started putting &ldquo;48 Hours&rdquo; on and it got great response. Now we&rsquo;ve invested a little bit of money and it&rsquo;s started to grow leaps and bounds.But when David got here he said &ldquo;How do we make this thing really big?&rdquo; So he hires Henry [Schleiff], an established executive, and we put money behind it.Now, walk over to Planet Green. Honestly, nobody is really in on the Green space, besides us. So as successful as it is, we have an island there. This is all within the last couple of years. Think about taking all the networks that had been limited. Limited value. Now it&rsquo;s great value. Along with rebranding Discovery Channel, getting TLC back on it&rsquo;s feet, not to mention Animal Planet.Take Animal Planet. At one point we took the tact with Animal Planet saying, it fits the portfolio because it fits parents with kids. Which is really wrong. Now it&rsquo;s Animal Planet, be what it can be. And Marjorie [Kaplan], who runs it, is doing a wonderful job letting it be what it can be in its own space, and it really doesn&rsquo;t have a competitor.So we have all these cylinders running. So David has pushed everybody to get the value in what they have. And I think there&rsquo;s a lot more. For example, we don&rsquo;t really interact very much with international but there&rsquo;s great exposure in international. We have a few deals with clients. It&rsquo;s not revolutionary but it could be. We&rsquo;re wide open for working together.TVWeek: Where else do you see value potential?Abruzzese: Probably Science. Science, right now is a great network. But we&rsquo;re looking at that next to say, &quot;Is that the next big Discovery Channel?&quot; And where does it fit? And does Science feed into Discovery? So science programming now sometimes hits off, goes into Discovery. So we have this feeder team.HD is a great network. Now everybody is into HD so it&rsquo;s going to find its own value. And it will. So David, instead of saying, &ldquo;Oh, we&rsquo;re doing great,&rdquo; says, &ldquo;What more can we do with everything we own? And that&rsquo;s the biggest difference that we have now with his being here.TVWeek: You&rsquo;ve spoken about the changes at the networks, and how they are unleashing value, which I realize you hope will also translate into more sales. What about your department. Any changes you&rsquo;ve made lately?Abruzzese: Well, our latest incarnation is that we&rsquo;ve established two new sales teams. And they are the emerging net sales teams. This is literally in the last six months. We have a male sales team, that is emerging networks which have a male skewing audience: Science, Military and HD. And we have a female sales team which is ID, Fit and Planet Green.So we&rsquo;re really trying to sell value as opposed to leverage. Again, trying to sell the value proposition as apposed to the leverage proposition. We don&rsquo;t just sell ratings because HD is not rated. Planet Green&rsquo;s not rated. So it&rsquo;s really the concepts of these networks.TVWeek: Does that make it that much more difficult?Abruzzese: Yes and no. It&rsquo;s difficult yet it&rsquo;s easier. It&rsquo;s difficult because you&rsquo;ve got to convince clients when I can&rsquo;t tell them exactly what they&rsquo;re getting, but here&rsquo;s the environment. And it&rsquo;s a targeted environment.But if you do just meat and potatoes, calculate CPMs and so forth, it&rsquo;s harder. But it&rsquo;s interesting. And where we are going to be in a year from now, I have no idea. But it&rsquo;s going to be better. It&rsquo;s going to be bigger.TVWeek: And as you&rsquo;ve transitioned now and continue to do so with some of these networks, are you getting new advertisers to come aboard? Because Discovery as a company has been around for a while&mdash;and in that sense its very well known on Madison Ave.Abruzzese: We have new advertisers. We just wrapped a deal up with Coleman stoves. Big deal with Coleman. I think one of the first times they&rsquo;ve been on. And they&rsquo;re big with Discovery. So we get a lot of new advertisers coming in now. We&rsquo;ve done a good job with that.But it&rsquo;s about bigger shares for advertising. If you look at all the metrics now, we&rsquo;ve worked really hard and we&rsquo;ve added value and we&rsquo;ve outpaced other networks in sales these last three or four months. About three or four quarters. If you look at what&rsquo;s happened with the broadcast networks, you can see what&rsquo;s happening. They&rsquo;re still into selling their old platforms which are coming down. We&rsquo;re building it up, and we&rsquo;re still getting the money. It&rsquo;s still coming over. And those are the reasons.We&rsquo;re also a little more strategic. One of the ways we&rsquo;ve done it, not to get too far in the weeds, is we have an essential negotiation team who controls pricing, planning, proposals. And you can&rsquo;t write a deal without going through this team. The team controls everything including DR [Direcrt Response], paid programming, ADU [Audience Deficiency Units] and so forth. So we evaluate the deals coming through. Is it better to sell it for cash, give it as an ADU, distribute it for DR for getting a better price? So that really makes it more strategic and we constantly are looking at all our options for the time we sell. What does the next month look like? The next quarter look like? And it&rsquo;s not just selling time. It&rsquo;s being more strategic about selling time.TVWeek: Please tell us how the Internet has factored into this, and how do you think it&rsquo;ll factor into ad sales moving forward.Abruzzese: To be totally honest, I think for everyone the expectations were a lot higher than the reality has been. The way I see it, if clients want extensions of what they&rsquo;re doing, the Internet is a great place to get the extensions. The Internet, mobile, VOD[Video on Demand], you name it.And if a client wants to get involved with &ldquo;Deadliest Catch,&rdquo; they can probably have four different platforms with it. So that&rsquo;s the promise of digital. What we&rsquo;re finding is that kind of thing is only about half our digital business. The other half is people want to buy the Internet for demographics. So, you&rsquo;ve got kind of a horizontal integration with networks, clients and shows, or vertical integration with demographics across our networks.So we&rsquo;re still trying to figure it out, and we&rsquo;re actually thinking about restructuring our digital sales team to find the best way to do this, and it would probably be in that form: A vertical and horizontal integration. To find which would make the most money.And as a company, we&rsquo;ve invested a lot of money in digital. We&rsquo;ll see if it pays off. If it doesn&rsquo;t pay off in actual cash, it may be paying off in effectiveness in advertising. And that&rsquo;s the hope.TVWeek: I think you&rsquo;ve given us a great snapshot of the ad sales picture here. Anything you want to add?Abruzzese: We&rsquo;ve covered so much! Getting back to David for a minute, I think David is a good guy who cares much about everyone&rsquo;s success personally as it is. And he really wants everybody to work together. There are really no silos here.#]]>
   </content>
</entry>

<entry>
   <title>Henry Schleiff, President and General Manager, Investigation Discovery, Military Channel and HD Theater</title>
   <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://www.tvweek.com/news/2010/01/henry_schleiff_president_and_g.php" />
   <id>tag:www.tvweek.com,2010:/news//1.39831</id>
   
   <published>2010-01-15T15:13:52Z</published>
   <updated>2010-02-11T18:33:21Z</updated>
   
   <summary><![CDATA['The one thing that&nbsp;Investigation Discovery&nbsp;shares with TMZ is it's almost a sister network in terms of the passion of its audience. And this is a business of passion. The programming we play is about passion plays. Often with one side or the other out of kilter, for sure.&mdash;Henry Schleiff[Editor's Note: This interview with Henry Schleiff was conducted&nbsp;in November, 2009,&nbsp;a number of weeks before he got the added duties of overseeing the Miliary Channel and HD Theater in an end of year reorg at Discovery.]We began the interview with me asking Henry about his decision to join Discovery.--Chuck RossHenry Schleiff: I was very, if you will, circumspect and careful about what I wanted to do coming off what I thought was a reasonable success at Court TV and Hallmark, with some kind of narrow reputation of taking a team of people and a network and really taking a network to its next level.It&rsquo;s one thing to go to a small network. It&rsquo;s another thing to go to a small network with a small niche. This is a small network in terms of its current distribution&mdash;55 million homes&mdash;but an unbelievably wide, hugely embracing genre called storytelling. Great storytelling with a subgenre of crime, justice, mysteries, investigation.Let&rsquo;s talk about storytelling. Today, in very simple terms, you have a ton of great scripted product out there on broadcast and cable. Lots of great scripted stuff. You&rsquo;ve got a ton of unscripted stuff coming under this general name of reality.What you don&rsquo;t have is almost idiosyncratic to Investigation Discovery&mdash;ID&mdash;which I call almost a third variation. And that is semi-scripted reality. That is documentary footage&mdash;it&rsquo;s real footage, it&rsquo;s fact-based stories. We don&rsquo;t have actors. We don&rsquo;t have scripts. We&rsquo;re taking actual documentary footage and telling unbelievably compelling stories with high stakes, like mysteries.Give me one other network in this crowded universe of what, 130 or 140 ad-supported networks&mdash;that has that as its unique selling proposition. And so that was very attractive to me because I thought, boy here&rsquo;s something that&rsquo;s brawny. That&rsquo;s big.Obviously having run Court TV I had some experience in the world of crime and justice. So you could go out there and you could find something that was just a naturally appealing, broad genre. But there is no other crime, justice, investigation 24/7 network.Not to say there&rsquo;s not a lot of competition. I look around and A&amp;E does a fabulous job for a couple of hours on a specific night in our space. I look around at TruTV&mdash;which we called Court TV when I there. Does a great job on a couple of nights for a couple of hours.But there is no one place 24/7, 365 days. That&rsquo;s called a brand. That&rsquo;s called a destination. Whatever cutsie term you want to put on it. But I do think that&rsquo;s our calling card going forward. I think actually it is very easy&mdash;in the privacy of this interview on your website&mdash;to say that&rsquo;s an easy network to actually grow and make successful.People, as you know, are endlessly fascinated with this genre. I will give you a couple of quick statistics: One, we&rsquo;re number one in all of cable in length of tune. Viewers come to us and stay with this network longer than any other network, which by the way, is an advertiser&rsquo;s dream. Because at least you&rsquo;re saying to the advertiser&mdash;at the very least&mdash;viewers will see the spot at the commercial break. The reason for that, by the way, is the very act of telling the kind of stories we tell with a beginning, a middle and an end ,in a compelling way.We are the fastest growing ad-supported cable network in our demographic target, women 25 to 54. And we&rsquo;ve only been around for two years, Again, out of all cable, we are in the top five networks in C3 ratings.Let&rsquo;s go to from the general to the specific. We just finished October. We ranked number two out of all mid-size networks&mdash;that&rsquo;s networks 69 million subs and under. That&rsquo;s a lot of networks out there. So to be number two as quickly as we have achieved that is unbelievable.TVWeek: Who is No. 1?Schleiff: I think it&rsquo;s Lifetime Movie Network. Which has been around longer and is a terrific network. Roughly the same appeal in longform programming.October is the 21st consecutive month of year-over-year prime time gains in both households and women 25-54. 21 straight months. Now, I&rsquo;ve only been here for two months. I&rsquo;m trying to figure out how to take credit for the prior 19 months! And it&rsquo;s going to be arguable for me to even take credit on the two I&rsquo;ve been here for, so work with me on that one.Then you have the softer stuff, the beta testing, the most recent beta testing. ID is number one out of all emerging networks in importance to the enjoyment of cable in the latest beta study.I look at even the shows at the bottom of the page. We just introduced &quot;On the Case With Paula Zahn.&rdquo; Two weeks ago, huge numbers. We play 48 Hours. We play Dateline. Now we&rsquo;ve got our own magazine show. Paula&rsquo;s excellent. She&rsquo;s a good journalist. She asks the right questions.What I&rsquo;m saying is the mix and the breadth of this genre allows us to do a lot of creative and smart things going forward. So as our distribution grows, and we grow with it automatically, our numbers will go up part and parcel with that distribution.TVWeek: Henry, you mentioned right at the beginning about coming here and what you found here when you got here. You&rsquo;re a man with some repute and, I would imagine, you considered some other options. What made you decide to hang your shingle up here at Discovery?Schlieff: Two things. Thing one, aside from anything else, I&rsquo;ve spent enough time in this industry to know the industry. To know the players. To know what companies are on the move, on the increase. What companies frankly reflect the personality you should look for, which is very simple: A company that&rsquo;s lively, that&rsquo;s got people who are intelligent and people who are fun to be around.That starts at the top. I&rsquo;ve known David Zaslav for over 20 years: I&rsquo;ve competed with him, he&rsquo;s been a friend. We&rsquo;ve worked in lockstep, we&rsquo;ve been at loggerheads. Every way you can work in this businessThen you look at Discovery. On the rise. On the increase. Led by a guy with great enthusiasm and great energy.Then you think, what the heck role can I play in a company like that? And I looked around and I said, boy, there&rsquo;s a network over there that I think plays to my experience and to my strength. One, it&rsquo;s small and it&rsquo;s in a genre that I understand. As I said earlier, if I have any limited experience or skill, it is taking something that is small in making it reasonably bigger and more successful.But to do that, you&rsquo;ve got to be surrounded with resources, you&rsquo;ve got to be surrounded with people who &ldquo;get you,&rdquo; that are simpatico to what you want to do. I literally walked into David&rsquo;s office and I said, you know you&rsquo;ve got this thing called ID. Investigation Discovery. Did you ever think about expanding the investigation into areas not only in the world of crime and justice but really playing up investigation?Cut forward to our new tagline Investigate Life. I literally got about three sentences out of my mouth and David said, &lsquo;Well what about you? When can you start?I came back to my office. What was supposed to be an hour meeting had lasted about 25 minutes. Yvette, then with me for 30 years, said, &lsquo;My gosh, what happened? It didn&rsquo;t go well?&rsquo; I said, &lsquo;I think it went too well. He says he wants me to start like next week.&rsquo; That&rsquo;s typical David. I think he saw the marriage, if you will, between somebody with my experience, and again, the fabulous job, and I must underscore this, that had already been done at ID. The foundation had then been laid in place. It&rsquo;s really important to know people like a Clark Bunting, a Debbie Meyers, a Kevin Bennett, who really had laid the foundation for this.I don&rsquo;t know if I&rsquo;m a good writer, but I&rsquo;m a good editor. And by that, I mean it&rsquo;s great to walk in where the text already exists, thanks to those people, and those behind them. And to take that and say, let&rsquo;s edit it. Let&rsquo;s really push up this and minimize that. Let&rsquo;s go in that direction, or why this? Just ask the questions which somebody with a full-time view can do. Which they realty didn&rsquo;t have before me. Somebody who is passionate, over the top and focused on this one child. This one baby. I think that&rsquo;s what I brought to the table. But we&rsquo;ll build this network on, frankly, a very solid foundation that was in place before I got here.I really don&rsquo;t do startups. When I was leaving Hallmark, people said, &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s money, do you want to do this?&rdquo; And, &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s money, do you want to do that?&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;Give me the money part. But I don&rsquo;t want to do this and do that because it&rsquo;s not going to succeed.&rdquo; I know what succeeds and I know what&rsquo;s not going to. And I come back to the fact&mdash;in the privacy of this interview&mdash;that I think the level of difficulty of making this network successful is so low. The barrier is so easy simply because of the breadth of appeal of this programming and the depth of the resources that we have at Discovery Communications and most of all the support that we have from upon high starting with David and the people in the trenches across the board.TVWeek: We&rsquo;ve talked about the TV product. What about online? You look at something like TMZ, which is about celebrities, but could be considered related to ID since they focus a lot on celebrities who have run-ins with the law and so forth. And when they break a story such as Michael Jackson&rsquo;s death, they get millions of hits, but I don&rsquo;t know if that translates into significant monies on the ad side for them.Schleiff: When you say the Internet and the web, potential use of that has gone through the so many incarnations in the last several years. And I think the most current one, and quite correctly so, is the concern that we don&rsquo;t convert dollars into digital pennies. I think certainly that is absolutely true. I&rsquo;ve always been very cynical about the monetization of the Internet.Your TMZ example is a great one because it is very relevant to our audience in particular. I think for the moment the internet for us is the ultimate marketing tool. Especially to increasing an audience when you are a digital network, and often in a channel position that is akin to being in the witness protection program which is essentially where we are, with the exception of a couple of markets, such as New York, where we have a position on channel 23.So to the extent that the Internet&mdash;and through it our website and related websites&mdash;allows us to extend our reach to an audience that may not in fact know where we are or even what we even exist, it&rsquo;s a huge marketing opportunity for us.The one the thing that we share with TMZ is that I think it&rsquo;s almost a sister network in terms of the passion of its audience. And this is a business of passion. The programming we play is about passion plays. Often with one side or the other out of kilter, for sure.I will say that our audience is an audience that wants to know more about the facts of a particular incident, a case, a tragedy, a mystery. You only have so much air time and you only have a certain way of telling a story. You use your website to reach out to the audience and say, &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s the back story.&rdquo; &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s where they are now.&rdquo; &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s some other facts that you couldn&rsquo;t have imagined.&rdquo; That is a great opportunity for us and something we&rsquo;re exploring now very much. Huge marketing upside for our audience.TVWeek: Can you talk about any point of view you want to bring to the network?Schleiff: Stories of our justice system and a system of justice that is not always just. I think that is incredibly compelling. That also would allows us to shine a Klieg light, if you will, on those heroes of the justice system that get overlooked. And maybe there&rsquo;s public service initiatives that we can do.We can look at issues in our justice system that are not only important but lend themselves to great storytelling. I truly believe, in that context at this network, like a Court TV at its best, can inform, can entertain and truly on occasion, can inspire. We&rsquo;re not going to do that consistently. We&rsquo;re not going to do all three of those with any given show. But from time to time, one, two and maybe even all three.TVWeek: Is part of your passion for that come from your background as a lawyer?Schleiff: Yeah, I think some of it is. And some of it is just being around in this business for awhile and realizing the fact that these networks are incredibly powerful tools of communication. It&rsquo;s that desire to do good by doing well, which might be a little derivative of the belief that once in a while there&rsquo;s good karma when you tell a story that truly has resonance beyond just ratings.TVWeek: Outside of Discovery&rsquo;s partnership with Hasbro for HUB, the kids network, in the U.S. Discovery networks have always been nonfiction. But what would fit better on ID than one of the &ldquo;CSI:&rdquo; shows or a crime procedural like it? Your ratings would certainly go up.Schleiff: Tthere&rsquo;s certain things that your brand should shout to the viewer and I think what we&rsquo;re shouting is fact-based, real life, high stakes stories of investigation. That&rsquo;s not to say that you couldn&rsquo;t tell some variation of that in a scripted, fiction form.Again, there are a lot of networks out there that do that exceedingly well. I would rather be known for what we do and do it really, really well. Which is unscripted.That&rsquo;s not to say that we can&rsquo;t look at&mdash;down the line&mdash;maybe stories based on scripted stories, based on actual factual incidents. But I think for the moment I&rsquo;ll split the difference with your very good direction. One of the things that we truly want to add to the recipe here is delving a little more into those significant, important, cause-related documentaries.For example I have just come back from the Hamptons Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival, and you see some documentaries in this area that would make your hair stand in terms of the compelling story behind them. And I think that&rsquo;s a good place for us. Again, we want to be distinctive in the world of those networks. And I think staying true to this reality fact way of storytelling as apposed to scripted is a great north star for us.#To read our introduction to this special report, &quot;Cable TV Programmer of the Decade,&quot; click here.To read our interview with Discovery President and CEO David Zaslav, click here.To read our interview with Bruce Campbell, President, Digital Media and Corporate Development for Discovery, click here.To read our interview with Bill Goodwyn, Discovery's President, Domestic Distribution and Enterprises, click here.To read our interview with Marjorie Kaplan, President and General Manager, Animal Planet Media Enterprises, click here.To read our interview with Laura Michalchyshyn, President and General Manager of Planet Green, Discovery Health and FitTV, click here.To read our interview with Joe Abruzzese, President of Advertising Sales for Doscovery COmmunications, click hereTo read our interview with Eileen O'Neill, President and General Manager of TLC, click hereTo read our interview with Clark Bunting, President and General Manager of the Discovery Channel, click hereTo read our interview with Carole Tomko, President and General Manager of Discovery Studios, click here.To read our interview with Mark Hollinger, President and CEO, Discovery&nbsp;Networks International, click here.]]></summary>
   <author>
      <name>Chuck Ross</name>
      
   </author>
   
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      <![CDATA['The one thing that&nbsp;Investigation Discovery&nbsp;shares with TMZ is it's almost a sister network in terms of the passion of its audience. And this is a business of passion. The programming we play is about passion plays. Often with one side or the other out of kilter, for sure.&mdash;Henry Schleiff[Editor's Note: This interview with Henry Schleiff was conducted&nbsp;in November, 2009,&nbsp;a number of weeks before he got the added duties of overseeing the Miliary Channel and HD Theater in an end of year reorg at Discovery.]We began the interview with me asking Henry about his decision to join Discovery.--Chuck RossHenry Schleiff: I was very, if you will, circumspect and careful about what I wanted to do coming off what I thought was a reasonable success at Court TV and Hallmark, with some kind of narrow reputation of taking a team of people and a network and really taking a network to its next level.It&rsquo;s one thing to go to a small network. It&rsquo;s another thing to go to a small network with a small niche. This is a small network in terms of its current distribution&mdash;55 million homes&mdash;but an unbelievably wide, hugely embracing genre called storytelling. Great storytelling with a subgenre of crime, justice, mysteries, investigation.Let&rsquo;s talk about storytelling. Today, in very simple terms, you have a ton of great scripted product out there on broadcast and cable. Lots of great scripted stuff. You&rsquo;ve got a ton of unscripted stuff coming under this general name of reality.What you don&rsquo;t have is almost idiosyncratic to Investigation Discovery&mdash;ID&mdash;which I call almost a third variation. And that is semi-scripted reality. That is documentary footage&mdash;it&rsquo;s real footage, it&rsquo;s fact-based stories. We don&rsquo;t have actors. We don&rsquo;t have scripts. We&rsquo;re taking actual documentary footage and telling unbelievably compelling stories with high stakes, like mysteries.Give me one other network in this crowded universe of what, 130 or 140 ad-supported networks&mdash;that has that as its unique selling proposition. And so that was very attractive to me because I thought, boy here&rsquo;s something that&rsquo;s brawny. That&rsquo;s big.Obviously having run Court TV I had some experience in the world of crime and justice. So you could go out there and you could find something that was just a naturally appealing, broad genre. But there is no other crime, justice, investigation 24/7 network.Not to say there&rsquo;s not a lot of competition. I look around and A&amp;E does a fabulous job for a couple of hours on a specific night in our space. I look around at TruTV&mdash;which we called Court TV when I there. Does a great job on a couple of nights for a couple of hours.But there is no one place 24/7, 365 days. That&rsquo;s called a brand. That&rsquo;s called a destination. Whatever cutsie term you want to put on it. But I do think that&rsquo;s our calling card going forward. I think actually it is very easy&mdash;in the privacy of this interview on your website&mdash;to say that&rsquo;s an easy network to actually grow and make successful.People, as you know, are endlessly fascinated with this genre. I will give you a couple of quick statistics: One, we&rsquo;re number one in all of cable in length of tune. Viewers come to us and stay with this network longer than any other network, which by the way, is an advertiser&rsquo;s dream. Because at least you&rsquo;re saying to the advertiser&mdash;at the very least&mdash;viewers will see the spot at the commercial break. The reason for that, by the way, is the very act of telling the kind of stories we tell with a beginning, a middle and an end ,in a compelling way.We are the fastest growing ad-supported cable network in our demographic target, women 25 to 54. And we&rsquo;ve only been around for two years, Again, out of all cable, we are in the top five networks in C3 ratings.Let&rsquo;s go to from the general to the specific. We just finished October. We ranked number two out of all mid-size networks&mdash;that&rsquo;s networks 69 million subs and under. That&rsquo;s a lot of networks out there. So to be number two as quickly as we have achieved that is unbelievable.TVWeek: Who is No. 1?Schleiff: I think it&rsquo;s Lifetime Movie Network. Which has been around longer and is a terrific network. Roughly the same appeal in longform programming.October is the 21st consecutive month of year-over-year prime time gains in both households and women 25-54. 21 straight months. Now, I&rsquo;ve only been here for two months. I&rsquo;m trying to figure out how to take credit for the prior 19 months! And it&rsquo;s going to be arguable for me to even take credit on the two I&rsquo;ve been here for, so work with me on that one.Then you have the softer stuff, the beta testing, the most recent beta testing. ID is number one out of all emerging networks in importance to the enjoyment of cable in the latest beta study.I look at even the shows at the bottom of the page. We just introduced &quot;On the Case With Paula Zahn.&rdquo; Two weeks ago, huge numbers. We play 48 Hours. We play Dateline. Now we&rsquo;ve got our own magazine show. Paula&rsquo;s excellent. She&rsquo;s a good journalist. She asks the right questions.What I&rsquo;m saying is the mix and the breadth of this genre allows us to do a lot of creative and smart things going forward. So as our distribution grows, and we grow with it automatically, our numbers will go up part and parcel with that distribution.TVWeek: Henry, you mentioned right at the beginning about coming here and what you found here when you got here. You&rsquo;re a man with some repute and, I would imagine, you considered some other options. What made you decide to hang your shingle up here at Discovery?Schlieff: Two things. Thing one, aside from anything else, I&rsquo;ve spent enough time in this industry to know the industry. To know the players. To know what companies are on the move, on the increase. What companies frankly reflect the personality you should look for, which is very simple: A company that&rsquo;s lively, that&rsquo;s got people who are intelligent and people who are fun to be around.That starts at the top. I&rsquo;ve known David Zaslav for over 20 years: I&rsquo;ve competed with him, he&rsquo;s been a friend. We&rsquo;ve worked in lockstep, we&rsquo;ve been at loggerheads. Every way you can work in this businessThen you look at Discovery. On the rise. On the increase. Led by a guy with great enthusiasm and great energy.Then you think, what the heck role can I play in a company like that? And I looked around and I said, boy, there&rsquo;s a network over there that I think plays to my experience and to my strength. One, it&rsquo;s small and it&rsquo;s in a genre that I understand. As I said earlier, if I have any limited experience or skill, it is taking something that is small in making it reasonably bigger and more successful.But to do that, you&rsquo;ve got to be surrounded with resources, you&rsquo;ve got to be surrounded with people who &ldquo;get you,&rdquo; that are simpatico to what you want to do. I literally walked into David&rsquo;s office and I said, you know you&rsquo;ve got this thing called ID. Investigation Discovery. Did you ever think about expanding the investigation into areas not only in the world of crime and justice but really playing up investigation?Cut forward to our new tagline Investigate Life. I literally got about three sentences out of my mouth and David said, &lsquo;Well what about you? When can you start?I came back to my office. What was supposed to be an hour meeting had lasted about 25 minutes. Yvette, then with me for 30 years, said, &lsquo;My gosh, what happened? It didn&rsquo;t go well?&rsquo; I said, &lsquo;I think it went too well. He says he wants me to start like next week.&rsquo; That&rsquo;s typical David. I think he saw the marriage, if you will, between somebody with my experience, and again, the fabulous job, and I must underscore this, that had already been done at ID. The foundation had then been laid in place. It&rsquo;s really important to know people like a Clark Bunting, a Debbie Meyers, a Kevin Bennett, who really had laid the foundation for this.I don&rsquo;t know if I&rsquo;m a good writer, but I&rsquo;m a good editor. And by that, I mean it&rsquo;s great to walk in where the text already exists, thanks to those people, and those behind them. And to take that and say, let&rsquo;s edit it. Let&rsquo;s really push up this and minimize that. Let&rsquo;s go in that direction, or why this? Just ask the questions which somebody with a full-time view can do. Which they realty didn&rsquo;t have before me. Somebody who is passionate, over the top and focused on this one child. This one baby. I think that&rsquo;s what I brought to the table. But we&rsquo;ll build this network on, frankly, a very solid foundation that was in place before I got here.I really don&rsquo;t do startups. When I was leaving Hallmark, people said, &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s money, do you want to do this?&rdquo; And, &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s money, do you want to do that?&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;Give me the money part. But I don&rsquo;t want to do this and do that because it&rsquo;s not going to succeed.&rdquo; I know what succeeds and I know what&rsquo;s not going to. And I come back to the fact&mdash;in the privacy of this interview&mdash;that I think the level of difficulty of making this network successful is so low. The barrier is so easy simply because of the breadth of appeal of this programming and the depth of the resources that we have at Discovery Communications and most of all the support that we have from upon high starting with David and the people in the trenches across the board.TVWeek: We&rsquo;ve talked about the TV product. What about online? You look at something like TMZ, which is about celebrities, but could be considered related to ID since they focus a lot on celebrities who have run-ins with the law and so forth. And when they break a story such as Michael Jackson&rsquo;s death, they get millions of hits, but I don&rsquo;t know if that translates into significant monies on the ad side for them.Schleiff: When you say the Internet and the web, potential use of that has gone through the so many incarnations in the last several years. And I think the most current one, and quite correctly so, is the concern that we don&rsquo;t convert dollars into digital pennies. I think certainly that is absolutely true. I&rsquo;ve always been very cynical about the monetization of the Internet.Your TMZ example is a great one because it is very relevant to our audience in particular. I think for the moment the internet for us is the ultimate marketing tool. Especially to increasing an audience when you are a digital network, and often in a channel position that is akin to being in the witness protection program which is essentially where we are, with the exception of a couple of markets, such as New York, where we have a position on channel 23.So to the extent that the Internet&mdash;and through it our website and related websites&mdash;allows us to extend our reach to an audience that may not in fact know where we are or even what we even exist, it&rsquo;s a huge marketing opportunity for us.The one the thing that we share with TMZ is that I think it&rsquo;s almost a sister network in terms of the passion of its audience. And this is a business of passion. The programming we play is about passion plays. Often with one side or the other out of kilter, for sure.I will say that our audience is an audience that wants to know more about the facts of a particular incident, a case, a tragedy, a mystery. You only have so much air time and you only have a certain way of telling a story. You use your website to reach out to the audience and say, &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s the back story.&rdquo; &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s where they are now.&rdquo; &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s some other facts that you couldn&rsquo;t have imagined.&rdquo; That is a great opportunity for us and something we&rsquo;re exploring now very much. Huge marketing upside for our audience.TVWeek: Can you talk about any point of view you want to bring to the network?Schleiff: Stories of our justice system and a system of justice that is not always just. I think that is incredibly compelling. That also would allows us to shine a Klieg light, if you will, on those heroes of the justice system that get overlooked. And maybe there&rsquo;s public service initiatives that we can do.We can look at issues in our justice system that are not only important but lend themselves to great storytelling. I truly believe, in that context at this network, like a Court TV at its best, can inform, can entertain and truly on occasion, can inspire. We&rsquo;re not going to do that consistently. We&rsquo;re not going to do all three of those with any given show. But from time to time, one, two and maybe even all three.TVWeek: Is part of your passion for that come from your background as a lawyer?Schleiff: Yeah, I think some of it is. And some of it is just being around in this business for awhile and realizing the fact that these networks are incredibly powerful tools of communication. It&rsquo;s that desire to do good by doing well, which might be a little derivative of the belief that once in a while there&rsquo;s good karma when you tell a story that truly has resonance beyond just ratings.TVWeek: Outside of Discovery&rsquo;s partnership with Hasbro for HUB, the kids network, in the U.S. Discovery networks have always been nonfiction. But what would fit better on ID than one of the &ldquo;CSI:&rdquo; shows or a crime procedural like it? Your ratings would certainly go up.Schleiff: Tthere&rsquo;s certain things that your brand should shout to the viewer and I think what we&rsquo;re shouting is fact-based, real life, high stakes stories of investigation. That&rsquo;s not to say that you couldn&rsquo;t tell some variation of that in a scripted, fiction form.Again, there are a lot of networks out there that do that exceedingly well. I would rather be known for what we do and do it really, really well. Which is unscripted.That&rsquo;s not to say that we can&rsquo;t look at&mdash;down the line&mdash;maybe stories based on scripted stories, based on actual factual incidents. But I think for the moment I&rsquo;ll split the difference with your very good direction. One of the things that we truly want to add to the recipe here is delving a little more into those significant, important, cause-related documentaries.For example I have just come back from the Hamptons Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival, and you see some documentaries in this area that would make your hair stand in terms of the compelling story behind them. And I think that&rsquo;s a good place for us. Again, we want to be distinctive in the world of those networks. And I think staying true to this reality fact way of storytelling as apposed to scripted is a great north star for us.#To read our introduction to this special report, &quot;Cable TV Programmer of the Decade,&quot; click here.To read our interview with Discovery President and CEO David Zaslav, click here.To read our interview with Bruce Campbell, President, Digital Media and Corporate Development for Discovery, click here.To read our interview with Bill Goodwyn, Discovery's President, Domestic Distribution and Enterprises, click here.To read our interview with Marjorie Kaplan, President and General Manager, Animal Planet Media Enterprises, click here.To read our interview with Laura Michalchyshyn, President and General Manager of Planet Green, Discovery Health and FitTV, click here.To read our interview with Joe Abruzzese, President of Advertising Sales for Doscovery COmmunications, click hereTo read our interview with Eileen O'Neill, President and General Manager of TLC, click hereTo read our interview with Clark Bunting, President and General Manager of the Discovery Channel, click hereTo read our interview with Carole Tomko, President and General Manager of Discovery Studios, click here.To read our interview with Mark Hollinger, President and CEO, Discovery&nbsp;Networks International, click here.]]>
   </content>
</entry>

<entry>
   <title>Creative Media Partnership Between History Channel and Boxing Title Match to Promote a TV Series </title>
   <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://www.tvweek.com/news/2009/11/creative_media_partnership_bet.php" />
   <id>tag:www.tvweek.com,2009:/news//1.38925</id>
   
   <published>2009-11-12T20:00:00Z</published>
   <updated>2009-11-12T17:22:25Z</updated>
   
   <summary><![CDATA[As clients put more and more pressure on their media agencies to figure out how to break through an ever increasingly crowded media environment, it becomes imcumbent&nbsp;on those who work on the planning side to think out-of-the-box.That's almost a cliche these days, but it's far easier said than done.Here's a most recent example of out-of-the-box thinking that sounds&nbsp;smart.The set-up: The History Channel has this pretty cool show called &quot;Pawn Stars.&quot; For those&nbsp;who haven't seen it, think &quot;American Chopper&quot; meets &quot;Antiques Roadshow.&quot; It all about the goings on at the Gold and Silver pawn shop in Las Vegas.The show features three generations of the Harrisons: Granddad Richard, who started the pawn shop, his son Rick, and Rick's son Corey.As you may have guessed, the show skews male.The question then becomes: What's a good way to promote this show to its target demo.That was basically the challenge&nbsp;put to Horizon Media by Ann Marie Granite, History's Director of Consumer Media, and her boss, Chris Moseley, Senior Vice President of Marketing for History.Moseley, who has won just about every marketing award out there, is a long-time veteran of some great promo campaigns she did for the&nbsp;Hallmark Channel, and before that at Discovery Communications.As Granite and Moseley explained to me the other day, the idea is to present the History Channel as&nbsp;an entertainment brand that delivers substance and real information.So here's what Horizon came up with: &quot;Pawn Stars,&quot; which has new episodes starting Nov. 30th, has hooked up with Top Rank to sponsor the Nov. 14th world championship welterweight boxing match, in Vegas,&nbsp;between Manny Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto.Horizon worked with The Leverage Agency, Top Rank's brand marketing and sales agency, to do the deal.According to the History announcement, &quot;Pawn Stars&quot; will sponsor the 'Tale of the Tape,' and will be prominent in the opening, closing and pre-main event portions&quot; of the fight, which will be televised, live, as an HBO pay-per-view event.Furthermore, the announcement says that &quot;the deal includes ring announcements and ringside seating&quot; for all three of the Harrisons. The venue will be filled with signage featuring the &quot;Pawn Stars&quot; logo, including on the mat.In addition, &quot;Pawn Stars&quot; will be integrated into the ads for the fight. You'll even get a &quot;Pawn Stars&quot; message if you watch the weigh in, which will be widely distributed by ESPN, DirecTV and Yahoo.com, among others.Moseley says that it's a hallmark History Channel campaign in that it'll have an &quot;organic&quot; feel. &quot;Half will be advertising, half will be the presence of the Harrisons themselves,&quot; she says. For example, plan to see the Harrisons, identified with &quot;Pawn Stars,&quot; on-camera during the National Anthem before the fight. And they'll be at the press conference as well--I.D'd with their show, of course.Furthermore,&nbsp;Moseley says this deal with Top Rank is in the tradition of History's out-of-the box promotions, which include several firsts, such as the first &quot;wrapping&quot; of an Acela Amtrak train and the first &quot;wrapping&quot; of a New York City subway car.According to Granite and Moseley, the smart media agencies--and the smart brands--should work to break through media clutter by coming up with integrated plans that put&nbsp;brands in places that at first might seem unexpected, but upon reflection are perfect fits.#]]></summary>
   <author>
      <name>Chuck Ross</name>
      
   </author>
   
      <category term="Advertising" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
      <category term="Business" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
      <category term="Cable" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
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   <category term="138" label="Horizon Media" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="9829" label="Manny Pacquiao" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="9831" label="Miguel Cotto" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="9833" label="Top Rank" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   
   <content type="html" xml:lang="en" xml:base="http://www.tvweek.com/news/">
      <![CDATA[As clients put more and more pressure on their media agencies to figure out how to break through an ever increasingly crowded media environment, it becomes imcumbent&nbsp;on those who work on the planning side to think out-of-the-box.That's almost a cliche these days, but it's far easier said than done.Here's a most recent example of out-of-the-box thinking that sounds&nbsp;smart.The set-up: The History Channel has this pretty cool show called &quot;Pawn Stars.&quot; For those&nbsp;who haven't seen it, think &quot;American Chopper&quot; meets &quot;Antiques Roadshow.&quot; It all about the goings on at the Gold and Silver pawn shop in Las Vegas.The show features three generations of the Harrisons: Granddad Richard, who started the pawn shop, his son Rick, and Rick's son Corey.As you may have guessed, the show skews male.The question then becomes: What's a good way to promote this show to its target demo.That was basically the challenge&nbsp;put to Horizon Media by Ann Marie Granite, History's Director of Consumer Media, and her boss, Chris Moseley, Senior Vice President of Marketing for History.Moseley, who has won just about every marketing award out there, is a long-time veteran of some great promo campaigns she did for the&nbsp;Hallmark Channel, and before that at Discovery Communications.As Granite and Moseley explained to me the other day, the idea is to present the History Channel as&nbsp;an entertainment brand that delivers substance and real information.So here's what Horizon came up with: &quot;Pawn Stars,&quot; which has new episodes starting Nov. 30th, has hooked up with Top Rank to sponsor the Nov. 14th world championship welterweight boxing match, in Vegas,&nbsp;between Manny Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto.Horizon worked with The Leverage Agency, Top Rank's brand marketing and sales agency, to do the deal.According to the History announcement, &quot;Pawn Stars&quot; will sponsor the 'Tale of the Tape,' and will be prominent in the opening, closing and pre-main event portions&quot; of the fight, which will be televised, live, as an HBO pay-per-view event.Furthermore, the announcement says that &quot;the deal includes ring announcements and ringside seating&quot; for all three of the Harrisons. The venue will be filled with signage featuring the &quot;Pawn Stars&quot; logo, including on the mat.In addition, &quot;Pawn Stars&quot; will be integrated into the ads for the fight. You'll even get a &quot;Pawn Stars&quot; message if you watch the weigh in, which will be widely distributed by ESPN, DirecTV and Yahoo.com, among others.Moseley says that it's a hallmark History Channel campaign in that it'll have an &quot;organic&quot; feel. &quot;Half will be advertising, half will be the presence of the Harrisons themselves,&quot; she says. For example, plan to see the Harrisons, identified with &quot;Pawn Stars,&quot; on-camera during the National Anthem before the fight. And they'll be at the press conference as well--I.D'd with their show, of course.Furthermore,&nbsp;Moseley says this deal with Top Rank is in the tradition of History's out-of-the box promotions, which include several firsts, such as the first &quot;wrapping&quot; of an Acela Amtrak train and the first &quot;wrapping&quot; of a New York City subway car.According to Granite and Moseley, the smart media agencies--and the smart brands--should work to break through media clutter by coming up with integrated plans that put&nbsp;brands in places that at first might seem unexpected, but upon reflection are perfect fits.#]]>
   </content>
</entry>

<entry>
   <title>Jeff Bewkes, Chairman &amp; CEO, Time Warner, on Why The AOL Merger NEVER Made Sense, and the Lessons We should Learn from the Fiasco (from the TVWeek Innovation360 Conference in NY City, Oct. 13, 2009)</title>
   <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://www.tvweek.com/news/2009/10/jeff_bewkes_chairman_ceo_time.php" />
   <id>tag:www.tvweek.com,2009:/news//1.38647</id>
   
   <published>2009-10-24T20:51:21Z</published>
   <updated>2009-10-24T21:03:43Z</updated>
   
   <summary />
   <author>
      <name>Chuck Ross</name>
      
   </author>
   
      <category term="Advertising" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
      <category term="Broadcast" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
      <category term="Business" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
      <category term="Cable" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
      <category term="Digital" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
      <category term="Syndication" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
   <category term="399" label="AOL" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="8927" label="bad idea" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="1045" label="CEO" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
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   <category term="8921" label="Chuck Ross" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="291" label="Comcast" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="4545" label="Jeff Bewkes" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="8923" label="Jeffrey Bewkes" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="8928" label="merger" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="55" label="NBC Universal" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="2358" label="Time Warner" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="8925" label="TVWeekNBCU" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   
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<entry>
   <title>What's Really Going on With the Latest Challenge to Nielsen?</title>
   <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://www.tvweek.com/news/2009/09/whats_really_going_on_with_the_2.php" />
   <id>tag:www.tvweek.com,2009:/news//1.37883</id>
   
   <published>2009-09-11T12:33:13Z</published>
   <updated>2009-09-11T18:57:07Z</updated>
   
   <summary><![CDATA[By Chuck RossThis week saw the official announcement of a group of media buyers and sellers who could possibly challenge Nielsen&rsquo;s dominance in media measurement.First, some stats:Name: Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM). At least that&rsquo;s what its logo says. Some news accounts&mdash;including the New York Times&mdash;say it&rsquo;s not Coalition, but Council. Whatever&mdash;not important.14 Charter Members: AT&amp;T, CBS, Discovery Communications, GroupM, Interpublic Group's Mediabrands, NBC Universal, News Corp., Omnicom Media Group, P&amp;G, Starcom MediaVest Group Worldwide, Time Warner, Unilever, Viacom and The Walt Disney Co.CIMM&rsquo;s self-described Mission Statement: To explore new worlds, to go where no&hellip;oops that&rsquo;s close but not quite it. It&rsquo;s mission is to &ldquo;Promote innovation and explore new, high quality ways to measure audiences across traditional and new media.&rdquo;How&rsquo;s it gonna do this? MediaPost&rsquo;s Joe Mandese, who is hands down the best reporter covering media measurement, wrote in his account of the CIMM announcement yesterday that someone had leaked to him a draft request for proposal (RFP) from CIMM. The draft carried the name of NBC Universal President of Research and Media Development, Alan Wurtzel. Wurtzel&rsquo;s been the driving force behind CIMM.According to Mandese&rsquo;s terrific piece, the RFP, prepared in February, was looking to fund two studies: &ldquo;One for a pilot study that would &lsquo;study producing real cross-platform data that reflects exposure of specific video sources on television, the Internet and mobile media;&rsquo; and a second for a digital set-top data project that would deliver &lsquo;three to six months of actual STB [set-top box] data, to be used for evaluation (not sales) purposes.&rsquo; &quot;Furthermore, Mandese writes, the RFP said, &quot;We are agnostic as to who will supply us with this data; the field is open, but we need these forward-looking metrics, adequate to the high standards of trading and post-evaluation, within the next 3-5 years.&quot;Finally, Mandese quotes from the RFP: &quot;As buyers and sellers of advertising-supported media, we are deeply concerned that, despite the efforts of some research suppliers, media measure is not keeping pace with urgent business needs.&quot;Hmm. &ldquo;Some research suppliers.&rdquo; Wonder who that could be.Back on August 13, the Financial Times, when it first broke this story, interviewed Sam Armando, SVP of audience analysis of Starcom, which is a member of CIMM.&ldquo;The most deficient thing is there&rsquo;s no single source measurement [for TV and digital video],&rdquo; Armando said. He added: It was not a case of &ldquo;let&rsquo;s go out to replace Nielsen&rdquo;, he said, but the consortium&rsquo;s plan did not require a &ldquo;leap of faith&rdquo;.Let&rsquo;s follow the money here. The major broadcast networks are probably paying Nielsen $40 million to $50 million annually. Media agencies pay a fraction of that, but $2 million to $4 million is still significant. And mostly gone are the days when they can pass along all of their Nielsen costs to their clients.&nbsp;Nielsen is a monopoly player. Its ratings are the currency of the business. Billions of dollars of ad revenue are based on Nielsen&rsquo;s rating measurements.So far CIMM is being funded by virtually peanuts. Sources have told TVWeek that CIMM members are ponying up $100,000 each. Claire Atkinson, B&amp;C&rsquo;s stellar ad reporter, also is reporting this number. So, in total, CIMM has less than $2 million with which to play.As has been reported everywhere, dissatisfaction with Nielsen is nothing new. And past efforts to fund a true challenger to Nielsen have failed.Is this time different? Maybe.&nbsp;First things first. There are myriad issues with set-top box data. First, it&rsquo;s interesting that the folks who have the data&mdash;the cable operators, satellite providers, and the telcos who provide video&mdash;are not members of the coalition. Secondly, there aren&rsquo;t any standards thus far for gathering data from the boxes. And what about the fact that the boxes are not in the homes of many minorities? There are issues of getting enough information on a national basis, issues about privacy, and issues about getting demographic data. So clearly, in its initial stages, CIMM is an attempt to stimulate research at the set top box level, to create a common platform for analyzing that kind of census level data and to find constructive ways to stimulate discussion.Moving forward, if the many challenges can be met, perhaps CIMM can develop a currency with which to base the buying of ad time across myriad platforms. And that&rsquo;s a prospect that should keep Nielsen executives up at night.#]]></summary>
   <author>
      <name>Chuck Ross</name>
      
   </author>
   
      <category term="Advertising" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
      <category term="Broadcast" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
      <category term="Business" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
      <category term="Cable" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
      <category term="Digital" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
      <category term="Syndication" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
   <category term="6738" label="CIMM" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="6739" label="Coalition For Innovative Media Measurement" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="905" label="Nielsen" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   
   <content type="html" xml:lang="en" xml:base="http://www.tvweek.com/news/">
      <![CDATA[By Chuck RossThis week saw the official announcement of a group of media buyers and sellers who could possibly challenge Nielsen&rsquo;s dominance in media measurement.First, some stats:Name: Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM). At least that&rsquo;s what its logo says. Some news accounts&mdash;including the New York Times&mdash;say it&rsquo;s not Coalition, but Council. Whatever&mdash;not important.14 Charter Members: AT&amp;T, CBS, Discovery Communications, GroupM, Interpublic Group's Mediabrands, NBC Universal, News Corp., Omnicom Media Group, P&amp;G, Starcom MediaVest Group Worldwide, Time Warner, Unilever, Viacom and The Walt Disney Co.CIMM&rsquo;s self-described Mission Statement: To explore new worlds, to go where no&hellip;oops that&rsquo;s close but not quite it. It&rsquo;s mission is to &ldquo;Promote innovation and explore new, high quality ways to measure audiences across traditional and new media.&rdquo;How&rsquo;s it gonna do this? MediaPost&rsquo;s Joe Mandese, who is hands down the best reporter covering media measurement, wrote in his account of the CIMM announcement yesterday that someone had leaked to him a draft request for proposal (RFP) from CIMM. The draft carried the name of NBC Universal President of Research and Media Development, Alan Wurtzel. Wurtzel&rsquo;s been the driving force behind CIMM.According to Mandese&rsquo;s terrific piece, the RFP, prepared in February, was looking to fund two studies: &ldquo;One for a pilot study that would &lsquo;study producing real cross-platform data that reflects exposure of specific video sources on television, the Internet and mobile media;&rsquo; and a second for a digital set-top data project that would deliver &lsquo;three to six months of actual STB [set-top box] data, to be used for evaluation (not sales) purposes.&rsquo; &quot;Furthermore, Mandese writes, the RFP said, &quot;We are agnostic as to who will supply us with this data; the field is open, but we need these forward-looking metrics, adequate to the high standards of trading and post-evaluation, within the next 3-5 years.&quot;Finally, Mandese quotes from the RFP: &quot;As buyers and sellers of advertising-supported media, we are deeply concerned that, despite the efforts of some research suppliers, media measure is not keeping pace with urgent business needs.&quot;Hmm. &ldquo;Some research suppliers.&rdquo; Wonder who that could be.Back on August 13, the Financial Times, when it first broke this story, interviewed Sam Armando, SVP of audience analysis of Starcom, which is a member of CIMM.&ldquo;The most deficient thing is there&rsquo;s no single source measurement [for TV and digital video],&rdquo; Armando said. He added: It was not a case of &ldquo;let&rsquo;s go out to replace Nielsen&rdquo;, he said, but the consortium&rsquo;s plan did not require a &ldquo;leap of faith&rdquo;.Let&rsquo;s follow the money here. The major broadcast networks are probably paying Nielsen $40 million to $50 million annually. Media agencies pay a fraction of that, but $2 million to $4 million is still significant. And mostly gone are the days when they can pass along all of their Nielsen costs to their clients.&nbsp;Nielsen is a monopoly player. Its ratings are the currency of the business. Billions of dollars of ad revenue are based on Nielsen&rsquo;s rating measurements.So far CIMM is being funded by virtually peanuts. Sources have told TVWeek that CIMM members are ponying up $100,000 each. Claire Atkinson, B&amp;C&rsquo;s stellar ad reporter, also is reporting this number. So, in total, CIMM has less than $2 million with which to play.As has been reported everywhere, dissatisfaction with Nielsen is nothing new. And past efforts to fund a true challenger to Nielsen have failed.Is this time different? Maybe.&nbsp;First things first. There are myriad issues with set-top box data. First, it&rsquo;s interesting that the folks who have the data&mdash;the cable operators, satellite providers, and the telcos who provide video&mdash;are not members of the coalition. Secondly, there aren&rsquo;t any standards thus far for gathering data from the boxes. And what about the fact that the boxes are not in the homes of many minorities? There are issues of getting enough information on a national basis, issues about privacy, and issues about getting demographic data. So clearly, in its initial stages, CIMM is an attempt to stimulate research at the set top box level, to create a common platform for analyzing that kind of census level data and to find constructive ways to stimulate discussion.Moving forward, if the many challenges can be met, perhaps CIMM can develop a currency with which to base the buying of ad time across myriad platforms. And that&rsquo;s a prospect that should keep Nielsen executives up at night.#]]>
   </content>
</entry>

<entry>
   <title>All About GM's New Auto Ad Campaign</title>
   <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://www.tvweek.com/news/2009/09/all_about_gms_new_auto_ad_camp.php" />
   <id>tag:www.tvweek.com,2009:/news//1.37890</id>
   
   <published>2009-09-11T12:30:00Z</published>
   <updated>2009-09-11T15:49:42Z</updated>
   
   <summary><![CDATA[By Michael BushAdvertising AgeGeneral Motors Corp. marketing chief Bob Lutz swears the automaker's new TV spots featuring GM Chairman Ed Whitacre are nothing like the Lee Iacocca ads Chrysler ran back in the 1980s.Mr. Whitacre, a white-haired former telecom exec, is the perfect choice to help re-introduce a damaged brand to a country of skeptical consumers, Mr. Lutz said, batting back what he said were rumors that Mr. Whitacre demanded he be the next Lee Iacocca and featured in these ads.&quot;What we were looking for was a highly credible spokesperson who would be a new fresh face,&quot; Mr. Lutz said, noting that Mr. Whitacre &quot;is the new guy in town. He's tall, good looking, has impeccable white hair and has this nice soft Texas drawl and limps a little bit when he walks, which sort of gives him this old cowboy look.&quot;&nbsp;Mr. Whitacre is the public face only of the first phase of GM's &quot;May the Best Car Win&quot; campaign, which is an aggressive effort directly pitting its models against rivals. The multimillion-dollar campaign breaking next week also encompasses print, viral marketing and social media. Not only does it represent a significant increase in ad spending for GM, it also required some guts for a company that was begging for billions of dollars from Congress less than a year ago.&nbsp;The campaign will pit the Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac and GMC brands against competitors and includes a 60-day money-back guarantee for consumers not satisfied with their purchase. Mr. Lutz said GM is &quot;supremely confident&quot; that consumers will be satisfied with its new models.&nbsp;&quot;We can look anybody in the eye and say we are as good as or better than anyone else,&quot; Mr. Lutz said. &quot;In almost every respect our current lineup can compare with any volume producers' lineup from anywhere on the globe. We believe feature by feature we more than stand up to the competition.&quot; The ads will feature GM cars from its four product lines pitted against Japanese and German luxury brands. The print ads will show the two automobiles facing one another separated by a big V (for &quot;versus&quot;) and list details of both cars' features, performance, fuel economy and warranties.One ad will feature the 2010 Chevy Equinox vs. 2010 Honda CRV; another will have the 2010 Buick LaCrosse stacked up against the 2010 Lexus ES 350. Mr. Lutz said in the rare cases when both cars match each other feature for feature and warranty for warranty, the difference will be illustrated in sticker price. Mr. Lutz said that outside of the automotive media and the Midwest most consumers don't realize GM's cars match up well against foreign competitors and this campaign is &quot;big bet&quot; on the power of communications and advertising's ability to help remedy that.&quot;We have to close this monumental chasm between the reality of today's GM product line up and the public's perception of that line up,&quot; Mr. Lutz said. &quot;We have to somehow get the word out and in the past I have always said that it's going to take time or unfortunately it's not my responsibility. It is now my responsibility. So we are going to try and take a big chunk of that huge gap and we have to earn consumer confidence and demonstrate why buying one of our cars is a wise choice. The time to get the word out is now. We are not going to dribble this out of a watering can we are going to use a fire hose.&quot;&nbsp;And while he called this a corporate campaign, nowhere will the words &quot;General Motors&quot; or a GM logo appear in any of the creative. That decision was based on what Mr. Lutz called a large degree of hostility and negative feeling toward GM since the government bailout.&nbsp;&quot;The interesting thing is GM is disliked but the brands aren't hated,&quot; he said. &quot;It's like the parents went bankrupt but the kids had nothing to do with it. So we decided using the GM symbol and name as an umbrella for product or corporate advertising was not a good thing to do. We have to concentrate everything on standalone brands and come out from this corporate umbrella, which in the very best of times was neutral, but recently has not helped the brands and in fact tarnished them somewhat. We are emancipating the brands and trotting them out in the open.&quot;&nbsp;Mr. Whitacre will only appear in spots until Sept. 20; the remaining ads and creative scheduled to run through 2010 will be focused all on product. GM's choice to use the chairman had created some negative buzz in Detroit circles, a fact Mr. Lutz acknowledged -- and beat down.&nbsp;He said that the very day of GM's news conference to announce the ads a retired ad executive told him that using Mr. Whitacre was the dumbest thing GM had ever done.&quot;The guy didn't know what he was talking about,&quot; Mr. Lutz said. &quot;[He] doesn't realize the only thing we are doing is using the independent guy who is a very successful and respected businessman in another industry who was asked by the federal government to assume this responsibility and who is now initially with a little bit of reluctance and a great deal of doubt has immersed himself in GM.&quot; #]]></summary>
   <author>
      <name>Chuck Ross</name>
      
   </author>
   
      <category term="Advertising" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
      <category term="Broadcast" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
      <category term="Business" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
      <category term="Cable" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
      <category term="Digital" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
      <category term="Syndication" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
   <category term="573" label="Advertising" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="249" label="General Motors" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="247" label="GM" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="191" label="TV" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   
   <content type="html" xml:lang="en" xml:base="http://www.tvweek.com/news/">
      <![CDATA[By Michael BushAdvertising AgeGeneral Motors Corp. marketing chief Bob Lutz swears the automaker's new TV spots featuring GM Chairman Ed Whitacre are nothing like the Lee Iacocca ads Chrysler ran back in the 1980s.Mr. Whitacre, a white-haired former telecom exec, is the perfect choice to help re-introduce a damaged brand to a country of skeptical consumers, Mr. Lutz said, batting back what he said were rumors that Mr. Whitacre demanded he be the next Lee Iacocca and featured in these ads.&quot;What we were looking for was a highly credible spokesperson who would be a new fresh face,&quot; Mr. Lutz said, noting that Mr. Whitacre &quot;is the new guy in town. He's tall, good looking, has impeccable white hair and has this nice soft Texas drawl and limps a little bit when he walks, which sort of gives him this old cowboy look.&quot;&nbsp;Mr. Whitacre is the public face only of the first phase of GM's &quot;May the Best Car Win&quot; campaign, which is an aggressive effort directly pitting its models against rivals. The multimillion-dollar campaign breaking next week also encompasses print, viral marketing and social media. Not only does it represent a significant increase in ad spending for GM, it also required some guts for a company that was begging for billions of dollars from Congress less than a year ago.&nbsp;The campaign will pit the Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac and GMC brands against competitors and includes a 60-day money-back guarantee for consumers not satisfied with their purchase. Mr. Lutz said GM is &quot;supremely confident&quot; that consumers will be satisfied with its new models.&nbsp;&quot;We can look anybody in the eye and say we are as good as or better than anyone else,&quot; Mr. Lutz said. &quot;In almost every respect our current lineup can compare with any volume producers' lineup from anywhere on the globe. We believe feature by feature we more than stand up to the competition.&quot; The ads will feature GM cars from its four product lines pitted against Japanese and German luxury brands. The print ads will show the two automobiles facing one another separated by a big V (for &quot;versus&quot;) and list details of both cars' features, performance, fuel economy and warranties.One ad will feature the 2010 Chevy Equinox vs. 2010 Honda CRV; another will have the 2010 Buick LaCrosse stacked up against the 2010 Lexus ES 350. Mr. Lutz said in the rare cases when both cars match each other feature for feature and warranty for warranty, the difference will be illustrated in sticker price. Mr. Lutz said that outside of the automotive media and the Midwest most consumers don't realize GM's cars match up well against foreign competitors and this campaign is &quot;big bet&quot; on the power of communications and advertising's ability to help remedy that.&quot;We have to close this monumental chasm between the reality of today's GM product line up and the public's perception of that line up,&quot; Mr. Lutz said. &quot;We have to somehow get the word out and in the past I have always said that it's going to take time or unfortunately it's not my responsibility. It is now my responsibility. So we are going to try and take a big chunk of that huge gap and we have to earn consumer confidence and demonstrate why buying one of our cars is a wise choice. The time to get the word out is now. We are not going to dribble this out of a watering can we are going to use a fire hose.&quot;&nbsp;And while he called this a corporate campaign, nowhere will the words &quot;General Motors&quot; or a GM logo appear in any of the creative. That decision was based on what Mr. Lutz called a large degree of hostility and negative feeling toward GM since the government bailout.&nbsp;&quot;The interesting thing is GM is disliked but the brands aren't hated,&quot; he said. &quot;It's like the parents went bankrupt but the kids had nothing to do with it. So we decided using the GM symbol and name as an umbrella for product or corporate advertising was not a good thing to do. We have to concentrate everything on standalone brands and come out from this corporate umbrella, which in the very best of times was neutral, but recently has not helped the brands and in fact tarnished them somewhat. We are emancipating the brands and trotting them out in the open.&quot;&nbsp;Mr. Whitacre will only appear in spots until Sept. 20; the remaining ads and creative scheduled to run through 2010 will be focused all on product. GM's choice to use the chairman had created some negative buzz in Detroit circles, a fact Mr. Lutz acknowledged -- and beat down.&nbsp;He said that the very day of GM's news conference to announce the ads a retired ad executive told him that using Mr. Whitacre was the dumbest thing GM had ever done.&quot;The guy didn't know what he was talking about,&quot; Mr. Lutz said. &quot;[He] doesn't realize the only thing we are doing is using the independent guy who is a very successful and respected businessman in another industry who was asked by the federal government to assume this responsibility and who is now initially with a little bit of reluctance and a great deal of doubt has immersed himself in GM.&quot; #]]>
   </content>
</entry>

<entry>
   <title>Disney is Buying Marvel for $4 Billion: Hannah Montana and the Wizards of Waverly Place, Meet Your New Cousins That All the Boys Love—Spider-Man, Iron Man and the X-Men</title>
   <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://www.tvweek.com/news/2009/08/hannah_montana_and_the_wizards.php" />
   <id>tag:www.tvweek.com,2009:/news//1.37690</id>
   
   <published>2009-08-31T16:47:48Z</published>
   <updated>2009-08-31T17:14:19Z</updated>
   
   <summary><![CDATA[The Walt Disney Co. announced today that it is acquiring Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion--to be paid for with 60% in cash and 40% in stock .With a stable that includes Spider-Man, the X-Men and Iron Man, among many others, the acquisition fills a gap for Disney--popular characters that appeal to boys.All of the current deals that Marvel has with other studios--Twentieth Century Fox has the &quot;x-Men&quot; franchise, for example --will stay in place at least until they expire.Disney also hopes to exploit the characters with rides and such at its theme park, and in various other consumer products.Another popular group of comic-book characters--DC, which includes Batman and Superman--has long been part rival media conglomerate Time Warner.For the New York Times' news report of the deal, click here.--Chuck Ross]]></summary>
   <author>
      <name>Chuck Ross</name>
      
   </author>
   
      <category term="Advertising" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
      <category term="Broadcast" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
      <category term="Business" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
      <category term="Cable" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
      <category term="Digital" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
      <category term="Syndication" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
   <category term="5264" label="acquisition" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="1730" label="Disney" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="6092" label="Marvel" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="6094" label="Marvel Entertainment" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="6096" label="Walt Disney Company" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   
   <content type="html" xml:lang="en" xml:base="http://www.tvweek.com/news/">
      <![CDATA[The Walt Disney Co. announced today that it is acquiring Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion--to be paid for with 60% in cash and 40% in stock .With a stable that includes Spider-Man, the X-Men and Iron Man, among many others, the acquisition fills a gap for Disney--popular characters that appeal to boys.All of the current deals that Marvel has with other studios--Twentieth Century Fox has the &quot;x-Men&quot; franchise, for example --will stay in place at least until they expire.Disney also hopes to exploit the characters with rides and such at its theme park, and in various other consumer products.Another popular group of comic-book characters--DC, which includes Batman and Superman--has long been part rival media conglomerate Time Warner.For the New York Times' news report of the deal, click here.--Chuck Ross]]>
   </content>
</entry>

<entry>
   <title>In an Extraordinarily Tough Year for Ad Sales, The NFL Scores a Touchdown; Plus the NFL Network's Way to Engage Those Working at Media Agencies</title>
   <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://www.tvweek.com/news/2009/08/by_john_consolispecial_to_tvwe.php" />
   <id>tag:www.tvweek.com,2009:/news//1.37667</id>
   
   <published>2009-08-28T21:01:12Z</published>
   <updated>2009-08-28T21:19:52Z</updated>
   
   <summary><![CDATA[By John ConsoliSpecial to TVWeekWith two weeks to go until the regular season opening weekend, ESPN has already sold out its September and October inventory for Monday Night Football, and the other networks are actively writing business.&ldquo;The television football marketplace in general, both pro and college, is very vibrant,&rdquo; said Ed Erhardt, president, ESPN Customer Marketing &amp; Sales.While Erhardt would not discuss pricing, sources familiar with negotiations between the networks and the media agencies said NFL commercial inventory was selling on average at cost per thousand rates just a percentage point below last year for most of the networks.And college inventory was actually getting better CPMs: low-to-mid single digit increases over last year.Fears that the sagging economy and its negative impact on the auto business was going to put a dent in NFL sales have not materialized.&ldquo;Our auto sales for NFL have held up well,&rdquo; Erhardt said, echoing what other networks carrying the NFL said. &ldquo;We have done business with General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, and most of the foreign automakers are also in, including BMW, not a traditional football advertiser.&rdquo;Erhardt said while the financial category has been &ldquo;dicey,&rdquo; EPSN has seen ad growth for its football telecasts in categories like fast food restaurants, casual dining restaurants, insurance and men&rsquo;s grooming. He said Gillette will be advertising six brands, several in men&rsquo;s grooming.&ldquo;The NFL marketplace moved later this year, but right now it is very active and we have closed some major deals with big media agencies,&rdquo; said John Bogusz, CBS executive vp for sports sales and marketing.While Bogusz would not identify the agencies, sources said they include GroupM and OMD, the latter which also reportedly finalized its Super Bowl XLIV buys with CBS.OMD has traditional had a sizable number of clients in the Super Bowl each year.While no Super Bowl advertisers were named, OMD represents traditional Super Bowl clients like Pepsi, Fed Ex and Visa, among others. Neither agency returned requests for comment.Bogusz said CBS is also in active negotiations with several other major media agencies for both regular season and the Super Bowl.Tony Taranto, senior vp of NFL sales for CBS, said the network has sold out all six of its advertiser entitlements for Super Bowl pre-game coverage. The entitlements are presenting sponsorships of each half hour or hour blocks of coverage.&ldquo;Everyone wants to focus on just the in-game spots but we look at the entire Super Bowl day&rsquo;s coverage, not just the game,&rdquo; Taranto said. &ldquo;Some of these ancillary audiences for our pre-game coverage are huge. Between 5 p.m. and the start of the game, ratings can be in the 16 range.&rdquo;While ESPN is sold out for the first two months of the NFL season, the network does have the least inventory to sell, although Erhardt says that&rsquo;s what makes it more valuable to advertisers.Under its TV rights agreement with the NFL, ESPN has 43 in game ad units to sell, compared to 63 for NBC&rsquo;s Sunday Night Football, and between 90-120 for Fox and CBS, which air one national game each Sunday, along with regional telecasts. So the available supply of units for each network is different.Fox sales execs were not available for comment, but sources familiar with Fox&rsquo;s negotiations said that between multi-year deals already in place for its NFL telecasts, and some early deals the network did prior to the start of the upfront, Fox began its NFL upfront more than 30 percent sold.Strong categories for Fox&rsquo;s NFL telecasts for the upcoming season, according to sources, are fast food, wireless, and retail, among others.NFL Network, another player in the NFL TV marketplace, has also been busy the past few weeks, although its first televised game is not until Nov. 12. NFL network will televise eight national games this year, most of them on Thursday nights.Dave Pattillo, national sales manager for NFL Network, said Sears will be back as the network&rsquo;s pre-game show sponsor, and Lexus has been signed up as pre-kick show sponsor, which will air from 8-8:15 p.m. He said he expects Sprint to be back as the halftime show sponsor, and the network is talking to Kay&rsquo;s and Jared Jewelers as possible post-game show sponsors, replacing Home Depot.Unlike the other networks, NFL Network doesn&rsquo;t have as much rush to sell its inventory since its first game is not until Week 10 of the NFL season. And because it too has limited in-game inventory, Pattillo said he is trying to package in-game units with other NFL programming inventory.&ldquo;We consider our live games our crown jewel,&rdquo; Pattillo said, &ldquo;so we are very careful in how we sell that inventory.&rdquo;The NFL Network also courts the media agencies a bit differently than its bigger rivals. Four years ago, the network began a Fantasy Football league for media agencies. Last year, 16 agencies participated with the prize being a flag football game between the winning agency and a team comprised of NFL Network sales people and current and ex-NFL players.On Aug. 27 in New York City, NFL Network held is annual Fantasy Football draft for the media agencies. According to Pattillo, about 175 media buyers and planners attended the event, at which NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, for the first time, attended and announced the first five draft picks.While NFL sales activity has been active, each of the networks said they are planning to hold back a sizable amount of inventory for scatter rather than underselling it price wise during the upfront.Erhardt said many advertisers are only buying with 60 day windows, so holding onto inventory for November and December should not be a problem. And Pattillo said he is holding back inventory in hopes that retailers and movie companies that want to reach consumers between Thanksgiving and Christmas, will find NFL games on Thursday nights in prime time attractive.Ditto for NBC. While it will feature the New York Giants visiting the Dallas Cowboys in the first regular season game played in the Cowboys&rsquo; new stadium, its Sunday Night Football schedule has the Giants, Cowboys, New England Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers all playing at the tail end of the season.And NBC has the ability under its TV deal to flex schedule, meaning it can replace existing games on its schedule with more attractive games. So the network also feels comfortable holding back its later season NFL SNF inventory.ESPN&rsquo;s Erhardt said advertisers will be watching the entertainment television prime time ratings, and if they start to falter, he believes NFL telecasts will become an attractive alternative for many advertisers.#]]></summary>
   <author>
      <name>Tom Gilbert</name>
      <uri>http://www.tvweek.com/</uri>
   </author>
   
      <category term="Advertising" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
   <category term="5980" label="ad sales" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="410" label="advertising" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   
   <content type="html" xml:lang="en" xml:base="http://www.tvweek.com/news/">
      <![CDATA[By John ConsoliSpecial to TVWeekWith two weeks to go until the regular season opening weekend, ESPN has already sold out its September and October inventory for Monday Night Football, and the other networks are actively writing business.&ldquo;The television football marketplace in general, both pro and college, is very vibrant,&rdquo; said Ed Erhardt, president, ESPN Customer Marketing &amp; Sales.While Erhardt would not discuss pricing, sources familiar with negotiations between the networks and the media agencies said NFL commercial inventory was selling on average at cost per thousand rates just a percentage point below last year for most of the networks.And college inventory was actually getting better CPMs: low-to-mid single digit increases over last year.Fears that the sagging economy and its negative impact on the auto business was going to put a dent in NFL sales have not materialized.&ldquo;Our auto sales for NFL have held up well,&rdquo; Erhardt said, echoing what other networks carrying the NFL said. &ldquo;We have done business with General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, and most of the foreign automakers are also in, including BMW, not a traditional football advertiser.&rdquo;Erhardt said while the financial category has been &ldquo;dicey,&rdquo; EPSN has seen ad growth for its football telecasts in categories like fast food restaurants, casual dining restaurants, insurance and men&rsquo;s grooming. He said Gillette will be advertising six brands, several in men&rsquo;s grooming.&ldquo;The NFL marketplace moved later this year, but right now it is very active and we have closed some major deals with big media agencies,&rdquo; said John Bogusz, CBS executive vp for sports sales and marketing.While Bogusz would not identify the agencies, sources said they include GroupM and OMD, the latter which also reportedly finalized its Super Bowl XLIV buys with CBS.OMD has traditional had a sizable number of clients in the Super Bowl each year.While no Super Bowl advertisers were named, OMD represents traditional Super Bowl clients like Pepsi, Fed Ex and Visa, among others. Neither agency returned requests for comment.Bogusz said CBS is also in active negotiations with several other major media agencies for both regular season and the Super Bowl.Tony Taranto, senior vp of NFL sales for CBS, said the network has sold out all six of its advertiser entitlements for Super Bowl pre-game coverage. The entitlements are presenting sponsorships of each half hour or hour blocks of coverage.&ldquo;Everyone wants to focus on just the in-game spots but we look at the entire Super Bowl day&rsquo;s coverage, not just the game,&rdquo; Taranto said. &ldquo;Some of these ancillary audiences for our pre-game coverage are huge. Between 5 p.m. and the start of the game, ratings can be in the 16 range.&rdquo;While ESPN is sold out for the first two months of the NFL season, the network does have the least inventory to sell, although Erhardt says that&rsquo;s what makes it more valuable to advertisers.Under its TV rights agreement with the NFL, ESPN has 43 in game ad units to sell, compared to 63 for NBC&rsquo;s Sunday Night Football, and between 90-120 for Fox and CBS, which air one national game each Sunday, along with regional telecasts. So the available supply of units for each network is different.Fox sales execs were not available for comment, but sources familiar with Fox&rsquo;s negotiations said that between multi-year deals already in place for its NFL telecasts, and some early deals the network did prior to the start of the upfront, Fox began its NFL upfront more than 30 percent sold.Strong categories for Fox&rsquo;s NFL telecasts for the upcoming season, according to sources, are fast food, wireless, and retail, among others.NFL Network, another player in the NFL TV marketplace, has also been busy the past few weeks, although its first televised game is not until Nov. 12. NFL network will televise eight national games this year, most of them on Thursday nights.Dave Pattillo, national sales manager for NFL Network, said Sears will be back as the network&rsquo;s pre-game show sponsor, and Lexus has been signed up as pre-kick show sponsor, which will air from 8-8:15 p.m. He said he expects Sprint to be back as the halftime show sponsor, and the network is talking to Kay&rsquo;s and Jared Jewelers as possible post-game show sponsors, replacing Home Depot.Unlike the other networks, NFL Network doesn&rsquo;t have as much rush to sell its inventory since its first game is not until Week 10 of the NFL season. And because it too has limited in-game inventory, Pattillo said he is trying to package in-game units with other NFL programming inventory.&ldquo;We consider our live games our crown jewel,&rdquo; Pattillo said, &ldquo;so we are very careful in how we sell that inventory.&rdquo;The NFL Network also courts the media agencies a bit differently than its bigger rivals. Four years ago, the network began a Fantasy Football league for media agencies. Last year, 16 agencies participated with the prize being a flag football game between the winning agency and a team comprised of NFL Network sales people and current and ex-NFL players.On Aug. 27 in New York City, NFL Network held is annual Fantasy Football draft for the media agencies. According to Pattillo, about 175 media buyers and planners attended the event, at which NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, for the first time, attended and announced the first five draft picks.While NFL sales activity has been active, each of the networks said they are planning to hold back a sizable amount of inventory for scatter rather than underselling it price wise during the upfront.Erhardt said many advertisers are only buying with 60 day windows, so holding onto inventory for November and December should not be a problem. And Pattillo said he is holding back inventory in hopes that retailers and movie companies that want to reach consumers between Thanksgiving and Christmas, will find NFL games on Thursday nights in prime time attractive.Ditto for NBC. While it will feature the New York Giants visiting the Dallas Cowboys in the first regular season game played in the Cowboys&rsquo; new stadium, its Sunday Night Football schedule has the Giants, Cowboys, New England Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers all playing at the tail end of the season.And NBC has the ability under its TV deal to flex schedule, meaning it can replace existing games on its schedule with more attractive games. So the network also feels comfortable holding back its later season NFL SNF inventory.ESPN&rsquo;s Erhardt said advertisers will be watching the entertainment television prime time ratings, and if they start to falter, he believes NFL telecasts will become an attractive alternative for many advertisers.#]]>
   </content>
</entry>

<entry>
   <title>Okay Planners, You're Being Bombarded by Clients Wanting Product Placement in TV Shows. Time to Think a Little Out of Your Comfort Zone, as This Article Attests</title>
   <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://www.tvweek.com/news/2009/08/okay_planners_youre_being_bomb.php" />
   <id>tag:www.tvweek.com,2009:/news//1.37619</id>
   
   <published>2009-08-26T19:44:36Z</published>
   <updated>2009-08-26T20:00:14Z</updated>
   
   <summary><![CDATA[By Brian SteinbergAdvertising AgeSpanish-language network Univision is making an &quot;American Idol&quot; play by launching musical talent contest &quot;&iexcl;Viva el Sue&ntilde;o!&quot; (Live the Dream!&quot;). The show will pit 14 contestants against each other to determine which of them will have an opportunity be the next Latin-music superstar. And just like &quot;Idol,&quot; the show will integrate its lead advertisers -- in this case, AT&amp;T, InBev Anheuser-Busch's Bud Light, Coca-Cola, State Farm and Target -- into the program itself.&nbsp;Univision has done plenty of product placement in its past -- marketers including Kraft Foods, Unilever, Ford and Maybelline have strutted their wares in such programs as &quot;Nuestra Belleza Latina&quot; (&quot;Our Latin Beauty&quot;) and &quot;Sabado Gigante&quot; (&quot;Giant Saturday&quot;) -- but executives at the network believe &quot;Viva el Sue&ntilde;o&quot; represents some of its deepest work to date. Many of the marketers will appear in ways that emphasize their products and brand attributes. &quot;Viva el Sue&ntilde;o&quot; will run for 13 weeks and debuts August 30 at 8 p.m. on Univision. Univision hopes the program will show the network bringing product integration to &quot;the next level, where the integration is truly organic and built into the show,&quot; said David Lawenda, president-advertising sales and marketing, Univision Communications. He said Univision has sold about 80% of its ad inventory for the program. In each episode, for instance, the last three contestants will face &quot;El Momento Clave de Bud Light&quot; (&quot;Bud Light's Key Moment&quot;), during which viewers will get ready to find out which musicians get immunity and will be given another chance to sing for the show's live audience. The last person left in the spotlight gets eliminated from the show. In another example, State Farm is able to &quot;insure&quot; one contestant each week when judges select someone to be given coaching in a State Farm-sponsored segment called &quot;Apoyo y Guia (Support and Guidance) that helps them become a better competitor and prepare for the following week. In the past, Univision, which can boast of having the biggest Spanish-speaking audience in the U.S., had lagged behind other Hispanic TV and cable networks in developing branded entertainment. The network made a breakthrough in 2008 with its launch of &quot;El Juego Supremo&quot; (&quot;The Supreme Game&quot;), which brought the &quot;American Idol&quot; method to a soccer competition between two groups of rookies from Mexico and South America. Nissan and Sprint had products featured during the series. Sponsors of &quot;Viva el Sue&ntilde;o&quot; like the show for the same reason they like &quot;American Idol&quot;: They expect the program to give them an opportunity to reach a broader audience that shares an interest in music. &quot;Obviously, music is a huge part of the Hispanic culture,&quot; said Mark D. Gibson, assistant VP-advertising at State Farm. &quot;It cuts across age, country of origin -- so many different swatches of this community that it's a huge opportunity.&quot; &quot;We definitely think that the audience is going to skew a little bit younger, but the opportunity is not only to get to the younger audience but the families,&quot; said Adaliz Vicens, senior marketing manager, AT&amp;T, who oversees marketing to Hispanic consumers. As it does with &quot;Idol,&quot; AT&amp;T will be able to drive a promotional message home to viewers. &quot;We're going to be the exclusive wireless text-to-vote [sponsor],&quot; Ms. Vicens said. &quot;We'll be able to measure the success [of the effort] through the amount of text messages that we receive through the platform and, also, we'll be able to measure the success of the other products we are able to upsell through it -- ringtones, and then the side services.&quot; Unlike &quot;American Idol,&quot; the contestants on &quot;Viva el Sue&ntilde;o,&quot; who come from the U.S., Latin America and Spain, have professional experience. Some may even have gained fame in their countries of origin. The program will follow them as they go through rehearsals, prepare for each week's show, and perform Latin music hits. All will compete for $200,000 in cash and prizes in addition to the opportunity to make it big in the music business. #]]></summary>
   <author>
      <name>Chuck Ross</name>
      
   </author>
   
      <category term="Advertising" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
      <category term="Broadcast" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
      <category term="Cable" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
   <category term="1790" label="American Idol" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="5831" label="Live the Dream" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="5833" label="Product Placement" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="2782" label="Univision" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="5835" label="Viva el Sueno" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   
   <content type="html" xml:lang="en" xml:base="http://www.tvweek.com/news/">
      <![CDATA[By Brian SteinbergAdvertising AgeSpanish-language network Univision is making an &quot;American Idol&quot; play by launching musical talent contest &quot;&iexcl;Viva el Sue&ntilde;o!&quot; (Live the Dream!&quot;). The show will pit 14 contestants against each other to determine which of them will have an opportunity be the next Latin-music superstar. And just like &quot;Idol,&quot; the show will integrate its lead advertisers -- in this case, AT&amp;T, InBev Anheuser-Busch's Bud Light, Coca-Cola, State Farm and Target -- into the program itself.&nbsp;Univision has done plenty of product placement in its past -- marketers including Kraft Foods, Unilever, Ford and Maybelline have strutted their wares in such programs as &quot;Nuestra Belleza Latina&quot; (&quot;Our Latin Beauty&quot;) and &quot;Sabado Gigante&quot; (&quot;Giant Saturday&quot;) -- but executives at the network believe &quot;Viva el Sue&ntilde;o&quot; represents some of its deepest work to date. Many of the marketers will appear in ways that emphasize their products and brand attributes. &quot;Viva el Sue&ntilde;o&quot; will run for 13 weeks and debuts August 30 at 8 p.m. on Univision. Univision hopes the program will show the network bringing product integration to &quot;the next level, where the integration is truly organic and built into the show,&quot; said David Lawenda, president-advertising sales and marketing, Univision Communications. He said Univision has sold about 80% of its ad inventory for the program. In each episode, for instance, the last three contestants will face &quot;El Momento Clave de Bud Light&quot; (&quot;Bud Light's Key Moment&quot;), during which viewers will get ready to find out which musicians get immunity and will be given another chance to sing for the show's live audience. The last person left in the spotlight gets eliminated from the show. In another example, State Farm is able to &quot;insure&quot; one contestant each week when judges select someone to be given coaching in a State Farm-sponsored segment called &quot;Apoyo y Guia (Support and Guidance) that helps them become a better competitor and prepare for the following week. In the past, Univision, which can boast of having the biggest Spanish-speaking audience in the U.S., had lagged behind other Hispanic TV and cable networks in developing branded entertainment. The network made a breakthrough in 2008 with its launch of &quot;El Juego Supremo&quot; (&quot;The Supreme Game&quot;), which brought the &quot;American Idol&quot; method to a soccer competition between two groups of rookies from Mexico and South America. Nissan and Sprint had products featured during the series. Sponsors of &quot;Viva el Sue&ntilde;o&quot; like the show for the same reason they like &quot;American Idol&quot;: They expect the program to give them an opportunity to reach a broader audience that shares an interest in music. &quot;Obviously, music is a huge part of the Hispanic culture,&quot; said Mark D. Gibson, assistant VP-advertising at State Farm. &quot;It cuts across age, country of origin -- so many different swatches of this community that it's a huge opportunity.&quot; &quot;We definitely think that the audience is going to skew a little bit younger, but the opportunity is not only to get to the younger audience but the families,&quot; said Adaliz Vicens, senior marketing manager, AT&amp;T, who oversees marketing to Hispanic consumers. As it does with &quot;Idol,&quot; AT&amp;T will be able to drive a promotional message home to viewers. &quot;We're going to be the exclusive wireless text-to-vote [sponsor],&quot; Ms. Vicens said. &quot;We'll be able to measure the success [of the effort] through the amount of text messages that we receive through the platform and, also, we'll be able to measure the success of the other products we are able to upsell through it -- ringtones, and then the side services.&quot; Unlike &quot;American Idol,&quot; the contestants on &quot;Viva el Sue&ntilde;o,&quot; who come from the U.S., Latin America and Spain, have professional experience. Some may even have gained fame in their countries of origin. The program will follow them as they go through rehearsals, prepare for each week's show, and perform Latin music hits. All will compete for $200,000 in cash and prizes in addition to the opportunity to make it big in the music business. #]]>
   </content>
</entry>

<entry>
   <title>Video: Ed Reimers, Who Told Us We Were in Good Hands With Allstate From 1957 to 1979, Dead at 96</title>
   <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://www.tvweek.com/news/2009/08/video_ed_reimers_who_told_us_w.php" />
   <id>tag:www.tvweek.com,2009:/news//1.37431</id>
   
   <published>2009-08-17T19:49:01Z</published>
   <updated>2009-08-17T22:07:25Z</updated>
   
   <summary />
   <author>
      <name>Chuck Ross</name>
      
   </author>
   
      <category term="Advertising" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
      <category term="Broadcast" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
      <category term="Cable" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
      <category term="Syndication" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
   <category term="5248" label="Allstate" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="5250" label="Ed Reimers" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   
   <content type="html" xml:lang="en" xml:base="http://www.tvweek.com/news/">
      
   </content>
</entry>

<entry>
   <title>In Today's World of Increasing Ad Clutter, One Cable Network Learns The Art of Getting Viewers to Pay Attention to Ads</title>
   <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://www.tvweek.com/news/2009/08/in_todays_world_of_incrasing_a.php" />
   <id>tag:www.tvweek.com,2009:/news//1.37294</id>
   
   <published>2009-08-09T20:26:31Z</published>
   <updated>2009-08-10T20:37:55Z</updated>
   
   <summary><![CDATA[By Brian SteinbergAdvertising AgeIn October 2007, the executive team at the National Geographic Channel huddled together to figure out how their cable outlet was faring under a new ratings metric that measured how many people watched the commercials, not the programs they ran against. They were far from happy with what they saw.After a series of contentious discussions in 2006 and 2007, advertisers and TV networks agreed to commercial ratings as the trading currency, shortened to C3 because they include up to three days of viewing through digital video recorders. Adoption of the measure marked a radical departure from business as usual, and National Geographic Channel was dismayed by its performance at the time.&quot;We sat down and we took a look at where we were relative to our competitors in the 'non-fiction' [programming] space. We were dead last,&quot; recalled Steve Schiffman, exec VP-general manager of the cable channel, which is jointly owned by National Geographic Ventures and News Corp.'s Fox Cable Networks. &quot;Not only were we dead last, we were dead last by a wide margin. We were just beside ourselves.&quot;Since that time, National Geographic Channel has experimented with nearly every element of its on-screen product, said Kiera Hynninen, exec VP-marketing and media strategy at the cable outlet. The only thing executives knew for sure is that they couldn't use one method across the channel's entire programming schedule. Different shows called for different techniques, she recalled. &quot;We really do look at it as a not-one-size-fits-all approach,&quot; she said. Boosting C3 ratings &quot;varies by type of show, by genre, by daypart,&quot; she added. &quot;It's very much an art.&quot;If that's the case, it's one that more TV executives would like to master. When viewership for ad breaks is the currency upon which ad revenue is based, the networks are forced to stop running ads in the same way they have for decades and to start tailoring ad appearances so that viewers don't act on their first impulse when they see an ad pod beginning: change the channel, grab a snack, hop online -- anything but watch the very pieces of promotion that pay for the entertainment they are watching.During &quot;Dog Whisperer,&quot; executives tried such things as tucking a &quot;how to&quot; video in ad breaks that took viewers behind the scenes of how a promo for the show might get made. Of course, Cesar Millan, the dog-behavior expert featured in the program, made an appearance. Likewise, a piece of ad-break content appearing during &quot;Dangerous Encounters&quot; made use of host Dr. Brady Barr explaining the behavior of geckos (not coincidentally, the vignettes were sponsored by insurance company Geico, which uses a gecko character in its ad campaigns). Executives examined everything from background music to whether certain cues from the shows might prompt viewers to depart.For National Geographic, solving the problem was crucial. &quot;This is a big issue&quot; for all TV networks, particularly cable outlets, said John Spiropoulos, senior VP-director of marketplace analytics at Publicis Groupe's MediaVest, as they tend to run more commercials and longer ad breaks.To generate better ratings, the networks could simply run fewer ads so that viewers wouldn't have much time to turn away from the screen. But that would hurt revenue. Instead, he said, &quot;they have to add shorter pods or get rid of things and migrate them to some sort of product placement or branded entertainment, whatever it is. That's why a lot of them are looking at placing content in commercial breaks, he said, because &quot;they can just move advertising to that and try to sell it&quot; at a premium.Already, a bevy of top networks have been playing with various methods. ABC, CBS and NBC have restructured the ebb and flow of programs such as &quot;Jimmy Kimmel Live,&quot; &quot;The Late Show With David Letterman&quot; and &quot;The Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien&quot; so that more national commercials air earlier in the show -- before some portion of the audience turns off the TV and goes to bed.Time Warner's Turner cable channels have offered advertisers the chance to insert commercials that are relevant to the action going on in the specific program running at the time of air; the idea is that ads that seem more relevant to the action on-screen command more viewer attention. Walt Disney's ABC has been running ads along with weather information during &quot;Good Morning America&quot; in the hope that viewers who need information about temperature and rain will refrain from changing channels.At National Geographic, figuring out exactly what to do required the efforts of all hands: research, marketing, ad sales and programming. Advertisers were enlisted to take part in some of the research, said Richard Goldfarb, senior VP- media sales. And a team directed by Brad Dancer, National Geographic Channel senior VP-research and digital media, began to sift through not only traditional measures, but also second-by-second viewership patterns. The channel even enlisted a Boston firm, Innerscope, which specializes in looking at the physical reaction viewers have to various elements displayed on screen.According to the channel's research, its efforts were able to boost its measure of &quot;C3&quot; success -- a ratio of commercial viewing to program viewing -- by as little as 1% in some cases (for the program &quot;Dog Whisperer,&quot; which moved to a 98 in the channel's 2009 fiscal year from 97 in fiscal 2008). In other instances, National Geographic was able to secure a 7% improvement for &quot;Taboo,&quot; a program that explores unorthodox rituals from around the world, and a 12% uptick for &quot;Locked Up Abroad,&quot; a show that examines incarceration in different locales.As media choices continue to increase and traditional viewership numbers gradually erode, efforts such as National Geographic's are bound to intensify. The easier way to increase commercial ratings &quot;is to improve your ratings in general,&quot; said MediaVest's Mr. Spiropoulos. That goal, however, may no longer be as simple to attain.#&nbsp;Five Ways to Fix C3 Ratings1) Make your ad breaks &quot;sticky&quot; By inserting relevant snippets of content -- a vignette related to the program being interrupted or a video featuring a blend of your channel's programming and an ad message from a willing client -- you might get some viewers to stick around or ease up on the fast-forward button.2) Rid your shows of commercial 'cues'Don't tell viewers a show is set to break for commercials. Instead, offer them some reason to stick around despite the ads -- some networks have tried trivia questions or movie previews.3) Talk to your producersYou may want to rearrange the structure of when programs break for ads. Do you have more viewers in the first half of a 60-minute program? How about one long ad break after a 10-minute program segment? Work with your creative folks to devise a &quot;break architecture&quot; that makes sure ads reach the highest concentration of viewers.&nbsp;4) Be flexibleJust because one idea boosts commercial ratings in late-night doesn't mean it will do so in the morning. And placing an ad-break vignette featuring the star of one show might mean little to the viewers of an entirely different program. Every situation is different.5) Be old-fashioned -- get better program ratingsThe shows with the best commercial ratings are often the ones with the best audience ratings overall.#]]></summary>
   <author>
      <name>Chuck Ross</name>
      
   </author>
   
      <category term="Advertising" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
      <category term="Cable" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
   <category term="573" label="Advertising" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="4825" label="Clutter" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="4826" label="Engagement" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="996" label="National Geographic Channel" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   
   <content type="html" xml:lang="en" xml:base="http://www.tvweek.com/news/">
      <![CDATA[By Brian SteinbergAdvertising AgeIn October 2007, the executive team at the National Geographic Channel huddled together to figure out how their cable outlet was faring under a new ratings metric that measured how many people watched the commercials, not the programs they ran against. They were far from happy with what they saw.After a series of contentious discussions in 2006 and 2007, advertisers and TV networks agreed to commercial ratings as the trading currency, shortened to C3 because they include up to three days of viewing through digital video recorders. Adoption of the measure marked a radical departure from business as usual, and National Geographic Channel was dismayed by its performance at the time.&quot;We sat down and we took a look at where we were relative to our competitors in the 'non-fiction' [programming] space. We were dead last,&quot; recalled Steve Schiffman, exec VP-general manager of the cable channel, which is jointly owned by National Geographic Ventures and News Corp.'s Fox Cable Networks. &quot;Not only were we dead last, we were dead last by a wide margin. We were just beside ourselves.&quot;Since that time, National Geographic Channel has experimented with nearly every element of its on-screen product, said Kiera Hynninen, exec VP-marketing and media strategy at the cable outlet. The only thing executives knew for sure is that they couldn't use one method across the channel's entire programming schedule. Different shows called for different techniques, she recalled. &quot;We really do look at it as a not-one-size-fits-all approach,&quot; she said. Boosting C3 ratings &quot;varies by type of show, by genre, by daypart,&quot; she added. &quot;It's very much an art.&quot;If that's the case, it's one that more TV executives would like to master. When viewership for ad breaks is the currency upon which ad revenue is based, the networks are forced to stop running ads in the same way they have for decades and to start tailoring ad appearances so that viewers don't act on their first impulse when they see an ad pod beginning: change the channel, grab a snack, hop online -- anything but watch the very pieces of promotion that pay for the entertainment they are watching.During &quot;Dog Whisperer,&quot; executives tried such things as tucking a &quot;how to&quot; video in ad breaks that took viewers behind the scenes of how a promo for the show might get made. Of course, Cesar Millan, the dog-behavior expert featured in the program, made an appearance. Likewise, a piece of ad-break content appearing during &quot;Dangerous Encounters&quot; made use of host Dr. Brady Barr explaining the behavior of geckos (not coincidentally, the vignettes were sponsored by insurance company Geico, which uses a gecko character in its ad campaigns). Executives examined everything from background music to whether certain cues from the shows might prompt viewers to depart.For National Geographic, solving the problem was crucial. &quot;This is a big issue&quot; for all TV networks, particularly cable outlets, said John Spiropoulos, senior VP-director of marketplace analytics at Publicis Groupe's MediaVest, as they tend to run more commercials and longer ad breaks.To generate better ratings, the networks could simply run fewer ads so that viewers wouldn't have much time to turn away from the screen. But that would hurt revenue. Instead, he said, &quot;they have to add shorter pods or get rid of things and migrate them to some sort of product placement or branded entertainment, whatever it is. That's why a lot of them are looking at placing content in commercial breaks, he said, because &quot;they can just move advertising to that and try to sell it&quot; at a premium.Already, a bevy of top networks have been playing with various methods. ABC, CBS and NBC have restructured the ebb and flow of programs such as &quot;Jimmy Kimmel Live,&quot; &quot;The Late Show With David Letterman&quot; and &quot;The Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien&quot; so that more national commercials air earlier in the show -- before some portion of the audience turns off the TV and goes to bed.Time Warner's Turner cable channels have offered advertisers the chance to insert commercials that are relevant to the action going on in the specific program running at the time of air; the idea is that ads that seem more relevant to the action on-screen command more viewer attention. Walt Disney's ABC has been running ads along with weather information during &quot;Good Morning America&quot; in the hope that viewers who need information about temperature and rain will refrain from changing channels.At National Geographic, figuring out exactly what to do required the efforts of all hands: research, marketing, ad sales and programming. Advertisers were enlisted to take part in some of the research, said Richard Goldfarb, senior VP- media sales. And a team directed by Brad Dancer, National Geographic Channel senior VP-research and digital media, began to sift through not only traditional measures, but also second-by-second viewership patterns. The channel even enlisted a Boston firm, Innerscope, which specializes in looking at the physical reaction viewers have to various elements displayed on screen.According to the channel's research, its efforts were able to boost its measure of &quot;C3&quot; success -- a ratio of commercial viewing to program viewing -- by as little as 1% in some cases (for the program &quot;Dog Whisperer,&quot; which moved to a 98 in the channel's 2009 fiscal year from 97 in fiscal 2008). In other instances, National Geographic was able to secure a 7% improvement for &quot;Taboo,&quot; a program that explores unorthodox rituals from around the world, and a 12% uptick for &quot;Locked Up Abroad,&quot; a show that examines incarceration in different locales.As media choices continue to increase and traditional viewership numbers gradually erode, efforts such as National Geographic's are bound to intensify. The easier way to increase commercial ratings &quot;is to improve your ratings in general,&quot; said MediaVest's Mr. Spiropoulos. That goal, however, may no longer be as simple to attain.#&nbsp;Five Ways to Fix C3 Ratings1) Make your ad breaks &quot;sticky&quot; By inserting relevant snippets of content -- a vignette related to the program being interrupted or a video featuring a blend of your channel's programming and an ad message from a willing client -- you might get some viewers to stick around or ease up on the fast-forward button.2) Rid your shows of commercial 'cues'Don't tell viewers a show is set to break for commercials. Instead, offer them some reason to stick around despite the ads -- some networks have tried trivia questions or movie previews.3) Talk to your producersYou may want to rearrange the structure of when programs break for ads. Do you have more viewers in the first half of a 60-minute program? How about one long ad break after a 10-minute program segment? Work with your creative folks to devise a &quot;break architecture&quot; that makes sure ads reach the highest concentration of viewers.&nbsp;4) Be flexibleJust because one idea boosts commercial ratings in late-night doesn't mean it will do so in the morning. And placing an ad-break vignette featuring the star of one show might mean little to the viewers of an entirely different program. Every situation is different.5) Be old-fashioned -- get better program ratingsThe shows with the best commercial ratings are often the ones with the best audience ratings overall.#]]>
   </content>
</entry>

<entry>
   <title>Analysis: Ben Silverman--What Went Wrong at NBC, What He Hopes Will Go Right With Barry Diller</title>
   <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://www.tvweek.com/news/2009/07/analysis_ben_silverman--what_w.php" />
   <id>tag:www.tvweek.com,2009:/news//1.37005</id>
   
   <published>2009-07-27T20:56:47Z</published>
   <updated>2009-07-27T21:02:01Z</updated>
   
   <summary><![CDATA[By Michael Learmonth&nbsp;AdAge.comBen Silverman is out after a two-year stint as co-chairman of NBC Entertainment, where he attempted to revive the fourth-place network with a mix of reality shows and nostalgia, like a failed remake of &quot;Knight Rider.&quot;The former William Morris agent, who came to NBC in 2007 as the producing wunderkind behind &quot;The Office&quot; and &quot;Biggest Loser,&quot; is going back into business with Barry Diller, the InterActiveCorp CEO and former Fox network chairman who invested in Mr. Silverman's production company, Reveille.&nbsp;The two will set up a new production company that will more overtly seek the kinds of marketing deals Mr. Silverman pushed at NBC while producing content for TV, the web and other platforms. Mr. Silverman called the unnamed venture &quot;Reveille meets BBDO.&quot;Mr. Silverman came to NBC as a producer who found foreign TV formats and successfully brought them to the U.S., creating shows that were some of few bright spots for NBC, which has struggled in the network ratings.&nbsp;But Mr. Silverman wasn't able to convert much of that pre-NBC success into hits as co-chairman of the network. He was hampered severely by a writer's strike, which crippled a year's worth of TV production, but he also admits that life inside a bureaucracy wasn't the best fit.&nbsp;&quot;I was a manager, I was no longer a picker, a chooser of shows; I would do HR meetings and finance meetings and retreats,&quot; Mr. Silverman told Advertising Age.&nbsp;Mr. Silverman will be replaced by the chairman of NBC Universal's stable of cable networks, Jeff Gaspin, who will become chairman of NBC Universal Television Entertainment. In addition to cable and the network, Mr. Gaspin oversees NBC Universal's own studio, Universal Media Networks.&nbsp;&quot;This new structure helps us align all of our TV entertainment assets under one veteran executive at a time when continued innovation is essential,&quot; NBCU CEO Jeff Zucker said in a statement. Talk of Mr. Silverman leaving NBC has been rampant this year, and both sides seem to grow increasingly uncomfortable with one another. Just last week, Mr. Silverman was quoted at a Los Angeles conference talking about sales in the &quot;upfront&quot; TV advertising market, and suggested NBC and WPP's Group M had completed negotiations. But NBC executives were quick to suggest that he had misspoken.&nbsp;But some of his ideas have gained traction, especially the idea of bringing marketers into a show's production process early enough so that the integration is smooth. He also brought ideas about new models for sharing the costs of TV production, such as when NBC entered into an unusual agreement with DirecTV to help keep &quot;Friday Night Lights&quot; on the air. And people will be watching the return of &quot;Chuck&quot; in 2010 to see if a promotional agreement NBC has struck with Subway will keep the program on the air.&nbsp;Mr. Silverman, though, pined to get out of the network and return to his more entrepreneurial roots. He had sold Reveille to Elisabeth Murdoch's Shine Limited in 2008.&nbsp;&quot;Having run a talent agency and then being inside a media company it was becoming clear to me that the businesses are siloed and those need to be broken down,&quot; he said. &quot;This is something the media companies are going to have to do more and more but it is going to take them longer to do it because they have to support the entrenched system as well.&quot;&nbsp;As an example, Mr. Silverman held up the marketing barrage for Microsoft's search engine Bing.com, which included integrations across NBC, from standard 30-second spots and custom content on &quot;The Philanthropist&quot; to jaunty mentions on air by stars such as Jimmy Fallon. He said he'll be better able to put those kinds of deals together outside the network, as well as create content that will work with different economics than network TV, where a single episode can cost $1 million to produce.&nbsp;IAC has been attempting to build its content business on a micro-scale for several years through production arms such as College Humor, which recently launched its own production company. All the while, though, Mr. Diller has been steadfast that none of IAC's content initiatives signal a move back into TV. Now that's changed.Mr. Silverman's departure from NBC resolves what some construe as a distraction, where his work style and social schedule rankled NBC's more buttoned-up network execs and provided regular fodder for the blogs.&nbsp;Despite the failed shows and little ratings progress, Mr. Silverman said he should be judged by the performance of NBC's fall season, the first he's been able to develop and market without the distraction of a strike. This includes the move of Jay Leno to 10 p.m., a significant shift to the network TV landscape.&nbsp;He'll be staying on at NBC through the beginning of the fall season. His co-chairman at NBC Entertainment, Marc Graboff, will now report to Mr. Gaspin.&nbsp;With all of NBC's TV businesses reporting to one executive, Mr. Gaspin said the company will be better able to select shows that they can make money from over time, on the network, cable, and in syndication. But profitable isn't enough; he said NBC will win again in the ratings.&nbsp;&quot;Even though the [network] model is challenged it is still the best way to get the biggest audience sampled quickly,&quot; he told Ad Age. &quot;We are going to have a better hit ratio than we had before.&quot;]]></summary>
   <author>
      <name>Chuck Ross</name>
      
   </author>
   
      <category term="Advertising" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
      <category term="Broadcast" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
      <category term="Cable" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
      <category term="Digital" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
      <category term="Syndication" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
   <category term="3415" label="Barry Diller" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="2360" label="Ben Silverman" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="3820" label="IAG" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   <category term="3822" label="Notion" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   
   <content type="html" xml:lang="en" xml:base="http://www.tvweek.com/news/">
      <![CDATA[By Michael Learmonth&nbsp;AdAge.comBen Silverman is out after a two-year stint as co-chairman of NBC Entertainment, where he attempted to revive the fourth-place network with a mix of reality shows and nostalgia, like a failed remake of &quot;Knight Rider.&quot;The former William Morris agent, who came to NBC in 2007 as the producing wunderkind behind &quot;The Office&quot; and &quot;Biggest Loser,&quot; is going back into business with Barry Diller, the InterActiveCorp CEO and former Fox network chairman who invested in Mr. Silverman's production company, Reveille.&nbsp;The two will set up a new production company that will more overtly seek the kinds of marketing deals Mr. Silverman pushed at NBC while producing content for TV, the web and other platforms. Mr. Silverman called the unnamed venture &quot;Reveille meets BBDO.&quot;Mr. Silverman came to NBC as a producer who found foreign TV formats and successfully brought them to the U.S., creating shows that were some of few bright spots for NBC, which has struggled in the network ratings.&nbsp;But Mr. Silverman wasn't able to convert much of that pre-NBC success into hits as co-chairman of the network. He was hampered severely by a writer's strike, which crippled a year's worth of TV production, but he also admits that life inside a bureaucracy wasn't the best fit.&nbsp;&quot;I was a manager, I was no longer a picker, a chooser of shows; I would do HR meetings and finance meetings and retreats,&quot; Mr. Silverman told Advertising Age.&nbsp;Mr. Silverman will be replaced by the chairman of NBC Universal's stable of cable networks, Jeff Gaspin, who will become chairman of NBC Universal Television Entertainment. In addition to cable and the network, Mr. Gaspin oversees NBC Universal's own studio, Universal Media Networks.&nbsp;&quot;This new structure helps us align all of our TV entertainment assets under one veteran executive at a time when continued innovation is essential,&quot; NBCU CEO Jeff Zucker said in a statement. Talk of Mr. Silverman leaving NBC has been rampant this year, and both sides seem to grow increasingly uncomfortable with one another. Just last week, Mr. Silverman was quoted at a Los Angeles conference talking about sales in the &quot;upfront&quot; TV advertising market, and suggested NBC and WPP's Group M had completed negotiations. But NBC executives were quick to suggest that he had misspoken.&nbsp;But some of his ideas have gained traction, especially the idea of bringing marketers into a show's production process early enough so that the integration is smooth. He also brought ideas about new models for sharing the costs of TV production, such as when NBC entered into an unusual agreement with DirecTV to help keep &quot;Friday Night Lights&quot; on the air. And people will be watching the return of &quot;Chuck&quot; in 2010 to see if a promotional agreement NBC has struck with Subway will keep the program on the air.&nbsp;Mr. Silverman, though, pined to get out of the network and return to his more entrepreneurial roots. He had sold Reveille to Elisabeth Murdoch's Shine Limited in 2008.&nbsp;&quot;Having run a talent agency and then being inside a media company it was becoming clear to me that the businesses are siloed and those need to be broken down,&quot; he said. &quot;This is something the media companies are going to have to do more and more but it is going to take them longer to do it because they have to support the entrenched system as well.&quot;&nbsp;As an example, Mr. Silverman held up the marketing barrage for Microsoft's search engine Bing.com, which included integrations across NBC, from standard 30-second spots and custom content on &quot;The Philanthropist&quot; to jaunty mentions on air by stars such as Jimmy Fallon. He said he'll be better able to put those kinds of deals together outside the network, as well as create content that will work with different economics than network TV, where a single episode can cost $1 million to produce.&nbsp;IAC has been attempting to build its content business on a micro-scale for several years through production arms such as College Humor, which recently launched its own production company. All the while, though, Mr. Diller has been steadfast that none of IAC's content initiatives signal a move back into TV. Now that's changed.Mr. Silverman's departure from NBC resolves what some construe as a distraction, where his work style and social schedule rankled NBC's more buttoned-up network execs and provided regular fodder for the blogs.&nbsp;Despite the failed shows and little ratings progress, Mr. Silverman said he should be judged by the performance of NBC's fall season, the first he's been able to develop and market without the distraction of a strike. This includes the move of Jay Leno to 10 p.m., a significant shift to the network TV landscape.&nbsp;He'll be staying on at NBC through the beginning of the fall season. His co-chairman at NBC Entertainment, Marc Graboff, will now report to Mr. Gaspin.&nbsp;With all of NBC's TV businesses reporting to one executive, Mr. Gaspin said the company will be better able to select shows that they can make money from over time, on the network, cable, and in syndication. But profitable isn't enough; he said NBC will win again in the ratings.&nbsp;&quot;Even though the [network] model is challenged it is still the best way to get the biggest audience sampled quickly,&quot; he told Ad Age. &quot;We are going to have a better hit ratio than we had before.&quot;]]>
   </content>
</entry>

<entry>
   <title>What is REALLY Going on With the Upfront and Why One of Our Most Esteemed U.S. Presidents was Wrong</title>
   <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://www.tvweek.com/news/2009/07/whats_really_going_on_with_the_1.php" />
   <id>tag:www.tvweek.com,2009:/news//1.36934</id>
   
   <published>2009-07-22T18:53:49Z</published>
   <updated>2009-07-23T01:35:03Z</updated>
   
   <summary><![CDATA[This is based on a number of conversations I never had with some of the very top executives on both the buying and selling sides of the table, if you catch my drift.What&rsquo;s controlling the slow-as-molasses-Upfront Marketplace is pure, unadulterated FEAR. Fear at the client level, fear at the media agency level, fear at the networks.And Franklin Delano Roosevelt, one of our most esteemed presidents, was wrong when he said that the &ldquo;Only thing we have to fear is fear itself.&rdquo;No, the fear is real. It&rsquo;s fear all these players have of losing their jobs.It starts at the client level. One major media agency executive I never spoke to tells this story, or so I hear:&ldquo;The meetings at the client used to be with the heads of media and maybe the CMOs. Now it&rsquo;s just as likely to be with the CEOs and the CFOs and the heads of procurement.&ldquo;And the meetings go something like this. The CFO says he&rsquo;s heard that P&amp;G tore up all its media agreements and are now getting much better deals. The networks are running scared. For instance, we should be getting maybe negative 9 or 10 percent at CBS.&ldquo;I say no, what you&rsquo;ve heard about P&amp;G isn&rsquo;t true. And the networks aren&rsquo;t running scared. In fact, in scatter they are doing pretty well now. Third quarter scatter is doing quite well for them, in fact. And CBS is never going to give you negative 9 or 10 percent.&ldquo;The CFO then looks at me hard and says that I don&rsquo;t understand the marketplace and this meeting is over.&rdquo;This person is clearly one of the gutsier media agency executives who's been around a long time and whose kids are probably out of college, so he or she isn't in the grip of the fear as much as some others might be.Clearly the economy has everyone spooked. The pressure on the clients&rsquo; bottom lines has never been greater. For the value they got for every dollar spent in the past they want double that value.And the buyer is right. Scatter for the third quarter IS strong. If Jo Ann Ross at CBS approved an upfront deal at negative 9 or 10 percent she&rsquo;d probably be fired.And if it came out publicly that a media agency did business at CBS for up or flat or even negative 1%, they&rsquo;d probably be fired by the client.And if the CFO at the client approved a deal with CBS for up or flat or negative 1% they&rsquo;d probably get fired by the CEO.And so it would go. Or so everyone thinks. Perception, as they say, is reality.So the giant game of Chicken; this giant stare-off with billions of dollars at stake, goes on.But here&rsquo;s what&rsquo;s true. The sellers do indeed have something the buyers need. Advertising on television, as study after study has shown, DOES work.Some deals are, quietly, getting done.Buyers are finding that as time has progressed since May, clients are calling them, saying let&rsquo;s add maybe 20 more gross ratings points to our plan, or let&rsquo;s extend that campaign we want to do by a week. So, slowly, the budgets are coming back.As the money builds, that might be an incentive to get an upfront deal done sooner than later.But then the fear sets in again. The client thinks, well, I&rsquo;m not really getting penalized too much by waiting and buying in scatter. Usually there&rsquo;s been no premium, and I&rsquo;m only paying one percent or two percent over upfront prices.Accompanying fear&mdash;and partly causing it&mdash;is that other business bugaboo, uncertainty.When the uncertainty about the economy starts to subside, the fear will start to subside and there will be a return to more normalcy.This normal might be somewhat different than the old normal, but it&rsquo;ll be better than what we&rsquo;re going through now.Meanwhile, let&rsquo;s look forward to the upfront becoming more robust as we approach August. I hear it&rsquo;s the new June.#]]></summary>
   <author>
      <name>Chuck Ross</name>
      
   </author>
   
      <category term="Advertising" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" />
   
   <category term="991" label="upfront" scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" />
   
   <content type="html" xml:lang="en" xml:base="http://www.tvweek.com/news/">
      <![CDATA[This is based on a number of conversations I never had with some of the very top executives on both the buying and selling sides of the table, if you catch my drift.What&rsquo;s controlling the slow-as-molasses-Upfront Marketplace is pure, unadulterated FEAR. Fear at the client level, fear at the media agency level, fear at the networks.And Franklin Delano Roosevelt, one of our most esteemed presidents, was wrong when he said that the &ldquo;Only thing we have to fear is fear itself.&rdquo;No, the fear is real. It&rsquo;s fear all these players have of losing their jobs.It starts at the client level. One major media agency executive I never spoke to tells this story, or so I hear:&ldquo;The meetings at the client used to be with the heads of media and maybe the CMOs. Now it&rsquo;s just as likely to be with the CEOs and the CFOs and the heads of procurement.&ldquo;And the meetings go something like this. The CFO says he&rsquo;s heard that P&amp;G tore up all its media agreements and are now getting much better deals. The networks are running scared. For instance, we should be getting maybe negative 9 or 10 percent at CBS.&ldquo;I say no, what you&rsquo;ve heard about P&amp;G isn&rsquo;t true. And the networks aren&rsquo;t running scared. In fact, in scatter they are doing pretty well now. Third quarter scatter is doing quite well for them, in fact. And CBS is never going to give you negative 9 or 10 percent.&ldquo;The CFO then looks at me hard and says that I don&rsquo;t understand the marketplace and this meeting is over.&rdquo;This person is clearly one of the gutsier media agency executives who's been around a long time and whose kids are probably out of college, so he or she isn't in the grip of the fear as much as some others might be.Clearly the economy has everyone spooked. The pressure on the clients&rsquo; bottom lines has never been greater. For the value they got for every dollar spent in the past they want double that value.And the buyer is right. Scatter for the third quarter IS strong. If Jo Ann Ross at CBS approved an upfront deal at negative 9 or 10 percent she&rsquo;d probably be fired.And if it came out publicly that a media agency did business at CBS for up or flat or even negative 1%, they&rsquo;d probably be fired by the client.And if the CFO at the client approved a deal with CBS for up or flat or negative 1% they&rsquo;d probably get fired by the CEO.And so it would go. Or so everyone thinks. Perception, as they say, is reality.So the giant game of Chicken; this giant stare-off with billions of dollars at stake, goes on.But here&rsquo;s what&rsquo;s true. The sellers do indeed have something the buyers need. Advertising on television, as study after study has shown, DOES work.Some deals are, quietly, getting done.Buyers are finding that as time has progressed since May, clients are calling them, saying let&rsquo;s add maybe 20 more gross ratings points to our plan, or let&rsquo;s extend that campaign we want to do by a week. So, slowly, the budgets are coming back.As the money builds, that might be an incentive to get an upfront deal done sooner than later.But then the fear sets in again. The client thinks, well, I&rsquo;m not really getting penalized too much by waiting and buying in scatter. Usually there&rsquo;s been no premium, and I&rsquo;m only paying one percent or two percent over upfront prices.Accompanying fear&mdash;and partly causing it&mdash;is that other business bugaboo, uncertainty.When the uncertainty about the economy starts to subside, the fear will start to subside and there will be a return to more normalcy.This normal might be somewhat different than the old normal, but it&rsquo;ll be better than what we&rsquo;re going through now.Meanwhile, let&rsquo;s look forward to the upfront becoming more robust as we approach August. I hear it&rsquo;s the new June.#]]>
   </content>
</entry>

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