Spots N Dots
The Daily News Of TV Sales
February 5, 2016
LOCAL CBS STATIONS FIRED UP FOR BIG GAME
SUPER BOWL SUNDAY SETTING SALES RECORDS
The Super Bowl is the biggest one-day sports event in the nation every year, but for the hometowns of the two teams that make it to the game it is a huge local event. For the local TV stations it’s a major opportunity to connect with fans and advertisers—especially for the one network affiliate in each town lucky enough to air the actual game.
The Denver Broncos and Carolina Panthers have made it to the big game before, but this is the first time for the Broncos that CBS had the broadcast for O&O KCNC Denver and more than a decade for Raycom’s WBTV Charlotte.
"Colorado loves the Broncos and we feel fortunate to get super-sized ratings every time we air a game. Buthavingour hometown team in Super Bowl 50 is something that's really special for everyone at KCNC,” said GMWalt DeHaven. You will not be surprised to learn that Super Bowl Sunday, February 7, will be the biggest revenue day in KCNC's history. KCNC has been airing nightly specials this week and a two-hour Road to the Championship special is scheduled for Saturday. The stationhas anchors, reporters and a meteorologist providing live reports from across the Bay Area this week.
The Super Bowl local avails were sold out on WBTV even before it was certain the Panthers would be in the game. GM Steve Dempsey says advertisers wanted to make sure they weren’t squeezed out by political spots. He’s expecting an 80+ local market share, so the real value of having the Super Bowl is being able to promote other WBTV programming to the massive local audience—and he says the staff has worked up some great creative to air. “The windfall for us will come beyond the Super Bowl,” he said.
Of course, WBTV has had staffers in San Francisco reporting live this week on game preparations—and he had nothing but praise for CBS O&O KPIX and the network for their assistance in the Super Bowl host market. WBTV has been airing extensive pre-game coverage and a special, Panthers’ Championship Drive, will air tonight in primetime.
KPIXhas been planning its Super Bowl coverage since it was announced in May 2013 that the NFL had picked the Bay Area to host Super Bowl 50. The station aired its first local Countdown to Gold special last February, one night following Super Bowl XLIX. KPIX secured legendary San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana (a four-time Super Bowl champion) and his wife Jennifer (who previously had been a KPIX on-air host) as special contributors to the station's coverage. KPIX had a total of 11 Countdown to Gold specials planned, including 7-8 pm broadcasts on Monday-Saturday this week."It's extremely gratifying to see the responses from viewers and advertisers to our 'Countdown to Gold' coverage. Our three years of planning is really paying off. And, of course, the best is yet to come," said KPIX GM Bruno Cohen.
ADVERTISER NEWS
With spring soon upon us, HBS Dealer reports that The Home Depot is gearing up for the busy selling season with the hire of more than 80,000 seasonal employees—about twice as many as rival Lowe’s recently announced as a hiring target. Home Depot is hiring for sales, operations and cashier positions across all departments, which range from the lumber aisle to the Pro desk and the outside garden. And it’s also hiring at its 75 distribution facilities……Barnes & Noble is appealing to customer loyalty with a limited-time in-store promotion to offer existing Nook customers a $50 credit toward the purchase of a new Nook by Samsung device through March 5. With a trade-in, the smallest model, the seven-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab4 Nook, is at the lowest-ever price of $89.99……Q4 revenues were up 19.9% to $490.2 million for Buffalo Wild Wings, but a lot of that was from adding new locations. “Same-store sales growth in the fourth quarter of 1.9% at company-owned restaurants and 0.1% at franchised locations did not meet our expectations, although they continued to outpace the casual dining industry,” noted CEO Sally Smith. For 2016 the company expects to add 45-50 owned and 30-35 franchised locations in the U.S……All three parts of Yum Brands in the U.S. produced Q4 growth. KFC had 3% same-store growth and sales were up 6% overall; Pizza Hut was up 1% same-store and 2% overall; and Taco Bell had 4% same-store sales growth, with sales up 7% overall…… Arby’s Restaurant Group announced a new development agreement with franchisee, Turbo Restaurants, LLC, to open 15 new restaurants over the next five years in the Houston market. This is in addition to 15 new restaurants that Turbo agreed to develop in Dallas under a previous development agreement. Turbo has also committed to remodeling 12 Arby's restaurants in the Dallas market to the new “Inspire” restaurant design, which features subway tiling and stainless steel, multicolor wood materials, modern lighting and chalkboard graphics……Hard liquor continues to grow its market share among alcoholic beverage choices. The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States says distilled spirits supplier sales increased 4.1% in 2015, and volumes rose by 2.3%. The Council estimates that overall retail sales rose to nearly $72 billion in the U.S. last year. It was the distilled spirits category’s sixth straight year of increasing its market share relative to beer……In a preliminary report, Kohl’s says Q4 comparable sales increased 0.4% and full year comparable sales 0.7%. Total sales increased 0.8% for Q4 and 1.0% for the year.
NETWORK NEWS
A new late-night half-hour sketch comedy series Party Over Here will premiereSaturday, March 12, at 11:00 pm (ET) on FOX. The series is executive-produced by Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone.Actor/comedian Paul Scheer also will serve as an executive producer and one of the series’ directors……Tony Shalhoub has joined the cast of BrainDead, anew comic-thriller set in the world of Washington, D.C. politics, to be broadcast in summer 2016 on CBS. Shalhoub will play Red Wheatus, a hard-drinking, fun-loving Republican senator who has spent decades in Washington making deals, until a radical transformation turns him into a health-conscious extremist who would rather destroy the government than compromise……Seal has been cast in the role of Pontius Pilate in The Passion, a two-hour epic musical event airing live from New Orleans onPalm Sunday, March 20, at 8:00 pm (ET) on FOX……Fashion expert Tim Gunn and Hollywood’s hottest hairstylist, Ken Paves, return toThe Biggest Loser for the makeover episode Monday, February 8, at 9:00 pm (ET) on NBC. Eager to shed the workout clothes they’ve been living for over two months, the contestants meet one by one with Gunn, and are stunned to see what sizes they fit in now—and how incredible they look.
WEDNESDAY RATINGS
American Idol gave FOX the demo win on Wednesday, but NBC, led by Law & Order: SVU, had the most viewers. The Nielsen overnights showed FOX at an average 1.9 in Adults 18-49 and 4.2 in Households, with an average audience of 6.916 million viewers. NBC was at 1.5 18-49, 4.5 HH and 7.071 million; CBS, with Mike & Molly, 1.3 18-49, 4.0 HH and 6.382 million; ABC, with part one of Madoff, 1.1 18-49, 4.0 HH and 5.954 million; The CW 0.8 18-49, 1.4 HH and 2.184 million; Univision 0.7 18-49, 1.0 HH and 1.838 million; and Telemundo 0.5 18-49, 0.9 HH and 1.456 million.
FANTASY SPORTS PROVES TV ADS WORK
It may seem like daily fantasy sports (DFS) is a phenomenon that is only a couple of years old. But a study by the Video Advertising Bureau (VAB) notes that DFS actually goes back about 10 years. What changed? Three years ago the two main players—FanDuel and DraftKings finally got enough financial backing to make significant investments in television advertising. They spent a combined $300 million-plus over the past three years on TV and became household names.
VAB says unique visitors to the two DFS company websites increased exponentially to 32.1 million in September 2015 from a mere 67,000 in March 2013. Total minutes spent on the websites increased five-fold in one year from September 2014 to September 2015. The average amount spend annually per DFS player increased from $5 in 2012 to $257 in 2015. And total revenues for the company shot up from $5 million in 2012 to $330 million in 2015.
DFS players are overwhelmingly Millennials—two thirds are 18-35, with half in the 25-35 age group. TV’s competitors would claim that the way to reach that target audience is online. But while FanDuel had been buying digital ads since January 2010 and DraftKings since May 2012, it wasn’t until each had reached $1 million of TV advertising in 2013 that they began to have their unique site visitors measured by comScore.
This is not a two-company sector. It just seems that way because the two companies which have advertised heavily on TV have a combined 96% market share. VAB lists 13 “second tier players” and seven others which shut down or were acquired by another company.
Most DraftKings and FanDuel advertising has been on sports programming—over $225 million, according to VAB—but that still leaves over $75 million in advertising spend on entertainment and news TV programs. Within that, films drew 20% of the spend, dramas 17%, comedy also 17%, documentary 16% and animation 15% as the biggest programming genres. VAB notes that the two have bought ads on 81 networks since 2013, of which 37 had sports programming.
RECORD VALENTINE’S DAY SPENDING SEEN
Americans are expected to spend $19.7 billion on Valentine’s Daythis year—a record for the National Retail Federation’s Valentine’s Day Consumer Spending Survey conducted by Prosper Insights and Analytics. 54.8% of consumers are expected to celebrate Valentine’s Day, spending an average of $146.84 on flowers, jewelry, candy, apparel and more, up from $142.31 last year.
When it comes to the top gifts this Valentine’s Day, 50% of consumers surveyed said they plan to buy candy, spending a total of $1.7 billion. Nearly four in 10 of those celebrating the holiday (38.3%) plan to treat their dates to a night out at a restaurant, tickets to a show or another experience, spending a record total of $4.5 billion, the highest since NRF began tracking spending on gifts in 2010.
Another $4.4 billion will be spent on necklaces, earrings and other jewelry items, with nearly one in five (19.9%) planning to treat their significant other or family member to something precious; nearly half (47.9%) of those celebrating will spend $1.1 billion on greeting cards. Additionally, it is estimated $2 billion will be spent on apparel and $1.9 billion will be spent on flowers.
As for who’s on the receiving side, 90.8% of consumers said they would buy something for their significant other/spouse and are planning to spend an average of $89.86, up from $87.94 last year. Total spending on significant others/spouses is expected to reach $12 billion. Additionally, consumers will spend an average of $27.79 on other family members like children and parents, $7.08 on children’s classmates and teachers and $5.83 on co-workers.
And as we’ve seen with other holidays, pets will not be left out. The NRF says consumers will spend $681 million to treat their favorite pets to Valentine’s Day delights.
BLACKOUT IS OVER
With time to spare to Super Bowl Sunday, Nexstar and Cox Communications announced late Thursday that they had come to terms on a new retransmission consent agreement. The blackout of Nexstar stations in nine markets on Cox systems was ending “as soon as possible.”
ACCOUNT ACTIONS
Zimmerman Advertising, Ft. Lauderdale, FL, has been named the marketing agency of record for Advance America, one of the nation's leading providers of consumer financial services.As AOR, Zimmerman will lead the brand's consumer outreach strategy, providing creative services, media planning and buying, digital and production……Ending a nearly seven-year relationship, Adweek reports that insurance giant Nationwide has dropped McKinney as its creative agency. No word yet on what’s next.
AVAILS
Traffic Manager: The Traffic Manager at the Meredith Traffic Hub in Phoenix is responsible for an error-free work product that includes processing all spot orders, copy instructions, resolving discrepancies, and programming input.The manager will also have a direct impact upon the stations’ revenues as well as upon customer perceptions of how a well-run traffic department should operate. High school graduate or equivalent.College graduate preferred. To apply please do so through number JR01571. EOE
Raycom Media is seeking a VP/GM for WCSC, its dominant CBS affiliate in the beautiful and vibrant Charleston, SC market. This is a tremendous opportunity for a dynamic leader with contemporary experience in developing local news and branded content for broadcast and digital audiences. Applicant must also have experience in developing market leading broadcast and digital revenue strategies. Competitive compensation/benefits. Submit your resume and salary requirements with your application online. No phone calls please. To apply, please visit EOE-M/F/D/V
Heartland Media's KDRV-TV, the ABC and Antenna TV affiliate in Medford, OR seeks a General Sales Manager to lead, develop, train, and motivate its growing team of sales managers AEs. This is a great opportunity to join a dominant station with the market's top-rated newscasts, quality syndicated programming, and a broad range of digital products to market and sell. Plus, you'll live and work in a sunny corner of the Pacific Northwest! Email cover letter, resume, and references to: . Pre-employment drug screen required. EOE.
General Manager:A small privately-held broadcast company is looking for the right person to operate its television station in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains.The GM will oversee all departments, including news, but is also directly responsible for sales department management. Our right candidate will be an experienced GM who likes to be actively involved in sales, or a broadcast sales manager looking to move into his/her first general manager role. Send cover letter, resume and salary requirements in confidence to .
WKMG-TV, Orlando FL seeking motivated General Sales Manager to lead day-to-day sales and marketing activities including WKMG, clickorlando.com and the station’s digital properties. The right candidate must understand the importance of long range planning and strategy. Appreciate and understand digital media and its prominent role in cross platform selling. Have experience with recruiting exceptionalsellers, coaching and leading team members to consistently grow market share and new revenue streams.CLICK HERE for more details. Send resume to: . EOE
KOIN 6 in Portland OR has an opening for a Digital Account Executive. The Digital Account Executive will be responsible for uncovering sales opportunities to local advertisers in Portland, OR. The DAE will be responsible for aggressively pursuing digital media advertising sales. The DAE will sell all of LIN’s suite of digital products including display, mobile, video, social media, SEM and SEO. If interested, apply online at KOIN.com. Be sure to include a resume and cover letter. No phone calls, emails or drop-ins.
New Barbies will come in different sizes and with more realistic body types. Not only that, the new Ken dolls come with beer googles.
--Conan O’Brien
A matador in Spain is under investigation after a video surfaced of him bullfighting while holding his 5-month-old baby girl in his arms. But to be fair, it was Take Your Daughter to Work Day.
--Seth Meyers
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SPOTS N DOTS
The Daily News Of TV Sales
February 5, 2016
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