Spots N Dots
The Daily News Of TV Sales
April26, 2018
U.S. AIRLINE TRAVELER SATISFACTION DROPS
SOUTHWEST BEST; SPIRIT & FRONTIER LAST
Airlines have gotten a lot of bad PR on customer service in the past year, so it is hardly surprising that satisfaction with airlines dropped 2.7% in the annual American Customer Satisfaction Index (ASCI) 2018 Travel Report. Airlines as a group fell to a score of 73 on a zero to 100 scale. Guest satisfaction with hotels remained steady at an ACSI score of 76, while Internet travel services fell 1.3% to 78.
All but four of the largest airlines saw passenger satisfaction decline in the past year. Southwest held steady at an ACSI score of 80 for the third straight year, which the researchers said was likely a reflection of low fares and focus on customer service. It was enough for the airline to reclaim the lead from JetBlue, which fell 4% to a score of 79. Alaska Airlines rose 1% to tie with JetBlue for second place.
Allegiant had the biggest jump of the year, rising 4% to a score of 74. Despite the satisfaction gain and a strong record of profitability, ACSI notes that Allegiant may be heading straight into turbulence following recent high-profile news reporting on mechanical issues and safety concerns that sent its stock tumbling. American and Delta join Allegiant in the middle of the pack, both dropping 3%. United fell 4% to a score of 67. Tied for last place at 62 areFrontier, down 2%, and Spirit, up 2%.
With increased competition from alternatives like Airbnb and boutique hotel brands, larger hotel chains are under pressure to provide a more customized experience and even better customer service. ASCI saysHilton and Marriott are among the chains that are succeeding.
Hilton steps up 1% to hold first place with an ACSI score of 82, while Marriott takes second with a 1% gain to 81. Starwood, now owned by Marriott, ranks third, unchanged at 79, and tied with Hyatt, which shed 1%. They are followed by Best Western (up 1%) and InterContinental (down 1%) at 77. La Quinta edges up 1% to match the industry average at 76. Choice and Wyndham each slip 1% to 73 and 70, respectively. G6 Hospitality’s Motel 6 remains at the bottom of the category, unmoved at 65.
On the Internet, Expedia Group and its brands remain dominant among travel websites for booking flights, hotels, and car rentals, despite a downturn for its namesake website. Expedia’s Orbitz, up 4%, tops the category at 81, while Travelocity, another Expedia subsidiary, gained 4% to 80. The Expedia website fell 3% to 78, tying Priceline (up 1%) and a collection of smaller competitors.
ADVERTISER NEWS
Ford Motor Co. says it has nearly doubled its cost-cutting target by 2022 from the plan it laid out only six months ago and committed to either fixing or eliminating unprofitable portions of the business. The automaker said it now expects achieve an 8 percent global profit margin by 2020, two years sooner than planned. It upped its five-year cost-cutting goal to $25.5 billion, from the $14 billion projected by CEO Jim Hackett in October. Ford announced the improved guidance as the company reported a 9 percent increase in first-quarter net income.... Autonews.com is reporting that FCA US, battling a decline in demand for Ram pickups, is offering added incentives to U.S. dealers who add new trucks to their service loaner fleets and count them as sales....By counting them as sales, dealers can more easily reach monthy sales goals and qualify for factory bonuses...One other auto note; General Motors plans to reinstate a third shift at its assembly plant in Tennessee by mid September to meet growing U.S. demand for crossovers and add production of an all-new Holden version of the GMC Acadia....Facebook beat earnings and revenue forecasts last quarter. Earnings per share: $1.69, adjusted vs. $1.35 expected. Revenue was $11.97 billion vs. $11.4 billion expected by a Thomson Reuters consensus estimate. Facebook reports no changes in daily active users at 1.45 billion....Subway is planning to close 500 U.S. locations this year, according to Bloomberg News. The company is finding it preferable to have nicer restaurants even if that means fewer of them. “We want to be sure that we have the best location,” Subway Restaurants CEO Suzanne Greco told Bloomberg News in an interview, reported by Fortune.com. “Store count isn’t everything.”...McDonald’s will open a ground-floor restaurant inside its new Chicago headquarters on Randolph Street. In order to fit into the trendy West Loop neighborhood, the new restaurant will serve a rotating menu of special items found at the chain’s restaurants in other countries. That includes cheese- and bacon-loaded fries from Australia, a McSpicy chicken sandwich from Hong Kong, and a McFlurryPrestigio from Brazil, says chicago.eater.com....Now that a couple of takeover bids have been rejected, one writer (Forbes.com) says the chances of ‘saving’ the Toys-R-Us chain in the U.S. look slim. His report says, retailing has simply changed too much in recent years and, to put it bluntly, Toys ‘R’ Us is a company that no longer needs to exist....The online fashion market has grown by a 14% compounded annual growth rate since 2012, a stark contrast from 1% of growth offline, according to Forrester. According to the data, fashion is the second largest retail spending sub-category, trailing behind the food and drink category, and makes up 12% of the total retail spend. The fashion market grew from $375.6 billion in 2012 to $433.6 billion in 2017
NETWORK NEWS
Variety is reporting that Kathy Bates and Teller will play MayimBialik’scharacter’s parents in the upcoming season 11 finale of The Big Bang Theory on CBS. Bates and Teller join a large list of guest stars that will appear in the episode about Amy (Bialik) and Sheldon’s (Jim Parson) wedding. Other guests for the episode include Star Wars icon Mark Hamill, Lauren Lapkus, and Jerry O’Connell. Laurie Metcalf returns as Sheldon’s mother and Courtney Henggelerappears as Sheldon’s twin sister, Missy. John Ross Bowie will again appear as Barry Kripke, Brian Posehnas Bert and Star Trek: The Next Generation starWil Wheaton appearing as himself. The Big Bang Theory completes its current season on Thursday, May 10th at 8 PM (ET)……A double run of Roseanne repeats on ABC finished just behind NBC’s The Voice on Tuesday night. Airing from 8 PM (ET) to 9 PM (ET), the Roseanne reruns post a 1.3 adult 18-49 rating and 6.2 million viewers. The Voice delivered a 1.5 demo rating and 9.1 million viewers in the same time slot. ABC’s Deception aired a special episode that drew a 0.8 demo rating and 3.2 million total viewers……. The creator of The Bachelor franchise on ABC has sold another dating series to the network. The Proposal will premiere this summer. It will be hosted by former NFL quarterback and Season 5 Bachelor Jesse Palmer. Each of the one-hour episodes of The Proposal will feature 10 eligible daters competing in four pageant-style rounds to win the heart of a mysterious male or female suitor whose identity is concealed from them. Daters will try to impress the mysterious suitor and are eliminated if they fail to make the connection. The final two remaining daters finally meet the mystery suitor for the first time and present a romantic proposal of their choice. The Proposal is produced by Next Entertainment in association with Warner Horizon Unscripted & Alternative. Mike Fleiss, Martin Hilton, James Breen and Jason Ehrlich will be the show’s executive producers……Actor Hank Azaria, who is the voice talent behind 20-30 various characters on the Fox animation series The Simpsons, said that his is “willing and happy” to step aside as the voice of Apu on series, or to help transition the character to “something new,” calling it “the right thing to do, to me.” Azaria made the comments during an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on CBS. He also talked about the possibility that an Indian-American writer could be added to the show. The documentary The Problem with Apufrom comedian Hari Kondabolugenerated a lot of talk on the topic when it debuted last November. Kondaboulu tweeted his thanks to Azaria and re-tweeted his thanks to others……More details are surfacing from a report in Deadline this week about the friction on the set of Fox’s Lethal Weapon. The friction is a result of incidents involving actor ClayneCrawford. One involved Crawford’s verbal outburst about sounds coming from a nearby building during a location shoot, and a second incident involving a guest director who quit before finishing an episode of the show over Crawford’s behavior.
ACCOUNT ACTIONS
Frontier Communications has named Hill Holiday, Boston, as its creative AOR and the agency’s media arm, Trilia, as media AOR. Frontier spent $16.1 million on advertising last year, according to Kantar Media. The MVPD operates in 29 states……Multiple reports say Nestlé has begun a review of its agency relationships in North America with a view to cutting costs. Exactly which of the company’s many brands are involved is not clear. If the focus is on Nestlé USA, as indicated in an Ad Age story, the brands could include DiGiorno, Haagen-Dazs, Lean Cuisine and Stouffer’s.
THIS AND THAT
Comcast has officially bid $31 billion to buy European satellite TV operator Sky, topping an offer from 21st Century Fox. The Wall Street Journal says Comcast is also considering whether to try to displace Disney as buyer for the Fox-owned cable networks in the U.S.…... Entravision announced an affiliation deal for KMCC Las Vegas with Azteca America. Entravision bought the station for $3.55 million in a deal that closed earlier this year, creating a tri-opoly with KINC (Univision) and low-power KELV (UniMás).
COMPETITIVE INFO
Number cruncher Brian Wieserat Pivotal Research Group says his analysis of updated data on digital content consumption from Nielsen for February 2018 shows ongoing growth in digital consumption—including substantial growth in share of consumer time for properties associated with Google and continuing erosion in share of consumption time for Facebook.
Google’s YouTube, Google and Waze combined to account for 27.9% of all time on digital media. The share was relatively similar to January’s 27.4% level and compares with 25.0% in February 2017. Inside of those figures is YouTube, which accounts for half of all Google activity. While YouTube continues to grow its consumption by well in-excess of 20% year-over-year every month, other Google properties expanded by 29%.
Meanwhile, Facebook appears to be going the other direction. Core Facebook lost 5% in aggregated time spent despite a 5% increase in users, reflecting a 10% decline per person. Instagram, which only represents around 12% of the usage of the core Facebook property, performed much better with a gain of 31% more time on 25% more users for a 5% increase in time per user. Including Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp, Facebook’s share is at 16.3% share vs. 17.8% in the year-ago period and stable vs. January 2018.
Looking at other platforms, Wieser notes that Verizon-sold properties (including Yahoo, MSN, AOL and Tumblr) held a solid #3 position in the industry and once again increased year-over-year, holding relatively constant sequentially at a 5.3% share of consumption vs. 4.9% in February 2017. Amazon (including Twitch) accounted for 1.8% in February 2018 vs. 1.9% in February 2017. Snap accounted for 1.5% in February 2018 vs. 0.9% in February 2017, reflecting an 89% growth rate in consumption during that period. By contrast, Twitter recorded a 30% gain with a 1.1% share of digital consumption in February 2018 vs. 1.0% in February 2017. This also represented a significant acceleration for Twitter vs. other periods, the analyst noted.
JUST GIVE ME THE ONE THAT’S ON SALE
Most grocery shoppers don’t notice sustainability branding on product packaging, according to a new study.
QuadPackaging, a packaging solution provider, teamed up with Clemson University research partner Package Insight to see if a visual sustainability rating system placed on the front of grocery packages influenced shopper behavior.
Participants representing various customer profiles used mobile eye-tracking technology to shop a range of categories in a typical grocery store setting in Clemson’s retail lab. Generic package designs were devised for each category — frozen food, pasta, beverages, snack and health care — and QuadPackaging and Package InSight created a sustainability logo with an A-B-C grading system.
Of the test shoppers, 92% said they didn’t notice the sustainability logos on the grocery packages, even though over 40% claimed sustainability influences their buying decisions, and 53% indicated that a simple rating system would impact their purchase, researchers noted.
HEALTH INSURER RECOVERING FROM OBAMACARE
Anthem is beginning to benefit financially from its decision to exit certain individual markets under the Affordable Care Act and focus more on its growing Medicare Advantage business, per Forbes.com
Under chief executive Gail Boudreaux, Anthem said Wednesday it plans to invest more in its Medicare Advantage business, completing acquisitions of two health plans in Florida and looking for more opportunities.
Like rivals UnitedHealth Group and Aetna, Anthem was among large health insurers having difficulty managing medical costs of enrollees in Obamacare plans and decided to scale back or exit the business for this year. The decision contributed to a 616,000-member decline in the first quarter in Anthem’s total membership from the end of last year, the company disclosed in its first quarter earnings report.
Anthem’s individual enrollment, including Obamacare, fell by 800,000 to 755,000 at the end of the first quarter. That includes about 500,000 in ACA-compliant plans and 255,000 in non-ACA compliant plans. The move away from Obamacare helped Anthem increase first quarter profits 30% to $1.3 billion. RQ revenues were flat at $22.5 billion.
PAYCHECKS ON THE RISE
Payroll processor ADP reports that wages for U.S. workers grew 2.9% over the last year, increasing the average wage level by $0.57 to $27.36 an hour at the end of March. The growth, down from 3.1% annual growth as of December 2017, was driven by strong wage gains for workers in the information industry (5.6% wage growth, $41.38 average hourly wage), in the West (3.5%, $29.27) and from small businesses (3.3%, $25.47). Employees in the resources and mining industry (1.7%, $34.96) and in the South (2.5%, $25.61) had the slowest wage growth.
AVAILS
WNEM-TV 5 in Saginaw, Michigan seeks a Local Sales Manager. The LSM oversees, leads and motivates AEs to generate new advertisers and expand the revenue share of existing clients. This position utilizes all sales platforms to develop new business including broadcast television, digital and mobile media and strategically leads the team in growing transactional accounts. Six to eight years local television sales or related experience preferred. Previous management experience required with a proven track record of successfully managing a sales team. CLICK HEREto apply – look for job requisition JR04839. EOE.
WYFF 4, the Hearst Television NBC affiliate in beautiful Greenville, SC seeks a superstar Account Executive. We are looking for an experienced sales professional who can excel with top accounts while achieving goals across all platforms. Are you a driven, passionate, highly competitive person who likes to WIN? Do you have a commitment to excellence? Then come work at one of the best television stations and best cities in the country. Google “Greenville, SC Top 10” and see why everyone wants to live here! Click HEREto apply. E.O.E.
KIII Corpus Christi, TX is looking for a driven, solutions-based Local Sales Manager. The LSM must be results oriented, innovative and a dynamic leader. This person must possess an entrepreneurial mindset and a competitive spirit and exhibit passion for marketing sales, both broadcast and digital. This individual must exhibit the ability to motivate, teach and lead by example. A minimum of 3 years of successful local TV or media sales experience and/or creative digital is preferred. CLICK HEREfor more details or to apply now. EOE.
During rush hour in New York, a woman gave birth in the back of an Uber. The mother was overjoyed while the other people in her Uber pool were like, “We’ll walk from here.”–Jimmy Fallon
It’s come out that EPA head Scott Pruitt has four separate e-mail addresses. And get this: all of them run on coal.–Conan O’Brien
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SPOTS N DOTS
The Daily News Of TV Sales
April26, 2018
Phone: 888-884-2630