Spots N Dots
The Daily News Of TV Sales
November 29, 2016
ANALYST DROPS 2017 ADVERTISING FORECAST
‘UNCERTAINTY IS THE ONLY CERTAINTY’
The stock market has been shooting up post-election, but that may not translate into a boost for ad spend in 2017. In fact, analyst Brian Wieser at Pivotal Research Group has lowered his overall projection of spending growth in advertising to only 2.0%. He’d previously forecast 2.8% growth.
“Uncertainty is the only certainty,” Wieser said in an update to clients. Just what policies will be implemented by President-elect Donald Trump and the Republican Congress is not yet clear. “The emergence of new tariffs, infrastructure spending, subsidies or changes in regulations for favored companies or industries, changes to tax policies, the degree to which regulators and the law support more consolidation in certain industries and changes involving foreign workers in high and low tech sectors alike are among the issues that may or may not be a part of the current political agenda. Whether or not they are taken up, how they are shaped and what might actually be turned into legislation is anyone’s guess. This uncertainty is unusual, to put it mildly,” the analyst wrote.
What is the impact of uncertainty? “Following the election, we reached out to industry practitioners for their perspectives on how uncertainty might play out. While some indicated that there shouldn’t be any changes because of the outcome of the election specifically—and that the health of the economy will drive advertising growth—others expressed a more cautious view,” Wieser noted. His best guess at this point is that the uncertainty will be a mild drag for the early part of 2017. So he’s expecting slow growth for ad spend early in the year, with the pace picking up as the year goes on.
By medium, Internet and TV-related advertising “remain the two most important media to focus on,” as Wieser says they should account for 39% and 32%, respectively, of all paid media spending in 2017, “with digital now a substantially bigger sector than television.”For 2017 he’s forecasting a 1% decline for television (excluding political and Olympics), with “slightly worse trends for local and slightly better trends for national.” At the same time, double-digit growth is expected to continue for Internet advertising, with Wieser forecasting a 13% gain in 2017.
Specifically, he’s forecasting a 2.2% decline for Local TV next year and a 0.6% increase for Local Cable. Local Newspaper ad revenues are expected to drop 15.2% and Local Radio 0.7%, while Local Digital is seen rising 7.1%. National Broadcast (English) is seen dropping 0.4% (Spanish +1.1%) and National Cable down 0.8%.
ADVERTISER NEWS
There have been slightly fewer automotive dealership transactions so far this year, 172 deals made through the end of September compared to 184 in 2015. As opposed to last year, most of this year’s deals have been made by private dealerships where last year the majority of the deals had large publicly-traded dealership groups buying. Dealership advisory Kerrigan Advisors says the market is currently “seller-driven” as some current owners look to sell out while the market is still strong……While AutoNation, Sonic Automotive, and Asbury Automotive are all in the process of starting used-vehicle only stores, CarMax looks to protect its position as the leader in used-only stores. The chain will finish this year with 15 more stores and plans to add another 13-16 in 2017. The number one retailer of used vehicles sold over 600,000 units in its latest fiscal year……Supermarket News reports there’s been mixed reaction to Albertson’s efforts to roll back self-service checkouts in favor of “face-to-face interactions with our customers.” Its various banners have added more express lanes and more personnel to compensate but claims customer satisfaction scores in the updated stores have risen……Look for brewers to become more aggressive pushing non-alcohol beer, as The Wall Street Journal reports Anheuser-Busch InBev, Heineken, and Carlsberg are all investing in new technology and marketing and distribution for brands such as Budweiser Prohibition Brew. With alcoholic brews largely a mature market, Carlsberg’s CEO said, “Nonalcoholic beer is growing three times faster than the overall beer market and offers some excellent margin opportunities”……Chico’s FAS same-store sales were down 4.9% with both customer counts and average sale down. But the company showed a profit for the quarter as its margin improved and it plans to continue its cost reduction initiatives……Urban Outfitters had blended same-store sales (including online) up 1%. But results varied by banner: Net sales were up 5.2% at Urban Outfitters, down 1.5% at Free People and down 2.7% at Anthropologie……J.D. Power’s annual survey of satisfaction with auto financing finds Bank of America tops among lenders not directly affiliated with the automotive brand, scoring an 854 ranking on a 1,000-point scale. Capital One, World Omni, Ally, and Chase also exceed the industry average for non-captive lenders. Power found that “understanding the deal” was a key to building customer satisfaction.
NETWORK NEWS
CBS has given a high-profile premiere time slot to its long-awaited reality series, Hunted. The series is based on a UK format in which ordinary people go on the run as fugitives and try to evade capture by an elite group of investigators. Hunted will premiere following the NFL’s AFC Championship Game on Sunday, January 22nd at 10 PM (ET). The program will then move to Wednesdays on January 25th with a two-hour special at 8 PM (ET), before settling into it regular Wednesday 8 PM (ET) spot, bridging the two cycles of Survivor……Quantico, the ABC Sunday night drama is moving to Monday 10 PM (ET) after the holiday break. The network announced the continuation of the second season will be on January 23rd in the slot currently occupied by Conviction. Recently, ABC opted not to order additional episodes of Conviction and capped the episodes at thirteen……The Buckeyes and ABC can both claim big wins from Saturday’s game between Ohio State and the Michigan Wolverines. The college football rivalry got a 10.4 overnight rating from Nielsen and ESPN’s stream added another 279,000 viewers in the average minutes. The 30-27 Ohio State victory was the best viewership of college football this season……The CW’s My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend picked up a nomination for the best long-form TV series from the nominating committee for the Gotham Awards. The nominees are selected by film critics, journalist, festival programmers and film curators…… The 90th Annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on NBC got its highest 18-49 rating in thirteen years this past Thursday. The Nielsen ratings from the top 25 markets show the overnight household rating at 13.5 with a 29 share, the best since 2003. That’s especially significant since CBS also airs the parade. CBS was the original home of the parade, beginning in 1948. NBC took over in 1952 and has been broadcasting the event every year since……NBC will broadcast live coverage of the 2017 Honda NHL All-Star Game from Staples Center in Los Angeles on Sunday, January 29. Coverage begins at 3:30 PM (ET). This is the first network-television broadcast of the NHL All-Star Game since 2004. The game was originally scheduled to be televised on NBCSN. Last year’s game on NBCSN was the network’s most-watched All-Star Game since NHL broadcast rights were acquired prior to the 2005-06 season.
SUNDAY RATINGS
It was NBC’s Sunday Night Football winning the night again with a 5.8 18-49 Nielsen rating for the Kansas City Chief’s 30-27 overtime victory over the Denver Broncos. NBC’s pre-game show, Football Night in America was second with a 3.1 demo rating. ABC saw some improvement from Once Upon a Time with a 1.0 rating, up a tenth from its last episode. Secrets and Lies and Quantico both finished flat for the night with a 0.7 rating. FOX ran mostly reruns for the night, but a new Bob’s Burgers drew a 1.1. CBS saw some erosion for NCIS:Los Angeles (1.4) and Madam Secretary (0.9), both down a tenth from last week, while 60 Minutes posted a 2.3 rating with an 8 PM (ET) delayed start.
P&G CHANGES AD STRATEGY
With Procter & Gamble now having divested most of the smaller brands it had announced were no longer seen as priorities, Advertising Age reports the company—once by far the dominant advertiser in television—is changing some of its media-buying tendencies.
Chief Brand Officer Marc Pritchard has set the new goal as “reach and continuity” with major brands such as Tide, Pampers and Febreze looking for a 10-20% increase in reach. Pritchard said P&G is “shifting to more broadly appealing television shows and also higher-reach digital platforms.” Ad Age notes some brand managers had been upset by “optimizer-driven buys that moved funds into thinly watched cable shows.”
As to scheduling, Pritchard is moving away from big monthly variances in weighting to “balanced spending more evenly across months and quarters to enable top-of-mind awareness year round.” Even a brand such as Vicks is moving dollars around as Pritchard noted “40% of colds actually happen outside of the winter.”
As it shed brands, P&G also shed agencies, cutting worldwide spending on agency fees and production from about $1.4 billion annually by about 30%.
CAN THERE BE TOO MUCH FOOTBALL ON TV?
Reports are surfacing that the NFL may take a close look at eliminating Thursday Night Football. The idea is being tossed around based on mounting criticism of the quality of every-week Thursday prime time football. A source with knowledge of the situation says that the league may be at least consider limiting the Thursday night games, or doing away with them completely. However, the league issued a statement Monday afternoon saying it is committed to TNF “and any reports to the contrary are unfounded.” That said, one idea circulating is starting a package on Thanksgiving and continuing through the end of the season, with games likely to generate broad interest selected in April for November and December programming. The current CBS and NBC contracts run through 2017, so any changes would not occur until the 2018 season.
SOCIAL DEALING BY TV GROUPS
Social News Desk (SND) a subsidiary of Graham Media Group, announced a long-term agreement with Meredith Corporation to provide social media publishing and social display at Meredith’s 14 broadcast and digital properties. The Meredith stations will use SND Dashboard for social publishing and analytics and will use the SND On Air display tool to place social content on TV during newscasts.
HOT MONTH FOR AUTOMOTIVE SALES
Black Friday specials gave a boost to automotive sales over the Thanksgiving weekend and put this month on track to record the most new vehicle sales ever for a November. The current record, set in 2001, was 1.33 million and all four forecasters tracked by Automotive News expect that record to fall when the manufacturers report their numbers on Thursday. As we reported yesterday, J.D. Power/LMC Automotive is projecting a decline on a selling-day adjusted basis, but in absolute numbers for total sales it is projecting a 5% increase. Both Kelley Blue book and Barclays Capital are estimating a 4% gain and Edmunds.com is the most conservative at 2.7%. With the increase, there is still a possibility that 2016 total sales will top the 2015 record.
With two more selling days this November than last, the seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of sales will be down. The forecasters are projecting a SAAR of 16.6-17.9 million, down from 17.98 million in October.
Based on data before the holiday weekend, Power/LMC said the average new-vehicle retail transaction price in November was at $31,645. That is a record for the month, surpassing the previous high of $31,397 set in November 2015.Trucks/SUVs were pacing at 62.7% of all new-vehicle retail sales in November.
THIS AND THAT
Mortgage rates have jumped this month, setting off a flurry of activity as borrowers fear rates may go even higher. The MortgageBankers Association reported for the week that ended on 11/18, applications for mortgages to buy a new home were 13% higher than the previous week and 11% higher than last year……Advertising Age reports 27 different automotive brands have been on the air between November 1 and Thanksgiving with about 40% of the creative devoted to Black Friday and promotional “events.” About 27% of the expenditures have gone into in-game NFL inventory……Here’s something you don’t see very often, a McDonald’s franchisee filing for bankruptcy protection. The Brown Customer Delight Group with six units in Iowa attributed problems to “increased competition from other fast-food restaurants” and also blamed McDonald’s itself for constructing more restaurants that took business away from BCDG’s locations. A restaurant consultant told Nation’s Restaurant News that in most cases where a franchisee is struggling, it’s more typical to sell locations to another franchisee than it is to file bankruptcy……Remember Jim McIngvale, the Houston furniture dealer who has returned millions of dollars to purchasers based on sports-based promotions such as how many games the Houston Astros would win in a season? Furniture Today reports his GalleryFurniture will pay back $10 million in refunds to more than 2,200 customers who bought mattresses in his latest promotion based on who would win the President election. It could have been worse, though—if Hillary Clinton had beaten Donald Trump, McIngvale would have owed $13 million to other customers. McIngvale says about these promotions: “It helps us build the brand. It’s all about constantly building the brand.”
DONE DEALS
Nexstar Broadcasting Group announced that Traci Scott Wilkinson has been named Vice President and General Manager of KASW (CW) and associated digital services in Phoenix. She was most recently Local Sales Manager of FOX-owned KSAZ (FOX)/KUTP (MNT) Phoenix and now returns to KASW where she previously served as Director of Sales for both the CW affiliate and formerly co-owned KTVK (Ind.).
AVAILS
Nexstar Broadcasting seeks an experienced Local Sales Manager for KCWI-TV in Des Moines, IA. This is a rare and exciting opportunity to join the fastest growing broadcast group in the country, and oversee the sales success of our CW operation in Des Moines. The LSM must create a positive culture for success in the areas of new, direct, transactional and digital revenue through the idea generation and execution. Bachelor’s degree or equivalent combination of education and work related experience required. CLICK HEREfor more info or to apply now. EOE/M/F/V/D
Spots n Dots and Cable Spots are looking for experienced television and cable managers and/or salespeople to write about the broadcast and cable advertising business for our popular newsletters.If you've had a successful career as a salesperson or sales manager, and can write fluently and professionally about core broadcast business, interactive platforms, digital, new business development, social media and new business categories, we'd like to hear from you.Our staff is expanding soon, so send your info in confidence now to .
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WNCN, CBS North Carolina has an immediate opening for a traffic liaison. The position supports the sales department with inventory management and maximization and is responsible for accurately and effectively maintaining logs and clearing oversells. The liaison also works closely with our central traffic hub double checking the dub list, looking for missing copy and going over the log once released to make sure there are no issues.CLICK HERE to get more info or to apply now. EOE M/F/V/D Background check and Drug screen required.
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Apple’s top designer has created a special Christmas tree that does not feature any lights or decorations. Said the designer, ‘I… didn’t know this was due today.’
--Seth Meyers
A new poll found that Donald Trump’s favorability rating is up eight points since being elected. Then Hillary said, ‘Yeah, I wouldn't trust the polls THAT much.’
--Jimmy Fallon
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SPOTS N DOTS
The Daily News Of TV Sales
November 29, 2016
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