via Broadcasting & Cable:
Top-rated syndicated shows came out strong from this year's syndication upfront, with costs-per-thousand (CPMs) for syndication's top tier—such as Oprah,Entertainment Tonight, Two and a Half Men and Family Guy—dropping just 2%-4% compared to last year. Lower-tier shows were down 5%-12%, according to syndication and agency sources. Syndication's blended CPMs were down 4%-5%.
“This was a flight to quality like I've never seen before,” says one syndication executive. “People probably had a really difficult time once they got past their top-tier shows.”
Much like the broadcast and cable networks, syndication's sales volume was down 10%-20% overall. In 2008, syndication reaped $2.4 billion in upfront sales, a 4.5% increase from 2007. Accordingly, this year's upfront take should approach $2 billion.
Robert,
Any thoughts on why? Just the recession or something a little deeper?
Not really. The recession has been brutal to advertising across the board. While there may be other contributing factors I’d guess the next biggest contributor is a very, very distant second. Sadly, we don’t get enough syndicated ratings data on a show by show level or cumulatively to do much analysis. Sure, Oprah’s ratings in the summer reruns are hitting new lows, but some shows are up, so it’s hard to say.
The trend had been, up until this year, that even with diminishing ratings, the shows with the biggest scale still commanded advertising increases, not decreases. For this season, commanding only 2%-4% less seems to be the new increase.