If you follow the TV trade press, you'll know that the news of ad deals for the 2012-13 broadcast season has begun to appear, "The CW Wraps Up Upfront Sales As Others Head Into Home Stretch"
A few things to keep in mind as you read those ad upfront reports:
- It's all unaudited (and usually unattributed) boasting.* It's in the best interests of the networks to get "news" of price increases out into the marketplace. Those pesky audited financial statements that appear later aren't usually bothered with by the entertainment press.
- When the volume of the product you're selling (adults 18-49 viewers) declines from year to year, you need price increases as big as your viewership declines just to keep revenue stable!
* Again, I'd love to claim credit for "unaudited boasting", but I cribbed it from Ad Age's Michael Learmonth.
I’m still confused about what you mean about the auditing. Can you dive into a more in-depth explanation of how that effects things?
Steve-0, nobody sees the deals or how much they were for except the involved parties. the info isn’t audited/verifiable.
More interesting to me (but equally uninteresting in the scheme of things)is the GM/Fox squabble where GM has refused to pay Fox’s primetime rates unless it cuts pricing and Fox is withholding availability of spots in NFL games unless GM gives up its primetime demands.
Speaking of CW new trailers just came out
Arrow – Extended Preview
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaq6S_Hcwn4&feature=player_embedded
Emily Owens, M.D. – Extended Preview
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5fZ7dsRbne0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5NtHobNVFk
This trailer is a mash up of all of the 2012-2013 CW shows.
That trailer of Emily Owens M.D. does make the show seem better. It seems like from this preview this show will be focused a lot more on the doctor work than Heart of Dixie was.
I’d like to know more about make-goods.
Are the conditions of make-goods, such as time-slot, day, or week, written into the initial upfront contracts?
If I bought ad time for one commercial during episode 5 of “Lone Star,” would my commercial have aired on the replacement program in the time-slot?
“you need price increases as big as your viewership declines just to keep revenue stable!”
“The youth-oriented network was able to raise its cost-per-thousand (CPM) price by about 7%”
“CW is sixth with a 0.8 rating average (down 16% vs. last season).”
So it’s still losing out significantly in terms of ad revenue according to these reports?