 |
WHY ISN'T TV MORE...UPFRONT?
Open markets are a more sensible way to buy and sell
There’s a sign in the window of a small Deli on Eighth Avenue. It says "If you’re provolone you must be anti-pasto." Those words capture the competitive spirit of media. If you work TV, you bad-mouth the Internet and vice-versa. It’s not personal. It’s business.
|
|
|
|
THE MINUTE THAT TOOK MOST OF A YEAR
TV argues over a grown-up approach to buying
What if you threw a party and everyone came? That happened to the ARF on February 5. Between in-person and online there were 200-plus instead of the usual 40. The attraction was a treasure hunt -- the search for TV's elusive Commercial Minute.
|
|
|
|
HOUSE ODDS
Until Advertisers Know the Real Price of TV, They’ll Continue to Pay Too Much.
The failure of NUDG, David Verklin’s artfully named, ill-timed Network Upfront Discussion Group, to come up with an agenda for change shouldn’t fool anyone. It was the usual suspects, like asking the chickens to tidy-up the coop.
|
|
|
|
SUNSET BOULEVARD
TV Isn’t Show Business.
It’s an Overloaded Message Delivery System. And Curiously, Programs May be Part of the Problem.
Best practice, even when no longer best, has a fantasy life of its own. The TV upfront is no exception.
The fantasy is in the way we still obsess about programs and try to handicap the new TV season.
|
|
|
|
THE FIFTH SEASON
The Fascinating History Of The Upfront
If he were composing today, Vivaldi would write a fifth season, The New TV season. More abundant than Summer, brisker than Fall, more turbulent than Winter. A season punctuated by that two-week crescendo called the Upfront. Last Spring, close to $9 billion prime time dollars committed in weeks, at prices 8-to-15% higher, in a recession.
|
|
|
|
THE WONDER OF CPM
It’s the market’s best estimate of media value and markets tend to be smart.
Oscar Wilde described a cynic as “a man who knows the price of every-thing and the value of nothing.” Media sellers would say “that’s no man, that’s a media department.“
|
|
|
|
THE ROYAL BUZZ WAS ANGRY
TV Prices Too High? Think Les Miz.
The annual October meeting of the ANA is our congress of Kings, and this time the royal buzz was angry. Advertisers wanted to know why, in a recession, broadcast TV prices were so high?
For a proper answer we need to go back 200 years to a different King and an angrier buzz and think Les Miz. You know, “The people cry for bread, but there is no bread.” Bread was then -- as broadcast television is today -- a “Giffen Good.”
|
|
|
|
THE PARADOX OF THE AGGREGATE
Why this upfront was a shock to buyers and a gift to sellers.
Lord Maynard Keynes, the economist who invented deficit spending, would have understood this past TV upfront. Keynes once described a market where each person by trying to win, creates a situation where everyone loses. He called it “the paradox of the aggregate.”
|
|
|
|
CROSS PLATFORM
If It’s Media-Mix on a budget, it makes sense.
Everyone suspects Goliath, especially when he's selling too hard. Cross platform has that image problem. Buyers see much of it as a labored attempt to use market presence to increase price.
|
|
|
|
GODZILLA GOES CROSS-PLATFORM
Hey! Whatever Happened to Integrated Marketing?
The top 30 media companies, led by AOL Time-Warner, Disney, NBC, News Corp and Viacom, amassed revenues of close to $150 billion in 2000. They are now the dominant force in national advertising.
|
|
|
|
ORGANIZED CRIME KEEPS BETTER BOOKS
Big Money TV Negotiation Needs a Clearer Paper Trail
When General Electric bought NBC in 1986, its financial people were aghast at what they did not find in the files. More than a billion dollars on the books for that year, but not one agency-signed contract.
|
|
|
|
THE KVETCHERS
The Spot TV Sweeps Problem Can Be Solved, But Only by Changing the Way Agencies Buy Spot.
A kvetch is different from a grievance in that the kvetcher has no intention of doing anything to correct the problem.
|
|
|
|
A PRIZE WITHOUT HONOR
Is Buying Better Than the Competition As Good as Buying Well?
You could tell it was going to be a wild upfront. The heavy-hitters were nervous. When big agencies talk of "clout" and "concept deals" big agencies are afraid.
|
|
|
|
CLOUT. DOES EXIST? IS IT CONTAGIOUS?
Has it just blinked?
Is there such a thing as "clout" in buying television? Big agencies say "yes," smaller ones say "No." The argument is endless because they’re both right.
|
|
|
|
ARE HIGH-RATED SHOWS WORTH THE MONEY?
It depends on How Much Money You Have.
I had a neighbor who always spent more than he had. He was big man on the block until the police led him away. Some brands are like that with their media spending. They don't run Ferrari’s, they run Friends.
|
|
|
|
THE LONGER THE LIST, THE BETTER THE PLAN
A Print Plan is Only as Good as it’s Flow Chart.
Bob Fosse called it "flash." The eye-catcher, the head-turner, the dazzling display. Flash infects print planning.
|
|
|
