| Today's Top Stories | | #1 | McDonald's Blames Ads For Weak Sales, Puts Agencies On Notice
| | | The fast food giant is not happy with the returns on its $1.4 billion annual U.S. ad spending and CEO Don Thompson told analysts that he wants creative agencies Leo Burnett and DDB to step up their work, Ad Age reports. One analyst said there is some internal thought at McDonald's to put the creative business up for review, although a chain spokeswoman denied that.
Why This Matters: Same store sales in the U.S. for third quarter grew by less than 1% but the fast food category is a competitive business and heavy ad challengers Wendy's and Burger King, among others, have the golden arches in their sights.
A Take: Ad Age
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| | #2 | Nielsen, National Retail Federation See Smaller Black Friday Store Crowds
| | | The NRF predicts about 140 million people will shop on Thanksgiving night, compared to 147 million last year. Nielsen predicts fewer shoppers will actually visit stores on Black Friday, with 13% of all shoppers planning to visit stores, compared to 17% last year. But Nielsen says 46% plan to shop online, up from 30% last year, and that overall the Thanksgiving holiday season could result in 2% stronger sales overall.
Why This Matters: Regardless of predictions, retailers already realize they are going to have to pull out all the stops to get their share of sales. One of the latest gimmicks: An offer of Black Friday prices a week before Black Friday.
Two Takes: MediaPost | USA Today
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| | #3 | Measurement Hurdles Hamper Growth Of Outdoor Digital Billboards
| | | The Outdoor Advertising Federation says there are about 4,000 digital billboards in the U.S. but the difficulties of tracking audiences who see them make it hard for agencies to use programmatic buying that would not only allow targeting but also speed up the process.
Why This Matters: Patrick Bonomo of WPP's Spafax Networks tells Ad Age he'd like 10% of WPP's spending on out-of-home to go through programmatic buying, but right now it's only about 4%. The solution may be for digital billboard companies to work out tracking deals with mobile phone companies who can measure the number of consumers who in the areas of each digital billboard.
A Take: Ad Age
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#4 Bacardi Campaign Focuses On Brand's History To Reach Millennials (NY Times)
#5 Advice For Making Mobile Ads Better (Digiday)
#6 NBC Considering Programmatic Ad Buying For Its Digital Video Content (Ad Age)
#7 Marketers, Consumers Differ On Best Methods For Brand Messaging (eMarketer)
#8 Papa John's Launches Creative Agency Review (Ad Age)
#9 Larger Phone Screens Lead To More Mobile Content Use (MediaPost)
#10 NFL, MLB Join Broadcasters in Supreme Court Case Against Aereo (Variety)
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|  | • 97
Percentage of adults ages 50-75 who go online daily, according to computer security software company McAfee.
– Reported by eMarketer
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| | MBPT Spotlight | For Monday Night, Change Is the Only Constant—Key lineup shifts—and a certain singing show—have altered the early-week landscape for broadcast-network primetime
By Tim Baysinger
Monday night is traditionally a mighty tough programming challenge for the broadcast networks each season, as they face heavy competition from ESPN's Monday Night Football, which averages more than 13 million viewers per week.
Given all the pressure, it's no surprise that there's been a real jockeying for position among the Big Four broadcasters. NBC, which pulled a worst-to-first turnaround on Mondays over the last couple of years, has a different challenger in its rearview: Fox, which has passed CBS in the all-important 18-49 demo race. CBS' once-bulletproof lineup is now surprisingly vulnerable, and ABC remains fourth.
Fox's Monday success this fall can be tied to the mega-boost it's getting from rookie drama Sleepy Hollow, which is performing much better than last year's flatlining The Mob Doctor.
Mob Doctor averaged just above a 1.0 in the 18-49 demo and roughly 4 million total viewers last fall, compared to Sleepy Hollow's 2.9 rating with a little more than 8 million total viewers.
Sleepy Hollow represents another triumph for Fox with limited-order drama series, following last season's midseason entrant The Following, which itself averaged a 2.9 demo rating and 7.9 million total viewers in the same Monday time slot.
On Nov. 18, Fox will premiere the new J.J. Abrams drama, Almost Human, about futuristic cops who partner with lifelike robots, in place of Bones, which has drawn a solid if unspectacular 2.1 demo rating at 8 p.m. Almost Human's Monday time slot debut follows its season premiere on Nov. 17.
"I think that is a show that could work really well with Sleepy Hollow," Brad Adgate, Horizon Media research director, says of Almost Human.
How have Monday lineup shifts changed the CBS ratings equation? And how has NBC's The Voice continued to alter the landscape?
For more, click HERE
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| | Fates & Fortunes | • RICH GRAZIANO was named president/general manager of WPIX New York, a CW affiliate. He succeeds Eric Meyrowitz and reports to Larry Wert, president of broadcast media for parent Tribune Co. Graziano was most recently publisher, president and CEO of the Hartford Courant and prior to that was VP and general manager of WTIC-WCCT Hartford. NANCY MEYER was named president of the Hartford Courant, succeeding Graziano in that role.
• ALLISON PAGE was named general manager of Scripps Networks Interactive home category. She was most recently senior programming executive at Scripps' Food Network and Cooking Channel. Scripps Networks Interactive home category includes cable networks HGTV, DIY Network, Great American Country and their associated websites and digital properties. Page joined Scripps Networks in 2001 as a programming manager for Food Network. Prior to that she worked at independent production companies that produced programming for Discovery, A&E and Lifetime, and was also an associate producer at CBS News' Sunday Morning.
• KENNY MITCHELL was named managing director of brand and consumer marketing at NASCAR, where he will be charged with helping target the youth, millennial and multicultural audience segments. He joins NASCAR from the Dew Tour, which is a unit of Alli Sports and the NBC Sports Group, where he was VP and general manager. Prior to that he held sports marketing positions at Pepsico and also was director of sports marketing at Gatorade.
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| | What They're Watching | BROADCAST RATINGS
'Almost Human' Premieres Strong Out of Football
Fox premiered its new sci-fi drama Almost Human to a solid rating. The drama from J.J. Abrams was on par with Fox's two recent drama premieres in Sleepy Hollow and The Following. The series makes its time slot debut Monday at 8 p.m. Airing at 9 p.m., The Simpsons was even with last week and Family Guy was up two tenths from last week. With NFL football during the 7 p.m. hour, Fox finished in second. NBC won the night. Football Night in America drew its highest fast-affiliate rating of the season. CBS was in third. The Amazing Race dipped 9%, while The Good Wife fell 18%. The Mentalist inched down a tenth. ABC rounded out the evening. Once Upon a Time fell two tenths, Revenge rose 15% and Betrayal upticked a tenth.
For more, click HERE
CABLE RATINGS
'Thursday Night Football' Blitzes Cable
NFL's Thursday Night Football matchup, which saw the Colts narrowly beat the Titans 30-27, topped the evening's cable pack with a 2.4 adults 18-49 rating and 6.4 million viewers. Adult Swim's airings of Family Guy at 11:30 and 11 p.m. came in second and third with 1.2 and 1.1 in the demo and 2.4 and 2.3 million viewers, respectively.
For more, click HERE
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| Overnight Ratings: Sunday, November 17
| | 8 PM | | NET | SHOW | A18-49
Rating | TOTAL VIEWERS
(MILLIONS) | NBC
| FOOTBALL NIGHT IN AMERICA (8:00)
NFL - CHIEFS VS. BRONCOS (8:30)
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6.9
9.6
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20.0
27.2
| FOX
| ALMOST HUMAN
| 3.1
| 9.1
| CBS
| THE AMAZING RACE
| 2.0
| 9.1
| ABC
| ONCE UPON A TIME
| 1.9
| 6.6
| UNIVISION
| MIRA QUIÉN BAILA
| 1.1
| 3.3
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| | 9 PM | | NET | SHOW | A18-49
Rating | TOTAL VIEWERS
(MILLIONS) | NBC
| NFL - CHIEFS VS. BRONCOS
| 9.4
| 26.4
| FOX
| THE SIMPSONS (9:00)
FAMILY GUY (9:30)
| 1.8
2.2
| 4.1
4.3
| ABC
| REVENGE
| 1.5
| 5.7
| CBS
| THE GOOD WIFE
| 1.4
| 9.6
| UNIVISION
| MIRA QUIÉN BAILA
| 1.4
| 3.9
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| | 10 PM | | NET | SHOW | A18-49
Rating | TOTAL VIEWERS
(MILLIONS) | NBC
| NFL - CHIEFS VS. BRONCOS
| 8.7
| 22.6
| CBS
| THE MENTALIST
| 1.3
| 9.5
| UNIVISION
| SAL Y PIMIENTA
| 1.1
| 3.1
| ABC
| BETRAYAL
| 0.9
| 3.3
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| | TOMORROW'S BIG RATINGS STORIES TODAY | • 'Mike & Molly' Makin' Everybody Happy, Except 'Mom'
CBS returned this fourth year sitcom to its Monday night lineup at 9 p.m. two weeks ago and the series has averaged 9 million viewers and a 2.5 18-49 demo rating, just about what it averaged last season (8.7 million viewers, 2.6 demo rating). Bringing the series back and moving 2 Broke Girls up to 8:30 p.m. has helped the latter series, but it has not done much to help the show that leads out of it, freshman sitcom Mom. In the two weeks since it has been leading out of Mike & Molly, Mom has averaged about the same 7.2 million viewers it did leading out of 2 Broke Girls, but its 18-49 demo rating has slipped from a 2.2 season average to a 2.0 and then a 1.9 the past two weeks. The upshot: The return of Mike & Molly has clearly helped CBS' Monday night comedy block but it has had little effect on Mom. That's a mystery since they both have a medium age audience of 52 and Mom is the only broadcast network show that begins at 9:30 p.m.
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| • A New Lead-In Show Rides In For 'Sleepy Hollow'
The Fox Monday night at 9 freshman sci-fi drama Sleepy Hollow gets a more compatible lead-in this Monday night when another freshman series, the futuristic police drama Almost Human joins the lineup at 8 p.m. The new series premiered in a special showing on Sunday night at 8 and moves to its regular time period Monday night. The audience flow should be seamless and Almost Human drew 9.1 million viewers and a 3.1 18-49 demo number in the overnight ratings in its premiere on Sunday, so Fox is hoping all those viewers and maybe some more will return tonight. Sleepy Hollow has averaged 7.1 million viewers and a 2.5 18-49 demo rating so far this season. The upshot: Fox's move to relocate veteran drama Bones out of the 8 p.m. time period on paper seems like a good one, because of the potential compatibility of Almost Human and Sleepy Hollow. But the way Fox's schedule is set up with all comedies on Tuesday and The X Factor on for two hours each on Wednesday and Thursday, the only place it could move Bones to was low TV viewing Friday. Hopefully that won't damage that series too much. It was having another solid season on Monday nights.
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| • Beverly Hills Housewives Down Keeping It Real
The fourth season of Bravo's reality series Real Housewives of Beverly Hills returned to its Monday night schedule at 8 p.m. two weeks ago and drew 1.6 million viewers and a 0.8 18-49 demo rating. Last week it drew almost identical numbers. While the numbers are the same as the series was drawing at the end of its third season last March, it is down from last season's average of 1.6 million viewers and a 0.9 18-49 demo rating, which included a high of 2.5 million earlier in season three. But the series, one of several "Real Housewives" shows on Bravo, is still pulling in solid viewership numbers for cable. Season four returns three Housewives who have appeared in all four seasons—Lisa Vanderpump, and Kim and Kyle Richards—aunts of Paris Hilton. Returning from season three are Brandi Glanville and Yolanda Foster. Meanwhile, Carlton Gebbia and Joyce Giraud de Ohoven come aboard as new Housewives for season four. The upshot: It seems there are still Bravo viewers who enjoy these nighttime soap opera-type reality dramas.
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