| | Media Buyer & Planner Today | | | | | | | | | #1 CBS to Televise New Pro Football League | | Filmmaker Charlie Ebersol, son of former NBC Sports Group chairman Dick Ebersol, and former NFL executive Bill Polian have announced plans to start a new professional football league, Alliance of American Football. The elder Ebersol will be on the new league's board of directors. The upstart league, slated to debut on Feb. 8, 2019, already has a TV rights deal with CBS. Plans call for CBS to televise the first week's games on the Saturday following its coverage of Super Bowl LIII. The initial game will air on CBS broadcast network, while the balance of the 10-week regular season schedule will run on cable outlet CBS Sports Network, according to Ad Age and other reports. The games will also be livestreamed for free via the league's app. Ebersol said the arrangement was a multiyear deal but gave no other specifics. Ebersol said the telecasts will include 60% less commercials than NFL games and there will be no scheduled television timeouts for commercial breaks. The game will stop when it naturally stops, Ebersol said. NFL games have 10 scheduled commercial pods per half. | | WHY THIS MATTERS: The AAF announcement comes two months after Vince McMahon announced plans to revive the XFL pro football league in February 2020. And interestingly, it was the elder Ebersol who helped McMahon get the initial XFL off the ground in 2001 before it failed a few years later. The new XFL does not have a TV distribution deal yet. CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus believes the new AAF has a chance to be successful because of the involvement of Ebersol and Polian. As for ad sales, that could be a tough sell. Ebersol and McManus may be thinking that if there are less commercial avails and viewership is high, the price they can charge for ads will be much higher. But with NFL viewership declining each year, it's curious as to why there is thinking that viewers will flock to this new league. | | Three Takes: Ad Age | CBS Sports | NYT | | | | #2 Why Marketers Should Target 50-Plus Viewers | | Patricia Lippe Davis, VP of marketing for AARP media sales, says Hollywood is embracing the 50-plus crowd and marketers need to take note. In a first-person article in Adweek, Davis points to TV studios and the broadcast networks bringing back 1980s and 1990s series reboots starring original cast members now in their 50s, 60s and even 70s. NBC brought back Will & Grace with its original cast and recently renewed it for next season. ABC is bringing back Roseanne with its full original cast. And CBS is bringing back Murphy Brown with 71-year-old star Candice Bergen, and also announced development of reboots for decades back hits Magnum, P.I. and Cagney and Lacey. And aging up is also evident with popular movies. Three of the four 2018 Oscar winners were over age 50. Davis says older viewers are interested in watching these shows and movies because they want to see themselves depicted on the screen. She adds that as people are working longer, they can still identify with older characters in workplace roles. | | WHY THIS MATTERS: With this trend happening, Davis believes marketers should be taking advantage and spending more time targeting 50-plus viewers than those in the 18-49 demo. And to back up her point, she cites data showing that the 50-plus demographic controls over 51% of all consumer spending. | | A Take: Adweek | | | | #3 GSD&M Retains Air Force | | Austin, Texas-based full-service ad agency GSD&M has successfully retained the United States Air Force creative account overseeing advertising and special events in support of active-duty recruitment at national, regional and local levels. Adweek reports that GSD&M, which has partnered with the Air Force for the past 17 years, will continue working on the account until Sept. 2027. The account is valued at roughly $741 million over the full-course of the contract. GSD&M CEO Duff Stewart says of the agency's mission: "What we have to do is figure out ways to communicate in today's environment," pointing out that audiences today "get their information differently than they did 17 years ago" when the agency first won the account. | | WHY THIS MATTERS: GSD&M retain the account following a "competitive selection process," although no details were released. GSD&M's Air Force account defense comes following its fourth consecutive year of creating a Super Bowl commercial for client Avocados From Mexico. It has also been giving creative exposure in commercials for Harry's Shave Club and Northwestern Mutual. | | Two Takes: Adweek | MediaPost | |
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| | 19 | | Percentage of U.S. senior level decision makers who have selected a Blockchain vendor, according to a survey by PointSource. That compares with 72% who either are just in the discovery phase (42%) or who are considering possible vendors (30%). Other emerging technologies are also slow to be adopted. Only 21% have selected an artificial intelligence vendor, while 27% have adopted facial-recognition technologies and a similar 27% have instituted voice-activated technologies at their companies. | – Reported by eMarketer
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| | Primetime Ratings: NBC Takes Title Despite Dips | by Michael Malone
NBC won the Tuesday ratings race, The Voice helping the network to a 1.5 in viewers 18-49, according to Nielsen's overnights, and a 6 share. That easily beat the 0.9/4 put up by runner-up ABC.
The Voice did a 2.1, down a tenth of a point from last week, and drama Rise fell 15% to 1.1; that had a This Is Us lead-in when it premiered. Chicago Med was off 14% to 1.2.
On ABC, The Middle grew 18% to 1.3 and Fresh Off the Boat went up 11% to 1.0. Black-ish did a 1.1 (it rated a 0.9 and 0.8 with a double run last week) and Modern Family was a repeat. Drama For the People lost 25% from its premiere for a 0.6. CBS did a 0.7/3 with repeats.
Fox was at 0.6/2, with a Lethal Weapon repeat, then LA to Vegas at 0.6 and The Mick at 0.7, both comedies flat.
Univision and Telemundo both scored a 0.5/2.
The CW was at 0.4/1. A repeat of The Flash aired, then Black Lightning tallied a level 0.5. | |
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| • MARTA MARTINEZ was named director of agency platforms at Google, MediaPost reports. She was previously chief revenue officer at Intersection, a consortium behind LinkNYC, the free public Wi-Fi network which is owned by a group of investors including Sidewalk Labs, which is part of Google parent Alphabet company. She also served as senior VP of AOL Advertising, as senior VP of MediaMath and as senior VP of strategic partnerships at Havas Digital.
• DOMINIQUE DELPORT is leaving his position as global managing director and chief client officer at Havas to join Vice Media in May in the newly created position of head of international operations, it was first reported by Variety. He has been with Havas for more than 17 years but is not expected to be replaced.
• GUILLAUME LELAIT was promoted to U.S. chief executive officer at Dentsu Aegis Network agency Fetch. He was previously U.S. managing director and prior to that was a group account director at Fetch London.
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| 20th Annual Multichannel News Wonder Women Luncheon
March 22, 2018 | New York, NY
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Advanced Advertising Summit – Spring Edition
March 26, 2018 | New York, NY
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Multicultural Television Summit
April 3, 2018 | New York, NY
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Technology Leadership Awards at NAB
April 9, 2018 | Las Vegas, NV
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Digital Media Tech Leadership Summit
June 5-6, 2018 | Tampa, FL
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The Programmatic Summit
June 7, 2018 | New York, NY
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