| | Media Buyer & Planner Today | | | | | | | | | #1 Discovery, Scripps Ready Unified Upfront Approach | | After the closing of the Discovery deal to acquire Scripps Networks Interactive last week, the newly combined company is working to come up with a unified sales approach for the upfront ad selling season. Scripps' Jon Steinlauf, who was named chief advertising sales officer for the combined company, will oversee upfront ad sales. The new Discovery Inc. will hold upfront events in Detroit (March 20), Atlanta (March 27), New York (April 10), Chicago (April 17) and Los Angeles (April 25), with smaller events in Boston (March 22 and Minneapolis (April 19). The upfront theme will be "Advertising Works Here." | | WHY THIS MATTERS: The two companies individually have had different ad sales strategies. Discovery has been easier to do deals with. Scripps, as one ad buyer says, "typically working from a place of strength" has traditionally been less flexible. Scripps advertising has worked well for marketers because a lot of its programming is watched live with less fast-forwarding, Broadcasting & Cable reports. It also carries more first-run programming year around and lifestyle programming viewers tend to be more interested in commercials. It will be interesting to see if and how past ad sales strategies work under the same umbrella. | | Three Takes: Adweek | B&C | Ad Age | | | | #2 Why Video Autoplay Ads Will Persist | | Despite gripes that it harms user experience, autoplay video is going to stick around, according to a Digiday report. And that may be the case even with browsers like Google Chrome and Safari having developed filters to block intrusive ads. To quell some user complaints, most publisher sites have muted their autoplay. In fact, according to a Digiday survey of more than 50 publishers, 60% use muted autoplay to boost digital video views. The question is -- Are advertisers happy with muted autoplay that could hurt awareness or purchase intent of their ads? Thing is, publishers don't have much incentive to prioritize click to play ads over muted autoplay since the CPM rates are about the same. | | WHY THIS MATTERS: Publishers realize autoplay is an intrusion on user experience but they aren't going to eliminate it unless enough advertisers and agencies complain and stop buying it. "It's a shit experience whether you mute it or not," one publishing executive tells Digiday. But he adds, "We're all mercenary." | | A Take: Digiday | | | | #3 Publishers Abandoning Facebook for Pinterest | | With Facebook establishing new and more restrictive guidelines for its news feed, more publishers are taking a fresh look at Pinterest, Digiday reports. While Pinterest still carries content from a small number of publishers compared to some of the other social media giants, the platform has been growing its relationship with publishers. The online scrapbooking platform represented nearly 8% of publishers' social traffic in the second half of 2017, up from 4.5% in the first half of 2016, according to Shareaholic. It claims to have about 200 million active monthly users, primarily women, which makes it suitable for lifestyle publishers. And Pinterest can then sell ads in conjunction with that content. | | WHY THIS MATTERS: The more varied the publishers and their content on Pinterest, the better it is for marketers who want to tie into that content. And Pinterest is drawing some large publishers. "Pinterest is a major focus for us," says Regina Buckley, general manager of lifestyle and senior VP of digital operations and business development for Meredith. "Pinterest is interested in being a real partner to us. They want to work together to grow both our businesses. That is something I can't say of all our distribution sources." | | A Take: Digiday | |
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| | 4.07 | | Dollars in billions spent by marketers on cable television news advertising in 2017, according to a Standard Media Index analysis of data which it conducted for Research Intelligencer. That was up 8.7% from 2016. Fox News had the largest share of advertising revenue among the cable news networks, with 36%, followed by CNN with 31% and MSNBC with 13%. | – Reported by MediaPost
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| | ABC Wins With 'American Idol' | by Michael Malone
ABC took the Sunday ratings prize with its revamped American Idol premiere, scoring a 1.7 in viewers 18-49, and a 7 share. That easily beat the 1.0/4 that O.J. Simpson-fueled Fox put up.
America's Funniest Home Videos was up a tenth of a point at 1.1 on ABC before American Idol rated a 2.3, with 10.3 million total viewers. Its last premiere, on Fox in 2016, rated a 3.0, with just shy of 11 million total viewers. Katy Perry, Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan are the new judges on Idol.
Drama Deception premiered to a 1.3 for ABC.
Fox had Bob's Burgers at 0.7, then O.J. Simpson: The Lost Confession? at 1.2.
CBS and NBC both did a 0.8/3. CBS had a pair of 60 Minutes up a tenth of a point from last week at 0.9 and NCIS: Los Angeles at 0.9, then Madam Secretary at 0.6, both dramas flat with their last fresh airings.
On NBC, American Ninja Warrior: USA vs. the World scored a 0.9 and second season premiere of drama Timeless rated a 0.8. Timeless' series premiere did a 1.9 in October 2016.
Univision did a 0.5/2 and Telemundo a 0.4/1. | |
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| • FRED SALDANHA was named executive creative director at Arnold. He was previously ECD at digital agency Huge, and prior to that was chief creative director at Isobar in Sao Paulo and in New York. He also served as ECD at Ogilvy Brazil.
• MARK CLARK has left his position as a marketing analytics executive at Unilever amid an investigation into sexual harassment allegations, according to assorted media reports.
• BRUCE GERSH was promoted to president of Meredith Corp.'s People, People en Espanol and Entertainment Weekly, where he will oversee sales and marketing, along with print, digital and video content. He was also elevated to executive VP of Meredith. Gersh was previously general manager of the three publications and senior VP of strategy and brand business development at Meredith.
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| Technology Leadership Summit
February 28 – March 1, 2018 | Raleigh, NC
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20th Annual Multichannel News Wonder Women Luncheon
March 22, 2018 | New York, NY
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March 26, 2018 | New York, NY
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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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