FAST TRACK
Sales target is $900 million
By Staff -- Broadcasting & Cable, 12/18/2005 7:00:00 PM
Items:
NBC: Olympic Ads Nearly Sold Out
Sales Blitz Looms For 'Housewives,' 'Lost,' 'Anatomy'
DirecTV Settles $10 Million In Complaints
CBS, HBO Ring Up Content Deals
Telemundo News Chief Exiting
NBC U Scorecard
NBC: Olympic Ads Nearly Sold Out
NBC has added four new Olympic sponsors and says it has sold close to 90% of its advertising inventory for the upcoming 2006 Torino Winter Games.
New advertisers include AT&T, Exxon Mobil, DHL and Lenovo. NBC's sales target is $900 million, and the network expects to reach most of that total prior to the Feb. 10 Opening Ceremonies. A typical 30-second spot in prime time on NBC's Olympic broadcasts costs about $700,000.
NBC Sports & Olympics Senior VP of Sales and Marketing Peter Lazarus says the network will announce additional deals in coming weeks, with new advertisers expected to include movie studios. “Some of the money arrived late, but we are optimistic about where we will finish,” he says. “Some people have seen a perceived weakness, but this will be the most successful Olympics [from a sales standpoint] for NBC.”
The network expects to hold back about $20 million worth of ad inventory, which is used for post-Opening Ceremonies sales and to have a reserve for make-goods if necessary. That figure is similar to what was held back—and subsequently sold—by NBC during the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City.
A first quarter in an Olympic year is extremely competitive in the ad game: Besides the Olympics, buyers' event choices include the Super Bowl, Daytona 500, Academy Awards and NCAA basketball tournament.
Visa, a Super Bowl buyer for the past 10 years and a 20-year Olympic sponsor, is back with the Olympics this year but undecided on the Super Bowl. The rate for a 30-second spot on ABC's Super Bowl broadcast this year is reportedly nearly $2.5 million.
“There are so many choices in the month of February,” says Visa spokesperson Michael Rolnick, “that companies need to step back and really take a sophisticated look at how they want to do their media planning.”
Sales Blitz Looms For 'Housewives,' 'Lost,' 'Anatomy'
Following the lead of Desperate Housewives, Buena Vista Television (BVT) is pulling a tease of its own to woo potential off-network cable buyers for its three biggest series to be sold in syndication.
It has recently approached female-skewing cable networks with deep pockets—including Lifetime (50% owned by Disney) and Turner—with light, pre-sales presentations for Touchstone Television's Housewives, Lost and Grey's Anatomy.
A potential buyer calls the “tire-kicking” sessions, which have been void of formal pitch or price, a way for BVT to ignite a bidding war for the sophomore trio of hits, which are still attracting monster ratings on ABC.
Grey's, which premiered last spring, is possibly the most valuable of the three to BVT, with a larger number of closed-ended episodes, which traditionally perform better in syndication, than its more serialized Housewives and Lost companions.
ABC left the Sunday-night sex-and-surgery drama out of its iTunes deal with Apple. By offering one less distribution window, Disney could be hoping to enhance the syndication value of a potentially lucrative series. On Feb.14, the abbreviated first season of Grey's will be released on DVD.
An all-out syndication sales blitz is expected to begin soon, with Housewives and Lost hitting stations as early as fall 2008 and Grey's coming the following year. Cable-network windows traditionally come much earlier for dramas, with some networks willing to pay a premium in exchange for greater exclusivity. Male-skewing crime dramas have been fetching $1 million-$2 million per episode (and a record $2.5 million for The Sopranos).—Jim Benson
DirecTV Settles $10 Million In Complaints
DirecTV has agreed to pay $5.335 million to settle a do-not-call list–violation complaint lodged by the Justice Department for the Federal Trade Commission.
The FTC says it is the largest civil penalty ever obtained in a consumer-protection case.
It also came a day after DirecTV agreed to pay $5 million to New York and 21 other states, plus more in restitution to consumers, to settle complaints against its marketing practices.
DirecTV denied any violations of the telemarketing rules but paid the money and agreed not to repeat the unwanted calls.
“Telemarketers calling on behalf of DirecTV contacted consumers on the National DNC Registry. In addition, the complaint alleges that one of the telemarketers—Global Satellite, directly or through another entity—abandoned calls to consumers by failing to put a live sales representative on the line within two seconds after the called consumer completes his or her greeting, as required under the law.
“Finally, the complaint alleged that DirecTV provided substantial assistance and support to Global Satellite, even though it knew, or consciously avoided knowing, that Global Satellite was violating the TSR.”
DirecTV, which is owned by News Corp., has agreed not to violate the rules and to fire anyone who makes cold calls without express permission. DirecTV was not making the calls itself but hiring outside marketers to sell its satellite-TV service.
In addition, DirecTV agreed to set up a complaint department, record the complaints and make the records available to the FTC, as well as to take a number of other affirmative steps to screen its marketing contractors. —John Eggerton
CBS, HBO Ring Up Content Deals
CBS has struck another mobile-phone content deal, this time targeting a more youthful demo and a brand-new company that will get content from CBS and younger-skewing sibling UPN.
Like its first such deal last week with Verizon, CBS will make available to start-up Amp'd Mobile behind-the-scenes footage, interviews, previews and other footage from prime time and late-night shows, including exclusive rights to such content from UPN's biggest hit, America's Next Top Model.
CBS content will include CSI: NY, Numb3rs, The King of Queens and Late Night With David Letterman, while UPN content will also come from Everybody Hates Chris and Girlfriends.
The content will be available later this month, when Amp'd launches its service, which it describes as combining voice and text with channels of video content, all targeted to “youth, young professionals and early adopters.” Amp'd is partly owned by Vivendi Universal.
Elsewhere, HBO will feed clips from its series, specials and sports programming as part of a new on-demand streaming-video service to be launched early next year by Cingular Wireless for high-speed phones.
HBO will also produce exclusive mobile content for the service from Cingular, the only wireless provider HBO says it is teaming with. —J.E./Anne Becker
Telemundo News Chief Exiting
Telemundo's network news chief will leave the company at the end of the year.
Joe Peyronnin, executive VP of news and information, has been with the company for six years. Under his watch, Telemundo News created successful news programs such as Al Rojo Vivo. He also managed international news operations and directed Telemundo's 113 hours of commercial-free 9/11 coverage.
In a note to staffers, Peyronnin said that, after commuting between New York and the network's Miami headquarters, he wants to rejoin his family in New York full-time. In a separate message, CEO Don Browne hailed Peyronnin's contributions to the network, saying he “was an integral part in making Telemundo News into a top-notch journalistic team.” —Allison Romano
NBC U Scorecard
NBC Universal reshuffled the executive ranks inside the television group last week, and Jeff Zucker, formerly president of NBC Universal Television Group, came out on top. He is now CEO of NBC Universal TV. Randy Falco, who was president of NBC Universal Television Networks Group, is promoted to president/COO, and former NBC publicity chief and GE marketing exec Beth Comstock is returning to head digital media and marketing. At the same time, NBC Universal Chairman Bob Wright is paring down his roster of direct reports. Here is a glimpse of the new-look NBC Universal TV:
Bob Wright, NBC U chairman/General Electrics vice chairman
Jeff Zucker, CEO, NBC U Television (reporting to Wright)
Randy Falco, president/COO, NBC U Television (reporting to Zucker)
Beth Comstock, President, NBC U Digital Media and Market Development (reporting to Wright)
Reporting to Zucker:
Angela Bromstad, president, NBC U Television Studio
Steve Capus, president, NBC News
Dick Ebersol, chairman, NBC U Sports and Olympics
Jeff Gaspin, president, NBC U Cable Entertainment and Digital Content
Mark Graboff, executive VP, NBC U Television Group
Mark Hoffman, president, CNBC
Rebecca Marks, executive VP, NBC Entertainment and NBC U Cable PR
Kevin Reilly, president, NBC Entertainment
Reporting to Falco:
Don Browne, president, Telemundo Network
Bruce Campbell, executive VP, NBC U Business Development
John Damiano, senior VP, Affiliate Relations
John DeWald, VP, Network Operations
John Eck, president/CIO, NBC U Media Works
Frederick Huntsberry, president, TV Distribution and International Operations
Jay Ireland, president, NBC and Telemundo Stations
Ed Swindler, executive VP, Pricing
Keith Turner, president, Sales and Marketing
David Zaslav, president, NBC U Cable
Reporting to Comstock:
John Miller, chief marketing officer, Television Group and President, NBC Agency
Anna Perez, executive VP, Communications
Deborah Reif, president, Digital Media
Alan Wurtzel, president, TV Research and Media Development
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