Notice more TV ads lately? You’re not imagining it. The amount of commercial time on cable TV keeps increasing as networks try to make up for shrinking audiences by stuffing more ads into every hour of television. That’s despite years of promises to cut back on ads. Last quarter, commercial time rose 1 percent, according to Michael Nathanson, an analyst at MoffettNathanson LLC. After declining in 2017, the volume of ads increased every quarter last year and expanded again in the first half of 2019, he says. Fox was the only major cable network group to lower its ads last quarter, cutting them by 2 percent, according to Nathanson’s analysis. As TV viewership declines and more consumers jump to streaming services like Netflix, media companies have only a couple of options to generate the advertising revenue that Wall Street expects: They can raise prices, run more commercials or do a little of both. “Look at the decline in ratings,” Nathanson says. “Everyone’s got pressure to make their quarterly numbers. Long-term, it’s a very bad decision, but you don’t want to miss your numbers and have your stock go down.” Media companies are adding more commercials because sponsors are more sensitive to price increases than to clutter, says Brian Wieser, global president of business intelligence at the advertising giant GroupM. And if a TV network were to cut the time allotted for commercials, it would need to boost advertising rates to make up the difference—a tough sell if... Continue reading at 'Advertising Age'
[ Advertising Age | 2019-08-02 17:18:39 UTC ]
Mere weeks after activist investor Elliott Management publicly pressed AT&T to slash costs and dial down its acquisitions strategy, it appears as if Chairman-CEO Randall Stephenson has knuckled under to those demands. Speaking today on AT&T’s third-quarter earnings call, Stephenson laid... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2019-10-28 20:32:03 UTC ]
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AT&T will review its portfolio for assets it can sell off, pay down debt related to its Time Warner acquisition and add 2 board members as part of a plan to boost results Continue reading at ABC News
[ ABC News | 2019-10-28 15:17:23 UTC ]
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When speaking to the investor community for the first time about Peacock, Steve Burke didn’t exactly fling open the metaphorical kimono. In response to analysts’ queries about the nascent streaming service, the NBCUniversal CEO said his team is keeping details about the pricing and promotion of... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2019-10-24 19:47:42 UTC ]
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Telecommunications giant Spectrum Inc. is investing nearly $2 million in a Northern Kentucky facility ahead of a push to hire on 300 more workers. Spectrum, born from the acquisition of Time Warner Cable by Charter Communications (Nasdaq: CHTR), is investing $1.7 million in upgrades to its... Continue reading at Silicon Valley Business Journal
[ Silicon Valley Business Journal | 2019-10-11 16:16:40 UTC ]
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Welcome to the another edition of Ad Age Sports Media Brief, a weekly roundup of news from every zone of the sports media spray chart, including the latest on broadcast/cable/streaming, sponsorships, endorsements, gambling and tech. Fear Strikes Out Viciousness and stupidity are as endemic to... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2019-10-04 22:01:54 UTC ]
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Vice Media Inc., the youth-oriented media company, agreed to acquire the online publisher Refinery29, seeking to reignite growth by reaching a young female audience. The deal marks the biggest move yet by Vice Chief Executive Officer Nancy Dubuc, who has been trying to revive the once... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2019-10-02 19:51:02 UTC ]
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The esports industry, notorious for its lack of reliable streaming viewer figures, is trying to get its act together and provide third-party ratings to make its broadcasts attractive for rights buyers and advertisers. Companies like Tencent Holding Ltd.’s Riot Games and World of Warcraft’s... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2019-09-26 18:44:54 UTC ]
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After putting in a quarter-century as the head of CBS’s marketing efforts, George Schweitzer has begun mapping out his final campaign. The network’s marketing director will step down from his post at the end of the 2019-20 broadcast season, whereupon he’ll transition to a new role as a special... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2019-09-17 18:55:53 UTC ]
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Farmers seeking government assistance knew where to make their case: on Fox News, in TV ads with tractors and corn stalks designed to snag the attention of President Donald Trump. U.S. airlines, opposed to subsidies for foreign competitors paid by Qatar, took the same broadcast route to the... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2019-08-28 16:12:29 UTC ]
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Philip Morris International, the maker of Marlboro cigarettes in overseas markets, is in talks to reunite with Altria Group more than 10 years after the tobacco giants split their operations. The deal would be the biggest since AT&T Inc. bid for Time Warner in 2016. Philip Morris had a... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2019-08-27 18:36:32 UTC ]
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Notice more TV ads lately? You’re not imagining it. The amount of commercial time on cable TV keeps increasing as networks try to make up for shrinking audiences by stuffing more ads into every hour of television. That’s despite years of promises to cut back on ads. Last quarter, commercial... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2019-08-02 17:18:39 UTC ]
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could reportedly further shrink its future offices at the Time Warner Center amid a global restructuring. The embattled financial institution signed a lease in May 2018 to move into a roughly 1.1... To view the full story, click the title link. Continue reading at Crains New York
[ Crains New York | 2019-07-30 12:59:30 UTC ]
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could reportedly further shrink its future offices at the Time Warner Center amid a global restructuring. The embattled financial institution signed a lease in May 2018 to move into a roughly 1.1... To view the full story, click the title link. Continue reading at Crains New York
[ Crains New York | 2019-07-30 12:59:30 UTC ]
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As ad-tech outfits face a tighter and tighter squeeze from industry consolidation and impending regulations surrounding data privacy, investors are starting to take notice and funnel their dollars elsewhere. This was the sentiment heard across the stage at Adweek's NexTech Conference this week,... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2019-07-26 18:48:49 UTC ]
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If you can find a bookie who’ll take some action on the latest pay-TV carriage dispute, bet everything you have that the stalemate between AT&T and CBS will end before the 2019 NFL season kicks off in September. Like Time Warner Cable before them, the phone company and its DirecTV subsidiary... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2019-07-22 20:52:00 UTC ]
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Charter Communications Inc., the largest cable provider in New York, will be allowed to continue operating in New York after reaching an agreement with regulators. The state Public Service Commission approved a settlement with Charter today, reversing a decision it made a year earlier to kick... Continue reading at Silicon Valley Business Journal
[ Silicon Valley Business Journal | 2019-07-12 11:59:24 UTC ]
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Charter Communications Inc., the largest cable provider in New York state, will be allowed to continue operating in New York after reaching an agreement with regulators. The state Public Service Commission approved a settlement with Charter today, reversing a decision it made a year earlier to... Continue reading at Silicon Valley Business Journal
[ Silicon Valley Business Journal | 2019-07-12 11:50:50 UTC ]
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The aftershocks of AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner continue to rumble through the WarnerMedia unit, as longtime ad sales chief Donna Speciale is parting ways with the company just one week after she closed out the last bit of its upfront business. Speciale, who joined WarnerMedia... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2019-07-11 01:55:08 UTC ]
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Lee Iacocca, the U.S. auto executive and television pitchman whose feel for consumers’ changing tastes helped produce the Ford Mustang and the Chrysler minivan and made him one of the first celebrity CEOs, has died. He was 94. His death was confirmed Tuesday by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in a... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2019-07-03 14:58:55 UTC ]
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AT&T Inc. is weighing a sale of its regional sports networks as part of a plan to cut as much as $8 billion in debt by the end of the year, according to people familiar with the matter. The four regional networks, which includes rights to teams such as the hockey’s Pittsburgh Penguins,... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2019-07-02 19:54:11 UTC ]
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