NCC Grows to Meet Expected Ad Jump

BY JON LAFAYETTE

After recording 24% growth in spot ad sales in 2002, National Cable Communications is forecasting a 20% increase in spending by national advertisers on local cable commercials.

NCC will continue to add staff to handle the additional business and will restructure its organization to line up better with regional buying offices of ad agencies and NCC's cable operator clients.

Tom Olson, CEO of NCC, said last year's ad sales activity picked up steam on a quarter-by-quarter basis. Political advertising accounted for about 5% of NCC's total, which was ?good enough to help us tighten inventory and push rates,? but it didn't set up an insurmountable comparison for next year. In all, ad sales were up about $100 million to $550 million. While that's a big increase, these sales to national advertisers represent only a small part of most operators' total advertising inventory.

Olson attributed the growth in spot to the continuing increase in the number of interconnects and the growing number of networks into which ads can be inserted on systems.

He also said 90 of the 100 largest advertisers using TV advertising now spend some of their budgets on local cable. ?We've penetrated categories we hadn't been doing business with,? he said.

Since last September, employment at NCC has jumped by 90 to 522 people. ?We're seeing our business grow, and we think there's a lot more growth possible,? Olson said.

NCC's new structure includes ten directors of sales, who will oversee sales teams focused on a smaller number of markets.