Last month Toni Littleton faced what might have been a nightmare project. The marketing coordinator of ad sales at Time Warner Cable in San Antonio was given a week to put together a presentation for the sales staff on fourth-quarter promotion opportunities.

In the not-so-distant past, she might have had to call network officials and sort through reams of printed material to do her research. But Littleton got most of the information she needed simply by clicking onto the affiliate websites nearly all of the cable networks have launched in the past few years.

In addition to downloading full-color graphics, demographic data and the dates of promotions designed to get advertisers to run bigger schedules, she found information on programming she hadn't heard about before, from USA's new show Combat Missions to BET's Black College Football.

?They are definitely a big help,? Littleton says of the affiliate sites.

It's just one more way that the Web has subtly altered the dynamics between networks and operators. Local ad sales are increasingly important to cable operators, with ad revenues (including local and spot) for last year coming in at $1.6 billion for the six largest MSOs.

Affiliates who sell those ads say that getting information via the Internet saves time. In a survey released last March by CTAM, 70% of affiliates said they'd prefer to get research online in the future, 66% said they wanted logos and other artwork delivered via the Web and 60% want to order premiums such as hats and T-shirts electronically.

For networks, the Web can save something else ? money. Posting information online is cheaper than printing brochures and mailing them to systems.

One large network, in fact, says it saves several hundred thousand dollars a year.

?A lot of mail gets wasted on people that don't really need it. The website is being utilized by people who really need it,? says Douglas Holloway, the president of network distribution and affiliate relations at USA Networks, which launched its site earlier this year. Information on the Web can be more timely, he adds, and cuts down the lead time the network needs for preparing bill stuffers and ad slicks.

USA is now among the growing number of cable networks dispatching nearly all of their affiliate information over the web. ?Our paper has stopped except for special kits,? he says.

There's another benefit as well. Programmers need local ad salespersons to be knowledgeable ? and enthusiastic ? about their networks. After all, the networks that generate the most ad sales for a system are the ones that are most valuable come renewal time.

?If we can't get the information, we won't sell the network,? says Jamie Sexton, marketing manager AT&T Media Service in Portland, Ore., which places ads on 28 networks.

Several networks have launched websites this year, and most of those still without sites plan to be up and running in the coming months, including CourtTV, E! Networks, F/X and Fox News Channel. (Fox Sports Net hasn't updated its site since last month, when a supplier contract expired. The network is looking at alternatives for reactivating the site, a spokesman says.)

Most sites, like Comedy Central's (Get-It.comedycentral.com), are password-protected. They are often long on data and short on graphics. ?People want to be able to get in and get out relatively quickly,? says Steve Males, VP-affiliate marketing at Comedy Central. That network's site highlights programming and has navigation buttons that take users to pages on programming, research, promotions, customer service, technical information and other subjects.

Systems staffers find out everything from what movies are available on pay-per-view to the prizes ad buyers can win through network promotions. There are also contests for the ad salespeople (Comedy Central has a ?Va-Va-Va Vegas? sweepstakes tied to sponsorship of The Man Show.)

ESPN says that its website has helped it reach more affiliates. In 1998, the network had a mailing list of 3,200 affiliate names. Now the website ? which was launched in 1998 ? has 5,500 user names and gets about 1,000 to 1,500 hits daily, according to Marie Kennedy, manager of affiliate services at the network.

?We knew we were not reaching all of our affiliates? with the old system, Kennedy says.

Even so, some networks have been slow to roll out affiliate websites. E! Networks and Fox News Channel, both say they want to make sure that their sites really meet the needs of operators before committing time and money to the project.

?We've been taking the time to do it right,? says John Malkin, VP-affiliate sales and marketing at Fox News Channel.

But affiliates are already sold on getting information online. Says Joanne Ruf, Webmaster at Cox Communications in San Diego, who incorporates material from network sites onto Cox's local site: ?The online information is really a blessing for us.?

Back to this issue