|
MIKE REYNOLDS
Looking to grab a bigger slice of companies' advertising budgets, Viacom, as expected, officially opened the door to marketers interested in tying in with its various holdings last week.
The newly named Viacom Plus, succeeding CBS Plus, will offer clients the opportunity to advertise and promote across the gamut of Viacom vehicles, such as CBS, Infinity, MTV Networks, Paramount, Blockbuster and Simon & Schuster, among others.
"No company has a more comprehensive range of advertising-based assets than Viacom," says president/COO Mel Karmazin. "This name change reflects our commitment to include the entire Viacom family in offering complete brand solutions for our clients. Cross-platform sales and marketing represents the next generation in advertising spending, and I am confident the Viacom Plus team will continue to build on the early success of CBS Plus."
The official coming-out party for Viacom Plus underlines a trend by large media companies to pursue incremental shares of advertisers' budgets through integrated packages.
ABC recently reorganized its management structure, forming a new integrated sales and marketing unit called ABC Unlimited to capitalize on the array of Walt Disney assets. This new unit will facilitate a coordinated approach for all the media properties of the ABC Television Network and ABC, including everything from commercials on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire to spots on ABC's Jumbotron sign in Times Square.
Last year, ESPN and ABC Sports integrated their sales staff, affording marketers access to packages ranging across their network and Web holdings. ABC and Disney also sell against a variety of properties aimed at children.
Of course, cross-selling and synergies are at the heart of the proposed merger between AOL and Time Warner, whose Turner Broadcasting System has long proffered integrated marketing solutions across its vast holdings. Other media companies such as Discovery Communications and News Corp. also engage in their fair share of cross-peddling against old and new media assets.
These media behemoths and others, though, may vie for dollars in what could be a softening television ad market over the next few years, according to an industry overview by Morgan Stanley Dean Witter (MSDW).
The analysis, "TV Advertising: All Clear For A Soft Landing," forecasts television ad revenues will reach $55.5 billion this year, a 10.7% advance from the $50.1 billion generated during 1999.
However, MSDW predicts that given the economic variables of corporate profits, consumer spending and consumer confidence, there will be "a moderate degree of upward pressure on the television marketplace." As such, the industry's ad growth may fall in the 6-7% range for both 2001 and 2002.
These projections include what is expected to be better-than-sector performance from cable (see chart). According to MSDW, national cable advertising revenue will jump 22% in 2000 to the $8.45 billion plateau from $6.94 billion last year. Locally, cable will produce a 20% gain this year to $3.31 billion from $2.76 billion. Going forward, both cable segments are forecast to be the only sectors that will notch double-digit growth through 2002.
One factor that could hinder cable is the concentration of the medium's leading advertisers. In 1999, cable's top 50 advertisers constituted just 32% of the total cable market, versus 57% of broadcast ad dollars.
The MSDW analysis maintains that cable advertising is "considerably more volatile than broadcast advertising since it has a far greater reliance on spending from a number of smaller advertisers."
AOL EARNINGS SLIGHTLY BEAT EXPECTATIONS Internet giant America Online reported quarterly earnings that exceeded Wall Street expectations, posting a net income of 14 cents per share. Wall Street expectations hovered around 13 cents a share, according to a survey by First Call/Thomson Financial. AOL posted revenue of $2B for the quarter, compared with $1.5B during the same period last year.
TIME WARNER EARNINGS DIP Time Warner earnings slumped in the 3Q to $1.6B from $1.9B for the same period the year before. Time Warner Cable reported returns of $1.5B against $1.4B last year. The cable unit picked up another 516,000 subscribers in the 3Q to reach the 1.3M digital video subscriber mark. The media giant's cable networks pulled in earnings of $16M, spearheaded by a 17% jump for Turner Cable Networks and a 12% jump for HBO.
CHARTER GOES UNIVERSAL Charter Communications has agreed to buy 1M digital interactive remote-control units from Universal Electronics. The deal is to be spread out over 18 months. Charter officials explain that the multi-million dollar deal will back up its planned digital rollout.
Back to this issue
|
