»
While still early in the season, the ratings war between television networks is shaping up to be an interesting one for the fourth quarter.
ABC has surprised some in the industry by holding onto No. 1 in adults 18-49 without the help it used to get from Monday Night Football, which has moved to ESPN. And NBC, which has finished fourth in the last two seasons, is up 18 percent over last year in the same demo, tying with CBS for second place, writes Media Life. NBC is, in fact, the only network showing gains in the demo.
NBC is also up 19 percent in adults 18-34, and 15 percent in adults 25-54. The reason for the increases, according to the article, is that the network is finally taking more chances with new shows, after several seasons of no risk-taking.
For example, NBC paid a huge amount for the rights to Sunday Night Football, which airs on a night that has strong competition from ABC, CBS and Fox. The gamble so far seems to have paid off, with the football broadcast doubling the network’s Sunday night average from last year, from a 2.8 to a 5.6.
One of the network’s new dramas, Heroes, has found a broad audience on Monday night, beating last year’s time slot average by 43 percent, averaging a 5.7.
And Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, though it has lost nearly a third of its 18-49 audience since its debut, is still more than a point higher than several of the shows the network aired in 2005, such as Surface, E-Ring and Inconceivable (all of which were canceled).
NBC still has three new shows joining the schedule, including Friday Night Lights (which premiered last night) and 30 Rock (next week), both of which have received good buzz.
If those shows do well in ratings, NBC could finish the fourth quarter in second place behind ABC, bearing out the promise by NBC Entertainment president Kevin Reilly - at the semi-annual Television Critics Association meeting in July - that NBC would not finish in fourth place again, and that this season’s ratings would “definitely be better.”
Katz Radio Group has snared two more major clients, having approached and signed CBS Radio and Entercom Communications, formerly clients of Interep.
CBS Radio represented about a third of Interep’s total revenue, writes Mediaweek.
Interep filed last month to convert its…
B-to-b publication revenue was down slightly in 2007, sagging 0.4% from 2006; it was flat from 2005, according to American Business Media’s Financial Trend Report.
Print advertising pulled 84% of the average b-to-b title’s revenue, writes Folio.
Editorial, advertising and circulation…
The number of Britons accessing the mobile internet increased by 25% (from 5.8 to 7.3 million) from Q2 to Q3 2008, compared with only a 3% increase for PC-based internet users (34.3 to 35.3 million Britons), according to (pdf) insight data…
Email, news gathering and paying bills continue to be the most widely used online activities among U.S. adults, but downloading TV programs, watching videos and making web phone calls posted the biggest overall growth, according to data from Mediamark Research…
Black Friday is typically known as the day of unbeatable deals, but also long lines, packed stores, and jostling customers.
But this season, online retail giants Amazon and eBay are doing their best to get customers out of stores and…
Despite the U.S. financial crisis and dwindling marketing budgets at some financial institutions, the number of retention-related direct-mail offers sent by banks to current customers in Q3 2008 was 42% higher than in Q2.
View chart of estimated mail volume, Q3…
