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Hallmark inked its first upfront deal of the season, with Starcom. The deal was made on behalf of many of Starcom’s clients, and includes media on Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Movie Network.
Hallmark’s ad sales have been soaring, according to the company (via TV Week), which said that, due to an increase in distribution and ratings, ad revenues were up 23 percent in the first quarter. During the quarter, Hallmark Channel moved to 10th place among total viewers in prime time ratings, up 22 percent from the same quarter the previous year, to an average audience of 1.3 million.
Bill Abbott, Hallmark Channel executive vp for ad sales, said the network’s family friendly programming and high retention of viewers through commercial breaks - along with its willingness to create special promotions for advertisers - helped push through the early deal with Starcom.
The deal comes as a surprise to some cable executives, MediaPost writes. Because of the slow marketplace, many expected that sales at the cable networks would not begin in earnest until late June or early July. The broadcast networks tend to make their deals first, and those have been slow in coming.
The deal is estimated to be worth between $10 million to $15 million.
All sectors of the media business will suffer from the weakened economy in 2008 and 2009, with a slump in local advertising particularly hurting newspapers and local TV, according to a new projection from Goldman Sachs.
Broadcast nets will experience…
The New York Times is shuttering its International Herald Tribune site; NYTimes.com will soon host the international news normally reserved for its sister website.
The move is not about cost savings, but rather about growth, NYTimes.com general manager Vivian Schiller…
Unilever’s Vaseline set forth on an unusual research project in a small town in Alaska. Setting up a storefront, the company began giving away free bottles of lotion and asking recipients to name the person who had recommended they come…
Meet the Press, the show hosted by Tim Russert for 17 years before his death last June, is beginning to slip in ratings.
Last month, CBS’s Face the Nation pulled ahead of Meet the Press for the first time in two…
Bloggers collectively create nearly one million blog posts each day, and half of bloggers believe blogs will be a primary source of news and entertainment in the next five years, according to Technorati’s 2008 State of the Blogosphere Report, MarketingCharts writes.…
Wal-Mart and Costco reported same-store gains in September, with sales rising 2.4% and 9% respectively. Sales at Target stores open at least a year fell 3%, writes Retailer Daily.
Below, fiscal results from the discount retail giants:
Sales of food and…
