Television is the preferred medium to watch sports, and streaming media has growth and buzz, but radio holds its own among sports listeners.
A total of 23.1 million listeners tuned in to hear Super Bowl XLVI on radio, reports Edison Research and network company Dial Global. That 23.1 figure stacks up nicely to the 111.3 million who watched the Super Bowl on television, and the 2.1 million who streamed it. Edison Research conducted the survey live via telephone interviews on Sunday, following the Giants 21-17 victory over the Patriots. That gives radio a 16.9% share among the three media. Listeners accessed the live broadcast in multiple environments, including the home, while driving, at work and other locations, and on over 680 stations nationwide.
While Honda, Coca-Cola and Budweiser reached the TV viewership, some big brands that reached the 23.1 million radio listeners included:
- Allstate
- Advance Auto Parts
- Go Daddy
- Subway
- Home Depot
“We are…excited, but not surprised, to see that our research findings highlight…the ongoing demand for radio broadcast coverage of live sporting events,” said David Landau, Co-President CEO of Dial Global. Edison conducted a similar survey in January, to find that 22.9 million people tuned in to radio broadcasts of AFC and NFC championship games on Sunday, January 22. An overwhelming majority of tuned in on AM or FM radio, versus Sirius XM or the Verizon Mobile App.
Dial Global has 100% coverage of the U.S., with a core demographic of adults 25-54.Dial broadcasts nearly 100 NFL games, exclusive NFL primetime games, the Playoffs and the Super Bowl. “Given the popularity of The Super Bowl as ‘television’s ultimate event’ where people actually look forward to the commercials and the halftime show, the number of radio listeners may come as a surprise to those who are not familiar with the significant reach of broadcast radio,” said Larry Rosin, Edison President.
Upfront TV: “NCIS” at 200 | Super Bowl Tops Itself | “Voice” Soars | Hispanic News, English Language
- Kudos to CBS and “NCIS,” which tonight will air its 200th episode. The Navy/legal drama debuted in 2003, with actor Mark Harmon at the helm, who was best known for his work on NBC’s “St. Elsewhere,” and as a hunk-for-hire on such shows as “The West Wing.” “NCIS” has defied the approaching-a-decade malaise, delivering an average 22.7 million viewers for new episodes this season. 100 episodes is industry standard to reach syndication level. The record number of episodes in history television belongs to “Gunsmoke,” which ran for 20 seasons and 635 episodes.
- Super Bowl XLVI attracted a record 111.3 million total viewers, reports Media Life, to become the most-watched broadcast in television history. This is the third year running that the Super Bowl has set the record, held until 2010 by the series finale of "M*A*S*H" in 1983. It was also the highest-rated Super Bowl in 26 years, with an average 47.0 household rating and 71 share. The game took a 40.5 share among adults 18-49.
- The post-Super Bowl Season 2 premiere of “The Voice” on NBC took a 16.3 rating adult 18-49 rating, and 37.61 million viewers, reports TVByTheNumbers. This was NBC’s best rating for an entertainment telecast since the “Friends” finale in 2004, with a 24.9 share.
- The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has ruled that NBC’s WMAQ-TV Chicago had a right to deny long-shot GOP presidential candidate Randall Terry a Super Bowl ad spot, reports Broadcasting & Cable. FCC ruled that while broadcasters must make ad time available to qualified candidates, WMAQ judged fairly that Terry was unqualified, given his showing at the polls. The ad reportedly contained graphic images of aborted fetuses, which Terry believed was behind the denial.
- Univision and Disney are in talks for a Latino-oriented 24-hour cable news channel, in English. As TVNewsCheck reports, neither company will confirm or discuss the project, but are likely to launch the channel in time for the November presidential election. The 2010 census revealed that U.S. born Latinos comprise nearly 60% of the growth among U.S. Hispanics over the last decade, and that an increasing number speak English as a first language.
Research: Three Formats Dominate Online Ad Spend
While the U.S. online ad spend will approach $40 billion in 2012, just three formats will dominate that spend, forecasts eMarketer: search, banners, and video adverts. Those three formats will capture 80% of the online ad spending through 2016.
Search will dominate, hovering just below 50% for the next five years, though it will lose some ground to online video; that format will see the highest persistent growth in spending, and will nearly double in percent of total spend from 7.9% in 2012 to 15% in 2016. Banners will retain their #2 status, with 23.4% share of total spend in 2012, and 20.5% in 2016, also losing ground to video ads.
Video ads are expected to grow by 55% in spending this year, after a healthy growth of 42.1% in 2011. That growth (the highest in a single year through 2012) is fueled in part by the 2012 election and summer Olympic Games. (Consider the PAC and campaign ads you’ve seen already.)
Each of these three formats fits nicely into the mobile format, and mobile display ads (chiefly banner and video) are expected to grow by 93.5% to $861.7 in 2016.
eMarketer has projected that U.S. online ad spending will grow 23.3% in 2012 to nearly $40 billion, and nearly $53 billion in 2013. This will make 2012 the first year in which online ad spends will surpass the total spent on print ads, with $39.5 billion online versus $33.8 billion in magazines and newspapers.
8% Rise in Network Primetime CPMs, Analyst Predicts
Pivotal Research Group, a New York-based equity research firm, is projecting 8% in cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) in network primetime. Analyst Brian Wieser expects this to be a boon for those broadcasters. RBR.com quoted Wieser as saying he expects “These seemingly favorable price increases to positively impact sentiment around ad-supported media stocks including CBS, Comcast, Walt Disney and News Corp.” Cable networks (including Time Warner, Discovery and AMC) will likely enjoy a “halo” effect.
In last year’s upfront market, broadcasters ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC saw CPM prices increase by 9% reported paidContent, while cable networks jumped 12%. So this is good, and perhaps unexpected news for the networks. If Internet video has reached a tipping point (with announcements like original content from Netflix and Hulu), it “doesn’t appear to be coming at the expense of traditional TV,” suggests paidContent.
While that 8% is a very educated guess, it is an imprecise one; advertisers may surprise the networks at the negotiating table—chiefly by not showing up, or by putting their ad dollars online. In a worst-case scenario Wieser believes that the rise could be as low as 5%.
CNN Signs Millionth “iReporter,” But One Advertiser
CNN’s iReport, its citizen journalism news community, announced this week it had passed the 1 million mark for registered contributors. iReporters contribute stories on practically any topic, including entertainment, politics, technology and health. CNN does not vet or fact check the stories, but it offers some guidelines as to what makes a good iReport, and uses the iReports selectively in its other sections.
The reports run the gamut of silly—a mother and her barely-verbal toddler mourning the cancellation of “Chuck”—to raw, like on-the-ground footage of anti-government protests in University Square in Bucharest, Rumania. That iReport includes analysis and commentary by Rumanian iReporter “mindcrusher,” a graphic designer living in Bucharest. iReports give CNN a stronger reach, and at little cost: it does not pay its iReporters, some of whom (but not all) are amateurs. CNN had little coverage of January protests in Nigeria over fuel prices, but iReporters flooded CNN with photos, videos and on the ground reports submitted by users in Nigeria.As Lila King, participation director for CNN Digital told The Poynter Institute, “It made us say, ‘Gosh, you know we really need to be paying attention to this.’ ”
CNN iReport has numerous ad offerings, including main-page and in-story ads, in formats like long-form video banners and floating ads. What it does not appear to have is advertisers. A quick check of several dozen iReports reveals one advertiser, 3m, with a flash ad promoting its privacy screen protectors for mobile devices. CNN offers detailed demographics for advertisers on its main pages, but none whatsoever for its iReport section.
CNN iReport warns, ominously, that “In the case of extreme negative user feedback/interference the CNN iReport management team reserves the right to pull creative prior to campaign delivery. Advertiser would then have the right to make good impressions with other mutually acceptable inventory.”
However strong a platform for citizen journalism CNN iReport is—and it is uniquely strong and organized versus other platforms like YouTube—it has yet to organize or maximize its ad potential. Perhaps the perception is that low-cost journalism is also low value. CNN labels its iReports NOT VETTED BY CNN, but a spokesperson told Poynter that it does vet and fact check 8% of the more than 500 uploaded stories per day.
Nielsen: Sports Cable Ad Spend Skyrockets, Digital Audience Growing Rapidly
The advertising expenditure on national TV sports delivery grew $.6 billion year-over-year (YOY) in 2011, to reach $10.9 billion. That according to the just-released report Nielsen’s State of the Media: Year in Sports.
Nielsen measured the ad spend during sporting events on network and cable from Q4 2010 through Q3 2011. Cable is taking an increasing share of that spend, growing 37.3% YOY compared to 5.9% for sports ad spending in general.
“TV sports advertising is dominated by a few big spenders,” reports Nielsen, led by AT&T, Annheuser Busch (with the Bud Light brand), Verizon Wireless, McDonald’s and DIRECTV. The top 10 advertisers accounted for 26% of the total spend.
The increasing TV ad spend parallels the growth in content on national broadcast and cable TV; the more than 42,500 hours of live events represented a 5% increase over 2010.
Digital findings
Nielsen went on to break down trends among all major sports, and also for online, mobile and social media delivery. Some key findings:
- Brand recall was 33% higher for Super Bowl ads that directed viewers to link on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or other social media
- The mobile web audience among sports sites increased by 22% YOY
- The five most-used mobile sports apps were ESPN at 62%; NFL Live at 18%; Yahoo! Sports at 17%; MLB.com, 16%; and Fox Sports Mobile, 13%
Nielsen Case Study: Local TV, Advertisers Gain Unduplicated Reach with Online Audience
Nielsen has released a case study revealing that in local markets, station websites contribute added reach to early and late news broadcasts—particularly among the 18-34 demographic.
Nielsen conducted the study along with TV operator Fisher Communications, focusing upon two Washington-based Fisher properties, being KOMO in Seattle and KATU in Oregon. Fisher reportedly wanted to better leverage its content and advertising inventory. Nielsen used its Single Home Among Nielsen’s findings:
- KOMO station earned an unduplicated audience of 2.9% from its website for persons 18 and older, comprising 10% of the combined reach of its 11pm news broadcast, Monday through Friday. The number is even higher for persons 18-34, with a 3.9% incremental reach and nearly 23% of the total combined reach.
- KATU added 2.8% incremental reach from online viewership, with the 25-54 demographic creating the highest boost. Katu.com contributed 14% of combined viewership.
The significance to advertisers is that, with precise measurements such as these and integrated TV and Internet, marketers are “gaining the ability to better package local ad inventory” and to amplify local TV audience value. Precision attracts advertisers to spend more locally.
However, those advertisers must pay attention to the demographics cross-media, which differ. KOMO news broadcast viewers are predominantly female, while online viewers are predominantly male. And, online viewers included a higher percentage of mid-range income ($50,000 - $99,000) than any of its three daily news broadcasts.
Nielsen expects that with findings like these, TV outlets will use on-air broadcasts to more heavily promote their websites; and to promote cross-media advertising.
Mobile Ad Space: Ownership Doubles of Tablets, E-Readers Since December
U.S. marketers raised their mobile ad budgets by 7-8% in Q4 2011, but may wish to boost them further. Mobile ad outlets, e-readers and tablet computers specifically, nearly doubled in market reach, and in just six weeks.The percentage of U.S. adults who own tablet computers jumped from 10% to 19% between mid-December and early January. The percentage of those who own e-book readers jumped the same 10-19%, reports the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.
All told, 29% of Americans own at least one of the two devices; that percentage jumped from 18% in mid December.
Pew calls these findings “striking” after stagnant ownership figures between Summer and Autumn 2011. But as Christmas approached, “Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Barnes and Noble’s Nook Tablet were introduced at considerably cheaper prices than other tablets.” Among e-readers, some models of the Kindle and Nook fell below $100.
Who are the owners?
After the holiday rush, a full 36% of tablet owners lived in households earning more than $75,000. Almost a third, 31%, is college educated. The highest percentage of ownerships is among adults 30-49, at 27%, but the 18-29 demographic is not far behind, at 24%.
The e-reader story is a bit different. Women outpaced men as new adopters, and now 21% of women own them, versus 19% of men. The average household income was more evenly spread, owing to the lower total cost of ownership.
A Decade of Super Bowl Ad Stats: Ad Spend Reaches $1.72 Billion
From 2002 through 2011, the Super Bowl game has generated $1.72 billion of network advertising sales from more than 125 marketers, reports Kantar Media.
Leading the pack is Anheuser-Busch InBev with $239.1 million in ads. The company has advertised in every Super Bowl for the past decade, as have two other top spenders, PepsiCo and Walt Disney Co. The top five advertisers of the past decade collectively spent $636.6 million, for 37% of total advertising revenue.
The average rate for a 30-second ad during the Super Bowl increased 40 percent over past decade, for $3.1 million in 2010. NBC is asking $3.5 million for a 30-second unit in 2012, but the price will vary based on when the ad runs and if the advertiser opts for a larger package that includes spots in the pre-game and/or post-game coverage.
Kantar Media bemoans the rise in “clutter,” as the volume of commercial time has crept up. The Fox broadcast of the 2011 Super Bowl included 46 minutes of network ads, second only to 2010 with 104 minutes. That commercial time included paying sponsors, NFL messages, commercial messages from the NFL and Fox ads promoting its own shows.
About 20% of advertisers are first-timers, but in 2011 that dropped to 14%, with only four new marketers (Best Buy, Carmax, Groupon and Salesforce.com). Only three first timers have confirmed ad slots for 2012, being Century 21, Dannon and Relativity Media, a film studio.
Interestingly, the Super Bowl is attracting not just giants like PepsiCo and Disney, but smaller marketers as well. In 2011, nearly one-third of advertisers spent more than 10% of their full-media budgets. Careerbuilder spent $3.1 million, for 31% of its budget, and Salesforce.com spent 23%.
Online Ad Spend to Climb 23.3%, Surpassing Print but Trailing TV
U.S. online ad spending will grow 23.3% in 2012 to nearly $40 billion, and nearly $53 billion in 2013, predicts eMarketer. Principal Analyst David Hallerman writes that advertisers’ comfort level with integrated marketing is driving more big brands to invest in online advertising.
This makes 2012 the first year in which online ad spends will surpass the total spent on print ads, with $39.5 billion online versus $33.8 billion in magazines and newspapers.
But, TV will remain the strongest outlet for ad spend, with $64.8 billion in 2012, more than twice. Online will close the gap over the next four years, reaching $62 billion in 2016, just $10 billion shy of TV at $72 billion.
Overall, ad spend across all media will grow by 6.7% in 2012 to $169.5 billion, fueled in part by election campaigns and the burgeoning mobile ad market. Growth will slow to 3-4% by 2016, to about $200 billion total. TV will continue to grow, while print will actively decline.