Cathy Applefeld Olson

CBS chief Les Moonves told investors he’s “salivating” over the prospects. NBC just backed up its All Together mantra by hosting its first Upfront event combining all the company’s properties. And ABC highlighted multiplatform programming and sales.

Coming off a slew of cancellations clearing the deck for the coming year’s most coveted fare, the broadcast Upfronts are officially out of the gate this week, heralded by a swell in unified offerings, continued growth of customized metrics and a cautious embrace of programmatic.

United They Stand
If there’s one overarching theme this year, it’s the embrace of the notion that when it comes to ad sales, the whole is greater than its parts.

Fox unified its sales division in 2015, “bringing together broadcast, cable and digital under one umbrella – the full breadth of all of Fox Networks’ entertainment and sports assets,” says head of sales Toby Byrne. “We’ve been very pleased with the advertiser and client response… Our greatest opportunity is to capitalize on the total audience consumption of our sports and entertainment programming across linear, VOD and online video.”

“When we combine assets it creates more opportunities for advertisers,” Dan Lovinger, EVP of the entertainment ad sales group at NBC, tells Cynopsis. “When you create silos you’re limited by any given network, at any given time. The most important thing we did, and it was Linda’s [Yaccarino] vision, was to build the support and system before we went to market, so we’ve been able to deliver on the promise of the portfolio.”

The NBCU-nification also has implications for Telemundo and the company’s other Hispanic assets. “Now that they are being included as part of the full portfolio, we can take marketing strategies that may start in English language and get adapted in a culturally relevant way to the Hispanic consumer, and sometimes starts the other way around,” says Mike Rosen, who oversees ad sales for NBCU’s Spanish-language and news properties.

For its part, Univision is “all about our commitment to our brand,” says Keith Turner, president of advertising sales and marketing. “We talk to people about our two broadcast networks, our 14 cable networks, all digital assets as well as 69 radio stations and 62 television stations. What we are trying to do is sell a marketing solution to people that goes across all of our assets. We’re not just talking about 30-second commercials.”

Evolving Metrics
As the landscape continues to evolve beyond solely 30-second commercials, so to do the role of metrics and data. ABC has a linear tool, as well as a digital data solution that provides the opportunity to partner with select advertisers to target new audience segments that extend beyond age and gender. “We are already in market with ad campaigns where data is the driving force,” the company tells Cynopsis.

Fox recently launched Fox Audience Insights Manager (AIM), a suite of data-enhanced buying tools designed to aid advertisers in improving the effectiveness of their linear and nonlinear buys beyond traditional age and gender demographics. “AIM refines our ability to deliver more precise target audience segments,” Byrne says. “Agencies have been using their own data to steer their investment decisions, and now we have an opportunity to have a more meaningful data-focused conversation.”

At NBC, “We are allowing data to inform media planning and schedule buying on a much more targeted basis than just age and sex, and we feel like we’ve been able to provide people with that opportunity with our audience targeting platform,” says Lovinger.

Although he notes Nielsen remains “the value standard of general measurement,” Lovinger says, “We are happy to use Nielsen where they are proving the appropriate measurement, but where they can’t be, we are finding ways to move beyond. One area that is beyond an age/sex demo guarantee is programmatic.” NBCU announced it will allow programmatic buys  in its linear networks in Q4.

Programmatic on the Horizon
While broadcast has been the last to embrace programmatic sales, the tide may be turning this year. “The bet we are making is in order to help advertisers create scale against these refined targets, you need to use the broadest pool of inventory possible,” Lovinger says. “Because otherwise you can end up with frequency caps kicking in. The notion we wouldn’t include our biggest-scale opportunities seemed counterintuitive.”

Other broadcasters are cautiously optimistic. At Fox, “We’ve only recently begun to conduct some linear cable business programmatically, and will continue to evaluate whether to expand the opportunity going forward,” Byrne says.

While Univision is selling some of its digital content programmatically, “The total market is not there yet,” Turner says. “There’s still a lot of things that have to be worked out. There are systems issues; it’s still a work in progress.”

Other eyes are on other opportunities in the scatter market. During the company’s Q1 earnings call in early May, CBS’ Moonves said the current booming scatter market bodes well for a robust Upfront. “The scatter market is as hot as it’s been in many, many years. Last year, those who bought their ad time early did extremely well. Since then, scatter pricing has grown dramatically, and it’s clear that clients are not going to want to miss out on the opportunity to buy their time early this year.”

Some will, yes. Others, like Buffalo Wild Wings, are still happy to make their entire broadcast ad play in the scatter market. “We look for opportunities that will put us in the conversation that is authentic to our brand,” Bob Ruhland, VP of marketing, tells Cynopsis. “We obviously do a lot of integrations in sports but we also look for other opportunities that are programs that is of interest to our ‘MVP’ target.”

Defining Digital Relationships
As consumers continue to change their viewing habits, the ad dollars continue to follow. Next year will mark the first year digital ad spending surpasses TV, according to eMarketer, which notes that the 2017 TV ad spend will total $72.01 billion, or 35.8 percent of the total media ad spend in the US, while digital ad spending in 2017 will hit $77.37 billion, or 38.4 percent of the market.

“We understand people are consuming media differently today than they were even five years ago. We have an increased digital spend to showcase our content to different audiences,” says BWW’s Ruhland. “We only expect for things to continue to change and evolve as our guests’ preferences change. We will continue to look at video consumption trends among our target and adjust accordingly.”

Buffalo Wild Wings recently partnered with Turner on digital sports venture ELeague, through which the company will gain contextual brand exposure spanning TBS and digital platforms including sponsor integration within the AdTracker tool. The company also did an integration where an episode of CBS’ live Fantasy Football Today show was shot in-restaurant and promoted on CBSSports.com.

Broadcasters more than ever are securing their stake in the ground, touting the power of their premium brands – and the measurable synergies among digital and linear offerings.

“We provide great digital opportunities ourselves,” Lovinger says. “The question for advertisers is, Do they know where their ads are running? The quality has to lead them back to places like NBC.”

Fox’s Byrne echoes the sentiment, emphasizing the challenge in “combatting the perception that premium television environments across platforms are interchangeable with new media options. Great progress has been made this past year in shining a light on low-engagement environments with fraudulent activity and viewability issues,” he tells Cynopsis.

“Digital is a two-way street,” Univision’s Turner says. “Money has shifted back to linear from digital as well.” The company’s digital offerings include Flama, Fusion and the Onion.

“What’s really important here is that overall growth in digital is not coming at the expense of broadcast,” CBS’ Moonves said in early spring. “This is because marketers have come to realize that digital buys are most effective when they also include broadcast. In other words, digital is complementary.” He also said the company is developing ways to monetize delayed viewing of our programming. 

Growth Opportunities
Execs are eyeing new growth opportunities at this year’s Upfront. Riding four consecutive quarters ad sales growth, Univision is building key categories including luxury auto, movie/studios and pharmaceutical. “Our single biggest growth opportunity continues to be the marketers who are not advertising on Spanish-language television,” says Turner. “There are still a number of marketers out there who don’t believe in our segment. It’s an education process.”

Indeed, the Spanish-language market is more competitive than ever, with Telemundo closing the ratings gap with Univision from a M-F primetime A18-49 gap of 1.3 million during the 2015-16 season to less than 250,000 today, according to Rosen. “The better we get at proving out through data how the Hispanic consumer is driving business results, the more that advertisers see it and understand it.”

In the general market, Fox’s Byrne seems to speak for all broadcasters when he says  it all comes back to embracing a holistic approach. “Our greatest opportunity is to capitalize on the total audience consumption of our sports and entertainment programming across linear, VOD and online video,” he tells Cynopsis.

Roberta Caploe: Publisher @robertacaploe
Diane K Schwartz: Senior Vice President, Media Communications Group

Cynopsis Ad Sales: Mike Farina | VP, Sales | 203-218-6480
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