Marketplace Impact

The new currency's cost impact on the 2007/08 upfront marketplace appeared to be marginal, but did result in a certain diminution of available ratings points across various dayparts. Our upfront negotiations resulted in many networks absorbing some or most of the "CPM gap" between the live program rating and the C3 metric. The coming change also didn't seem to affect sales of any particular program in the upfront. Based on preliminary evaluation data, some shows with the greatest drop-off between program ratings and commercial ratings (thus potential ad-skipping) are among the most sought after by national advertisers.

The impact of commercial ratings may be most felt in the short term "scatter" network marketplace if C3 ratings fall well below the networks' expectations. Available inventory may be taken out of sale to address rating shortfall, resulting in a tighter supply and an increase in short term ad costs.

Add to: del.icio.us | Digg