Hasta La Creative!

For those of you not savvy on tv lingo, every year the major networks parade out their new shows for the media and advertisers in something called “upfronts”
These were generally used to generate buzz for their showcase shows and get advertisers on board with the “next hot thing” before anyone else

the problem is in this day and age of the video, video on demand, tivo, the internet, even cable’s shows, which are becoming edgier and attracting major talent are outdrawing the networks

So far this season, according to the Nielsen Company, ABC (DIS, Fortune 500) has a 5.2% share of the TV-viewing households, down from 6.4% from the 2006-2007 season. CBS (CBS, Fortune 500) has a 5.6% tally, down from 7.9% last season. Fox (NWS, Fortune 500) has garnered 5.3% of households so far this season, down from 6.4% last year. And NBC (GE, Fortune 500) has captured 4.8% of the viewership, down from 5.8 during all of last season. Meanwhile, many of the largest cable networks have seen an upsurge in viewers.

Broadcast networks typically generate about half of their ad income during the upfronts. During the 2006-2007 television season, the upfronts brought in $9 billion of the U.S. broadcast networks’ combined $18.6 billion in ad revenues. But that take has fallen by 4% and 3% respectively over the last two seasons.

So the question is, for the savvy media planner, is network advertising still the way to get your product seen by the most people? Remember more than half of these new shows at the upfronts won’t even make it out of their first season.

My guess is that this trend will continue, much as blogs and the internet have replaced “old media” such as newspapers, the more options given to people, the more they will be drawn away from network television

More at CNN Money

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