Advertisers are moving money back into television amid ongoing concerns about the transparency, measurability and effectiveness of other media channels.
Nine’s chief sales officer Michael Stephenson (pictured) says the demand for TV advertising at Nine in the first quarter of 2017 is the strongest it has been in recent years and follows recent TV spending lifts in the UK and US.
“I look into this quarter and this half and the demand in the short-and medium-term [bookings] is a lot stronger than it has been. Forward bookings are more progressed than they were this time last year and the lead times advertisers are coming to the marketplace are longer than what they have historically been,” he says. “They’re good signals for a much better second half of the fiscal.”
Yesterday, Nine reported its FY17 half-yearly revenue and earnings were down in line with a 4.5% contraction of the metro TV advertising market.
Those results don't include bookings made this year, which Stephenson says is being felt across the TV industry.
“There’s no doubt we’ve benefitted from a stronger start to the year, but more broadly there is money coming back into the broader television market,” he adds.
Advertiser concerns
Stephenson says advertisers are moving money back into television as concerns about the transparency, measurability and effectiveness of other media channels are starting to influence media plans.
“There’s key market themes such as the lack of measurability with alternatives to TV, which is really resonating with advertisers. P&G’s movement away from Facebook is well documented,” Stephenson says.
“Television [ratings] are independently measured and I think that’s a core strength. The work that Think TV are doing to promote the effectiveness of television is resonating with advertisers.
“Genuinely advertisers are moving money back into TV for those reasons and it’s already happened in the UK and the US and its now starting to happen here as well.”
A strong start
Nine CEO Hugh Marks says that a strong end to 2016 that helped Nine win the audience share for 16-39s, 25-54s and grocery buyers post-Olympics has built much-needed momentum for 2017.
“We’ve now translated that through to a first quarter where we’ve been really week for almost a decade against My Kitchen Rules previous dominance and came out of the blocks really strongly. The momentum is in our favour,” Marks adds.
The first quarter of 2017 has seen a revitalised and expanded Married At First Sight compete with (and occasionally beat) Seven’s top-rating show My Kitchen Rules, particularly in key advertising demos.
Just prior to the ratings year, Nine’s sales boss Michael Stephenson bullishly told AdNews the show would get up to one million metro viewers, but few outside of Nine’s Australia Square HQ would have expected this sort of impact.
This season the ‘social experiment’ has gone from eight hours to 40 hours and ramped up the shock value with addictive storytelling and a spicier cast, including a few pairings that veer more towards ‘experiment’ than ‘social’.
Nine programming chiefs opted to place it against MKR and Ten’s I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here because they identified young women as the best opportunity to attract audience in one of the most competitive slots of the year.
“It was always a risk, but a considered risk. I felt that six months ago, particularly when we heard some of the storylines coming out of the show that we would have a strong start to the year and be where we wanted to be,” Marks says.
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