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sales@spotsndots.com Copyright 2020.The Daily News of TV Sales Friday, July 10, 2020

IT’S THE SAME (PAINFUL) STORY: THE PANDEMIC U.S. upfront TV ad spending will decline 1.4% in the 2019-2020 season to $20.28 billion, and drop a substantial 27.1% in the 2020-2021 season to $14.78 billion, a $5.5 billion difference on a year-over-year basis, according to eMarketer. This is a significant change from the research firm’s pre-pandemic estimates, when it expected to see single-digit growth for both seasons at 2.3% and 1.8%, respectively. The revised figures reflect about $1 billion less in spending for the 2019-2020 season and about $7 billion less for the 2020-2021 season, compared to eMarketer’s April 2019 forecasts. Brands paused, delayed or reduced ongoing campaign spending during H1 2020 as the economy began to contract and live sports programming stopped. Advertisers were given the option to cancel up to half of their upfront commitment in Q3, a relatively rare occurrence, and the number of cancellations will be greater than expected prior to the pandemic, due to additional economic uncertainty. The abrupt pause of major sporting events — including college basketball’s March Madness and a large portion of the 2020 NBA season — likely further contributed to those cancellations. In H2, brands will cut a significant share of TV upfront ad spending due to difficult economic conditions. Without clarity into whether business operations will be stable later in the year, brands are planning less of their TV buying in advance, which normally gives advertisers about half a year to plan a campaign, and will likely rely on inventory purchased within much shorter time horizons (scatter and digital). With the economy officially in a recession and production delays creating uncertainty over available ad inventory during the fall, advertisers will likely make significant adjustments to their upfront spending in the 2020-2021 season as well. An April 2020 BMO Capital Markets study found that upfront inventory sales are expected to account for 40% to 60% of total U.S. television network inventory, compared to the usual 70% to 80%.

HOMEBUYER MORTGAGE DEMAND SPIKES 33% After a brief pullback at the end of June, homebuyers rushed back into the mortgage market last week, taking advantage of record-low mortgage rates, CNBC reports. Mortgage applications to purchase a home rose 5% for the week and were a remarkable 33% higher than a year ago, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s index, which was seasonally adjusted, including for the Fourth of July holiday. Buyer demand has been incredibly strong since mid-May, after the coronavirus shut down most housing activity in April. The only thing standing in the way of more sales is the record low supply of homes for sale.

OUTLOOK: 2020-21 UPFRONT SPENDING TO FALL 27.1%ADVERTISER NEWS Fresh Thyme Farmers Market has teamed up with Shipt to launch same-day grocery delivery in 30 metro areas across the Midwest, adding the service to the on-demand delivery already provided through Instacart. In Michigan, Shipt also will offer same-day delivery of beer and wine purchased from Fresh Thyme in Detroit, Lansing, Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo… Upscale culinary retailer Sur La Table has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection with plans to potentially sell up to 70 of its 121 stores to Fortress Investment Group

and shutter the remaining locations. The retailer said it plans to continue running its brick-and-mortar and online retail operations, as well as its cooking classes... Taco Bell will debut a revamped loyalty program this

month, spurred by increasing use of the chain’s mobile app during the pandemic. Customers will earn 10 points toward free food for every dollar they spend, and customers who’ve spent $200 in the past year will be promoted to the Fire tier, which comes with additional points and perks… With more people clicking “buy” online, demand for industrial real estate could reach an additional 1 billion square feet by 2025, according to commercial real estate services firm JLL. The boom for fulfillment centers comes as the traditional retail real estate industry is suffering with store closures piling up and rents plummeting, as companies look to negotiate new leases... Dunkin’ is pulling away from being an add-on experience for people buying gas as it continues to redirect its focus toward its standalone “NextGen” stores. The chain is on track to end its co-location relationships in 450 Speedway gas stations by the end of 2020, according to Delish, a move that has been anticipated since February when the chain first announced it on an earnings call… Big restaurant chains have largely recovered from the coronavirus pandemic, but the rest of the industry is taking longer to bounce back, according to a Bank of America study. Analysts used aggregated transaction data from Bank of America credit and debit card holders to analyze consumers’ restaurant spending habits. On July 1, the trailing seven-day average spend at large chain restaurants was down 4% compared with the year-ago period. At small restaurant chains and independents, spending fell 25%... Consolidated sales for fiscal 2020’s Q2 at full-line manufacturer and retailer Bassett Furniture Industries fell 41% to $63.8 million, a reflection of the now-familiar impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on recent results at publicly traded companies in the home furnishings sector. Bassett lost $20.4 million for the three months ended May 30 compared with net income of $445,000 in 2019’s Q2. Through fiscal 2020’s first two quarters, consolidated sales totaled $175.9 million, down 23.2% compared with the same point last year… This year’s back-to-school spending will be flat year over year at $28.1 billion, or $529 per household, according to Deloitte’s back-to-school surveys. Households expect to spend $1,345 on average for back-to-college shoppers.

PAGE 2 The Daily News of TV Sales @ www.spotsndots.com

PLUTO TV LANDS CBS, COMEDY CENTRAL SHOWS ViacomCBS next week will add a tranche of 40 shows from CBS and Comedy Central to its free, ad-supported Pluto TV streaming service, Deadline reports. The slate of library titles, including mainstays like Survivor, CSI: Miami, Star Trek: The Next Generation and the first 10 seasons of South Park, will give Pluto more than 100,000 unique hours of programming. South Park’s full vault went to HBO Max last fall in a subscription streaming deal worth north of $500 million. Other titles heading to Pluto include The Amazing Race,

Beverly Hills 90210, America’s Next Top Model, CSI: NY, Everybody Hates Chris, Jag, Melrose Place, MacGyver, Sister Sister, Scorpion, Numbers and Moesha. Acquired by Viacom for $340 million in January 2019, Pluto has doubled its reach since the acquisition to 24 million monthly unique viewers in the U.S. It has become a fulcrum of synergy across ViacomCBS, with curated versions of ViacomCBS channels and properties

populating the linear streaming platform.

DONE DEAL Ryan Rothstein, since 2013 the general sales manager of WPBF-TV, Hearst Television’s ABC affiliate in West Palm Beach, Fla., has been promoted to president and GM of WPTZ-TV/WNNE-TV, Hearst’s duopoly of NBC and CW affiliates serving the Burlington, Vt. / Plattsburgh, N.Y., TV market. Rothstein, a 23-year WPBF veteran who has spent his entire career with Hearst, assumes his new role effective July 27. He succeeds Justin N. Antoniotti, who has been appointed president and GM of WGAL-TV, Hearst’s NBC affiliate serving the Lancaster-Harrisburg-Lebanon-York, Pa., market.

BOX OFFICE TRENDING DOWN 71%, ANALYST SAYS Despite optimism on behalf of some national theatrical chains, the 2020 box office continues to be hammered by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic mandating closure of most screens in the U.S. and worldwide, Media Play News reports. New data from Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles contends the box office through the first half of the year is down 71% from the same period in 2019 — a trend that won’t improve anytime soon as studios further delay new releases due to ongoing spikes in COVID-19 infections. Indeed, the second-quarter box office flatlined down 99.9% year-over-year to $3.69 million, compared with Wedbush’s most-recent estimate down 99.4% year-over-year, as most domestic theaters remained closed throughout the quarter. While major chains such AMC Theatres, Regal Cinemas and Cinemark are eyeing qualified return to normal with Warner Bros.’ Tenet on Aug. 12, followed by Disney’s Mulan on Aug. 21, senior media analyst Michael Pachter believes consumers will remain reluctant to frequent cineplexes until their is a virus vaccine or downturn in infections.

TOP GAME, REALITY SHOWS GAIN VIEWERSHIP Five top summer game and reality TV broadcast shows are posting viewing gains versus a year ago, when the none of the top 12 summer broadcast network shows saw improvements — losing anywhere from 4% to 21% of their viewership, Television News Daily reports. The results are partly due to ongoing spillover from continued higher stay-at-home viewing due to COVID-19, according to analysts. Four top returning game shows — and one reality competition series — are seeing rising viewership through six weeks of the summer period. Those shows include ABC’s Celebrity Family Feud, which is 2.3% higher to a Nielsen-measured 5.3 million viewers; NBC’s World of Dance, 17% higher to 4.3 million; ABC’s Holey Moley, climbing 25% to 4 million; ABC’s To Tell The Truth, inching up 0.4% to 3.5 million; and ABC’s Match Game, growing 15% to 3.3 million. The top summer show remains NBC’s long-time America’s Got Talent, with 8.8 million viewers, down 7% from a year ago. Other summer shows that have declined include NBC’s The Titan Games, down 23% to 3.8 million; ABC’s Press Your Luck, falling 4.2% to 3.7 million; Dateline NBC (Monday), losing 3% to 3.5 million; and NBC’s Songland, dropping 19% to 3.3 million. The top five shows for 18-49 viewing are America’s Got Talent, 7% lower to a 1.31 Nielsen rating; World of Dance, up 17% to a 0.84 rating; Celebrity Family Feud, climbing 2.3% to 0.81; Titan Games, down 23% to 0.75; and ABC’s Holey Moley, 25% higher to 0.74.

NETWORK NEWS NBC has announced a new version of The Weakest Link, hosted by Jane Lynch, that will begin production on 13 episodes later this year. The series is based on the British format, which debuted on NBC in primetime in 2001 with Anne Robinson as host. A daily syndicated version of the game show began a two-season run on local stations across the country in early 2002. As with the previous version, this new version of The Weakest Link will have contestants answering general knowledge questions to increase the prize pot. At the end of each round, the players vote out who they believe is the “weakest link” in the game... The CW says Javicia Leslie has been cast as the new Batwoman. She will make her debut in the iconic cape and cowl when Batwoman returns to The CW for its second season in January 2021. With her casting, she becomes the first Black actress to play the superhero in a live-action television or film production... A search and rescue operation has turned into a recovery effort for Glee actress Naya Rivera, who has been missing since Wednesday when she disappeared while swimming at Lake Piru north of Los Angeles. Some 100 volunteers and public safety personnel from the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office, the U.S. Coast Guard and specialized dive teams from Los Angeles, San Luis Obispo and Tulare counties, were involved in the search for Rivera, but her body had not been found by Thursday afternoon. Glee aired on Fox from 2009 to 2015.

7/10/2020

Mitch Hedberg

My belt holds my pants up, but the belt loops

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The Daily News of TV Sales @ www.spotsndots.com PAGE 3

YOU HAVE 1.3M PODCASTS TO CHOOSE FROM The intersection of the podcast industry building on a decade of growth momentum with a global pandemic has resulted in the creation of more podcasts in the first six months of 2020 than in all of last year, Inside Radio reports. There are at least 1,350,130 podcasts and 74,379,420 episodes in the world, according to the podcast search engine Listen Notes. During the first half of the year, 383,678 new podcasts debuted. That is not only more than the 273,502 that debuted in 2019, but it also represents nearly a third (29%)

of all podcasts in existence based on Listen Notes data. The numbers point to the pace of releases accelerating during the first half with existing shows releasing more content while the number of daily podcasts continues to grow. Listen Notes says 13.2 million podcast episodes were published during the first six months of 2020 compared to 16.6 million in all of 2019. Not only is that on track to establish another new industry

record, but the data also reveals that three-quarters of all podcast episodes have been published during the past four years.

THIS AND THAT Nielsen’s new measurement system for out-of-home viewing was scheduled to roll out in September but now will be delayed until an unknown point. The ratings giant blames the pandemic for the delay, which has frustrated many network executives... Amazon has enhanced Fire TV with the integration of livestreaming services Sling TV, YouTube TV and Hulu + Live TV. The move may reinforce Amazon’s attempts to keep users engaged in its ecosystem and attract new viewers... Americans have lost more than $77 million in fraud related to COVID-19, according to the FTC. But that tally is likely a severe undercount amid an “unprecedented” scope of scams connected to the coronavirus, according to John Breyault, VP of public policy, telecommunications and fraud at the National Consumers League.

7/10/2020

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DEMS HOLD $30M ADVANTAGE IN SENATE FIGHT Democrats in crucial Senate races across the U.S. are swamping the airwaves with ads in the furious battle for control of the chamber, far outpacing Republican spending as their party grows more bullish about their prospects for retaking the majority, CNN reports. In battleground states nationwide, Democratic candidates and outside groups have been inundating the air with ads, promoting their records, seeking to distinguish themselves during their own competitive primaries and bashing the GOP senators whose seats they seek to occupy. In 12 races that will determine the next Senate majority, Democrats have spent roughly $30 million more on the airwaves than their Republican counterparts, according to a CNN review of data from Kantar’s Campaign Media Analysis. In total, Democrats — including campaigns and outside groups — have spent $109 million on television, radio and digital advertisements, compared with $79 million for Republicans since the beginning of the election cycle last year, the records show. To take back the Senate, Democrats need to pick up only three seats if former Vice President Joe Biden wins the presidency, since the vice president breaks a tie in the chamber. They need a net pickup of four seats if President Trump is re-elected. The Democrats have competitive bids for at least nine seats in eight states — North Carolina, Colorado, Maine, Mon-tana, Georgia, Kansas, Iowa and Arizona — while they’re playing defense in just two states, Alabama and Michigan. Georgia has two Republican senators up for election this year, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue.

JOBLESS CLAIMS 1.3M, BETTER THAN EXPECTED Weekly jobless claims were lower than expected last week as workers slowly returned to their jobs in the wake of rising coronavirus cases, CNBC reports. Claims for the week ended July 4 totaled 1.314 million, compared with the 1.39 million expected from economists surveyed by Dow Jones. The total marked a decrease of 99,000 from a week earlier, according to the Labor Department. The four-week moving average of claims, which smooths volatility in the weekly numbers, fell 14,000 to 1.43 million. Continuing claims fell sharply, dropping 698,000 from a week earlier to 18.06 million. The previous week’s total itself was revised down by 530,000. Wall Street had been expecting 18.9 million continuing claims, according to FactSet.

FOR QUIBI, THE NEWS IS QUITE DISCOURAGING Streaming service Quibi only managed to convert a little under 10% of its early wave of users into paying subscribers, says mobile analytics firm Sensor Tower. According to the firm’s new report on Quibi’s early growth, the short-form video platform signed up about 910,000 us-ers in its first few days back in April. Of those users, only about 72,000 stuck around after the three-month free trial, indicating the app had about an 8% conversion rate.