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sales@spotsndots.com Copyright 2018.The Daily News of TV Sales Tuesday, October 22, 2019

2018-19 PLAYOFFS BROUGHT IN $829.3M, UP 12% The National Basketball Association tips off a new season tonight, and because of unprecedented player movement, a new rookie star and a wide-open championship race, the networks expect higher ratings and revenues, Multichannel News reports. Star players, including Kawhi Leonard and Anthony Davis, have switched teams; the long-dominant Golden State Warriors are no longer championship favorites; and the athleticism of Zion Williamson, the NBA’s No. 1 draft pick, is putting the New Orleans Pelicans on the map and in the national games televised by Walt Disney’s ABC and ESPN and AT&T’s TNT. Sports remains the bright spot in the linear TV world. Ratings for the National Football League are up so far this season, and media buyers have been getting money down early on the NBA, pushing prices up for ESPN’s five-game Christmas hoopstravaganza and the playoffs. Last year’s big NBA offseason news of LeBron James moving west to the Los Angeles Lakers didn’t work out so well. Ratings dropped for early East Coast games, James missed games because of injury and the Lakers missed the playoffs. For the regular season, ESPN ratings were flat and TNT was down 12 percent. Despite the ratings dip, regular-season ad revenues for ABC, ESPN, TNT and NBA TV rose 3 percent to $695.7 million, according to iSpot.tv. The playoffs generated another $829.3 million, up 12 percent. This season, “the NBA marketplace is strong,” said Madhavi Tadikonda, senior vice president and group director, investment, at media agency Canvas Worldwide, whose clients include NBA official sponsor Kia. The NBA attracts a young audience that’s hard to find in the linear space, Tadikonda said. It also has a cool cachet that gives brands permission to do fun stuff, she said. Kia has a multiyear deal for NBA spots, which is holding down price increases for the automaker, Tadikonda said. While Kia bought most of the commercial inventory it needed in the upfront, other clients looking to buy NBA spots now are facing challenges because of high sellout levels. “For opening week and basically throughout the fourth quarter, we are sold out,” said Jon Diament, Turner Sports executive VP. Sales are pacing about 20 percent ahead of last year. Most of Turner’s biggest NBA sponsors have stayed in place, with NBA Tip-Off and Opening Week presented by Autotrader, halftime sponsored by American Express and State Farm presenting the NBA on TNT after opening week. Other categories buying NBA ads from Turner include autos, food and beverages, quick-service restaurants and beer. Fashion brands, including sneaker companies, also buy time. There’s some interest from gaming companies

(Continued on Page 3)

PLAYER MOVES HAVE TV, ADVERTISERS EAGER FOR NBA ADVERTISER NEWS Destination Maternity, a leading retailer of maternity wear, filed for bankruptcy yesterday, buckling under the weight of an onerous debt load and struggling to compete with better capitalized competition. The retailer, which employs a little over 1,100 full-time and 2,300 part-time employees, owned 458 U.S. stores as of February, according to regulatory filings. The company has 362 Motherhood Maternity

Stores, 26 Pea in the Pod stores and 70 Destination Maternity stores. It operates additional stores globally and through franchise deals... Hudson’s Bay has agreed to an offer from a group led by executive chairman Richard Baker that would take the department store operator private, Reuters reports. A previous

bid by the same group was declined for being “woefully inadequate” by HBC’s board... Several Walmart Great Value brand meat items have been recalled due to possible salmonella contamination, health officials say. More than 6,400 pounds of the food – ready-to-eat pork sausage patties and turkey sausage patty products – were recalled by George’s Prepared Food, located in Caryville, Tenn. The items included in the recall were produced on April 19, April 27, May 7 and May 9. The packages were sent to Walmart stores nationwide, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety Inspection Service said in a news release...Macy’s has revamped the menswear department within its New York City Herald Square flagship store, with an emphasis on curation and discovery. 4,500 square feet of the 14,500-square-foot menswear department will be dedicated to a space called The Park, which will be refreshed every eight to 12 weeks with new brands... Dunkin’ is moving up the date of its nationwide launch of its Beyond Sausage sandwich after successful tests in Manhattan, CNBC reports. The chain started testing the breakfast sandwich made with plant-based sausage from Beyond Meat in July in Manhattan locations. Initially, Dunkin’ was planning on rolling out the menu item nationwide in January. Now, it’s launching Nov. 6. Sales of the Beyond Sausage sandwich were more than double Dunkin’s original forecast, and customers were buying it during all times of the day — not just typical breakfast hours... According to Tinuiti’s 2019 survey of 2,000 U.S. consumers, the number of consumers that indicated they would spend at least $500 increased 10 percent from last year. Gen X consumers (shoppers 35-44) are expected to spend the most, with 36.3 percent of shoppers aged 35-44 and 28.6 percent of those 45-54 planning to spend more than $500 this year, Retail Dive reports. More than 40 percent of shoppers say they expect to purchase goods online and pick them up in-store. Nearly 54 percent of high spenders plan to use BOPIS, according to the report. Forty-five percent of millennials and Gen Z shoppers returned gifts during the 2018 holiday season, and for those who did, nearly 20 percent returned at least one in five of the gifts they received, the report found.

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

AVAILS WJCL ABC 22 / Hearst Television in Savannah-Hilton Head is looking for a Salesperson to join our team. The ideal candidate will have 1-3 years of TV Sales experience. If you are competitive and driven to succeed in the area of business development, your hard work will be rewarded with generous commission rates. This is a great opportunity to join an industry-leading company and to live in one of the most historic and charming cities in the country. Please CLICK HERE to apply.

Nexstar Broadcasting Group is looking for an exceptional General Manager to lead WSPA (CBS) and WYCW (CW) and digital operations in Spartanburg, S.C.; DMA #38. For the right individual, this is an opportunity to join the largest station group in the industry and oversee a television station duopoly with a tremendous competitive position in the market. The individual also will oversee development of the stations’ digital and mobile platforms,

including WSPA.com, the top-visited broadcast website in the market. CLICK HERE for more info or to apply now. EOEM/F/D/V. Account Executive: CBS Television (WWJ-TV CBS 62 & WKBD-TV CW50) in Detroit is seeking a highly motivated self-starter with previous experience in broadcast television, cable and/or digital to join the country’s premier O&O broadcast group. Ideal candidate will have a proven record of growing transactional business, prospecting and closing new business, and experience selling across multiple screens and markets. College degree preferred. No calls accepted. Qualified candidates please apply to the CBS Television online Applicant Tracking System. EOE/M/F/V/D. WPBF 25, Hearst Television’s ABC affiliate in West Palm Beach, Fla., is hiring an experienced Account Executive. The AE is responsible for selling advertising to local businesses and ad agencies, and negotiating ratings and rates with ad agencies. This position will be responsible for developing new TV and digital revenue. If you are motivated by an excellent product, great compensation and working with a talented team of professionals, look no further. Click HERE for details or to apply now. EOE.

See your ad here tomorrow! CLICK HERE for details.

ACCOUNT ACTION TripAdvisor has named New York-based Mother to be the travel platform’s global creative agency of record, the companies say. The new appointment is part of Needham, Mass.-based TripAdvisor’s move to assert itself as a destination for travelers — and advertisers — despite increasing competition from Google, Airbnb and hotels themselves, which are encouraging consumers to book directly, Ad Age reports. Last month, TripAdvisor announced it had switched up its media strategy by consolidating its account with Havas Media Group. Most recently over the summer, TripAdvisor worked with agency The Many.

NETWORK NEWS Fox has set Wednesday, Dec. 4 for the premiere of holiday comedy event series The Moodys. The adaptation of the Australian series, starring Denis Leary and Elizabeth Perkins, will air over three nights, with back-to-back episodes beginning Wednesday, Dec. 4 at 9 and 9:30 PM on Fox. The series continues the following week with back-to-back episodes on Monday, Dec. 9 and Tuesday, Dec. 10, also at 9 and 9:30 PM. The Moodys follows a tight-knit, but slightly dysfunctional family of five, all of whom gather in their hometown of Chicago for the “perfect” holiday... NBC has handed a put pilot commitment to thriller drama The Mother-In-Law based on Sally Hepworth’s novel. Written by Jessica Goldberg, The Mother-In-Law is an unexpected thriller that centers around a woman’s complicated relationship with her husband’s family that ends in death... Stage and screen veteran Bill Macy, who co-starred in the 1970’s CBS hit sitcom Maude, died last week at the age of 97, The Associated Press reports. Macy, who had a lengthy stage career before entering the world of television, also appeared on Seinfeld, ER, and How I Met Your Mother... Minority Report alumna Meagan Good has been tapped for a key recurring role opposite Tom Payne, Michael Sheen and Bellamy Young in Fox’s new drama series Prodigal Son... Pure star Ryan Robbins is set to recur as Frank Andrews, the brother of Fred Andrews (the late Luke Perry) on the fourth season of The CW series Riverdale.

THIS AND THAT A growing number of media outlets and production companies are getting into the podcasting game, signing deals with creators or creating podcasts themselves, Axios reports. PitchBook estimates investors have sunk more than $270 million into the business this year... Subscribers to AT&T’s TV NOW basic streaming service will see their bills jump to $65 a month, a $15 increase, and Max package subscribers will shell out $85 monthly instead of $70 as the telecommunications giant increases streaming prices. According to The Wrap, AT&T blames an increase in the costs associated with programming for the change, which is the second such hike in 2019... Nielsen, which has already been measuring U.S. viewing of Netflix shows, is expanding its measurement capabilities to include Amazon Prime Video. Nielsen introduced streaming metrics in 2016 along with other improvements to traditional linear and on-demand viewing.

TVSQUARED, AMPERSAND IN ATTRIBUTION DEAL TV attribution company TVSquared is partnering with TV advertising technology company Ampersand, Television News Daily reports. The deal will connect TVSquared impression data, in real-time, to consumer behavior from Ampersand, offering transparency and accountability to TV media spend and giving advertisers campaign performance insights including reach and frequency reporting. Ampersand has a reach through pay-TV providers and cable inventory of 85 million U.S. households.

10/22/2019

Conan O’Brien

Movie pitch: Millenials buy a house that turns out to be haunted, but they’re

just grateful they were able to afford something in a good school district.

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

TV, ADVERTISERS EAGER FOR NBA TIP-OFF (Continued from Page 1)such as FanDuel and at some point, when legal gambling gets closer to a national footprint, that category could be big, he said. At Disney’s ABC and ESPN, the market is hot as well. “We’re above 90 percent sold out for October, November and December,” Disney Ad Sales EVP of revenue and yield management Jim Minnich said. “For Christmas, it’s closer to 95 percent.” Scatter is very strong for those five Christmas Day games,

he added, with pricing up by high double-digits over upfront rates. “We’re getting pricing in scatter that’s very similar to the NBA playoffs,” Minnich added. After Christmas, ABC will air games on Saturday night. Disney has also signed up 25 new advertisers that haven’t been in the NBA before, including Bacardi, Target, Nature’s Bounty and Invisalign. The top ad spenders for the 2018-19 regular season (on ABC, ESPN

networks, NBA TV and TNT), according to iSpot.tv, include State Farm ($23.2M), Metro by T-Mobile ($18.8M), Taco Bell ($17.1M), Toyota ($13.3M) and Burger King ($11.9M).

FOX REACHES RETRANS DEAL WITH CHARTER Fox Corp. and Charter Communications have reached a new long-term renewal of the retransmission consent and distribution agreements, Broadcasting & Cable reports. The new deals cover Fox stations as well as the company cable news and sports networks. Charter and Fox said they will also be cooperating to “mitigate piracy” and implement business rules to address unauthorized access to content. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

10/22/2019

FunnyTweeter.com

When I die, please don’t do an autopsy. Whatever

happened is fine.

SUNDAY NIELSEN RATINGS - LIVE + SAME DAY

WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT NHL HOCKEY FANS Pro Hockey Fans aren’t just avid TV watchers during hockey season. On a daily basis, 64.8 percent of them watch a minimum of three hours of TV while another 26.3 percent watch one to two hours. Sports programming is the top viewing choice for these folks (57.3%), but they also tune into movies (55.2%), comedies (51.2%) and the local evening news (43.1%). Their purchase intentions are as diverse as their tastes in TV programs. Within the next year, Pro Hockey Fans will score a new look by paying for hair coloring and styling services (23.4%). They’re 27 percent more likely than other consumers to pay for tanning services, perhaps in preparation for the beach trip that 39.9 percent plan to take within the next year. To go along with their new look, Pro Hockey Fans will spend at least $500 on men’s clothing (26.6%), purchase new prescription eye or sunglasses (26.5%), and freshen up with body spray or cologne (25.8%) this year. These sports fans clearly love the action-packed life , as they are 85 percent more likely than other adults to plan to buy a motorcycle. Approximately 30 percent of these fans also want to make purchases this year that help them feel productive. At least 15.8 percent plan to pay for financial- or retirement-planning services, 37.6 percent will visit the eye doctor, and they’re 73 percent more likely to sign up for a basement waterproofing or renovation project. Last year, 61.1 percent of Pro Hockey Fans took action after seeing TV commercials. Target them during their favorite programming: hockey! Source: AudienceSCAN from AdMall at SalesFuel.

DISCOUNT, C-STORES SET FOR STORE GROWTH Consumers’ increasing focus on price and speed bodes well for two types of brick-and-mortar chains, Chain Store Age reports. According to new data from retail analytics platform Edge by Ascential, discount and convenience stores in the U.S. are projected to grow faster than all other offline retail channels over the next five years. Non-food discount, food discount and convenience stores are all projected for annual growth rates above 5 percent, whereas all other offline retailers, aside from membership club stores, are projected at annual growth rates of 3 percent or below. Convenience stores are projected for the highest growth at 5.4 percent, with discount and non-food discount stores projected at 5.3 and 5 percent, respectively. Discount grocery stores, in particular, are projected to continue gaining overall share, increasing to 9.7 percent of food sales in 2024, from 8.8 percent in 2019 and 7.4 percent in 2014. Convenience stores are also proving relatively resistant to share loss from online retailers, with only a 0.2 percent loss in share from 2013-2018. The findings are drawn from Edge by Ascential’s Retail Market Monitor, which analyses how individual sectors are currently performing and how they are forecast to grow by 2024.