Sponsor (Oct-Dec 1964)

PROBING THE CURRENTS AND UNDERCURRENTS OF BROADCAST ADVERTISING What's going to happen in 1965? Sponsor Scope has performed its annual rite of scouting its field for problems, prospects, shifting directions and controversies that experts see on the 1965 horizon. Out of a welter of gathered portents there emerged these highlights: (1) Because of the many rating disappointments among nighttime network tv users this season, there will be a disposition to delay the buying of new series for the 1965-66 cycle. Most of the commitments this season were made before March 15. (2) It's going to be tough for all the networks to sell anything untested in less than minute segments. (3) The drift to daytime network tv will continue for two reasons: (a) effectiveness, (b) nighttime gets more and more expensive. (4) In the matter of program types, the leaning toward the situation comedy shows no sign of a downtrend, more dramatic series will try to copy the Peyton Place syndrome and cleave closer to a slice-of-life impression (all of which means soap opera has moved uptown and in the higher rent brackets), and harder times will fall upon the variety show. (5) Advertisers will spread their spot tv activity to more markets in this respect: they won't arbitrarily confine themselves to the top 30 or 40 markets but rather match market selection to the product's marketing pattern. With that kind of buying the 55th market would be singled out over, say, the 25th top market. (6) In the world of tv commercials, there'll be much less animation and lots of trick photography (short cuts and whatnot) accompanied by music, the number of card-carrying people will be pared to the bone to reduce residual payments, and advertisers will go for more spoofing of the product. (7) On the side of agency management the trend toward mergers, going public and adopting the fee arrangements vs. commissions will take on pace. (8) Piggybacks: hard economics will proliferate their use among advertisers and ease their acceptance without additional tariff among sellers. (9) Reps: competition from the groups will nudge some of the major independents into taking a sharper look at UHF, with a view to recouping revenue; also departing from the standard compensation levels. (10) Tv research: with agency absorption in the choice of the show diminishing more and more, there will be greater determination to find out (a) who watched the commercial, (b) the creative elements that contribute to a more positive watching of the commercial. Affils pressure for night 60s It doesn't look as though anything of consequence will come out of the agitation among affiliates for minute station breaks in the tv networks' nighttime schedules. The pressure is beginning to pick some real steam. The stations' position: 20s have become a surfeit on the market. The call from advertisers is overwhelmingly for minutes in spot. The availability of minutes is about dried up. The only place affiliates can turn for an additional supply of minutes are the nighttime station breaks. If the networks don't yield, they could be responsible for some advertisers turning from tv to print. The networks' rejoinder, in essence: by granting 60-second nighttime station breaks, the networks would sow the seeds of their own destruction. Could P&G, for example, be expected to buy network participations in over 200 stations if it could lock up choice one-minute breaks in the top 50 markets? Maybe the stations created their own Frankenstein by going in for prime time movies, thereby convincing spot advertisers that, if they hold out against having to buy 20s, they can force an increased supply of local minutes. Let the stations diminish the opportunity of minutes and advertisers will go back to 20s. To sideliners the networks' riposte smacks of the old wheeze as to what came first, the chicken or the egg. In any event, look for the demand and the ensuing debate to get hotter and hotter as 1965 unrolls. Falstaff still alive with baseball Falstaff, the beer that for many years brought major league baseball to minor communities, isn't being frozen out of the game by the deal between ABC-TV and all but a couple major league baseball magnates. CBS-TV has brought Falstaff under the New York Yankee umbrella. Falstaff will carry (in its area during the season) 22 Yankee games out of New York, 12 on Saturday and 10 on Sunday. That means Falstaff will be on 12 of the 24 Saturdays ABC-TV has 20 SPONSOR »«5i