Sponsor (Oct-Dec 1964)

PROBING THE CURRENTS AND UNDERCURRENTS OF BROADCAST ADVERTISING to account men or clients why they're not using the number one-rated station. Another factor worth noting: every one of the three networks' o& o's and affiliates are pushing hard for the spot dollar. When ratings level out, competitive pressure intensifies among the reps also. ARB's big sweep report, which covers about 200 markets, measures November and usually comes out in January. The November report is used for spring buying, while the March report is resorted to for fall buying. The March report is described as the "demographic book," with the data focusing on the 18-39 age group. The marketer looks upon this group as important in that it ranges over the "years of acquisition." The importance is heightened by the fact that advertisers, lacking profiles on a market, have no way of knowing how important the older groups are. Hence they tend to place special emphasis on the 18-39 age bracket. The World Series' tv look If you compare the Nielsen measurements for the 1964 and 1959 World Series, the downward trend in baseball tv audiences becomes quite evident. The average homes for the 1964 series was slightly above 20 million, whereas the average homes reached by the 1959 series was 24 million. Lending sharp flavor to the contrast is the gain in the interim of 5 million tv homes. In exact arithmetic: from 44.5 million homes to 52.6 million homes. Another catchy bit of comparison, the cost of series, as a package, in 1959 was $1,600,000, while the same commodity in 1964 came to $3,800,000. The figures, to say the least, cast provocative light on the economics of tv sports — especially for the slide-rule clan. Bristol-Myers third in tv dollars The top 25 advertisers in tv accounted for 56 percent of the medium's (both network and spot) bilHngs for the first half of 1964. For several years previous the share for the top 25 has wavered between 52 and 53 percent. The deduction you might make from this is that the rate of increased contributions from the leaders has been greater than ever. Following are the 1964 expenditures for the top 25, with their rank in parentheses. It should be noted that billings for the automotive big three look surprisingly small because the bulk of their budgets arc spent during the fourth quarter. Another note: Bristol-Myers, for the first time, is up there behind P&G and General Foods and ahead of Lever, Colgate and American Home Products. It's a striking measure of BristolMyers recent growth. ADVERTISER NETWORK TV SPOT TV P & G (1) $38,898,300 $36,) 20,400 General Foods (2) 19,587,300 19,413,300 Bristol-Myers (3) 20,592,600 12,071,800 American Home Products (4) 21,384,800 9,346,500 Colgate (5) 14,162,200 16,311,000 Lever Brothers (6) 17,592,600 11,596,400 R. J. Reynolds (7) 14,572,300 5,888,000 General Mills (8) 8,223,000 11,279,800 Alberto-Culver (9) 10,889,800 6,831,500 Gillette (10) 15,191,400 4,447,800 American Tobacco (11) 12,726,600 4,907,800 General Motors (factory) (12) 16,933,400 P. Lorillard (13) 10,369,100 3,366,000 Kellogg (14) 8,005,000 5,587,800 Brown & Williamson (15) 10,283,200 2,538,400 Liggett & Myers (16) 9,496,400 3,065,300 Philip Morris (17) 11.450,700 1,633,200 Sterling Drug (18) 8,529,500 2,447,400 Campbell Soup (19) 6,153,700 6,153,700 Chrysler (20) 9,825,000 Miles Lab (21) 8,330,300 1,356,400 National Dairy (22) 6,410,800 1,925,500 Block Drug (23) 7,649,500 Ford (factory) (24) 7,649,100 J. B. Williams (25) 6,341,100 TOTAL $75,018,700 38,826,600 32,664,400 30,731,300 30,473,600 28,989,000 20,460,300 19,502,800 18,282,200 17,669,200 17,634,400 16,933,400 13,735,100 13,592,800 12,821,600 12,501,700 12,083,900 10,976,900 10,719,800 9,825,000 9,686,700 8,332,300 7,649,500 7,649,100 6,341,100 Catch and go for Bristol-Myers The agency task forces that have been out in the field trying to make block spot tv deals for Bristol-Myers have been successful in some markets and not so successful in others. The agency that seems to have scored best is DCS&S. It brought in WABC-TV, ABC-TV's New York flagship, and a Chicago duo, WBBM-TV (a CBSTV o&o) and WGN-TV. The Bristol-Myers deal is a sort of franchise, providing for an annual total dollar guarantee, which is carved up into quarters. The WABC-TV agreement calls for an expenditure of $1 million, with a discount of 20 percent off the top. Ted Shaker, vice president in charge of ABC-TV o&o's, told Sponsor Scope the BristolMyers deal appealed to him particularly because it brought a guaranteed revenue for the third quarter. Also that it allowed a station to estimate pretty well what its billings will be from quarter to quarter and to fatten out income valleys that spread between the first and fourth quarter peaks of the year. 30 SPONSOF