Let me begin with a look backwards. Throughout most of the modern history of advertising, virtually all media rates have been predicated on the notion that if you can determine the audience of the media vehicle, the exposure to the embedded advertising is equivalent.

Think about it. For decades, outdoor rates have been determined by the number of cars that drive past a billboard (the Daily Exposure Count); print rates have been based on circulation (or audience, if you include reader-per-copy data), while program ratings have determined TV and radio pricing.

The lynchpin of this concept is essentially, the law of averages. In other words, the likelihood of a newspaper reader missing your ad in the Sports section or a TV viewer heading out of the room when your commercial aired were seen as random acts that afflicted all advertisers without any measure of predictability. And while flawed, the system worked. ...read the rest of this post»

Super Bowl Sunday is rapidly approaching, and I can predict with certainty, one outcome of the game... everyone will be watching. Well, almost everyone.

Most of us know the Super Bowl generates big numbers. But, when you take a minute to really think about them, they are mind-boggling. For example, about half of all American households tune into the game year after year after year. 

To put that into context, of the Top 50 highest-rated TV programs since 1966, the Super Bowl claims 24 places. Baseball isn't even in the same ballpark. (Sorry, I couldn't resist that one.) Specifically, only one baseball game, Game 6 of the 1980 World Series, even cracks the Top 100. (And it's tied for 99th place.) 

The revenue generated for the network airing the telecast is also huge. At $2-3 million per :30 spot, Super Bowl XLIV will generate about $150 million in sales for CBS....read the rest of this post»

In their prime, they represented an iconic American industry; an industry that exercised tremendous influence on our opinions and sense of style, employed thousands, exported American culture to every corner of the globe, had a powerful voice in shaping public policy, enjoyed a monopolistic market share, were very profitable businesses and today, are in a state of woeful decline.  The other industry makes cars. 

The question is “How did ABC, CBS and NBC get themselves in such sorry shape?”...read the rest of this post»

If you follow the advertising trades, you may have come across the term "chaos."  If you haven't, "the chaos theory" is used to describe the apocalyptic end result if the current decline in media audiences continues. 

Eventually, audiences will shrink to the point where the media vehicles no longer generate enough revenue to sustain themselves.  As the trend continues, these media vehicles fail at escalating rates, advertisers have nowhere to invest their budgets and the advertising economy collapses. In other words, "chaos" means the end of advertising as we know it....read the rest of this post»