Top Media Buying Agencies Predict Olympic Gold for Direct Response TV Ad Industry

PRLog (Press Release) - Jul. 18, 2012 - Los Angeles, CA., July 18, 2012 - Between the Olympics and the U.S. presidential election, television networks are flush with revenues in 2012, despite concerns at beginning of the year that DRTV media buying may have been headed for a slump this summer.  The slump never happened.

According to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ newly released global entertainment and media outlook for 2012 through 2016, U.S. broadcast ad revenues this year are on track to reach $18.9 billion, a boost of 7.3 percent versus $17.6 billion in 2011.

“The broadcast networks have always been top in revenue and will continue to be king of the media although cable revenues continue to get closer every year”, said Scott Kowalchek , President, CEO and Founder of DirectAvenue, a  direct response
media buyer based near San Diego, CA

A separate report released earlier this month by Nielsen found similar encouraging trends in broadcast ad revenues. During the first quarter of 2012, internet advertising grew by 12.1 percent, the most of any media channel, but still only accounted for 2.6 percent of the quarter's total ad spend (equivalent to outdoor advertising’s spend share). But the same report by Nielsen also found that TV dollars rose by 2.8 percent and ate up 61.9 percent of total ad spend.

The London games, the first Olympics that NBC will produce under its new corporate parent, Comcast Corp., is expected to generate more than $1 billion in national ad sale revenues for the network, $250 million more than the amount of national ad spending generated during the Beijing summer games in 2008.  Alan Wurtzel, president of research and media development for the network, projected that the London games would fall within the top-five TV events of all time, with total viewership of more than 200 million Americans over 17 days.

Some industry observers believe NBC's decision to live-stream every competition over the Internet could drain viewership from the network’s prime-time broadcast-TV coverage.  But NBC executives predict that event coverage on multiple media platforms — tablet, phone, laptop, and TV — will complement the network’s broadcast TV coverage and actually boost viewership.

“Even now with other areas like mobile advertising increasing the TV marketplace has and always will be the best way for a company to hit their consumer first,” added Kowalchek. “DRTV media buying is growing each year because it remains the most cost effective way of purchasing time. Since DRTV media costs are 30-70% below general market value, you can really reach your key demo and be much more accountable with the dollars that are spent.”

The projected growth of broadcast television revenues may appear to be counter-intuitive to earlier predictions that traditional TV advertising revenues would disappear  as the popularity of the internet rose.  However, Americans are now watching more television than ever.   And while there’s no question that TV viewing behaviors have changed irrevocably because of the internet, the predicted death of TV advertising was premature and the industry is instead anticipating Olympic gold through the summer of 2012 and beyond.

To review the 2012 DRTV Media Buying Guide, published by DirectAvenue, a direct response advertising agency in San Diego, CA visit: http://short-form-drtv.com.  to see a video featuring some of DirectAvenue's clients, visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDEYJ98a9X8




Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/11927941/1