According to AdAge, Clear Channel is trying to sell upfronts for radio and TV. The article mentions that Clear Channel can include as part of an integrated package “…potential talent endorsements from personalities like Ryan Seacrest, Steve Harvey and Glenn Beck.”
I don’t really get it.
On the one hand, endorsement radio is really the only place where an upfront makes sense – especially for the top 10 endorsers. You have a very limited supply (the host and his time on the air) but plenty of demand (direct response advertisers). The networks can and actually do demand an upfront commitment to a certain level of spend. Again, that’s for the “big boys”. It used to be that way at the local market level. But with inventory you could drive four trucks through, it’s become tougher and tougher for a station/endorser to say “I only take an annual deal”. I’ve seen endorsers now say “let’s give it a shot for a month and see what happens”. It’s a different, and more buyer-friendly world.
But an upfront for an integrated package which includes radio, OOH, and digital? What? Why?
In TV it still seems to make sense – continued strong demand with a limited (and falling!) supply. The advertisers that depend on TV to grow the business or awareness, or simply need to hold onto their share of the market because their competitors are on TV, doesn’t have many options but to play in the networks’ game.
Radio, OOH, and Digital? Really? There’s an almost endless supply and diminishing demand.
In TV, what you pay in the scatter market is almost always going to be higher than what you could have negotiated in the upfronts (only in two years in the last twelve has this not been the case).
In radio, digital (owned by the station/network) and Outdoor, I’ll take my chances. It’s still a buyer’s market there and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
Outside of the terrestrial world, maybe. Pandora, for one, seems to be in a constant sell-out state. Buyers are already experiencing upfront-like negotiations with Pandora and video-sites like Hulu.
But radio – especially non-endorsement radio? Nahhhh.