www.cablespots. Published Daily For Subscriptions, call 1-888-884-2630 [email protected] $300 Per Year Copyright 2019 Friday, March 19, 2021 NFL STRIKES 11-YEAR, $100 BILLION MEDIA RIGHTS DEAL AMAZON SECURES ‘THURSDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL’ ADVERTISER NEWS The National Football League, television’s biggest pro- Amazon is diving deeper into providing health care ser- gramming franchise in terms of revenue and viewership, has vices — and not just for its own employees. The company is struck a new round of 11-year, long-term deals with TV net- expanding its on-demand telehealth service, Amazon Care, works, according to the league. to other companies based in its home state of Washington, It will total a massive $100 billion in sports-right fees over with a much bigger rollout to come this summer. Amazon the time span, according to reports. initially piloted the service in September 2019, with availabil- Three of the TV networks will witness an eye-popping 100% ity limited to its employees (and their families) in Washing- increase in yearly sports-rights fees — Fox, NBC and CBS ton State... 7-Eleven is commissioning local mural artists to — which had been anticipated. The exception being ESPN, bring its creative vision to life at select stores. The conve- which will see a 30% to 35% rise. nience retailer has teamed up with The Ammersion Group, Also expected, Amazon gained exclusive rights to Thurs- a new Dallas-based creative agency, to identify artists to day Night Football for $1 billion per year, according to re- create neighborhood-specific murals on interior and exterior ports — a package that will only be available to consumers walls of existing and new 7-Eleven stores... Volvo Cars will with an monthly subscrip- temporarily stop or adjust production in China tion. and the U.S. for parts of March due to a glob- NBC will continue to air Sunday Night Football. al shortage of semiconductor chips, it said this Fox and CBS air Sunday afternoon NFL games. week. “We expect the situation to become criti- Fox has the NFC conference games, and CBS cal during the second quarter and have therefore runs the AFC conference games. ESPN will con- decided to take measures to minimize the impact tinue to air Monday Night Football. on production while working daily to improve the ESPN’s sister network, ABC, will get to air two situation,” Volvo Cars said... Hyundai will offer its Super Bowl games over the length of the 11-year redesigned 2022 Tucson N Line model, followed deal, as well as some exclusive regular-season by a Plug-in Hybrid variant come summer. The games. NBC, Fox, and CBS will each get to air 2022 Tucson N Line joins the Veloster, Elantra three Super Bowl games over the length of their and Sonata in Hyundai’s N and N Line lineup. deals. Hyundai’s N performance brand is made up of Key in the deal for TV networks is the right to air games models that receive performance upgrades and visual en- simultaneously on their respective streaming platforms, in- hancements (N) and those that merely receive the latter (N cluding Peacock for NBCUniversal, Paramount+ for Via- Line)... Designer Brands, parent of footwear retailer DSW, comCBS and for Fox. is optimistic that the economic recovery will bring a shift According to The Wall Street Journal, the new contracts back to seasonal fashions and less casual dressing, CEO show the balance the league is trying to strike by embrac- Roger Rawlins said. The company expects its focus to shift ing digital platforms, as younger audiences migrate to them, from kids’ shoes and sneakers to dressy and special occa- without alienating fans used to watching games on TV. sion styles… Starbucks plans to start testing Cold Pressed “This is about the future,” Robert Kraft, the New England Espresso in some cafes by the end of the year as consum- Patriots owner who chairs the NFL’s media committee, said ers increasingly stick to cold drinks for their caffeine jolt. The in an interview with the newspaper, adding that the deals al- drink was already available in Starbucks’ upscale Reserve low the league and its partners to adapt to an “environment locations. Cold beverages, favored by younger customers, that’s changing so fast.” have played a crucial role in growing the chain’s same-store In turn, NFL marketing partners can take advantage of those sales in recent years... Apple could release new iPads as new streaming outlets with new messaging opportunities. soon as April, Bloomberg reports. The new iPads will be NFL Network will continue to televise a select schedule of part of Apple’s high-end iPad Pro line and could feature im- exclusive NFL games on a yearly basis. proved cameras, a faster processor, and a new type of Mini- For the just-completed year, regular-season NFL games LED display on the largest iPad with improved brightness averaged 15.4 million Nielsen-measured viewers, down 7% and contrast. Apple’s iPad business has been boosted by from the year before. people looking for computers during the pandemic. During According to the Journal, Amazon is paying an average an- the most recent holiday quarter, Apple reported $8.4 billion nual fee of around $1 billion. The company is betting that the in iPad sales... Anheuser-Busch is boosting production of addition of exclusive NFL games will drive people to sample its latest hard seltzer offering after the beverage, developed its original content. alongside rapper Travis Scott, saw furious demand, CEO ESPN, meanwhile, will pay an average annual fee of $2.7 Michel Doukeris tells CNBC. The drink — called Cacti billion to continue airing MNF, up from its current deal of $2 Agave Spiked Seltzer — launched this week. It comes in billion, the newspaper said. The network is getting two play- three flavors — pineapple, lime and strawberry — and has off games per season, up from one. 7% alcohol by volume. SINCLAIR STARTS MARKETING PUSH FOR RSNs SHOPIFY: SHOPPERS 18-35 DRIVE ONLINE RETAIL is preparing to rebrand its The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the growth of regional in the U.S. under the banner e-commerce, especially among consumers under 35. of , taking the name of casino operator Bally’s According to the Future of Commerce 2021 study from Corp. as sports media continues to establish closer ties with e-commerce platform Shopify, 84% of global consumer the gambling industry. respondents have shopped online since the start of The TV-station giant has begun a marketing campaign COVID-19, compared to 65% who have shopped in-store promoting the role the regional television networks play in during that time. Of those who have shopped in-store, 38% delivering fans live games and other sports content about are doing less often than earlier in 2020. their local teams and players, The Wall Street Journal In addition, more than half of respondents have avoided reports. busy shopping times or crowds in the past six months, Sinclair will spend more than $10 million this year on and 46% said they feel uncomfortable shopping in person. marketing the renamed Bally Sports Eight in 10 (79%) respondents will shop networks, including the launch campaign online regularly in the next six months, as well as other programs throughout the compared to 57% who will shop in-store year, according to Sinclair CMO John Amazon’s apparel and regularly. Zeigler. footwear sales in the Fifty-four percent of all respondents It will complement that spending with U.S. rose approximately shifted more of their spending to online promotion on other Sinclair properties, 15% in 2020 to more than shopping since the pandemic was $41 billion, outdistancing including broadcast TV stations that declared. Young consumers 18-35 led Walmart by 20% to 25%. overlap geographically with the sports the trend, with 67% shifting more of their networks, the , the spending to online shopping compared to digital sports network and the Wells Fargo before the pandemic, ahead of older age streaming service STIRR, Zeigler said. groups (57% for consumers 35-54, and Sinclair will seek to mine its other assets 41% for 55 and up). to promote the new Bally Sports networks The study also found that 28% of more than it did in their previous incarnations, he added. respondents younger than 35 said they purchased via social media, compared to 20% of respondents age 35-54 and 8% WELLS: AMAZON TOP U.S. APPAREL RETAILER of respondents age 55 and up. Amazon has surpassed Walmart as the top apparel retailer in the U.S, according to research by Wells Fargo, CNBC NBCU EYES PRIMETIME RATES FOR PEACOCK ADS reports. Amazon’s apparel and footwear sales in the U.S. NBCUniversal has confirmed that it will seek primetime TV rose approximately 15% in 2020 to more than $41 billion, rates for ads on its Peacock streaming service, Television outdistancing Walmart by 20% to 25%, the report said. News Daily reports. “This represents highly impressive 11%-12% share of all NBCU has made significant investments in Peacock’s apparel sold in the U.S. and 34%-35% share of all apparel reach, in special ad formats, and in delivering a non-cluttered, sold online,” Wells Fargo analysts Ike Boruchow and Tom impactful ad environment by running only five minutes of ads Nikic wrote in a note. per hour on the service, the network’s President of Advertising The two analysts estimate that Amazon will surpass $45 Sales and Partnerships, Laura Molen, told Variety. billion in apparel/footwear sales in 2021, according to the “We are committed to building this space for marketers and report. keeping consumer engagement around their ads. Our pricing Wells Fargo noted that Amazon’s growth in apparel was fu- is going to reflect this,” she said. eled by a boom in e-commerce brought on by the pandemic. As streaming expands while linear TV ratings decline, and ad dollars follow viewers, all legacy media companies are SURVEY: FOR , PARAMOUNT+ NOT SO VISIBLE expected to push hard for premium rates for streaming ads Less than half of 500 U.S. consumers recently surveyed — including during this year’s upfront, as Variety points out. by CordCutting.com (46%) even know a service called Paramount+ just launched. THIS AND THAT And only 13% of those polled said they had plans to sign up Retail video impressions increased 63% on a year-over-year basis in February, driven by a 212% jump in programmatic for the ViacomCBS subscription streaming service, which launched earlier this month. audience buying and a 159% increase in connected TV, The response seems to throw at least a little cold water on according to data from the Innovid iQ dashboard. Overall the notion that Paramount+ might come close to matching video impressions rose 35% in comparison with last February. By device, CTV impressions grew 62% overall, the incendiary start of Disney+, which signed up 10 million followed by mobile (23%) and PC (3%)... More than one- users on its first day, setting the bar for all SVOD services third of Americans age 65 or older who live in households that launched after it. with broadband are using smart speakers or smart displays, Paramount+ had 8,000 subscribers on its first day, the belying the perception that seniors don’t take easily to result of legacy ViacomCBS SVOD service CBS All Access advanced technology, Parks Associates reports. Nearly transitioning into the newer, broader platform. But it’s unclear half of all U.S. broadband households have embraced as to how many new customers the broadened service is the technology, Parks notes... Filings for jobless benefits bringing in. are hovering near the pandemic’s lowest levels, adding to evidence of recent economic improvement. Jobless claims PAGE 2 rose last week to 770,000 — still elevated above the pre- pandemic peak of 695,000 — but have declined since www.CableSpots.net Friday, March 19, 2021 January.