Petry Dished Fox Sales
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1111E !MEEK Vol. 7 No. 5 THE NEWS MAGAZINE OF THE MEDIA February 3, 1997 $3.00 MARKET INDICATORS Petry Dished Fox Sales National TV: Slow Not much business nappening, w:h make - Rep firm lands $700M in billings for 22 -station OHOgroupPAGE 6 goods eating up inven- -.ory and buyers and sellers focused on the CHILDREN'S TV Kids upfront. Some shops repert sligntly Superheroes nigher second-quarter Lead Kids WB option cuts. Net Cable: Active Fall Slate The kids upfrort came and went last week. Net hopes to build Otherwise, the .after image with Batman nalf of first-quarter scat- :er has picked up for and Co.; few new nets selling 18-49. shows on tap Spot WI Middling PAGE 5 =irst quarter is ep a 3cant 3 or 4 peicf.nt CHILDREN'S TV 'rom last year. Most oroduct linas are flat, Fox Kids Net's though the latest "burg - 3r wars" are heating up New Marvel the fast-food category. Series based on Radio: Flat The marke-. cortinues 'Silver Surfer' to disappoint; broad- (omic due for fall oasters had expected a -obust first qLaier but PAGE 5 nstead see stagnation. _.A. is brig -den ra a bit, MAGAZINES Of Time as is Chicago,. tut even Line Forms a match seems bright In an unusually brisk kids upfront, n a cave. At Disney Magazines: Restless Nickelodeon wields its clout to flurry of top-I.3.vel per- Newhouse, many sonnel moves and talk others look at titles of whole groups on the lend a hand to TV Land clock have business PAGE 6 types in a ditt-e-. pAC E 4 Tobacco and luxury goods are not. II899iii 5 NC IC MOM in$111:: Travel without directions and you' re likely to end up in the micdle of Jersey. Travel with Yahoo! Internet Life and you can park your brain somewhere along the cutting edge. Yahoo! Internet Life is a new magazine that takes all the information on tie Net, sends it through a filter, drains the fat and gives you the rest. The fastest growing coisumeir magazine in the country. Yahoo! Internet Life. Your personal road map to what's cocl on the Web. Use it wisely. Ylri.11I IINIV ',trt. tat VI VI Or.t. ;T MIN' -111110,1 .now o SUPtt. pS (din! tenet Pates-li 5112PAIllt Sriltittil ia, For more information about advertising, call Publisher Jim Spanfeller at 12121 503-4701 or e-mail: Jim SpainfellerOZD,com A I the Web tht s fit In suc. MEDIAWEEK February 3, 1997 http://www.mediaweek.com PAGE 3 Laura K. JonesFEB 1 21997 AT DEADLINE games will continue to be broadcast on KABC. KIIS is a Jacor Reuters Reported Eyeing Dow Jones Communication -owned station .Jacor has long been a sports radio Reuters has indicated an interest in buying or merging with Dow player in several U.S. markets, including Tampa Bay, Fla., Cincin- Jones, according to a report in this week's "Inside Wall Street" nati and Boulder/Denver, Colo. The move is also significant column of Business Week. Some Reuters Holdings money man- because it marks KIIS-AM's break from being a strict KIIS-FM agers apparently have inquired into the possibility of a merger, simulcast entity. joint venture or sale of Dow Jones. A Dow Jones rep said last Fri- day that the column is "nonsense." Earlier last week, investors News Corp. Ready to Pounce on MSG James Cramer and Michael Price acquired large interests in News Corp. is said to be the most serious suitor waiting to gobble Dow Jones. up Madison Square Garden, along with MSG Network and the Knicks and Rangers teams, if it should go up for sale. The prop- ABC Radio Set to Sign Katz Solo erties are owned by ITT and Cablevision Systems Corp. ITT is ABC Radio Networks is expected to sign an exclu- currently the target of a possible hostile takeover by sive sales rep agreement with Katz Radio Group, Hilton Hotels Corp., which would most likely sell according to sources close to the network. Terms of INSIDE the Garden if the bid succeeds. Cablevision has the the deal could not be confirmed by presstime. ABC right of first refusal to either buy out Hilton's Radio Networks owns and operates 21 stations in would-be stake, approve another partner or sell out New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, to a buyer. The most likely scenario, according to Detroit, Dallas, Atlanta, Minneapolis and Washing- one source, would be the approval of another part- ton, D.C. The deal follows on the heels of CBS ner, i.e., News Corp. Also likely to be sold off is Radio's exclusive sales representation deal with New WBIS+, the New York sports and business station York -based Interep Radio. jointly owned by ITT and Dow Jones, which launched in late January. News Corp. has a pro- WB Loses Savannah Affil to UPN gramming alliance with WBIS+ for its Fox Sports United service (which it co -owns with Liberty Media), but Paramount Network, the third such defection in two the media giant wants a full-time sports presence months. Upchurch Broadcasting -owned WUBI in in New York. Published reports placed the Gar- Savannah, Ga., will switch from WB to UPN, MTV Nets' Popkowski den's value at between $650 million and $1 billion, announced station president/ceo Jimmy Upchurch. cashes in on kids but sources close to the company report that its "We have a better future with UPN and they're 4 cash -flow increase from around $20 million in 1994 easier to work with," said Upchurch. "I think to $94 million last year would justify a higher price. Warner Bros. is turning into a cable company FORUM ITT and Dow Jones bought WBIS+ for $207 mil- and will ultimately not support their affiliates." 12 lion last year. Upchurch said he was disenchanted with The WB's plan to launch the WeB cable service in the nation's WASHINGTON 'HAG' AD May Land at 'Esquire' lower 100 markets. 21 Robert Priest, the Conde Nast House & Garden art director who was replaced two weeks ago by for- CBS Sports Cuts 3 Execs REAL MONEY mer Esquire design director Diana LaGuardia, is Sean McManus, president of CBS Sports, has let go 36 set to take LaGuardia's post at the Hearst men's three executives in the business affairs department to book. An Esquire spokesman would not comment, make room for fresh blood as the network prepares MEDIA PERSON and Priest could not be reached for comment. to bid on sports rights, particularly the NFL. The 38 Priest served a four-year stint as Esquire art direc- three vice presidents-Doug Jacobs, Noel Berman tor a decade ago. and Brian Fielding-left last week. No replacements have been named yet. AfterDark Adds E! Online for News E! Online has joined The Wall Street Journal and USA Today as a KIIS Your Radio for Dodgers Games news content provider for Berkeley Systems' AfterDark Online, a The Los Angeles Dodgers last week traded KABC-AM, their news broadcast delivered directly to users' desktops. AfterDark is radio home for the past 23 years, for KIIS-AM in a five-year deal a personal news delivery system available through downloaded set to take effect in 1998. During the 1997 season, all Dodger software and modem. MEDIAWEEK (ISSN 0155-176X) is published 47 times a year. Regular issues are published weekly except the last week of July and the second and fourthweeks of August and the last two weeks of December by ASM Communications, Inc., a subsidiary of BPI Communications Inc., 1515 Broadway, New York, NY, 10036. Subscriptions are $115 oneyear; $195 two years. Canadian subscriptions $260 per year. All other foreign subscriptions are $260 (using air mail). Registered as a newspaper at the British Post Office.Periodicals postage paid at New York, N.Y. and additional mailing offices. Subscriber Service (1-800) 722-6658. MEDIAWEEK, 1515 Broadway, New York, NY, 10036. Editorial: New York, (212) 536-5336; Los Angeles, (213) 525-2270; Chicago, (312) 464-8525. Sales (212) 536-6528. Classified (1-800-7-ADWEEK). POSTMASTER: Send address changes to MEDIAWEEK, P.O. Box 1976, Danbury, CT 06813-1976. Copyright, 1996 ASM Communications, Inc. PAGE 4 http://www.mediaweek.com February 3, 1997 MEDIAWEEK MEDIA WIRE 'SI' Cancels Specials On NCAA Hoops, Football Nick, Toon Time Inc.'s Sports Illustrated has tem- porarily scrapped plans for new "bonus sections"-additional edit and ad pages-on college football and basket- ball. Subscribers who had requested the additional sections were sent letters last week informing them that the sections are not forthcoming. The subscribers Are Wrapped were offered the "NBA Extra" section, which launched Jan. 13, instead. "The bottom line is that these sections cost a lot of money," said assistant con- Kids upfront commands double-digit CPM hikes sumer marketing director Gene Foca. "We've got to have enough bodies-a TV / By Michael Biirgi & Eric Schmuckler ing. "They're being pretty reasonable with us," critical mass-to justify the expense." Nickelodeon opened the kids upfront said Gary Carr, senior vp at Ammirati Puns Readers who have renewed subscrip- advertising market last week with a Lintas. But others noted that the network has tions since summer have been asked series of deals that brought in fresh no choice, since it must book as many dollars as which special sections they would like to money for next season, new com- itcan to put againstitsstill -rising ratings. receive-"Golf Plus," "NFL Extra," mitments for the 1998-99 season "Their CPM is still way below the major broad- "NBA Extra" or the never -produced and ad dollars for its spin-off net- casters, more like syndication," said a buyer.