HALLOWEEN SCARES UP SPENDING

Shoppers are still spending a ton of money this Halloween—$11.6 billion is projected by the National Retail Federation. That’s around five percent less than last year’s $12.2 billion but still well ahead of 2021 and 2022. The top spending areas are costumes and decorations at $3.8 billion each, and $3.5 billion will be spent on candy. If you’re one of those people who jams an unwilling pet into a costume, you’re contributing $700 million to the projection. Overall, per-person spending is projected to be around $104. (NRF: Oct 29, 2024)

WORLD SERIES A HIT FOR FOX

LA’s victory brought the Yankees/Dodgers World Series game to a close last night, and the only people sadder to see it end than the Yanks and their fans might be FOX executives. Viewership figures for last night’s game aren’t yet available, but the Fall Classic has been a success for the network. Game 1 delivered an average of 15.2 million viewers across FOX, FOX Deportes, and FOX Sports’ streaming services—the most-rated Game 1 since 2017. As expected, Game 2 dipped, but its 13.8 million viewers made it the most watched Game 2 since 2018. Game 3 delivered 13.6 million—13.2 of which was on FOX Broadcast, making it the most watched Monday primetime telecast since Game 5 of the 2013 World Series. Viewership for Game 4 rallied, with 16.7 million tuning in to see what would be the Yankees’ only victory of the series. For those of you who find baseball talk stupefyingly dull, this is almost certainly the last time we’ll mention it this year.  For those who don’t: Start the countdown because pitchers and catchers report on February 12. (Deadline: Oct 30, 2024)

A POLITICAL SPENDING WINDFALL IN THE FINAL STRETCH

During the final 12 days of the Presidential campaign, almost $1 billion in ads have been booked, with more than $200 million of that in the battleground states of PA, GA, MI, WI, AZ, NC, and NV.  Pennsylvania, whose outcome could decide the winner, accounts for nearly one-third of that.  Factor in the huge down-ballot spending ($37.6 million for the Senate in the Keystone State, $45.7 million for House races in California), we can count on impenetrably tight inventory until Election Day.  (MediaPost: Oct 25, 2024)

STANDARDIZING CTV AD FORMATS

As the CTV marketplace grows and gets even more fragmented across multiple platforms, each with its own ad formats and material needs, things can get convoluted quickly as advertisers and their agencies develop multiple creatives to satisfy all the different requirements. IAB Tech Lab is attempting to correct this and introduce some order. Their project, called Ad Format Idol, aims to establish a structure that not only standardizes creativity but also measures performance. This comes at a critical time for the industry; 80% of consumers use ad-supported CTV, and 95% of advertisers plan to increase their CTV spending. (The Drum: Oct 22, 2024)

THIS WEEK IN VIDEO HISTORY

November 2, 2003 – Arrested Development premieres on FOX.  It’s hard to believe it’s been 21 years since the world was introduced to “a wealthy family who lost everything, and the one son who had no choice but to keep them all together.” Never a ratings juggernaut, the show managed to stay on the air for three seasons based on critical acclaim and its devoted following. The less said about the uneven Netflix seasons, the better.