Friday Funday . . .

IT’S BANKRUPTCY TIME:  It looks like judgement day is finally here for iHeart.  According to multiple sources and the attached Bloomberg link, iHeart is preparing to file for bankruptcy protection as early as Saturday.  This is a result of iHeart missing a nine-figure debt payment on February 1st which triggered a formal default on March 1st.  Over the past 30 days iHeart has been working with creditors to finagle more favorable debt terms, but those efforts appear to have failed.  It also looks like the Liberty Media hail Mary to acquire 40% of a post-bankruptcy iHeart for $1.2B in cash isn’t getting any traction either.  So what happens next?  Once they enter bankruptcy the courts will help negotiate a settlement between the broadcaster and its creditors.  This will most likely result in a sell off of properties like ClearChannel Outdoor and station clusters in certain markets.  It’s even possible that they’ll spin off the iHeart streaming platform into a separate entity which could run independently from the stations.  Let the fireworks begin!

THE CREAM RISES TO THE TOP:  By now you all know P&G CMO Marc Pritchard’s crusade against digital ad fraud, advertising within inappropriate content, and non-transparent measurement.  A little over a year after he threw down the gauntlet we’re starting to see the impact on digital publishers.  As reported in the attached WSJ link, P&G is on track to reduce digital spending by $200M in their July-June fiscal.  Several large publishers received a “pretty big hair cut” and YouTube was cancelled completely after P&G ads ran adjacent to objectionable content.  On the other side of the coin digital good guys like Pandora, Amazon, and Alibaba, who run very clean ad platforms with logged in human users, actually increased their partnerships with P&G.  So it’s not just a case of P&G trying to cut digital – they’re just trimming the fat to be more efficient.

LESS IS MORE AT NBC:  Yesterday NBCUniversal announced plans to overhaul its network ad load.  As reported in the attached WSJ link, NBC is planning to decrease the number of commercial breaks by 20% and the amount of ad time by 10% during prime time programming beginning this September.  This is a fairly bold attempt to improve the viewing experience and (hopefully) stop the audience erosion all networks are experiencing.  Traditional TV ad loads, which have been high for decades, are starting to come under scrutiny because OTT (streamed TV) runs many fewer commercials.  It’s a case of viewers getting used to lower ad loads in a digital environment, and then suddenly becoming super-annoyed when they go back to the commercial dumpster of traditional TV.  So kudos to NBC for trying to implement some ad load discipline.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see some other networks follow their lead.  I also wonder if the radio broadcasters, who still run four times as many ads as their streaming counterparts, might wake up and do the same thing.

Have a great Friday (and weekend) guys!

29 thoughts on “Friday Funday . . .

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