The heart of the advertising industry sat in darkness during the blackout but advertisers across the country were affected. The impact hasn't gone unnoticed and industry pros suspect a loss of $10-20 million for networks as well as network affiliates.
When the power outage hit, west coast affiliate stations were in daytime dramas or other network programs. Did my ad run? is the big question for national advertisers.
Most stations on the east coast were in local or syndicated programming, such as Oprah, Montel, Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune.
Some television stations have contracts in place with the networks that allow them the option to take the network's special reports. For example, if you live in New Mexico and you're watching a station that has an option to take the special report, they're not required to take network programming during breaking news. A station may decide the blackout doesn't affect their city enough to take the special report. They'll stick to regularly scheduled programming and not have to worry about lost ad revenue.
But if the station is required to take special reports, they have to take network programming or they could face stiff penalties, fines and, as a drastic measure, loss of network affiliation. The station doesn't have a choice but to take the network programming.
However, once stations learned the magnitude of the story, they went with the network coverage. Optional special report or not, stations will have to go with the networks on big stories. Think of how bad a station would've looked if they didn't take network coverage during the week of September 11.
During the blackout, let's say a station was running Oprah and had to take the special report. Now advertisers have the task of finding out if their ad aired before the network coverage broke.
For stations that went off the air because of the blackout, the financial loss could be devastating. A majority of stations that were on the air were affected because of each network's wall-to-wall news coverage.
So how can a station make its advertisers happy? The answer isn't quite so simple.
Ads are bought based on guaranteed ratings in a time slot, which were drastically interrupted because of the coverage. Make good ads are the easiest solution but availability depends on the ad inventory.
Make goods are basically make up ad time. The ad is fitted in at a later time.
But let's say you had a sale for the weekend and your ads were scheduled to air the day of the blackout. Make good ads aren't going to do you any good. Your sale is screwed up because you missed out on the extra exposure.
For national advertisers to be worked into make good ads, it all depends on how popular the program is and how long you're willing to wait. If you had an ad scheduled to appear on Friends, you're going to have to wait a while for any make good time for your ad. Networks and stations can't create inventory.
And, of course, for stations that run make good ads, they're just fulfilling their end of the deal. They're not making any additional revenue. In turn, that means more lost money for the station.
