Date: 4th September 2000

Will Those Ad Prices Survive?


CBS may face an uphill battle persuading advertisers to ante up $600,000 per spot for the second go-round of Survivor scheduled to launch on Jan. 28.

Business Week suggests in its current (Sept. 11) issue. Bill Croasdale of media buyer Initiative Media told the magazine, "It's worth it if the show can bring in those numbers (ratings) again ... but sponsors tend to look at tripling of their rates and say, 'Hey, what happened here?'"

Business Week points out that the next series will be facing competition from original fare, not reruns as it did during the summer, and may therefore fail to attract that huge audiences that the original run did. Andrew Donchin of ad agency Carat North America told BW that, although he bought a spot on the final Survivor episode for Pfizer, he won't bid on the sequel.

"That's just an awfully big number for us," Donchin said of the $12 million that CBS is currently asking for a package of 20 spots (two on each episode).

Source: Studio Briefing