EXCLUSIVE: The rampaging success of Nine Network’s new show The Voice will see the cost of a 30-second spot crash through $100,000 from next week as the broadcaster moves quickly to leverage its rating hit.
The international format, which has topped two million viewers per night since launching this week, has also boomed online with Ninemsn seeing record streaming numbers for a TV program.
Mi9 Group chief executive Mark Britt said The Voice had already exceeded what would take a full TV series to achieve in streams.
“The Voice absolutely represents the new frontier in TV of instant online engagement after a popular show,” he said. “It’s done two million streams in three days. To put it in perspective, it takes a full series of a good TV show to get that. The biggest day in our history [for streaming] was 1.6 million for the Queensland floods. The Voice is the biggest we’ve seen by a country mile, not including a natural disaster.” Part of the online content offer includes the ‘V Room’ app and website.
GroupM trading director James Parkinson, who has Ford and IAG as program sponsors, said The Voice’s success had surprised the whole industry. “Anyone would be kidding themselves if they thought it was going to be this strong. It’s amazing, really,” he said. “The good news is that in a challenging market, the networks are still investing in content. The only thing that is going to happen to The Voice is spot prices will go up.”
And up they are going. Nine Entertainment Co. group sales and marketing director Peter Wiltshire confirmed to AdNews that a 30-second spot on The Voice would cost $100,000 from next week. “Yes, it’s a decision I’ve made in the interest of managing a juggernaut of a TV show,” he said. “But you’ve got to remember, the spot price might go up but the audience CPM [cost per thousand] is going down because of the audience numbers.”
There will be other disappointed advertisers in the market this week. One media buyer, who did not want to be named, said the show was presented to a number of marketers early on but they had little enthusiasm.
“Quite a few were very slow to it,” he said.
This article first appeared in the 20 April 2012 edition of AdNews. Click here to subscribe for more news, features and opinion.
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