Don't forget, everyone, "Sarah Palin's Alaska" premieres tonight! I find this article from Mediaweek rather interesting, especially the last graph. I personally object strongly to giving ANY candidate this kind of exposure. She should have had to sign a waiver to get the TV series. "I promise I will NOT run for POTUS in 2012."
Jury's Out on Sarah Palin's Alaska
TLC to draw ratings with Palin series; will ads follow?
Nov 14, 2010
- Anthony Crupi, Mediaweek
adweek/photos/stylus/156869-sarah-palin-alaska-L.jpg
TLC now has its very own Situation.
At the moment Sarah Palin is perhaps the most polarizing figure in the American imagination, a woman who excites the old jump in the blood in Red and Blue staters alike.
To some, she’s Sarah Barracuda, a term of endearment used by supporters to describe her predatory tenacity; to others, she’s a burnished absurdity: Caribou Barbie. Bible Spice.
There is no middle ground when the subject is the former governor of Alaska and GOP vice presidential candidate. So it follows that advertisers would express similarly antithetical opinions on the merits of her new reality series. Ostensibly untouched by politics, the eight-part TLC travelogue, Sarah Palin’s Alaska, follows the folksy 46-year-old and her family as they take in the rugged splendor of their native state.
With 16 minutes and 45 seconds of commercial/promo time available during Sunday night’s series premiere, the TLC ad sales team has approximately 33 available 30-second spots set aside for sponsor messages. Media buyers suggest that a heavy run of direct-response ads and network promos -- the network is debuting the demo-appropriate Pawn Queens on Nov. 18 -- could reduce that total by as much as a third.
Sources indicate the demand for Sarah Palin’s Alaska are about what one would expect of a series that has the potential to draw as many as 4.25 million total viewers in its 9 p.m. premiere. “We’ve heard from clients who don’t want to align themselves with the show, and for reasons that are fairly self-evident,” said one national TV buyer. “But most brands don’t give a shit about her politics. They need to move their product, and this is a much cheaper way to reach a lot of people. Simple as that.”
Among the list of sponsors who are said to have ponied up for time in the premiere are Unilever’s Dove, Allstate Car Insurance and Procter & Gamble’s Charmin. The three clients have bought pre-roll spots on TLC’s dedicated SPA Web site, splitting opportunities with Sears, Shell and Google Chrome.
Thus far, categories appear to be limited to CPG, insurance and financial services although TLC is said to have sewn up business with at least one major movie studio. The 20th Century Fox thriller Unstoppable opened Friday, alongside Universal Studios’ sci-fi flick Skyline.
Major categories that are not represented in the SPA opener include automotive, telco and travel. Some QSR money is expected to roll in after the first installment.
TLC parent Discovery Communications rather uncharacteristically declined to comment on the series’ commercial prospects although a spokesperson said that none of the digital advertisers had invested in linear TV spots.
“Any time you have a potentially volatile situation, clients are going to take a wait-and-see approach,” said one agency executive. “So they’ll hold their money back even if they suspect the show will get a big rating. If they think they can live with the content, they’ll try to jump right in the next week.”
Only one overt political statement is uttered in the SPA pilot. Before we get our first gander at the Alaskan wilderness, the star of the show points out a 14-foot privacy fence erected to deter the snooping writer next door. In her Wasilla-by-way-of-Fargo singsong, Palin makes a clumsy analogy about securing the U.S.-Mexico border.
Since Sept. 12, TLC has averaged 1.34 million viewers in the SPA slot.
Based on projected deliveries and estimated spot costs, Palin could receive as much as $2.25 million in free media exposure per episode, or $18 million for the entire series. In other words, if Palin were to make a run for the White House in 2012, TLC will have gifted the world’s most famous hockey mom with an unprecedented tide of soft-focus campaign support.
How that sits with longtime Hillary Rodham Clinton backer and Discovery chairman/co-founder John Hendricks is anybody’s guess.
