With its women’s sports franchises leading the way, E.W. Scripps generated higher volume in the upfront market.
In addition to its string of local TV stations, Scripps owns national networks including Ion, Bounce, Court TV and Scripps News.
Brian Norris, who oversees all ad sales at Scripps as chief revenue officer told B+C that market demand for live sports helped Scripps lock in a low-single-digit increase in volume, which was better than similar-sized companies without women’s sports did.
In a market marked by lower prices on a cost-per-thousand viewers basis, Scripps saw higher prices for sports (the gains weren’t quite NFL-sized), flat pricing for entertainment and higher prices to reach multicultural audiences.
“The upfront played out just the way we wanted it to,“ Norris said. “Probably a little better than we even anticipated.”
Scripps used its women’s sports franchises to bring new advertisers into its huddle. Advertisers were looking at women’s sports as a way to reach audiences that are balanced from a gender perspective and a multicultural perspective.
Almost 50% of Scripps’ WNBA audiences are multicultural, Norris added.
“They're getting the benefit of an incredibly diverse audience but also an audience that has the ability to spend against their products,” he said.
Norris said Scripps made deals with two dozen new advertisers in the upfront.
There were big advertisers in the automotive, alcohol, insurance, travel and telco. Norris said that 25% of its new advertisers were either small or medium-sized businesses or direct-to-consumer brands.
Norris said a focus of Scripps’s upfront was to “democratize this content for all advertisers.” The company formed a special team to interact with SMBs and its connected TV inventory is available on most programmatic platforms.
Buyers also wanted streaming CTV inventory, and sales grew 70% in the upfront, “That was largely driven by new business and sports,” Norris said.
But women’s sports was the biggest deal for Scripps.
The WNBA, enjoying record ratings, recently signed new rights deals with ESPN, NBC and Amazon worth $2.2 billion over 11 years. Scripps has WNBA rights for one more season after the current season.
“What we've done for them is unlock new value for them in terms of unprecedented reach via our OTA network,“ Norris said.
Ion had its most-watched WNBA game every August 31, when the Chicago Sky faced the Indiana Fever with Caitlin Clark. It averaged 1.6 million viewers, peaking with 1.92 million.
“Whether it’s over the top, over the air cable or streaming, we are giving the WNBA and the NWSL access to audiences representing growth to both groups,” he said. “And so we’re optimistic that we will that we will get a deal done with the WNBA.”
Looking forward to the rest of the year, Norris said sports will continue to be a focus and advertisers will be attracted to CTV for its ability to target audiences.
“It’s clear to me and clear to Scripps that advertisers have choices more choices than they likely have ever had,” Norris said.
"What we want to do is provide value beyond just price. We want to provide value beyond just a commoditized offering,” he said. “ We do that with service, we do that with creativity and we do that by providing a product that is differentiated in the marketplace.”
