Bill O’Reilly, Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose.
New names are being added to the pantheon of disgraced media celebrities at an unheard-of rate.
So how do these media companies, which have banked so much on star talent with the hopes of continuing to reap advertising riches—some $500 million in annual revenue in the case of the Today show—move forward?
“From an advertiser perspective these things are, for the most part, surprises. So there’s not a lot an advertiser could do to prepare for that,” said David Campanelli, evp and director of video investment at Horizon Media told AdWeek. “Most advertisers will look at this as an incident that was taken care of and are going to move on. That’s assuming there are no more surprises.”
America’s First Family, as the Today show once marketed itself, has broken up. But breezy morning shows are also far different from opinion shows that are a staple of cable news prime time. Cable’s biggest draw, Bill O’Reilly, lost his show earlier this year following a review of allegations of sexual harassment against him.
Morning TV is still important for advertisers, as it skews younger than other TV news dayparts. It remains a compelling platform for several advertising categories. Ad buyers contacted by Adweek agree that CBS and NBC mitigated any potential advertiser erosion by acting as quickly as they did.
“Matt worked there for a really long time, but I think that the time slot can weather the situation,” said Barry Lowenthal, president of full-service media agency The Media Kitchen. “Is this going to hurt NBC? Absolutely. Is it going to accelerate the migration of viewers? That’s already happening.”
In fact, the three network morning shows have been losing audience share and viewership by the hundreds of thousands in recent years.
For the 2016-2017 TV season, the combined average for NBC’s Today show, ABC’s Good Morning America and CBS This Morning was 12.18 million viewers, down 6 percent from the 12.90 million during the 2015-2016 season, which was already down from 13.25 million viewers in 2014-2015.
And that, more than the sexual harassment dismissal of a high-profile figure, could lead to advertisers going elsewhere.
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