WPP buys $1 bn in upfront ads from NBC Universal

New York, June 14: WPP Group Plc's GroupM media-buying agencies have agreed to buy nearly $1 billion in advertising across NBC Universal's television and digital properties, an agency spokesman said.

The agreement, confirmed by NBC, is one of the first major deals in the annual ''upfront'' market for booking commercial time in advance.

Advertisers and their agencies have delayed actual negotiations with U.S. TV networks for weeks as they tried to set price standards to accommodate a change in audience ratings.

GroupM's MindShare agency confirmed a report on industry Web site AdAge.com. GroupM's agencies also include Mediaedge:cia and Mediacom, which represent such advertisers as Unilever Plc, Burger King Holdings Inc. and Nokia Oyj.

The agreement covers daytime and prime-time programming as well as NBC's cable properties such as Bravo, Spanish-language programming and Internet sites. NBC is controlled by General Electric Co..

NBC, along with ABC, CBS, and Fox, unveiled their 2007-08 prime-time lineups to advertisers last month, paving the way for deals for commercial time for the upcoming TV season.

Typically, about 80 percent of the season's prime-time commercial spots are bought in the months following the upfronts. Last year, about $9 billion worth of deals were struck.

Negotiations have started slowly this year due in part to confusion over how deals would be structured. In the past, deals for commercial time were sewn up with guarantees based on the number of viewers that would watch a program.

But the spread of digital video recorders (DVRs) have prompted broadcasters and marketers to rethink the structure of deals, since viewers can now skip commercials.

Indeed, Nielsen Media Research has responded by introducing ratings that track how many people watch TV commercials -- either live or on their DVRs.

Executives said deals between NBC and the GroupM agencies were structured around a Nielsen commercial rating known as live plus three.

That measurement takes into account how many viewers watched commercials that ran during the program when it first aired, plus the next three days on DVR playback.

Currently about one-fifth of American households are equipped with DVRs. Nielsen estimates about 10 percent of all broadcast prime-time viewing is now watched via playback.

Reuters