“Sinclair always has been and is a an entrepreneurial creative results driven company,” Spaet began, “and one of the things that that chief operating officer and said to me, years ago, was we've got this huge footprint, (I actually went back and looked at the time - 177 stations in 79 markets), and we want to create a network. So I tell this little anecdote because we built this from the ground up.”
The components for such an effort include not only the need to collect the data but to also sell it to advertisers. As Donnelly explained, “Broadcast TV, even considering the erosion that's been going on for a while, is still the best way to reach a mass audience and for many advertisers it's still a big piece of their media plan.” But, he admitted, “The erosion does pose a problem. How do advertisers deal with eroding audiences while, at the same time, networks demand increases in pricing because the supply is going away? What we do is create rating points. We take local inventory and put it together making it into a national footprint and bring rating points to the marketplace.”
The Sinclair proposition is based on their ability to garner rating points on their broadcast affiliates with, “programming that everybody is familiar with and in a family friendly environment,” Donnelly noted, “and we bring it with efficiencies. It solves one problem that all the buyers have each year.” Sinclair coins this a, “boutique approach. We don't want to be everything to everybody. We're not going to be a big box store. We want to be the boutique on the corner that when you come in, they know your face, they know what you want, they know what you're looking to buy, they'll know exactly your sizes and things of that nature,” Donnelly added. This is all done among a limited group of advertisers because the inventory is limited and guaranteed. But, he stated, “We bring it to them with a level of stewardship and service that is unparalleled these days.”
“We have inventory that is essentially a diversified portfolio of broadcast assets that includes digital extensions to our linear platforms. We have an in-house agency called Compulsive that is standalone even though it was built from within Sinclair,” noted Spaet. And Sinclair is advancing into all types of digital access including the introduction of flow code which, according to Spaet, is like, “QR codes on steroids. It's a best in class custom designed data and science dynamic to redirect destination,” to “help quantify our viewership besides Nielsen ratings and into the posts.”
Between affiliate programming, local news and sports, there is ample opportunity for advertisers to reach any target consumer group they want, with a large proportion of viewers from a very desirable demographic with discretionary income. Donnelly noted that, “While being a broadcast entity, everybody tends to be a little bit on the older side. We're a strong adult 25 to 54 and 35+.” Spaet added that this group, has “the greatest concentration of wealth. That's where advertising should be focused on. 18 to 49 is a is a legacy leftover from the 1980s It's silly.” The most popular advertiser categories include Insurance, Travel, Health, Pharm, Fast Food and CPG.
Sinclair has expanded its regional sports offerings with Bally. Spaet explained that, “We were one of the few bidders when Disney, under government review, had to divest the regional sports networks - 45 teams – and we were one of the few bidders and were acquire it.”
And, when it comes to passionate viewers, look no further than local news. According to Spaet, “We're selling the local anchors in Austin, in Bakersfield and Green Bay and Washington and Cincinnati and West Palm. Local news anchors, as it has been proven time and time again, are the most trusted anchors in every market. People bond with them. We are aggregating those local news ratings and selling it as a network.”
Donnelly added that, “The way people use the local news is much different than what they look for from national services. It's about weather, traffic, how the local sports teams are doing, what's going on in the local mayor's races. The pandemic really heightened that with news of the spiking in parts of the country. It became more and more important and I think that that will continue.”
Local news is also a reach extender. According to Spaet, “We have research that shows that 60% of our local news audiences don't watch any of the cable network news networks because they're using it for a whole different reason. It's a much more trusted news environment.”
For Donnelly, the strategy for the upfront and beyond is to, “Lean into our message of delivering the broadcast impressions that people are always looking to buy. I don't see broadcast rating erosion slowing down anytime soon and I don't believe that the broadcast networks are going to stop charging more next year than they did the year before. So our positioning of having a full national footprint of broadcast impressions in a family friendly environment and with efficiencies will be important. It was important last year. It's going to become more important next year and I think in the foreseeable future. That's what we have found successful and that's why we have a really high 90 95% renewal rate every year. We expect that to continue.”
Spaet agreed and concluded, “For every upfront we've done, we've sold out a fixed percentage of inventory on our stations. We tend to sell out during the open period which has worked for us. But more importantly, it's worked for our partner clients as well.”
This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com
Artwork by Charlene Weisler
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