Swelling TV Audiences Mean Opportunities, Challenges For Brands

What do the Super Bowl, Grammy Awards, Oscars, and the 2012 Vancouver Olympics have in common?

Huge audiences.

Big "event" broadcasts in 2010 have reversed the trend of shrinking TV audiences. The Oscars drew its largest audience in a half decade; the Grammy's, its largest in six years. The Olympics was the first program to rate higher than American Idol since 2004. February's Super Bowl was the most watched TV program of all time.

With the ability to raise ad rates on such events as much as 10 percent now a real possibility, broadcasters are cheering the development. "What you see in television is the classic example of supply and demand... Yes, rights fees will keep going up. And, yes, ad fees will keep going up," said the chairman of Fox Sports.Continue reading...