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MARCH SEES HUGE DROP IN NATIONAL AIRINGS Political advertising — for individual candidates, political action committees and other areas — has been lower over the last few weeks, but political marketers are still buying messaging on key platforms, Television News Daily reports. Donald J. Trump For President Inc. has spent $1.4 million from March 22-28 on Facebook and Google (with some 8,600 creatives on Facebook), according to Advertising Analytics. The ad research company says Trump was the top digital political advertiser for the week. The week before, the Biden for President campaign was the top digital advertiser (March 15-21), spending $1.2 million on Facebook and Google. In addition, the Democratic-supporting PAC Priorities USA had 1,074 airings for its “Hoax” spot creative that week. Google Transparency Report says Priorities USA spending totaled $150,000. Advertising Analytics says Priorities USA has booked $124,000 on broadcast and cable in media time for April 7-13. For the month of March (March 4 to April 2), there were 475 national TV airings (an estimated $2.26 million), according to iSpot.tv. This was sharply down from the same period in February — 10,775 national TV airings for political advertising ($76.8 million). Much of February’s results were driven by big-spending Democratic candidates Mike Bloomberg and Tom Steyer during the month, just before exiting the race. But not all political marketers were down. The Google Transparency Report shows total advertising spent for the Trump Make America Great Again Committee rose from $161,400 for the week ending March 7 to $412,100 (March 14) to $593,000 (March 21). Donald J. Trump For President Inc. went from $51,600 (March 7) to $118,000 (March 14) to $73,000 (March 21) for the same three-week period. At the same time, the Bernie 2020 campaign went down from $461,000 (March 7) to $100,200 (March 14). Biden For President also has been lower — from $232,200 (March 7) to $83,000 (March 21). Advertising Analytics says Biden and Sanders have stopped all TV advertising as of March 17. Last month ad-buying giant Magna Global slashed its U.S. advertising forecast due to the coronavirus pandemic, which it said will have an unprecedented impact on supply, demand and media consumption. Magna now expects ad spending in the U.S. to decline 2.8% this year to $217 billion, as industries such as travel, restaurants, movie studios and retailers are expected to severely pull back on ad expenditures. Political spending and a possible rebound in the second half of the year are expected to help mitigate some of the decline, it said.

AS PANDEMIC PERSISTS, POLITICAL ADS SEE SLOWDOWNADVERTISER NEWS The Wall Street Journal says a poll conducted last Thursday and Friday found that half of small businesses haven’t paid their full rent or mortgage payments for April due to the coronavirus pandemic… Automotive News reports Ford is looking for some government help and is discussing recommending a revival of the “Cash for Clunkers” program of about a decade ago. That plan had the government

contribute money to people who traded in older, less fuel-efficient vehicles to help them purchase new, more efficient models… Perhaps at the very worst time, but Mazda just launched its captive finance arm, Mazda Financial Service, with a 90-

day deferral of first payment. The finance arm is affiliated with Toyota Motor Credit… AutoNation is laying off 7,000 employees as well as postponing $50 million in capital expenditures and cutting back advertising… Better news, at least for now, for Tesla. It set a first-quarter record, with deliveries of more than 88,000 vehicles in that period… A number of big-box stores, including Target, Walmart and BJ’s, are implementing plans to limit the number of shoppers in the store at a given time. Target says if the store becomes too crowded, an employee will guide waiting customers outside to a designated area, and employees inside the store will guide shoppers to the items they’re interested in to help minimize time spent inside… Ulta Beauty says it still plans to open some new stores this year, but not as many as the 75 it had originally planned. Operations have been digital-only since March 20… Brinker says the take-out and off-premises sales at its Chili’s and Maggiano’s locations amount to only 30% to 35% of prior-year revenue… Shake Shack’s comparable sales for March were down 29%. It has closed in-store sales at the last few locations that had been allowed to let customers in… Siblings Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s are launching Family Bundles for take-out or drive-thru. Breakfast packages start at $9; lunch and dinner at $15… Progressive Grocer says Vermont is the first state to order big-box stores that are open to stop selling “non-essential” merchandise such as clothes and consumer electronics… Another large advertising category being hurt badly by people staying at home? Lotteries. Due to slumping sales, Powerball will no longer guarantee a minimum jackpot starting amount or a minimum increase between drawings… Heineken is shutting down production at its seven plants in Mexico… The New York Post reports Bath & Body Works has persuaded officials in its home state of Ohio to view it as an “essential” business by stocking up on soaps and hand sanitizers. The chain, a sibling to Victoria’s Secret as part of L Brands, hopes to get permission to reopen in other states via the same rationale… H-E-B is starting a pilot program where restaurants deliver meals to selected H-E-B stores for sale at prices set by the restaurant. H-E-B makes no profit on the sale in the attempt to help local restaurants survive. Three eateries will be chosen in each city.

PAGE 2 The Daily News of TV Sales @ www.spotsndots.com

AVAILS KRDO News Channel 13, located in beautiful Colorado Springs, Colo., along the front range of the Colorado Rockies, is looking for a New Business Account Executive Trainee with digital advertising experience to generate revenue for NPG Digital, our full service digital services company, KRDO / ABC TV, Telemundo and KRDO.com. We’re looking for a self-starter, possessing a highly motivated personaio8lity, and the ability to consistently maintain a positive attitude. Sales experience

and digital experience preferred. CLICK HERE for more info or to apply. No calls, please. EOE. Manager – Digital Sales: Gray Television’s KKTV 11 News in Colorado Springs, Colo., is looking for a progressive, creative thinker who can conceptualize, execute and close revenue-producing ideas that connect our advertiser’s goals to our digital products. This person will drive digital revenue growth for the station and

company; take revenue share out of the market; and create new digital business. Find responsibilities and qualifications or apply now at: www.gray.tv/applynow, and email cover letter and resume to Kerri Blanco: kblanco@kktv.com. EOE. Action News Now (KHSL / KNVN), the CBS/NBC duopoly in beautiful Chico, Calif., is looking for a passionate, experienced and accomplished Evening Meteorologist. If you are passionate about news and weather reporting, we would love to talk to you. If you love the great outdoors, biking, hiking, skiing, boating and more, then you’ll want to talk to us. This position is responsible for preparing and delivering accurate weather reports for newscasts using all the top tools of the trade, including augmented reality. Resume/reel to Aaron Vogel, News Director at Avogel@actionnewsnow.com. Sinclair Broadcast Group is seeking a Sales and Pricing Analyst for our Cockeysville, Md., or Los Angeles offices. You will get to use your analytical skills to make a major contribution in supporting growth and profitability objectives by working closely with the Sinclair sales organizations. Bachelor’s in any business or communications discipline and 2 years of related experience required. Sales experience a plus. Find a full list of qualifications and duties, or apply now HERE. Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. is proud to be an EOE and Drug Free Workplace!

THIS AND THAT A ViacomCBS filing shows former CBS CEO Joe Ianniello drew a $125.4 million payday for 2019, a year in which the broadcaster re-merged with Viacom. About $2.85 million of that was base salary, while Ianniello drew $37.4 million in stock awards, and $84.7 million in “other compensation” — almost entirely in separation payments... U.S. employers shed more jobs in March than in any month since the darkest days of the 2007-09 recession, The Wall Street Journal reports. Payrolls decreased by 701,000 jobs in March, the Labor Department said last week, as efforts to contain the virus disrupted the U.S. economy. The payrolls decline was the largest since March 2009.

SALES OF VIDEO GAMES ARE SKYROCKETING Sales of the latest video games have smashed records as millions are stuck at home after governments around the world locked down entire cities and pushed for social distancing measures to stop the coronavirus from spreading, CNBC reports. Nintendo’s latest installment of its Animal Crossing franchise, titled New Horizon, was released March 20 and sold more than 1.8 million copies in its first three days in Japan, according to video game publication Famitsu. In the U.K., the title sold more copies in its first week on the shelves than the launch sales of all previous entries in the series combined, gaming publication gamesindustry.biz reported. Piers Harding-Rolls, research director for games at Ampere Analysis, told CNBC in an email that the early sales figures were “an outperformance on prior expectations.” “Animal Crossing as a Nintendo (intellectual property) has never been a tier-one seller,” Harding-Rolls said. “This latest release has shifted the franchise to the big league.” Niko Partners’ senior analyst Daniel Ahmad was less surprised. He said the game was “expected to be a strong seller out of the gate” but acknowledged its initial sales performance was “beyond expectations.” “COVID-19 has ultimately helped boost sales as more people are under lockdown and gaming is a safe and low cost form of entertainment,” said Ahmad.

NETWORK NEWS Fox has cancelled the rookie western drama Deputy, which stars Stephen Dorff. Thirteen episodes were made. Will Beall created the show. Deputy premiered Jan. 2. Its season finale tallied a 0.6 overnight rating in viewers 18-49. The cast also included Yara Martinez, Brian Van Holt, Siena Goines, Bex Taylor-Klaus, Mark Moses and Shane Paul McGhie... The fifth and final season of the drama Blindspot debuts on NBC April 30. The season begins in the aftermath of a drone strike on the safe house with much of the team inside. Questions include who made it out alive and whether the team will ever be able to clear their names in the wake of Madeline’s rise to power. Last season, Blindspot averaged a 0.8 in adults 18-49 and 4.3 million viewers overall in live plus seven day Nielsens. The cast includes Sullivan Stapleton, Jaimie Alexander, Rob Brown, Audrey Esparza, Ashley Johnson, Ennis Esmer and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio... As Season 2 of The Conners winds down, ABC’s multi-camera comedy has taken a big step toward a third-season pickup. That’s according to Deadline, which says the four principal cast members of the Roseanne spinoff — Sara Gilbert (who also serves as an executive producer), John Goodman, Laurie Metcalf and Lecy Goranson — have closed new deals to return next season. The new deals are reportedly for a 19-episode third season, in line with the size of the current second season... Logan Williams, who played a young Barry Allen on the CW’s hit The Flash and also appeared in Hallmark Channel’s When Calls the Heart, died Thursday at age 16. No cause of death has been revealed.

4/6/2020

Jim Gaffigan

How do we know that some of the people selling stuff

at the farmers market didn’t just buy that stuff at the

grocery store?

The Daily News of TV Sales @ www.spotsndots.com PAGE 3

CORONA BEER IS GOING ON TEMPORARY HIATUS Production of Corona beer is being temporarily suspended in Mexico because of the coronavirus pandemic, CNN Business reports. Grupo Modelo, the company that makes the beer, posted the announcement on Twitter, stating that it’s halting production and marketing of its beer because the Mexican government has shuttered non-essential businesses. The Anheuser-Busch Inbev-owned company also makes Modelo and Pacifico beers. Last week, the Mexican government announced the

suspension of non-essential activities in the public and private sectors until April 30 in an effort to curb the spread of the virus. The country has more than 1,500 cases and 50 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins. Grupo Modelo is ready to enact a plan to “guarantee the supply of beer” if the Mexican government decides to include breweries as essential, according to a statement. Corona’s coincidental name with the

virus hasn’t dented sales. Constellation Brands, which distributes Corona in the U.S., said sales of its beer brands grew 8.9% for the first three months of this year, with Modelo and Corona being its top sellers. Sales accelerated in the first three weeks of March, the company said, with its beers growing 24% compared to a year ago.

GRAY TV TO LAUNCH CORONAVIRUS NEWSCAST Gray Television is launching a late-night newscast focusing on the coronavirus pandemic, with Greta Van Susteren and Lee Zurik hosting, Deadline reports. Full Court Press Now will launch tonight across Gray’s stations in 93 markets. The show will draw on reporting from Gray’s newsrooms in local markets, with a focus on what public officials, private companies and health providers are doing. The nightly show expands on Full Court Press with Greta Van Susteren, the weekend politics and public affairs show which launched last fall. Last Sunday’s episode featured interviews with Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. Van Susteren will host the nightly show from her home studio while Zurik will contribute from WVUE-TV’s studio in New Orleans, where he is lead anchor and leads Gray’s investigative team InvestigateTV. The unit recently launched a county-by-county tracker of coronavirus cases.

4/6/2020

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KAGAN: UNIVISION LEADS Q1 BROADCAST M&A Broadcast TV and radio station mergers and acquisitions hit $2.64 billion in the first quarter, most of that attributable to the sale of Spanish-language broadcaster Univision, according to Kagan, a unit of S&P Global Market Intelligence. In February, private equity firms SearchLight Capital and ForgeLight agreed to purchase a 64% stake in Univision for an undisclosed sum. Kagan, using its $3.9 billion valuation of the company, estimated a 64% interest to be worth about $2.49 billion, Broadcasting & Cable reports. TV station M&A in the period was about $2.34 billion, according to Kagan. Kagan valued the TV station portion of the Univision deal at about $2.2 billion. The current deal volume was well below last year, which Kagan estimated at $6.5 billion. According to Kagan, Q1 deal volumes weren’t affected by the COVID-19 outbreak, although the company predicted a steep decline in deals in the next few months, adding that the recovery should be equally as robust. Kagan pointed to some deals already in the pipeline — most notably the offers for broadcast group Tegna, for its 66 U.S. stations. Aside from the Univision buyout, Kagan estimated the first quarter’s largest TV transaction was a settlement between Tribune Media and Sinclair Broadcast Group, in which Nexstar Media Group, the new owner of Tribune Media, will receive Sinclair’s Fox affiliate WDKY-TV in the Lexington, Ky., market, along with certain assets of CBS affiliate KGBT-TV in Harlingen, Texas, together with $60 million cash. The first quarter’s largest TV deal announcement with a disclosed price was the $15 million sale of Mega-TV affiliate KTBU-TV in the Houston market, from Spanish Broadcasting System to Tegna.

D2C E-COMMERCE TO APPROACH $18B IN 2020 Research firm eMarketer says it expects U.S. D2C e-commerce sales to grow by 24.3% to $17.75 billion this year — up from $14.28 billion last year. The latest estimate excludes travel and event tickets, payments (such as bill pay, taxes or money transfers), food or drink services, gambling and other vice good sales. But there’s a caveat: eMarketer says it’s too early to predict the full impact of the coronavirus pandemic on D2C sales, and it anticipates that brands in the sector will face mounting challenges. “Even though consumers are buying more products online due to the coronavirus, digitally native D2C brands should anticipate hardships in the coming months,” eMarketer senior forecasting analyst Oscar Orozco says. “Sales will continue to shift from nice-to-have products to must-have products, with D2C brands falling under the nonessential category. Disruptions in the supply chain are also likely. That will mean slower shipping times, normally a distinguishing factor for D2C products.” From 2016 to 2019, D2C e-commerce grew at three to six times the rate of overall e-commerce sales. But with competition intensifying and the sector maturing, D2C’s growth in 2020 is less than two times that of total e-commerce (24.3% vs. 13.2%, respectively).