Season has 53 weeks and a late start

By Kevin Downey
 
    Broadcast calendars are not something that typically elicit great concern. But that's typically.
    The upcoming broadcast year is not typical, and on two counts; the season begins late because of the summer Olympics, and the year actually has 53 weeks, in a fluke that shows up once every several decades.
    Potentially, this could lead to a nightmare, with different calendars in use and buyers and sellers, operating on their own calendars, tangling over why ad time bought for one quarter ends up being charged rates of a different quarter.
     Analogy: Commuters jumping on a train at New York's Grand Central with different rate schedules being greeted by conductors with their own schedules of fares.
Imagine the squabbling to the suburbs of Connecticut and beyond.
   Enter the American Association of Advertising Agencies with a plan to head off the any confusion by getting everyone on one calendar they can agree to.
    Recently the trade group sent out a letter over the signature of Donna G. Campbell, vice president of the AAAA’s media services division explaining the problem.
   "Depending on whose broadcast calendar one looks at, a week could literally fall into different quarters of the year for different television sellers. The potential for budget reconciliation confusion and buy comparison confusion is quite large," writes Campbell.
    This, of course, becomes a real problem when we're talking about the juncture between the third and fourth quarters of 2000, when the next broadcast season begins.
     Since third-quarter rates are generally lower than fourth quarter, there is the risk of a plan built on third-quarter rates going to a buyer who puts the buy together with fourth-quarter rates.
    The buyer ends up either undelivering on the schedule goals or going over budget.
        "Thus we believe that it is important to develop a sense of consistency across the industry on the subject of dates in next season’s calendar. In order to achieve that objective, it is in the industry’s best interest to see that everyone adopt the same calendar."
    The calendar, below, begins the broadcast year on Oct. 2, rather than the in the last weeks of September, as is usual.
    

-Kevin Downey is a staff writer for Media Life.

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