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In a year when young viewers have
been clicking away from football, CBS hopes to lure them to the Super Bowl
via MTV.
As this season’s Super Bowl carrier, CBS yesterday set its pre-
and post-game schedule for the Feb. 1 game, and for the first time the
annual MTV “TRL @ the Super Bowl” was a part of it.
The Carson Daly-hosted show usually runs on Super Bowl Sunday on
Viacom’s cable unit. But this year Pepsi agreed to sponsor the one-hour
special, starting at noon, and move it to CBS.
The target demographic, adults 18-34, has been dipping on the
broadcast networks all year. According to Nielsen data, men 18-34 have
been watching 5 to 10 percent less pro and college football this season
than last, a trend CBS wants to reverse for the year’s biggest game.
MTV will also produce the Super Bowl halftime show, announced
earlier this week, sponsored by America Online. MTV also sponsored the
2001 show. Viacom’s Nickelodeon
will sponsor a one-hour pre-game show aimed at kids 2-11 at 11 a.m.
The companies expected to buy much of the in-game advertising are
heavy sponsors of the pre- and post-game shows. After the MTV special,
Phil Simms’ 2004 all-iron team will be presented in an hour-long show
sponsored by General Motors/Cadillac, which has bought time in the game
itself and will also sponsor the post-game show.
Thirty-second Super Bowl ads are selling for about $2.3 million,
with prime first-quarter spots reportedly going for $2.4 million. That’s
almost 10 percent above what last year’s Super Bowl carrier, ABC,
received.
With six weeks until the game, about 85 percent of the ad
space has been sold, media buyers told Media Life last week. They said
that several new advertisers, including Procter & Gamble, Major League
Baseball and Gillette, have bought spots.
CBS did not release terms of the pre- and post-game
sponsorships, although media people say that buying a bulk deal like AOL
did with in-game spots and halftime sponsorships could run $7.5 million
and up.
Monster.com, which will spend about double what it did for
Super Bowl advertising last year, will sponsor the halftime report.
The four-hour pre-game show, which begins at 2 p.m., will be
sponsored by Wachovia, Pizza Hut, Sony PlayStation, H&R Block, Radio
Shack and Ford.
CBS said several months ago that an all-star edition of “Survivor”
would premiere after the game, which kicks off at 6:25 p.m. Though the
network still won’t confirm who’ll be competing on the show, Richard
Hatch, Rudy Bosch and Susan Hawk from season one, Jerri Manthey and Colby
Donaldson from “Survivor: Australia,” Ethan Zohn from “Survivor:
Africa” and Rupert Boneham from the current edition are expected.
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