NAB Show New York brings together three top CFOs from local TV on a main stage panel to share their insights and learnings from a unique year (we hope). The BIA-moderated session, Local TV Industry CFOs Update meets on Thursday, October 22, from 10:30am -11am EDT. See the bottom of this post for a comp code for this event, courtesy of NAB for BIA readers.
Featured CFOs include Nexstar’s Tom Carter, TEGNA’s Victoria Harper and Mike Nelson from FOX Television Stations.
This has not been a year for the faint-hearted CFO. Anticipating the dynamic nature of the economy, BIA made multiple adjustments to its local ad forecast this year highlighting on-going changes across business verticals, local markets and positive variances in political spending.
We’ve experienced a volatile mix of political tailwinds, pandemic headwinds, loss of sports and original programming, ad spending cut or paused, spiking viewership that couldn’t be fully monetized, a confusing array of local and state rules policies on business shut-downs, slow-downs and phased re-openings. And, all of this occurred while migrating an entire workforce from offices to working from home and launching new programmatic and other tech initiatives including OTT and ATSC 3.0. Piece of cake.
So now, what does next year look like? As Nexstar’s Tom Carter puts it, “We had to go back to actual zero based budgeting. 2020 isn’t a base year that offers a lot of help to forecast 2021.” We’re in a year that has been happening quarter by quarter with different stories that don’t translate well into the usual forecasting process.
TEGNA’s Victoria Harker will speak to the promise of TEGNA’s OTT platform, Premion, and the success it has been having given pandemic-induced audience surges and increased political spending as campaigns were drawn to the power of local TV reach and OTT targeting precision. FOX Television’s Mike Nelson also points to OTT as a promising revenue growth area by providing new kinds of programming experience for audiences and targeted buying opportunities for marketers and agencies.
Looking ahead to 2021 and beyond, Carter, Harker and Nelson will speak to new revenue growth pockets including call-outs to burgeoning categories like sports betting and CBD, as well as ATSC 3.0.
Click here to register for a complimentary Marketplace Pass, courtesy of NAB for BIA readers. The comp code for this Marketplace Pass is EP01. Access this session and many more with this code.
