Neil Bierbaum
AN independent advertising “sales house” has been launched to facilitate the buying of advertising airtime on television in the new multichannel
Oracle Airtime Sales Limited (Oracle) will represent those channels in the MultiChoice bouquet available off PanAmSat4 (Pas4) which will take advertising. It is not yet clear which channels will take advertising, although it is known that M-Net, K-TV and Supersport will be among them.
Oracle will also represent the existing M-Net channel, which will still be available to current subscribers and to subscribers to the satellite service for no extra charge. Oracle would eventually also look to sell for other satellite and terrestrial stations, according to general manager Peter McKenzie.
The sales house concept was developed in the UK in reponse to ITV, the network of regional stations in England, and the various satellite channels. The major intended benefit of the sales house concept is that it can provide systems and software which alleviate the complexity of managing the increased amounts of advertising inventory and available airtime which arise from the multichannel environment.
M-Net, along with Star TV, CNBC in New York and CTV in Canada, is involved in a joint development programme with JDS, a Colorado-based media software specialist. The intention is to develop “a new generation of airtime management systems”.
To be known as Paradigm, this system will ultimately enable sales executives to schedule ads while at the agencies. They will be able to report instantly on the availability of desired slots. Paradigm is to be phased in over the next six months.
Such sales houses have had mixed reaction from the UK advertising industry. Some agencies have accused them of fuelling media inflation, of poor administration and not flighting ads. Yet these complaints could have been an internal issue unique to particular organisations rather than one common to the concept itself.
Oracle will be made up of the highly successful M-Net commercial time sales team, which for the last three years has won the Marketing Mix Media Owners’ Marketing Awards (MOMA), an award based on service provided by media owners to the advertising industry.