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Nine still pushing for Olympics advertisers

Nine is in last-minute bids to sell advertising spots for the Olympics, potentially facing losses of between $30 - $40 million.

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Nine is in last-minute bids to sell advertising spots for its Olympics broadcast, with estimates it could be facing losses of between $30 – $40 million.

The Australian reports Nine had recently tried selling late packages to media agencies and advertiser with a proposal that amounted to an offer of “buy one ad, get one ad free”.

Nine Entertainment group sales and marketing director Peter Wiltshire denied the network was attempting to stimulate interest with this tactic, but added that Nine was still in the market for late Olympics spot trading.

“We’re looking to the advertisers to allocate any late money in a short market, no question about that — that’s our job,” he said. “As for pricing, I’m not ever going to comment on our commercial practices, but its fair to say we wouldn’t treat the Olympics as a commodity.”

Aegis Media Pacific executive chairman Harold Mitchell predicted “an incredibly strong ratings performance” for Nine but acknowledged the tough ad market.

“Overall advertising is not as strong as it should be and this is because of a continuing lack of confidence from consumers,” he said.

Nine is also in danger of breaching its debt covenants as soon as September, as it attempts to refinance its $2.8 billion debt pile ahead of the expiry of loan agreements in February.

2 Responses

  1. Well I can tell you right now that they’ve no hope of getting there at all especially when Eddy Idiot Maguire goes around making statements about athletes like he has in the last couple of days.

  2. Assuming Nine is discounting to gain last minute revenue with content like the Olympics – that is premium content. I will be fascinated to see how Ten fares with little content, no momentum and a rate slashing policy !

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