www.spotsndots.comSubscriptions: $350 per year.

This publication cannot bedistributed beyond the office

of the actual subscriber. Need us? 888-884-2630 or

sales@spotsndots.com Copyright 2018.The Daily News of TV Sales Thursday, August 15, 2019

WAREHOUSE STORES ALSO SHOW STRENGTH Less-than-stellar service is contributing to a decline in overall customer satisfaction across retail, but some retailers are bucking the trend. That’s according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) report, in which customer satisfaction with retail declined for the second consecutive year, with the overall sector slipping 0.9 percent to 77.4 on ACSI’s 100-point scale. The results, Chain Store Age reports, are based on surveys conducted over a 12-month period from January to December 2018, with the exception of Internet retail, which represents the holiday shopping period only. The report covers six retail categories — department and discount stores, specialty stores, health and personal care stores, supermarkets, internet retail and gas stations — as well as consumer shipping and the U.S. Postal Service. All six retail categories registered weaker customer satisfaction for 2018, with even e-commerce showing signs of strain. In individual category results, Trader Joe’s led the supermarket category at 86, closely followed by Wegmans at 85. With a 1 percent uptick to 86, Trader Joe’s also came out best of all retailers across the spectrum. Customer service is a strong point for Trader Joe’s, the report noted, with the chain rating best in class for checkout speed and staff courtesy. Membership-based warehouse stores emerged as the winners in the department and discount category. Costco held the lead by holding fast at 83, while Sam’s Club is the closest major competitor, unchanged at 80. In the specialty retail category, the top finisher was Victoria’s Secret parent L Brands at 82 (down from 85 last year). In the e-commerce category, a new leader emerged as Costco overtook Amazon as the most satisfying online retailer with a score of 83. Amazon, which has held the top spot since 2010, fell 4 percent to 82. According to ACSI, the widespread decline for retail is due, in part, to less-than-stellar customer service. “While low unemployment is a sign of a strong economy, it is also accompanied by more employee turnover, especially in retail and service industries,” the report stated. “More experienced and better-qualified employees find higher-paying jobs. As a result, retailers must not only find and train new people; they also have to deal with staff shortages. All of this puts a strain on customer service.” The report also noted that, with few exceptions, the rate of growth in consumer spending – which accounts for almost 70 percent of GDP – has declined since 2016. ACSI is still below its high watermark from 2017, yet GDP growth has, by and large, increased over the same time periods.

TRADER JOE’S TOPS IN RETAIL CUSTOMER SATISFACTIONADVERTISER NEWS Modern Retail reports major retailers including Kohl’s, Target and Walmart are using curated collections of select items in categories like fashion and beauty to court younger shoppers and make it easier for consumers to discover new items. Retailers are using the strategy to create destinations for customers looking to find new and inspiring products in

a single place, said Tiffany Hogan, a retail analyst at Kantar Consulting... Ford Motor says it’s extending the warranty on certain 2014-16 model year Focus and Fiesta sedans with dual-clutch transmissions by two years and 40,000 miles and offering

a software update for customers who continue to have issues with the problematic gearboxes, Automotive News reports. The automaker says it’s extending the clutch warranty to seven years or 100,000 miles in the U.S. and Canada for those 2014-16 model year Focus sedans and 2014-2015 Fiestas, matching previous warranty extensions for some older cars. The warranty extension will cover about 560,000 customers... Dick’s Sporting Goods has reportedly transformed three of its stores into Dick’s Sporting Goods Clearance Outlets since May. According to The Journal-Times of Racine, Wis., the stores sell only clearance footwear and apparel from a variety of brands, and don’t stock sports equipment or other products... More than 2,600 Chipotle Mexican Grill employees shared a $700,000 payout in the first round of the chain’s new cash bonus program. Nation’s Restaurant News says the program rewards employees with a week’s pay for helping the company hit specific sales targets and other performance goals... Blue Apron says it’s ending its pilot with the Walmart-owned Jet.com, Modern Retail reports. The news comes a little less than a year after Blue Apron announced a partnership with Jet to have its kits sold on the online marketplace. It was part of Blue Apron’s attempt to forge strategic partnerships that would help it stand out from competitors. A few months in, the meal kit company announced it was launching lower-priced meal kits for Jet.com customers – indicating the partnership wasn’t bringing in new customers.

PAGE 2 The Daily News of TV Sales @ www.spotsndots.com

AVAILS Estrella TV, the Hearst-owned Estrella affiliate in the beautiful West Palm Beach market, has an incredible opportunity for you! Estrella TV West Palm Beach, sister station to WPBF 25 ABC, is looking for a dynamic sales superstar to join our phenomenal sales team. The ideal candidate will be bilingual, bring both Broadcast and Digital sales experience, and possess the drive and ability to thrive in a fast-paced, highly competitive market. Your creativity, originality and passion for developing new business will be encouraged and rewarded! CLICK HERE to apply. EOE.

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE, Tampa, Fla. — FOX O&O, WTVT: This opening at the top-rated station in Tampa requires the servicing of existing transactional accounts along with the development of new broadcast and digital business. Candidate must be highly motivated and possess strong presentation and prospecting skills. Position requires prior broadcast sales experience, preferably in an LPM market. Excel and Power Point are musts, and a working knowledge of

WideOrbit, PRIME Lingo and Kantar Media is a plus. College degree is preferred. CLICK HERE for more information or to apply now. EOE. Capitol Broadcasting Company seeks a Project Manager, Raleigh, N.C. In this role, you will work within the Digital Solutions team, a team focused on the sales and fulfillment of all digital marketing products. 3+ years of project management experience and understanding of digital marketing services required. CLICK HERE for full details or to apply now. EOE M/F. All Capitol Broadcasting Company properties are tobacco free. Capitol Broadcasting Company participates in E-Verify. WPBF 25, the Hearst-owned ABC affiliate in the beautiful West Palm Beach market, has an incredible opportunity for you! WPBF 25 is looking for a dynamic sales superstar to join our phenomenal sales team. The ideal candidate will bring both Broadcast and Digital sales experience and will possess the drive and ability to thrive in a fast-paced, highly competitive market. Your creativity, originality and passion for developing new business will be encouraged and rewarded! CLICK HERE to apply. EOE.

See your ad here tomorrow! CLICK HERE for details.

THIS AND THAT Xandr, AT&T’s advertising and analytics division, said it will be using data from Comscore for its addressable advertising offering, Broadcasting & Cable reports. Xandr’s addressable offering provides inventory from AT&T’s DirecTV and has arrangements with distributors Altice USA and Frontier. Working with Comscore is intended to give advertisers third-party measurement across a national live linear addressable footprint... The game of musical chairs in automakers’ marketing suites continues, with Saad Chehab to lead brand marketing at Volkswagen of America. Chehab, 52, was previously at Kia Motors. He joined Kia from FCA Group, where he ran global marketing for Maserati, after leading the Chrysler and Lancia brands.

NETWORK NEWS In one of NBC’s first buys this pitch season, the network has put in development St. Elmo’s Fire, a modern adaptation of the 1985 feature. The updated St. Elmo’s Fire will showcase a group of close friends struggling with career, commitment and the responsibilities of adulthood. The project has a script commitment from the network... Deadline reports that Elizabeth Perkins is set to star opposite Denis Leary in A Moody Christmas, Fox’s half-hour holiday event series slated to air in December. The six-episode series centers on the Moodys, including Sean Sr. (Leary), his wife Ann (Perkins), their three grown children and an assorted mix of extended family members who gather for the holidays, replete with personal eccentricities and complications... Spanish-language media giant Univision Communications, which recently put itself up for sale, reported lower second-quarter earnings amid lower revenue and higher operating expenses. During a call with analysts, CEO Vincent Sadusky urged rival media players to take a hard look at the Hispanic media giant, saying “it will trade one time.” Univision reported Q2 earnings from continuing operations of $92 million, compared with a year-ago profit of $121.3 million, down 24 percent. Quarterly revenue declined 4 percent to $701.7 million, with core revenue down 3.5 percent to $694.5 million. That included a 1.1 percent drop in media networks unit core advertising revenue... Meanwhile: UniMás delivered double-digit year-over-year audience growth during primetime among total viewers 2+ (up 56% to 397,000), adults 18-49 (up 43% to 180,000) and adults 18-34 (up 22% to 67,000), marking the fifth and eighth consecutive week of audience growth with adults 18-49 and total viewers 2+, respectively... NBC has ordered three additional episodes of Good Girls, expanding the upcoming midseason run of the drama series to 16 episodes. This would be the largest order for Good Girls, which has aired as midseason replacement every year, up from 10 episodes in Season 1 and 13 episodes in Season 2. Like The Good Place, Good Girls has been a digital success. In digital viewership among adults 18-49, Good Girls surged 115 percent in Season 2 versus Season 1. After 35 days of linear and digital delayed viewing, the caper more than quadrupled its Live+Same Day 18-49 rating, to a 2.38 rating from a 0.56, and grew by 4.1 million viewers, increasing to 6.4 million people in L+35+digital from 2.3 million in L+SD... Katrina Law (The Oath) has joined the upcoming 10th season of CBS’ hit drama Hawaii Five-O as a new series regular. A contemporary take on the classic 1968-80 series, Hawaii Five-O stars Alex O’Loughlin as Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett, the character originated by Jack Lord, and Scott Caan as Detective Sergeant Danny Williams, the “Danno” played by James MacArthur in the original.. Ian Anthony Dale, Meaghan Rath, Beulah Koale, Jorge Garcia, Chi McBride, Taylor Wily, Dennis Chun and Kimee Balmilero co-star in the series. Law recently starred opposite Ryan Phillippe in CBS’ one-hour drama pilot Alive. She previously starred as the female lead in Antoine Fuqua/Jerry Bruckheimer’s Training Day series for CBS.

8/15/2019

Conan O’Brien

If I were an extraterrestrial living on Earth, I’d hide in

Area 52.

The Daily News of TV Sales @ www.spotsndots.com PAGE 3

STARBUCKS TRIUMPHS IN MASCOT STUDY Campaign US says you’d be wrong to think Ronald McDonald is the most memorable brand mascot of all time. It’s actually the Starbucks mermaid, a new study says. Crestline research, with more than 1,600 respondents, revealed the coffee chain has the most memorable mascot, closely followed by Colonel Sanders of KFC and the GEICO gecko. Other unforgettable brand faces include Coco Pops’ Coco the Monkey, Erin from Esurance and (surprisingly) the Duracell bunny. The study found that America’s most lovable mascot is

Poppin’ Fresh, the Pillsbury Doughboy. Mr Mucus from Mucinex is the least. He also ranked the least persuasive (M&M candies taking the top spot), the least trustworthy (Snuggle Bear from Snuggle fabric softener in first place), the most annoying and the most creepy. But since Mr Mucus wasn’t created to be liked (quite the opposite), he’s a successful mascot in his own right, the reports notes. When it comes to cereal, Tony the Tiger is the most liked mascot, while Sonny the

Cuckoo Bird from Cocoa Puffs is the least. Tony takes home gold in trustworthiness and persuasiveness, too.

U.S. MORTGAGE DEBT TOPS 2008 RECORD Mortgage debt in the U.S. has surpassed its peak in 2008 just before the financial crisis, according to a new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Mortgage balances reached $9.406 trillion in the second quarter of this year, an increase of $162 billion from the past quarter. That topped the previous high of $9.294 trillion posted in the third quarter of 2008. The Center for Microeconomic Data’s Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit is based on information from a nationally representative sample of individual and household-level debt and credit records drawn from anonymized Equifax data. The report said mortgage delinquencies of more than 90 days fell to 0.9 percent from 1 percent last quarter. Early delinquencies — 30 to 60 days late — also improved. Credit card balances in 90-plus day delinquency increased to 5.2 percent from 5 percent last quarter, continuing a trend that started in 2017, according to the report.

8/15/2019

Theodore Roosevelt

When you are asked if you can do a job, tell ‘em, ‘Certainly I can!’ Then get

busy and find out how to do it.

TUESDAY NIELSEN RATINGS - LIVE + SAME DAY

RETAIL APOCALYPSE? NUMBERS SAY OTHERWISE The just-released Retail Renaissance – A Growth Story report from IHL Group suggests retail stores aren’t going away anytime soon, the National Retail Federation says. According to the IHL Group report, for each company closing stores, 5.2 are opening them. For every segment of retail, there are more companies opening stores than closing them. Even the much-maligned department store category has more brands opening stores than closing. The reality is that the wave of store closures seen in recent times is being driven by a handful of companies. Just 16 retailers are responsible for 73 percent of retail store closings so far this year, according to IHL. In the most recent edition of NRF’s Consumer View report, two-thirds of consumers said technologies such as augmented and virtual reality, smart dressing rooms and in-store navigation apps have improved in-store experiences. At the point of sale, technologies such as self-checkout, curbside pickup and mobile payment have made checking out an easier and more satisfying experience. According to Census Bureau data, 2018 saw a net increase in retail stores in the U.S. There were almost 3,100 more stores during the fourth quarter of 2018 than the same quarter a year earlier. The increase appeared to be driven by smaller stores: Stores with fewer than five employees were the big gainer, with a net increase of 4,569 as of the first quarter of 2018 compared with the same time in 2017.

VIACOM-CBS TIE-UP COULD BOOST AD AMBITIONS The merger of CBS and Viacom creates a larger media company better positioned to pursue advanced advertising technology and ad-supported streaming video, The Wall Street Journal reports. The logic of the merger, which would create a company valued at $30 billion, is that greater scale will give Viacom and CBS a leg up in all areas of their business — more leverage in negotiations over carriage fees with cable — and satellite-TV distributors, for example, and more programming to sell into a competitive streaming marketplace. For CBS, the deal could mean an infusion of data and tech prowess from Viacom, according to advertising executives. Viacom owns and licenses Vantage, a technology platform that helps advertisers figure out which of its TV channels best reach their target audiences. When Viacom last week reported a return to domestic ad growth after 20 quarters of declines, it partly credited its advanced advertising services. Vantage has helped clients of ad giant Dentsu reach increasingly specific audiences over the past five years, said Mike Law, president of Dentsu’s ad-buying group, Amplifi. There is an opportunity for the newly merged company — to be called ViacomCBS — to expand that kind of technology across all its assets, he said, adding that CBS also has some of its own advanced ad products. “As we move to that one-to-one addressable world, these bigger media companies can help us find that audience in a broader way,” Law said. Advertisers are expected to spend $67.23 billion on U.S. TV ads in 2019, a 1.4 percent decline from 2018, according to estimates from media buyer Zenith.