News Corp's Fox and other television networks lost more than US$200 million in advertising sales after the Sept. 11 attacks last year. Next week's anniversary coverage of the assaults will spur more losses, executives said.
"There seems to be a very great reluctance to advertising at all on 9/11 and possibly not much during that week," News Corp.
Chief Executive Officer Rupert Murdoch said on a call with analysts last month.
The top TV networks, NBC, CBS, Fox and ABC, and many cable channels will devote Sept. 11 to programming related to the attacks. Radio stations, newspapers and magazines will feature special broadcasts and editions.
Coca-Cola Co, La-Z-Boy Inc and other companies won't advertise because they don't want to be linked to an event that killed about 3,000 people.
"No matter how well intentioned an ad is on Sept. 11, the association with the tragedy isn't appropriate," said Doug Collier, vice president of marketing at La-Z-Boy, the largest US home-furniture maker and a buyer of ads on Walt Disney Co's ABC.
TV networks, including CNN and Fox News on cable, lost a combined US$219 million in ad revenue Sept 11 through Sept. 15 as advertising was pulled for news coverage of the attacks at the Pentagon in Washington and the World Trade Center in New York, estimates Competitive Media Reporting, which tracks TV ad sales.
Slump in revenue
The lost revenue, coupled with a US economic recession, led US advertising to drop 6.2 percent to US$172.1 billion last year, the first decline in a decade, according to investment bank Veronis Suhler Stevenson.
Ad spending will rise 3 percent to US$177.2 billion this year, the investment bank said.
That's down from US$183.5 billion in 2000, when sales rose 11 percent from the year earlier, according to Veronis Suhler.
Advertising in Gannett Co's USA Today newspaper, which will publish Sept. 11-related articles on the anniversary, will be "slower than typical weeks," spokesman Steve Anderson said.
Newspapers lost about US$50 million in ad sales last Sept. 11 and more than US$200 million from Sept. 11 to 14, Veronis Suhler said.
News Corp's Fox, the No. 4-ranked TV network, as well as the Fox News cable-TV channel, will suspend all advertising on Sept. 11, Fox News spokesman Brian Lewis said.
The top TV networks generate roughly US$3 million in national advertising for each hour of programming during "primetime," or 8pm to 11pm, New York time, media buyers estimate.
ABC said it won't run any 30-second commercial spots on the anniversary. The No. 3-rated network is trying to get sponsors for some of the day's programming. Such sponsorships, mostly seen on public TV, typically feature an advertiser's name and logo during a program.
The anniversary coverage "isn't about selling products," said Jim Weiss, spokesman for AOL Time Warner's cable channels including CNN, which will be ad free for "significant blocks" of Sept. 11.
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