The impending changes in the ITV line- up, as announced yesterday, will have a widespread effect on the sale of TV airtime.
The trend of the past few years towards joint airtime sales houses is likely to accelerate, even within the coming months, and those winners who put in high cash bids may look to sales houses as a means of minimising costs.
Sunrise has stated that it will have an in-house sales team, but having bid £20m more than incumbent TV-am believes the station to be worth, may have to reconsider this decision. Early rumours suggest, however, that TV-am sales director Tony Vickers has offered his sales force to Sunrise.
Speculation is also mounting that STV and Ulster will combine sales with TVMM, which handles sales for HTV and Grampian. Similarly, Granada and Border, who joined forces to mount a challenge to Tyne Tees, are also expected to amalgamate airtime sales.
Carlton has expressed its intention to set up its own sales force, whilst Meridian may well form some kind of alliance with TSMS. Although TSMS would itself be unable to deal with sales for such a large contractor (sales houses cannot represent more than 25% of the ITV network), it has the option of setting up a second shop to handle new clients.
Whatever happens, agencies will be faced with a plethora of problems. The TV airtime market is expected to move towards the short-term, and guarantees will hold little sway, given the uncertainty hanging over those stations that have lost their franchises.
Overdealing, which is a common problem, could become serious if the stations do not have enough time to make up for undelivered airtime; advertisers could end up paying for airtime that they never received. TVS, at least, seems to have taken a positive step already, having decided to market its airtime sales computer system, SAMS, to the franchise winners.
