Kids-TV 'Upfront' Season Kicks Off Under Cloud

[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Brian Steinberg & Joe Flint]
The children's television "upfront" market, when advertisers negotiate the coming year's ad buys with kids' TV channels, kicks off in coming days. This year, with the market facing some difficult issues, it promises to be a drawn-out negotiation. One of the biggest clouds over the kids' upfront is, not surprisingly, the impact of new-media options competing for both kids' attention and marketing dollars. The same issue looms over the prime-time broadcast-TV upfront that kicks off in the spring. But the kids' market also has to contend with continuing pressures on food marketers to cut back advertising to children. Kids' TV outlets have some advantages over new media. For one thing, the channels still draw far more viewers than most individual kids' Web sites. Another dynamic likely to affect the market this year is sensitivity among food marketers about advertising to children, one media buyer familiar with the children's marketplace says. Last year, bowing to public-health pressure, Kraft promised to stop advertising junk food to kids under 12. Kraft has cut back gradually; this upfront market will show the full effect of Kraft's decision for the first time. In recent months, activist groups have put even more pressure on other food marketers.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114220580134696059.html?mod=todays_us_ma...
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