Social Media Site
Facebook
Call it a bully, a new paradigm, a blessing, a curse—whatever you call Facebook, its presence and power is undeniable. Today the social network has more than 800 million members and is expected to more than double ad revenue to $3.8 billion by the end of this year. By the end of 2012, Facebook, which has a Klout score of 80 and won the Readers’ Choice poll for top social site, could control nearly 20 percent of all U.S. display ad revenue. In the past year, its monthly unique visitors climbed 10 percent to 166 million. By continuing to add music and lifestyle apps, Facebook hopes to differentiate itself even further with engagement.
Search Site
Google
In Internet time, 13-year-old Google is graying at the temples, but it still leads the pack in search with Adweek readers and users overall. Despite competition from Microsoft’s Bing and smaller startups, Google boasts a 65.6 percent market share. An endless stream of search queries helped Google earn record revenue—nearly $10 billion in Q3, up 33 percent from the previous year’s third quarter.
Gaming Company
Zynga
Thanks to hits like FarmVille and CityVille, Zynga is still the king of the social gaming world. Case in point: When the company filed for a $1 billion IPO in July, it reported revenue of $235 million for the first three months of the year. Its model of free games, with money coming from virtual good sales and advertising, seems to be paying off, and our readers agree. It topped our Adweek poll.
Mobile
Apple
Apple addicts got their fix this fall with the debut of the highly anticipated iPhone 4S and sidekick Siri, its cheeky, voice-controlled personal assistant. The hype, along with real improvements to Apple’s iOS—including iCloud, an 8MP camera, and faster performance—led to a record-breaking 4 million iPhones sold worldwide over the first weekend. Google’s Android may power more smartphones globally, but to Adweek readers and millions of iOS users, the iPhone shines brightest.
App
Angry Birds
It’s an Angry Birds world, and we just live in it. The game has been downloaded more than 500 million times in the past two years and has garnered a Klout score of 76. But the cultural footprint goes much further. Game maker Rovio is becoming a licensing powerhouse, with T-shirts, toys, Halloween costumes, and more. It’s also eyeing the entertainment industry, and there’s even a Hollywood movie in the works.
Startup
Spotify
Napster co-founder Sean Parker has called Spotify (where he’s an investor) the first online music service that can compete with piracy. Founded in Sweden, the U.K.-based company launched in the U.S. in July with sponsors Coca-Cola, Chevrolet, and Motorola, and now boasts 2.5 million paying U.S. and European subscribers (and 10 million total registered users). Last week, Spotify morphed into a bona fide platform, announcing plans to roll out apps. Partners include Rolling Stone and Billboard, and there are apps for ticket listings and lyrics. Apple and Facebook, take note.
Lifestyle Website
Tumblr
If Facebook is about connecting people, Tumblr is about tapping into their creativity. In the past year, the super-easy, hyper-customizable, and highly conversational micro-blogging platform has more than tripled traffic, logging more than 15 million unique visitors in October. The fast-growing site has a Klout score of 73 and is reportedly valued at about $800 million.
Sports Website
ESPN
In the highly competitive field of sports sites, ESPN is the top draft pick with Adweek readers. Not only is it fully loaded with a lineup that caters to both casual and diehard fans, but it also enjoys content that flows easily between the site and the cable box. The stats? Nearly 49 million unique monthly visitors and a Klout score of 86.
News Website
Huffington Post
HuffPo may not be popular among its peers—The New York Times recently filed a cease-and-desist for the website’s Parentlode blog, written by the Times former Motherlode writer—but the news aggregator continues to be a hit with users, growing since its acquisition in February by AOL by 40 percent to 35 million monthly uniques. With more to read (HuffPo’s sections have increased to 21), it’s no wonder the blog won Adweek’s Readers’ Choice poll. There’s a vertical for everyone.
Entertainment News Website
TMZ
As a news outlet, TMZ has made a name for itself the old-fashioned way: with (often unsavory) scoops. Since its founding six years ago, TMZ has transformed itself into the Politico of entertainment news, aggregating an enviable audience in the process. Today, TMZ gets an average of 17.5 million unique visitors per month and even boasts a spinoff syndicated series, TMZ on TV.
Streaming media
Spotify
Of all the streaming music services that have sprung up in recent years, perhaps none has posed so serious a threat to iTunes’ hegemony as Spotify. Unlike iTunes, Spotify is a social experience. Users can listen to their Facebook friends’ playlists and can then announce to the world what they’re listening to at any given moment. It also has two tiers of service: a paid subscription plan that is ad-free (sort of a Netflix for music) and an unpaid, ad-supported service. With its bold transition last week to a platform with integrated apps, Spotify’s “new direction” seems to be a great leap forward.
Sorry, Charlie. Despite Team Tiger Blood’s attempts to destroy the franchise, Two and a Half Men is far and away the No. 1 scripted series on TV. Such is the state of affairs at CBS. Not only does Men command the highest ad rates ($250,000 a pop), but the once seemingly doomed show is joined by top-rated newcomer 2 Broke Girls and TV’s highest-rated drama (NCIS). Winning, indeed. CBS doesn’t need novelty to put up big numbers. Even an exile to Sunday night and the DVR-confounding NFL overruns hasn’t broken The Good Wife, and the aging Survivor franchise regularly finishes in the top 20. Reliable earners like Criminal Minds, The Big Bang Theory, and Mike & Molly also have conspired to land CBS in the catbird seat
Late Night
CBS
David Letterman may be more AARP than LOL, but don’t tell that to the Twitterati. With a Klout score of 72, The Late Show With David Letterman has more social media heat than Jimmy Fallon on NBC—plus he’s followed by the expert lunacy of The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson. Expect Dave to shine in what promises to be the most farcical election cycle in history as he puts pretenders to the White House–and his late-night throne–on the hot seat.
Drama
CBS
With a median age of 58 years (higher than even the network’s average), NCIS is one of broadcast’s oldest-skewing shows. It’s also the biggest scripted draw on the dial, averaging 19.6 million viewers season to date, and boasts a none-too-shabby Klout score of 68. Veterans like Criminal Minds are big earners in the ad and syndie markets, while new- and newishcomers (Person of Interest, NCIS: Los Angeles) are holding their own.
Prime-time Schedule
CBS
Through the first nine weeks of the season, CBS has opened up a comfortable lead in the ratings race, averaging 13 million viewers in prime time, 23 percent more than runner-up ABC. Despite delivering broadcast’s oldest audience (median age is 56), CBS is tied with Fox for first place in the crucial 18-49 demo, with a 3.4 rating. In a sense, CBS may be a victim of its own success. With little room on the schedule for anything new, the net is likely to kill off one of its workhorses. (Not a bad problem to have.)
Reality
Fox
Simon Cowell, the star-making, snark-lobbing judge and executive producer of The X Factor, is like a one-man Statler and Waldorf—just substitute the judges’ table for a balcony. The Idol impresario’s latest effort doesn’t reach the heights of his first stateside series, but X has helped give Fox its first big Q4 in memory. And Idol, of course, remains the standard against which all reality is measured. Advertisers will shell out as much as $500,000 per spot when it returns Jan. 22.
Sports
NBC
Little wonder Adweek readers gave NBC the winning nod. On Feb. 5, the Peacock net will host Super Bowl XLVI, which sets the table nicely for its stewardship of the London 2012 Summer Olympic Games. Sunday Night Football is NBC’s sole bona fide hit. With an average draw of 19.7 million viewers and a 7.9 rating in the 18-49 demo, it’s also the biggest draw on TV.
Comedy
ABC
No matter how well Mr. Kelso Goes to Malibu performs for CBS, it’s the Pritchett-Dunphy axis on ABC’s Modern Family that made Americans fall in love with the sitcom all over again. The linchpin of a Wednesday night lineup that includes new hit Suburgatory and the Friends-with-benefits Happy Endings, Modern Family earns nearly a quarter-million dollars per :30.
AMC
In a three-way race that saw votes going to FX and a revitalized HBO, AMC thrived on the strength of its dead. Seething with self-righteousness and desperate for deliverance, the human survivors that populate The Walking Dead are becoming harder to distinguish from the ravenous corpses roaming the post-apocalyptic countryside—and viewers are eating it up. The most-watched series in cable history among the 18-49 set, The Walking Dead represents the apotheosis of AMC’s antihero stance—the literal evocation of spiritual rot. Don Draper and Walter White would be very much at home here. Not since HBO aired new installments of The Sopranos and The Wire has a network so faithfully (and relentlessly) captured the moral compromise of an age.
Comedy
FX
While uncompromisingly dark dramas like Sons of Anarchy are FX’s stock in trade, the network has insinuated itself with comedy nerds by way of the outré hits Louie, The League, Archer, and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. When your rivals are poaching your wares—Comedy Central scooped up the off-net rights to Philly for $400,000 per episode—you’re on to something.
Sports
ESPN
In September, ESPN was the first NFL partner to re-up its TV contract with the league, signing an eight-year, $15.5 billion deal that will keep Monday Night Football in the ABC Sports family through 2021. Adweek readers were nearly unanimous in selecting the sports net; the $1.7 billion in ad sales ESPN stands to bring in this year made it official.
Family
ABC Family
While ABC Family does brisk business with millennials, the channel’s reach isn’t limited to those who are still on the hunt for a learner’s permit. The success of original series like The Secret Life of the American Teenager and Pretty Little Liars has allowed the Disney net to position itself as a must-buy for clients targeting women 18-49. Its biggest franchise remains “25 Days of Christmas,” a holiday stunt that offers classic Rankin/Bass specials, original movies, and theatricals.
Prime Time
History
Original series Pawn Stars, American Pickers, and Swamp People are among the most-watched unscripted efforts on basic cable, so much so that History in Q3 finished second in the cable race for adults 18-49. As such, its ad sales staff this year is on track to eclipse the $350 million mark, no thanks to a certain Irish bootlegger in The Kennedys.
Late Night
Comedy Central
The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart delights in his role as a twinkly-eyed, despairing Walter Cronkite for a generation that gets its news from its Twitter feed. Lead-out Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report embodies the shameless hucksterism of cable’s screaming heads, who have made a cottage industry out of presenting extreme views to an audience that doesn’t ask questions. Together, they’re the dream ticket for an election season that promises to offer the gravitas of a hot-dog eating contest.
General Interest
USA
No one’s likely to replicate its five-year winning streak in the cable ratings, but USA’s clear vision is an industry model. Its series are shot with USA’s “blue skies” filter—literally a guiding principle that colors its cop/doctor/spy/shrink dramas with an upbeat quirkiness. Homegrown series like Burn Notice and Royal Pains, and WWE Raw get a rise from viewers.
Reality
MTV
Think the civilization of Dante, Michelangelo, and Mr. Francis Albert Sinatra will reach its full fruition in a perma-tanned goomba sporting an Ed Hardy shirt? Relax. Jersey Shore is just a TV show—albeit one instrumental in saving MTV’s pancetta. In its fourth season, it averaged 7.3 million viewers, capping an unbelievable summer in which the network and its siblings earned nearly $745 million in ad sales revenue.
Lifestyle
Food Network
If the personalities who inhabit the Food Network aren’t to everyone’s taste—Paula Deen’s “recipe” for preparing English peas (open can, melt butter) reads like a parody of her folksy, cholesterol-spiking shtick–the channel has a read on how “real” Americans eat. (The foodies can sulk and saute their way on over to the Cooking Channel.) Advertisers bet big on Guy Fieri, et al.–last year Food took in $277 million in sponsor bucks.
Call it a bully, a new paradigm, a blessing, a curse—whatever you call Facebook, its presence and power is undeniable. Today the social network has more than 800 million members and is expected to more than double ad revenue to $3.8 billion by the end of this year. By the end of 2012, Facebook, which has a Klout score of 80 and won the Readers’ Choice poll for top social site, could control nearly 20 percent of all U.S. display ad revenue. In the past year, its monthly unique visitors climbed 10 percent to 166 million. By continuing to add music and lifestyle apps, Facebook hopes to differentiate itself even further with engagement.
Search Site
In Internet time, 13-year-old Google is graying at the temples, but it still leads the pack in search with Adweek readers and users overall. Despite competition from Microsoft’s Bing and smaller startups, Google boasts a 65.6 percent market share. An endless stream of search queries helped Google earn record revenue—nearly $10 billion in Q3, up 33 percent from the previous year’s third quarter.
Gaming Company
Zynga
Thanks to hits like FarmVille and CityVille, Zynga is still the king of the social gaming world. Case in point: When the company filed for a $1 billion IPO in July, it reported revenue of $235 million for the first three months of the year. Its model of free games, with money coming from virtual good sales and advertising, seems to be paying off, and our readers agree. It topped our Adweek poll.
Mobile
Apple
Apple addicts got their fix this fall with the debut of the highly anticipated iPhone 4S and sidekick Siri, its cheeky, voice-controlled personal assistant. The hype, along with real improvements to Apple’s iOS—including iCloud, an 8MP camera, and faster performance—led to a record-breaking 4 million iPhones sold worldwide over the first weekend. Google’s Android may power more smartphones globally, but to Adweek readers and millions of iOS users, the iPhone shines brightest.
App
Angry Birds
It’s an Angry Birds world, and we just live in it. The game has been downloaded more than 500 million times in the past two years and has garnered a Klout score of 76. But the cultural footprint goes much further. Game maker Rovio is becoming a licensing powerhouse, with T-shirts, toys, Halloween costumes, and more. It’s also eyeing the entertainment industry, and there’s even a Hollywood movie in the works.
Startup
Spotify
Napster co-founder Sean Parker has called Spotify (where he’s an investor) the first online music service that can compete with piracy. Founded in Sweden, the U.K.-based company launched in the U.S. in July with sponsors Coca-Cola, Chevrolet, and Motorola, and now boasts 2.5 million paying U.S. and European subscribers (and 10 million total registered users). Last week, Spotify morphed into a bona fide platform, announcing plans to roll out apps. Partners include Rolling Stone and Billboard, and there are apps for ticket listings and lyrics. Apple and Facebook, take note.
Lifestyle Website
Tumblr
If Facebook is about connecting people, Tumblr is about tapping into their creativity. In the past year, the super-easy, hyper-customizable, and highly conversational micro-blogging platform has more than tripled traffic, logging more than 15 million unique visitors in October. The fast-growing site has a Klout score of 73 and is reportedly valued at about $800 million.
Sports Website
ESPN
In the highly competitive field of sports sites, ESPN is the top draft pick with Adweek readers. Not only is it fully loaded with a lineup that caters to both casual and diehard fans, but it also enjoys content that flows easily between the site and the cable box. The stats? Nearly 49 million unique monthly visitors and a Klout score of 86.
News Website
Huffington Post
HuffPo may not be popular among its peers—The New York Times recently filed a cease-and-desist for the website’s Parentlode blog, written by the Times former Motherlode writer—but the news aggregator continues to be a hit with users, growing since its acquisition in February by AOL by 40 percent to 35 million monthly uniques. With more to read (HuffPo’s sections have increased to 21), it’s no wonder the blog won Adweek’s Readers’ Choice poll. There’s a vertical for everyone.
Entertainment News Website
TMZ
As a news outlet, TMZ has made a name for itself the old-fashioned way: with (often unsavory) scoops. Since its founding six years ago, TMZ has transformed itself into the Politico of entertainment news, aggregating an enviable audience in the process. Today, TMZ gets an average of 17.5 million unique visitors per month and even boasts a spinoff syndicated series, TMZ on TV.
Streaming media
Spotify
Of all the streaming music services that have sprung up in recent years, perhaps none has posed so serious a threat to iTunes’ hegemony as Spotify. Unlike iTunes, Spotify is a social experience. Users can listen to their Facebook friends’ playlists and can then announce to the world what they’re listening to at any given moment. It also has two tiers of service: a paid subscription plan that is ad-free (sort of a Netflix for music) and an unpaid, ad-supported service. With its bold transition last week to a platform with integrated apps, Spotify’s “new direction” seems to be a great leap forward.
Broadcast TV: CBS is the year's hottest network
By Anthony Crupi
CBSSorry, Charlie. Despite Team Tiger Blood’s attempts to destroy the franchise, Two and a Half Men is far and away the No. 1 scripted series on TV. Such is the state of affairs at CBS. Not only does Men command the highest ad rates ($250,000 a pop), but the once seemingly doomed show is joined by top-rated newcomer 2 Broke Girls and TV’s highest-rated drama (NCIS). Winning, indeed. CBS doesn’t need novelty to put up big numbers. Even an exile to Sunday night and the DVR-confounding NFL overruns hasn’t broken The Good Wife, and the aging Survivor franchise regularly finishes in the top 20. Reliable earners like Criminal Minds, The Big Bang Theory, and Mike & Molly also have conspired to land CBS in the catbird seat
Late Night
CBS
David Letterman may be more AARP than LOL, but don’t tell that to the Twitterati. With a Klout score of 72, The Late Show With David Letterman has more social media heat than Jimmy Fallon on NBC—plus he’s followed by the expert lunacy of The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson. Expect Dave to shine in what promises to be the most farcical election cycle in history as he puts pretenders to the White House–and his late-night throne–on the hot seat.
Drama
CBS
With a median age of 58 years (higher than even the network’s average), NCIS is one of broadcast’s oldest-skewing shows. It’s also the biggest scripted draw on the dial, averaging 19.6 million viewers season to date, and boasts a none-too-shabby Klout score of 68. Veterans like Criminal Minds are big earners in the ad and syndie markets, while new- and newishcomers (Person of Interest, NCIS: Los Angeles) are holding their own.
Prime-time Schedule
CBS
Through the first nine weeks of the season, CBS has opened up a comfortable lead in the ratings race, averaging 13 million viewers in prime time, 23 percent more than runner-up ABC. Despite delivering broadcast’s oldest audience (median age is 56), CBS is tied with Fox for first place in the crucial 18-49 demo, with a 3.4 rating. In a sense, CBS may be a victim of its own success. With little room on the schedule for anything new, the net is likely to kill off one of its workhorses. (Not a bad problem to have.)
Reality
Fox
Simon Cowell, the star-making, snark-lobbing judge and executive producer of The X Factor, is like a one-man Statler and Waldorf—just substitute the judges’ table for a balcony. The Idol impresario’s latest effort doesn’t reach the heights of his first stateside series, but X has helped give Fox its first big Q4 in memory. And Idol, of course, remains the standard against which all reality is measured. Advertisers will shell out as much as $500,000 per spot when it returns Jan. 22.
Sports
NBC
Little wonder Adweek readers gave NBC the winning nod. On Feb. 5, the Peacock net will host Super Bowl XLVI, which sets the table nicely for its stewardship of the London 2012 Summer Olympic Games. Sunday Night Football is NBC’s sole bona fide hit. With an average draw of 19.7 million viewers and a 7.9 rating in the 18-49 demo, it’s also the biggest draw on TV.
Comedy
ABC
No matter how well Mr. Kelso Goes to Malibu performs for CBS, it’s the Pritchett-Dunphy axis on ABC’s Modern Family that made Americans fall in love with the sitcom all over again. The linchpin of a Wednesday night lineup that includes new hit Suburgatory and the Friends-with-benefits Happy Endings, Modern Family earns nearly a quarter-million dollars per :30.
Cable TV: AMC pulls ahead of the pack
By Anthony Crupi
DramaAMC
In a three-way race that saw votes going to FX and a revitalized HBO, AMC thrived on the strength of its dead. Seething with self-righteousness and desperate for deliverance, the human survivors that populate The Walking Dead are becoming harder to distinguish from the ravenous corpses roaming the post-apocalyptic countryside—and viewers are eating it up. The most-watched series in cable history among the 18-49 set, The Walking Dead represents the apotheosis of AMC’s antihero stance—the literal evocation of spiritual rot. Don Draper and Walter White would be very much at home here. Not since HBO aired new installments of The Sopranos and The Wire has a network so faithfully (and relentlessly) captured the moral compromise of an age.
Comedy
FX
While uncompromisingly dark dramas like Sons of Anarchy are FX’s stock in trade, the network has insinuated itself with comedy nerds by way of the outré hits Louie, The League, Archer, and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. When your rivals are poaching your wares—Comedy Central scooped up the off-net rights to Philly for $400,000 per episode—you’re on to something.
Sports
ESPN
In September, ESPN was the first NFL partner to re-up its TV contract with the league, signing an eight-year, $15.5 billion deal that will keep Monday Night Football in the ABC Sports family through 2021. Adweek readers were nearly unanimous in selecting the sports net; the $1.7 billion in ad sales ESPN stands to bring in this year made it official.
Family
ABC Family
While ABC Family does brisk business with millennials, the channel’s reach isn’t limited to those who are still on the hunt for a learner’s permit. The success of original series like The Secret Life of the American Teenager and Pretty Little Liars has allowed the Disney net to position itself as a must-buy for clients targeting women 18-49. Its biggest franchise remains “25 Days of Christmas,” a holiday stunt that offers classic Rankin/Bass specials, original movies, and theatricals.
Prime Time
History
Original series Pawn Stars, American Pickers, and Swamp People are among the most-watched unscripted efforts on basic cable, so much so that History in Q3 finished second in the cable race for adults 18-49. As such, its ad sales staff this year is on track to eclipse the $350 million mark, no thanks to a certain Irish bootlegger in The Kennedys.
Late Night
Comedy Central
The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart delights in his role as a twinkly-eyed, despairing Walter Cronkite for a generation that gets its news from its Twitter feed. Lead-out Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report embodies the shameless hucksterism of cable’s screaming heads, who have made a cottage industry out of presenting extreme views to an audience that doesn’t ask questions. Together, they’re the dream ticket for an election season that promises to offer the gravitas of a hot-dog eating contest.
General Interest
USA
No one’s likely to replicate its five-year winning streak in the cable ratings, but USA’s clear vision is an industry model. Its series are shot with USA’s “blue skies” filter—literally a guiding principle that colors its cop/doctor/spy/shrink dramas with an upbeat quirkiness. Homegrown series like Burn Notice and Royal Pains, and WWE Raw get a rise from viewers.
Reality
MTV
Think the civilization of Dante, Michelangelo, and Mr. Francis Albert Sinatra will reach its full fruition in a perma-tanned goomba sporting an Ed Hardy shirt? Relax. Jersey Shore is just a TV show—albeit one instrumental in saving MTV’s pancetta. In its fourth season, it averaged 7.3 million viewers, capping an unbelievable summer in which the network and its siblings earned nearly $745 million in ad sales revenue.
Lifestyle
Food Network
If the personalities who inhabit the Food Network aren’t to everyone’s taste—Paula Deen’s “recipe” for preparing English peas (open can, melt butter) reads like a parody of her folksy, cholesterol-spiking shtick–the channel has a read on how “real” Americans eat. (The foodies can sulk and saute their way on over to the Cooking Channel.) Advertisers bet big on Guy Fieri, et al.–last year Food took in $277 million in sponsor bucks.
Hottest Revenue Player: CBS president, CEO Les MoonvesBy Anthony Crupi
CBS Corp. president and CEO Leslie Moonves last year received $57.7 million in total compensation, a sum that included nearly $8 million in a special cash payment for his “leadership in connection with the creation of premium content.” He’s worth every penny. While at least one rival was throwing his hands in the air and bemoaning the death of the broadcast model, Moonves continued to do what he does best: make tentpole TV. All but two of CBS’ prime-time series draw in excess of 10 million viewers each week–by comparison, NBC can say the same about just one (Sunday Night Football)–and since the season began, CBS boasts nine of the top 20 shows in the 18-49 demo. Even broadcast’s biggest booster isn’t content to rest on his nightly deliveries. CBS’ international syndication business generates north of $1 billion annually, and Moonves has done a masterful job of licensing library content to third-party streaming services. In July, Amazon cut a $100 million check for the rights to mothballed CBS Studios series such as Cheers and Frasier. Should the ad market fall stagnant, such licensing deals will keep CBS flush–as will the steady stream of retransmission consent fees and reverse compensation from affiliates. As a showman, Moonves would probably rather talk up what’s on the screen. But it’s his business acumen that justifies the adulation.
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