Super Bowl Ad Sales Are Strong

News Corp.’s Fox television network is charging as much as $2.4 million for 30-second commercial spots during its Super Bowl broadcast in February, 6.7% more than the average for last season’s National Football League championship game.

Anheuser-Busch Cos., maker of Budweiser and Bud Lite beer, is buying 10 of the game’s 58 30-second spots at that price, said Tony Ponturo, vice president for global media and sports marketing at the St. Louis-based company.

The Feb. 6 Super Bowl may generate $139 million in revenue for Fox based on that rate. It may also help the New York-based network boost sales as viewers defect to cable TV, the Internet and video games. The Super Bowl has been the best-rated TV program every year since 1995, giving advertisers an opportunity to appeal to a mass audience, Ponturo said.

“It’s the brightest of bright lights,” Ponturo said. “The Super Bowl always draws giant ratings in this fractionalized market.”

Jon Nesvig, Fox’s president of sales, declined to comment on the price for the ads.

Fox, the fourth-ranked network in audience ratings, had sold about 90% of its Super Bowl ads as of Tuesday, said Karen McCallum, a media buyer at McKee Wallwork Henderson in Albuquerque. McCallum said she had negotiated ad purchases on the broadcast for clients she declined to identify.

News Corp.’s television unit, which includes Fox, company-owned TV stations and the Star TV network in China, accounted for 19% of the parent company’s $5.19 billion in revenue in the quarter ended Sept. 30.

PepsiCo Inc., based in Purchase, N.Y., and Visa International of San Francisco also are buying Super Bowl advertisements, McCallum said. Closely held GoDaddy.com, an Internet domain-name registration company, is among companies advertising during the broadcast for the first time, she said.

The Super Bowl’s average ad price will probably rise as game day approaches because advertisers may be willing to pay more for scarce spots, Ponturo said.

The broadcast rotates among Viacom Inc.’s CBS, Fox and Walt Disney Co.’s ABC. The 2006 game will be on ABC.

Super Bowl ad prices have risen each year since the February 2002 game, when lower demand for advertising after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks cut the price 4.8% to $2 million from a year earlier.

In 2003, the price rose 5% to $2.1 million for commercials on ABC’s broadcast. CBS charged $2.25 million, a 7.1% increase, for spots during the 2004 game between the New England Patriots and the Carolina Panthers.

The 2004 program drew the highest Super Bowl audience ratings since 2000, with 41.4% of the 108.4 million U.S. households with televisions tuning in.

The broadcast was marred by a halftime show at which singer Janet Jackson’s breast was exposed, prompting 200,000 complaints to the Federal Communications Commission in the first week after the game. Viacom is fighting a proposed $550,000 indecency fine by the FCC.

“I have ensured that all my spots have in-game placement and could not possibly fall into the halftime show,” McKee Wallwork’s McCallum said.