‘Friends’ Was a Friend to Movie Marketers

NBC isn’t the only one choked up about losing its “Friends” tonight. Hollywood movie executives are reaching for their hankies too.

Over the last decade, the show about the glamorous pals of Central Perk has become a reliable workhorse for the network. Season after season, it pulled in one of the biggest audiences in television, and one that fell into the demographic group that advertisers pay the most to reach: viewers aged 18 to 49.

That and its perch at 8 o’clock on Thursdays -- the night before most movies open in theaters -- made “Friends” the centerpiece of most big-budget movie marketing campaigns.

Studio executives in recent years have had little choice but to fork over as much as $600,000, or roughly three times the average cost of a prime-time network spot, for a 30-second commercial during “Friends.”

“We’re all going to miss ‘Friends,’ ” said Geoffrey Ammer, worldwide marketing president of Sony Corp.’s Columbia Tri-Star Motion Picture Group, which will promote its summer film “Spider-Man 2” during tonight’s two-hour finale.

The sitcom became the film industry’s “closer,” Ammer said, “the last opportunity, the last big bang before you put your movie in the hands of the movie gods.”

Since “Friends” went on the air in September 1994, NBC has collected more than $450 million from studios promoting movies and home videos. The show has raked in more than $2 billion during its network run from all advertisers, including automakers, airlines and credit card and cellphone companies.

For NBC, which is owned by General Electric Co., the end of “Friends” will be bittersweet. Although the network has yet to find a sure-fire scripted comedy to replace the show about hip, young New Yorkers searching for love, tonight’s “Friends” won’t be a loss for NBC’s balance sheet.

It’s commanding as much as $2 million for a 30-second spot during the finale, which is expected to draw more than 50 million viewers. That’s just below the rate paid for time during the traditional TV mega-event of the year, the Super Bowl.

In all, the finale, which will be followed by the hospital drama “ER,” is expected to rake in $100 million in advertising revenue. That will handily surpass the $60 million collected during the sign-off of “Seinfeld” in 1998, even accounting for inflation.

“It will be the highest-grossing night in the history of network television” for non-sports programming, predicted Randy Falco, NBC Television Network Group president. “ ‘Friends’ has become a cultural phenomenon, and that has rubbed off very nicely on NBC.”

For Hollywood studios, no program since “Seinfeld” -- another alum of NBC’s “Must-See TV” Thursday lineup -- has consistently hit the sweet spot by serving up so many moviegoers for so many seasons. NBC typically sold out its prime-time ad inventory before other networks, largely because of the strength of its Thursday schedule and its delivery of all the viewers important to advertisers.

“ ‘Friends’ has been one of the few places on the network schedule where you can reach several demographic groups all at once,” said Terry Press, marketing chief of DreamWorks SKG, which has bought time during the run-up to tonight’s finale. That kind of reach “is becoming an increasingly rare phenomenon” in the 200-channel television universe.

The loss of “Friends” doesn’t necessarily mean movie studios will spend less money. They probably will spread their dollars around on different shows and on other networks and cable channels.

Unscripted shows have been particularly popular with the movie-going crowd, one reason networks have embraced them. In fact, Fox’s “American Idol” eclipsed “Friends” this season as most popular among frequent moviegoers, according to Nielsen Media Research.

“The Simpsons” and “The O.C.” on Fox also have emerged as popular places to park commercials for movies, as well as CBS’ blockbusters “Survivor,” “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” and “CSI: Miami.”

“You just have to spread your bets out a little more and make buys on different networks,” said Ray Warren, managing director of advertising-buying firm OMD, which buys network time for such clients as Universal Pictures, Pepsi and Nissan. “It’s great to buy in other shows, but here, you’re getting the ‘buzz’ of ‘Friends,’ and you can’t buy that ‘Friends’ environment outside of ‘Friends.’ ”

NBC probably will continue to grab a big share of movie money.

The network has “ER,” “Will & Grace” and Donald Trump’s returning job-interview show, “The Apprentice,” which all score highly with cinema fans. It’s no coincidence that the three NBC shows will all air Thursday night, the most lucrative night in the TV industry and the most important night to the studios.

“We’re on to the next thing, the next hit, the next big Thursday night,” NBC’s Falco said.

Movie studio marketers have long been divided about whether a commercial on “Friends” was worth the cost. After all, buying 90 seconds of time on “Friends” could blow a $1.5-million hole in their ad budgets. Still, executives clung to the Thursday night ad buys for fear of being second-guessed if a movie didn’t have a spectacular opening weekend.

What’s more, there was always another, more political, reason “Friends” had been a must-buy for the studios.

Buying time on the show had long been viewed by some in Hollywood as a status symbol. When studios unveiled their advertising plans, the first question a film producer often asked was, “How many buys are you making in ‘Friends?’ ”

Failing to include “Friends” in marketing plans could ruffle many important feathers by signaling that the studio was dissing a film.

In recent years, the escalating costs of network TV have forced studios to take their advertising dollars to lower-priced options such as “America’s Next Top Model” on Viacom Inc.’s UPN network and “One Tree Hill” and “Smallville” on the WB, which is owned by Time Warner Inc. and Tribune Co., which also publishes the Times.

Although those shows bring in a fraction of the “Friends” audience, a big percentage of their audiences are frequent moviegoers.

Next season, advertisers expect to spend more money on cable television, where they know they will find their primary targets: teenagers and young adults. Shows such as MTV’s “Punk’d” and “Newlyweds” as well as FX’s “Nip/Tuck” are among their new favorites.

Although Rachel, Ross, Monica, Chandler and Phoebe will be signing off tonight, NBC is looking to hold on to “Friends” fans by introducing “Joey,” a spinoff featuring the Matt LeBlanc character, in their trusted 8 p.m. Thursday slot.

And movie studio executives aren’t waving goodbye just yet, either. They say they’ll continue to buy time in “Friends” reruns as it plays on in syndication.