Paramount is also coming off the most-viewed Super Bowl ever. What’s the importance of sports, but also women’s sports, to this upfront?
On that front, there’s no question. We have National Women’s Soccer League and Women’s National Basketball Association games, but there’s no question that there’s a lot of interest around [women’s sports], and agencies are being very clear about that as a focus and a priority. Coming off of the women’s Final Four, there’s just no question that it has captured the nation’s attention and imagination. It’s a great development. The CBS Sports portfolio is one that is characterized by scarcity. In other words, there are 17 regular-season National Football League games, there’s one PGA tournament per weekend and March Madness takes place over three weeks. When you’re operating in a very high-demand, scarce map, it gives you a lot of control. We have price control, and we’re super-fortunate to be representing those leagues. We feel really good about the continued growth and the interest in it.
Lastly, measurement has been a big topic of conversation ahead of the upfront the past few years, but the progress hasn’t been where buyers needed it. What progress will there be this time around?
The use of alternative currencies is definitely growing in the activation of strategic segments or behavioral and intent-based segments, rather than demographics. The story of this year is the introduction of Nielsen’s panel plus big data product. They had a little bit of a false start last year. I think the reality on the Nielsen front is that there are probably going to be some shops that are guaranteeing panel-only and some are going to want panel plus big data. There’s a whole lot of math that needs to be taken care of in between there, but panel plus big data is a new currency just like VideoAmp is a new currency, just like Comscore is a new currency, just like iSpot is a new currency. And it deserves the same scrutiny.