CBS Preps Marketing Blitz Ahead of Upfront

NEW YORK: Ahead of what is expected to be a challenging Upfront season for the U.S. networks, CBS has unveiled a national media campaign across on-air, online, radio, outdoor and print media platforms. touting its ratings success.

The campaign, called "Only CBS", comes about two and a half weeks before the network’s May 20 Upfront at Carnegie Hall. It aims to promote to advertisers and consumers that CBS is the only broadcast network that has increased its audience in all key categories this season, and sell CBS’s overall position in prime time. The initiative kicked off yesterday during broadcasts of Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer, CBS News Sunday Morning and 60 Minutes. This week, the campaign will run during news, entertainment and sports programming across all dayparts, as well as on CBS owned radio stations, out-of-home platforms that are part of CBS Outernet, and a wide range of CBS Interactive sites, including CNET.com, BNET.com and CBSSports.com. Plus, print ads were published today on the front page of the The New York Times and in USA Today on the front page of the Life section.

"You can’t paint all networks with the same broad brush," said Jo Ann Ross, the president of CBS Television Network Sales. "We have a unique ratings story to tell heading into this Upfront. We want to communicate in the biggest way possible, that in a marketplace with challenges, CBS offers the largest audience, best shows, deepest schedule and most value for our client’s discriminating advertising dollar."

Season to date, CBS has increased its audience by 12-percent in viewers, 7 percent in adults 18-49 and 8 percent among adults 25-54.