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As Paramount gears up for its first-ever alternate Super Bowl broadcast on Nickelodeon, the company is setting the record straight.
Speaking at ADWEEK’s Outlook 2024 in New York on Tuesday, Paramount ad sales chief John Halley denied reports that surfaced last week claiming the company is struggling to sell Nickelodeon’s Super Bowl inventory. According to Halley, Paramount is seeing strong advertiser interest.
“We’ll wind up with 15 to 20 units that will be very specific to the Nickelodeon telecast. Contrary, by the way, to press coverage last week—there is a lot of demand against it. That story was a little bit upside down,” Halley said. “Those things can get sold out, and there’s a lot of demand pressure against it.”
Halley said the company is “very excited” about the Nickelodeon alternate telecast, adding, “The NFL loves this as well.”
The main broadcast on CBS is “virtually sold out,” and similar to Nickelodeon’s previous Wild Card games, Super Bowl units have been sold as one across CBS and Nick, and most will run on both feeds.
However, not every brand has the opportunity to advertise on the family-friendly network, including certain sugary drinks, foods or products that shouldn’t be promoted to minors.
“Most of the advertisers that you see in the main telecast are going to be in the Nick telecast. There are a few categories that need to come out,” Halley said. “Obviously, you can’t have beer commercials, pill prescriptions, FanDuel.”
Though there are some category exclusions, Nickelodeon’s alternative telecast also provides several new ways to engage consumers.
“The really interesting incremental opportunities are around custom content to a different audience that’s a family audience. It does represent incremental viewing. We’ve had tremendous success,” Halley said, adding, “We’ve done it previously, multiple times. This is a formula that really works for the network. It really works for advertisers because it gives them a unique environment to tell their story.”
Paramount and CBS haven’t revealed details such as pricing; however, a 30-second Super Bowl spot reportedly costs buyers around $7 million.
Fox, which broadcast Super Bowl 57, brought in nearly $600 million in revenue and sold the majority of 30-second spots in the mid-to-high $6 million range, with multiple 30-second spots going for north of $7 million.
