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sales@spotsndots.com Copyright 2020.The Daily News of TV Sales Wednesday, October 21, 2020

DIGITAL RETAIL SPEND SHARE HIT RECORD IN Q1 Total digital commerce accounts for a quarter of the discretionary dollars spent by consumers, according to a new report released yesterday. “The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly changed consumer behavior, forcing retailers to navigate a new era of retail and e-commerce habits as an unprecedented holiday shopping season quickly approaches,” media research firm Comscore said in its 2020 State of Retail report. Using consumer panels and custom surveys, Comscore examined the retail industry’s shifting trends, the pandemic’s impact, and what the industry expects to see this holiday season. Among the key insights, the report said the first quarter of 2020 saw the highest share ever of digital retail spending. It also said consumer spending on mobile is growing at a faster pace than desktop. In Q2 mobile spending grew 16% year over year, compared to desktop’s 5% growth. Free shipping continues to be a major factor for consumers, with half the respondents saying free shipping was the most important factor when making an online purchase. Online grocery spending also surged, with mobile spending hitting $13.1 billion in the second quarter. Last week, the Commerce Department reported that retail sales, the U.S. economy’s biggest driver, remain healthy, rising 1.9% in September. This beat economists’ expectations for growth of 0.7%, up from August’s 0.6% rise. Excluding automobiles, the gain was 1.5%, which beat the 0.4% estimate. Topping the chart was clothing and accessories, which jumped 11%. This was followed by a 5.7% increase in sporting goods, music and books. Electronics and appliances was the only negative sector, falling 1.6% from August. The increase in retail sales was welcome news after the pandemic caused a second-quarter slowdown in the economy that saw gross domestic product (GDP) fall an unprecedented 31.4% on annualized basis. Economists expect a third-quarter rebound after the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank’s GDPNow tracker pointed to a 35.2% increase. That would be more than double any single-quarter growth going back to at least 1947. Yet, concerns are rising for a fourth-quarter slowdown as coronavirus cases surge across the U.S. The unexpectedly big gain in spending comes after months of historically high savings as consumers retrenched due to the COVID-19 scare. Since March, the personal savings rate (the percentage of people’s incomes left after taxes and money spent) has skyrocketed, hitting a historic 33.6% in April, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. While the rate dropped to 14.1% in August, it remains well above the 6-8 percent range of the past 20 years.

REPORT: SHOPPERS DEVOTED TO DIGITAL, FREE SHIPPINGADVERTISER NEWS Lowe’s is offering free delivery of fresh-cut Christmas trees and orders of $45 or more. The service is part of the retailer’s Season of Savings promotion that offers discounts on appliances and a wide variety of products not normally associated with the chain, such as an air hockey table, bedding, home workout equipment and other products... Kohl’s management says the company has stabilized its business after taking a hit from the novel coronavirus pandemic and now it is in a sales rebuilding mode. That will entail the chain being more focused on active and casual

clothing from brands including Adidas, Nike and Under Armour. The category currently generates 20% of Kohl’s sales and CEO Michelle Gass sees that going up to 30%... Costco sells cocoa bombs — hollowed-out spheres of chocolate, filled with marshmallows, sprinkles and

other treats. When submerged into a cup of hot milk, the bomb releases its contents to make a gooey treat. For those who aren’t Costco members, a host of TikTok videos have popped up offering viewers ways to make their own cocoa bombs at home... Nordstrom has released a holiday gift guide emphasizing services like styling advice and gift wrapping, with opportunities to interact virtually. “Gifting experts” will be available via online chat and video, as well as in-store appointments, according to a press release. The retailer on Monday will extend curbside pickup, with gift-wrapped items available curbside at Nordstrom and Local stores as of Nov. 1... J.C. Penney is inching closer to being acquired by mall giants Simon Property Group and Brookfield Asset Management. The bankrupt retailer said it has filed a draft asset purchase agreement, a key step to the eventual closing of the deal, which was announced in September. Under the terms of the agreement, Brookfield and Simon will acquire substantially all of Penney’s retail and operating assets. The retailer’s real estate assets, including about 160 owned and ground-leased store properties, and size distribution centers will be part of a new property holding company, or PropCo, owned by Penney’s lenders, which will rent back the properties to the operating company (Simon and Brookfield)… True Religion has emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the second time in less than three years. The denim and apparel brand, which filed for bankruptcy in April, said its court-approved reorganization plan has allowed the company to reduce its operating costs and lower its debt and provide it with liquidity. The plan also keeps more than 50 of True Religion’s approximate 87 stores open... Southeastern Grocers is looking to join the public arena. The company, which operates 420 supermarkets under the Winn-Dixie, Bi-Lo, Fresco y Más and Harveys Supermarket banners, has filed for an initial public offering some two years after it emerged from bankruptcy. Southeastern Grocers intends to list its stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol SEGR.

PAGE 2 The Daily News of TV Sales @ www.spotsndots.com

AND THE TOP HOLIDAY SHOPPING PRIORITY IS... When it comes to deciding where to shop for holiday gifts, pricing is king. Seventy-seven percent of consumers said pricing is a top consideration when choosing where to do their holiday shopping, according to a survey by Revionics. Seventy-percent of survey respondents said they will actively seek promotions and coupons when holiday shopping, and 45% said that discounts will be one of the most important factors in deciding where to shop. In a surprising finding, Revionics’ Holiday Report: 2020 Pricing and Shopping Trends found that the number of

respondents who shopped Black Friday sales in person last year compared to the number who plan to this year has barely changed. And in regard to the entire holiday shopping season, 56% of survey respondents said they still plan to shop in store this year. Only 14% of consumers said they will not do any kind of in-person holiday shopping. With more time and less money, consumers are shopping smarter and earlier for the holidays by looking for

the best prices, expecting more promotions and extending the shopping season, according to the report. Seventy-four percent of respondents said they plan to compare prices while shopping online; 69% plan to compare prices while shopping in person. Forty-five percent of consumers said they have more free time to shop this year, and 35% say they will use that extra time look for better deals and discounts. In addition, 46% of shoppers plan to start their holiday shopping before the weekend of Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

NETFLIX MISSES Q3 SUB GROWTH BY 300,000 As expected Netflix subscriber growth cooled in the third quarter, ended Sept. 30, with the SVOD leader adding 2.2 million subs worldwide — down from a company projection of 2.5 million. Wall Street had projected 3.26 million net sub additions. Netflix added just 180,000 net subs in North America, down from more than 600,000 subs in the previous-year period. The streamer, which added 6.77 million subs in the previous-year period, ended Q3 with 195.1 million subs worldwide, Media Play News reports. “We think this is primarily due to our record first-half results and the pull-forward effect,” co-CEOs Reed Hasting and Ted Sarandos wrote in the shareholder letter. The executives made no mention of the controversial French-language movie Cuties, which resulted in a social media backlash/legal fallout after a Texas grand jury last month indicted Netflix on criminal charges alleging the service streamed “lewd material of children” in the movie. Analysts contend Netflix lost upwards of 1 million subs due to the issue. Still, Netflix remains ahead of 2019 through three quarters with 28.1 million new subs in 2020 compared to 27.8 million new subs in 2019. The streamer projected 6 million new subs in the current quarter, ending Dec. 31, which is down from 8.76 million new subs in the previous-year period. Revenue more than doubled in quarter to $14.7 billion, compared to $6.4 billion in the previous-year period.

STUDY: AFFLUENT SPENT ON JEWELRY IN AUG. Here’s the latest sign of economic divide between the haves and have-nots in the pandemic: Rich people are buying more high-end jewelry like diamond rings and gold necklaces, CNN Business reports. According to Edahn Golan, founder of Edahn Golan Diamond Research & Data, purchases of fine jewelry in the U.S. recovered from the early months of the pandemic and started to gain momentum heading into the summer. Fine jewelry sales were up nearly 10% to $5.25 billion in August from the same month last year, according to the latest data available. Signet Jewelers, which owns and operates the retailers Kay Jewelers and Zales, said the company’s preliminary August sales for all jewelry are up 10.9% compared to a year ago. Meanwhile, Tiffany, a chain that was hit hard by the drop in tourist visits to stores, said last week that U.S. sales in August and September declined by a low double-digit percentage, an improvement since May.

LG’s ROLLABLE TV NOW ON SALE... FOR $87,000 LG has announced that its world-first rollable TV is finally going on sale, albeit in limited fashion. The 65-inch LG Signature OLED R is now available at seven consumer electronics store throughout South Korea and will cost 100 million won, or more than $87,000. The Signature OLED R is built around a flexible OLED panel that LG describes with characteristic restraint as “the most innovative development in television technology in decades.” Because of its flexible nature, it can retract partially or fully into its base, adapting to different aspect ratios or hiding the panel completely when not in use. Unsurprisingly for such an ambitious product, the Signature OLED R has faced a difficult path to market. LG Display first showed off a rollable TV prototype at CES 2018, and Bloomberg later reported that the display would make its way into a shipping product the next year. LG did indeed bring a commercial rollable TV to the next CES with plans to release it in spring 2019, but it never actually went on sale.

U.S. HITS GOOGLE WITH ANTITRUST LAWSUIT The Justice Department filed a long-expected antitrust lawsuit alleging that Google uses anticompetitive tactics to preserve a monopoly for its flagship search engine and related advertising business, the most aggressive U.S. legal challenge to a company’s dominance in the tech sector in more than two decades, The Wall Street Journal reports. The case, filed yesterday in federal court in Washington, D.C., alleged that the Alphabet unit maintains its status as gatekeeper to the internet through an unlawful web of exclusionary and interlocking business agreements that shut out competitors. The government alleged that Google uses billions of dollars collected from advertisements on its platform to pay for mobile-phone manufacturers, carriers and browsers, like Apple’s Safari, to maintain Google as their preset, default search engine, creating a self-reinforcing cycle of dominance.

10/21/2020

George Carlin

There’s no present. There’s only the immediate future

and the recent past.

The Daily News of TV Sales @ www.spotsndots.com PAGE 3

SURVEY: FEWER HOLIDAY STORE TRIPS PLANNED A new survey predicts shoppers will visit fewer stores than ever this holiday season, ratcheting up the pressure on retailers to capture customers. Consumers are planning to visit just 5.2 retail stores on average, consulting firm Deloitte found in its annual holiday survey. That’s down from seven last year, 6.9 in 2018 and 5.7 in 2017. It marks a record low for the survey, which polled 4,012 consumers from Sept. 9-15. Part of the reason for the drop-off is because safety remains top of mind for consumers, said Rod Sides, a vice chairman

of retail and distribution at Deloitte. The survey found that 51% of people are anxious about going to stores this holiday season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, CNBC reports. “If I can go fewer places and if I can check [more] things off my list... I think that’s going to bode well for mass retailers,” Sides said. “We’re all used to going there, and we’re used to their safety protocols,” he said about big-box chains, that sell a little bit of everything, like Walmart and

Target. Meantime, consumers are planning to squeeze in their spending in less time. That’s despite the doorbuster-like deals that kicked off last week with Amazon’s 48-hour Prime Day and rival sales events. Although retailers want to lengthen the season, shoppers hope to complete their holiday purchases in 5.9 weeks, Deloitte’s survey found. That’s 1½ weeks less than a year ago and down from 7.1 weeks in 2018.

DONE DEAL Arleda James has been named general sales manager of KCRA-TV, the Hearst Television NBC affiliate serving the Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto, Calif., TV market. The move returns her to her native northern California. James’ appointment is effective Nov. 9. She succeeds Laura Williamson, who recently was promoted to president and GM of KSBW-TV and Central Coast ABC, the Hearst Television NBC and digital ABC affiliates serving the Monterey-Salinas, Calif., television market.

10/21/2020

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SMI: U.S. ADVERTISING ECONOMY GAINS IN SEPT. New data from Standard Media Index suggests the U.S. advertising economy is fighting its way back from the economic chaos that began in March due to the economic chaos brought on by COVID-19. The firm says the ad economy grew at a 2.7% clip in September. That’s a second straight month of expansion. MediaPost, which analyzed the ad-spending data from SMI’s U.S. Ad Market Tracker, says: “While the rate of expansion fell by half from August’s 5.9% growth, it nonetheless indicates sustained growth for the U.S. ad economy and affirms industry forecaster projections that the ad recession would bottom out during the second quarter and that ad spending would once again begin to expand in the third quarter.” The ad-spending data comes from actual media buys made by the major agency holding companies, says MediaPost, adding that it doesn’t represent the long tail of small and medium-size businesses, which could impact the industry’s final economic analysis. “That said, based on current projections,” MediaPost writes, “the U.S. ad economy will have declined in all of the first three quarters of 2020, performing better than U.S. economic growth for the first two, but would significantly lag what is anticipated to be significant expansion in the U.S. GDP during the third quarter when the Bureau of Economic Analysis announces its official estimates on Oct. 29.” The month also saw digital continuing to expand its frontiers: The national television advertising marketplace declined 1% in September, according to the data, digital media advertising increased a robust 20.6%.

WALMART CRANKS UP ADVERTISING INITIATIVE Walmart is expanding its advertising business after years of stuttering progress, even as a proposed deal to buy a stake in video-sharing app TikTok remains stuck in limbo. The world’s largest retailer is making better use of its wealth of shopper data to link promotions on its website and app with ads inside its network of 4,700 U.S. stores, according to Reuters interviews with six advertising agencies and Walmart ad tech partners, three major brands plus bankers and ex-employees. The refocused strategy was born early last year when Walmart cut ties with its external advertising partner and took the business in-house, calling it Walmart Media Group. The company bet it could do a better job of bridging online and offline data for its advertisers and give itself a shot at developing an ad platform that could take on Amazon.com, the sources said. The shift has been paying off, according to one source briefed on the company’s plans who said Walmart Media Group was on track to earn nearly $1 billion of ad sales this year, more than double the amount it brought in last year. Walmart declined to comment on the sales estimate, but it explained its approach to the ad business. “One thing we do at Walmart Media Group is make sure that the advertising we’re placing is additive to the customer experience, that we’re not just throwing ads on anything anywhere, that we’re really strategic,” a Walmart spokeswoman said.