Superbowl XLII: The business of TV

With the New England Patriots going for history in Super Bowl XLII on Sunday against the New York Giants, it's good to be an executive at Fox.

The network is hopeful that this will be the most-watched Super Bowl in history - the record currently is 94.08 million viewers who watched the Dallas Cowboys beat the Pittsburgh Steelers in January 1996.

"This has a very good chance (of breaking the record)," said Brad Adgate, research chief for the Madison Avenue firm Horizon Media.

After all, the NFC Championship Game between the Giants and Green Bay Packers had the biggest audience for that game since 1995. And the Patriots-Giants regular season finale was seen by 34.5 million people, the most-watched NFL regular season game since 1990.

The best thing for Fox would be a close game with the Giants leading, but the Patriots still with a chance at the end.

With such an expected bonanza of viewers, Fox is charging a record $2.7 million for a 30-second ad, and that price isn't scaring many away. In fact, many advertisers are banking more than ever on the Super Bowl as the writers' strike has interrupted hit TV
shows.

As is typical, Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc., has spent heavily on this year's game, with seven spots planned, according to AdAge.com. Other companies making repeat appearances include PepsicoCareerBuilder.com.Super Bowl after long absences. Audi, a subsidiary of Volkswagen AG, is coming back to the game after nearly 20 years, with a Godfather-themed spot. And Coca-Cola Co., whose main brand was back in the game last year for the first time since 1998, will have three or four spots this year.

Another theme cropping up again this year is amateur talent. The NFL itself ran a contest among fans last year to come up with ad ideas, and this year solicited league players to pitch ideas for a spot based on how they got into the sport. Likewise Doritos, which charmed viewers last year with spots made by amateur filmmakers, is running a contest where undiscovered musicians submit video performances of original songs. And Pepsico used its own employees in its Super Bowl ad.

Interestingly, companies that have advertisements run during the course of the 3-plus hour Super Bowl telecast have seen their stock prices top the Standard & Poor's 500 10 of the last 12 years, according to a recent study.

The study, done by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, indicates shares of businesses that ran ads during the 1996-2007 Super Bowls outperformed S&P 500 stocks by almost 1.3 percent the week before and the week after the big game.
Inc.'s Frito Lay, Kraft Foods Inc.'s Planters nuts division and