January 15, 2004
No. 385

WILD WEEKEND FINALE MOST-WATCHED TV PROGRAM SINCE SB XXXVII
"A Weekend To Remember" was the front-page headline in last Monday's USA Today.  The "Nation's Newspaper" was describing the pulsating four games of last weekend's NFL Divisional Playoffs.  All four were decided by a touchdown or less, the tightest Divisional weekend in history.  One was a record-breaker of another sort.  The final game of the weekend, the Green Bay Packers at Philadelphia Eagles, was the most-watched TV program in nearly a year.  The matchup, won by the Eagles 20-17 in overtime, was seen by an incredible 39.5 million viewers on FOX-TV.  That total outranks the Academy Awards telecast of last March (33.1 million viewers) and is second in the past year only to -- no surprise here! -- last year's Super Bowl.  That game on January 26, 2003 was the most-watched program in TV history (138.9 million viewers)......Meanwhile, locally, the bang-up Divisional weekend also dominated.  NFL games finished as the No. 1-rated program in 25 of 30 NFL markets.  Also, in a former NFL market, NFL games ranked as the No. 1 & No. 2 programs of the week in Los Angeles.           

TEXANS' MC NAIR HEADS UP HOUSTON'S SUPER BOWL "HOME TEAM"
He is the head of the host team, and is featured as the leader of the "Home Team."  He is ROBERT MC NAIR, owner of the Super Bowl XXXVIII-host Houston Texans.  And there he is on the front of this month's Continental, the magazine of Houston-based Continental Airlines, as the point-person of the city-wide executive team that will play a key role in hosting America's biggest sporting event on February 1.  McNair is termed by the magazine as "The Visionary" for bringing the game to Houston for the first time in 30 years.  "I've always thought that Houston was one of the finest cities in the world," says McNair.  "The world will be looking at us the whole week, and I think people are going to be pleasantly surprised about Houston during Super Bowl."              

CALL IT THE SUPER "SPOT" BOWL
It's such a phenomenon, a book has been written about it.  It's such a happening, NFL Network will do a special on it.  No, we're not talking about Super Bowl XXXVIII -- everybody knows how big that is.  We're talking about the game within the game -- the "Super Bowl of Advertising," if you will.  That's where national advertisers vie to connect with the 138 million or so Super Bowl viewers with TV commercials created specially for the game.  Almost as important as pitching their message is earning critical acclaim for their spot in the reviews that many media outlets, such as USA Today, run the day after the game.  The whole phenomenon has prompted a new book -- The Super Bowl of Advertising -- that covers the development, lists a history of Super Bowl commercials, and tells which ones were most effective.  Also this year, NFL Network, the league's 24-hour cable and satellite channel, will air a half hour of Super Bowl XXXVIII commercials the night of the game and the next night.  As an example of the clout the Super Bowl gives their product, look no further than Staples, the office supply company, which this year joins the TV race.  Staples will spend a large chunk of its annual ad budget on the Super Bowl telecast with a commercial that has taken two months to film.  "We know we will hit a big part of our targeted customers," says SHIRA GOODMAN, Staples' executive VP of marketing.  "It's very cost effective for us.  The Super Bowl is the place to put a stake in the ground."