O.J. VERDICT TIME A HOT SELLER
By Adnews Staff
Advertisers were scrambling yesterday morning for air time around live coverage of the O.J. Simpson verdict, if the experience of one Toronto radio station is any indication. The hot time was the half hour leading up to the verdict at 1 p.m. (eastern standard time), 680 News general sales manager Derek Berghuis told Adnews yesterday. In that half-hour, Adnews heard commercials from AST Computers, Alliance Releasing, Upper Canada Resorts and The Toronto Sun. The word is that that spots in this time slot were being sold at extreme premium prices. The station scheduled coverage from at least noon until after the prosecution's news conference at 2 p.m. O.J. Simpson was found not guilty of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman. On television, soap opera advertisers on the CTV network were squeezed by the biggest soap opera ever to hit the airwaves. The regular soaps were were pre-empted by O.J. coverage between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. The logistics did not allow CTV to run all of its normally scheduled commercials, but the ones that made it had a bonus audience. Communications vice-president and program director Gail Morrell acknowledged that it would have been a prime time to run an ad. The Sports Network ran a half hour of the O.J. show but no new advertising was accepted for the time slot.