TVA says it’s pleased with the results of its first online ad auction, even though it sold only half its inventory for a highly publicized New Year’s Eve special featuring Celine Dion and Bryan Adams.

The auction, the first of its kind in Canada, managed to net TVA $84,000 for the coveted 60-second spot before midnight – a record sum in Quebec – but the media buyer who placed the winning bid believes the French-language network would have done much better had it sold the special the conventional way.

Pierre Arthur, executive vice-president of Montreal-based Optimedia Canada, says the four-week auction failed to spur demand for ad time because all of the media buyers knew precisely what was available throughout the process.

‘We knew what the supply was, what the demand was. The only bidding that took place was to access pod position,’ says Arthur. ‘I’m sure if they had sold it on a regular basis, they might have sold more by creating scarcity at this point in time.’

As for the $84,000 spot – which Optimedia purchased on behalf of an undisclosed client – Arthur says it was a bargain, considering it was a locked-in time slot and the contract included rebroadcast the following day.

TVA had 96 time slots available during the four-hour special. The minimum bid for the first two-hour block was set at $30,000, while the second block – when Dion and Adams are set to appear – was set at $35,000.

Renée-Claude Menard, TVA’s general manager of communications, says the network will continue to sell inventory in the conventional manner in the weeks leading up to the broadcast, but that the prices will be seven per cent higher than the minimum bids.

She says the network will probably repeat the process, but only if the special is big enough to attract a great deal of attention from advertisers and agencies.

‘If we had sold traditionally, maybe the results would have been the same, but I think we would have frustrated many of our clients. Our reps would have had to have kept saying, ‘I’m sorry, that spot is already reserved.’

‘This way, it was a very open negotiation and a very transparent process. I think, strategically and for that type of event, it was the best attitude to adopt.’