Until the early 2000s, changes to the media landscape – what was available to view and how it could be viewed – were gradual. The slow pace of change made predicting consumer television viewing habits relatively simple, and slow-to-change research companies didn’t have to pivot too quickly, nor innovate too often.
Over the past 20 years, however, the media environment has been in a constant state of change. How people use and relate to media, video, and individual television shows is largely dependent on the ever-expanding array of media devices and subscription video platforms they can access. While most people eventually got the same access to almost everything (pre-2005), this is no longer the case. Developing national television samples that adequately represent the country at large has become increasingly difficult.
The way broadcast networks, once the only national television presence, have dealt with threats to their dominance hasn’t really changed much over the years – they’ve traditionally tended to think of only one another as their real competition. As a result, their combined audiences have continued to erode at an unnecessarily rapid pace.
With all that said, here are some related questions I have leading into the upfront season.
Why do the broadcast networks promote their competitors but not one another?
Yes, I know I’ve been writing about this for years, but I’ve yet to receive an answer that makes sense. Whenever I ask network executives for their rationale, I get responses like, “Why would we ever help our competition?,” “Our affiliates wouldn’t like it” (a real 1980s response), “It’s an ego thing,” or “I don’t know.” The answer should be, “Because we’ve been committing promotional malpractice, we’ve decided to change this absurd policy immediately. We realize it’s the best way to maximize viewer sampling and improve our overall ratings.”
I do actually understand how this reasoning originated. In the beginning, there were only three broadcast networks competing for national advertising dollars. With no competitors other than themselves, they fought fiercely for every rating point, and would never think of helping one another. Then, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, as more and more people started to get various cable networks, the term “network erosion” entered the media lexicon. But it wasn’t until the early 2000s, when ad-supported cable networks started airing original scripted series, that cross-promotion became a key element in cable’s growth (at the expense of the broadcast networks).
Cable networks, never encumbered by the tradition of ruling the airwaves, quickly understood the best way to grow their audience was to appeal to those who were watching similar shows on other networks. They also realized that it didn’t really hurt them if other cable networks did the same. The more cable networks that grew viewers, the more advertising dollars would shift from broadcast to cable, and everyone would eventually benefit – which is exactly what happened.
There are several cable networks that air some of my favorite scripted series, but I don’t watch much of their other programming. I could name more than a dozen shows off the top of my head that I never would have started watching had I not seen it promoted on a different network. This is also true for when those shows return mid-year for a new season – I would not have realized, for example, that Killing Eve (one of my favorite shows) had recently returned for its final season had I not seen it promoted on another network.
There’s a reason streaming services are spending so much money advertising on linear television. They know that the best way to get viewers and new subscribers is to advertise where the most viewers still congregate. How else would I have known two of my favorite streaming series, Ozark (Netflix) and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Prime Video) had recently returned? Yet while the broadcast networks constantly sell broadcast television to advertisers as the best place to reach large chunks of target viewers at one time, they still don’t act that way it when it comes to their own product.
Viewers don’t think in terms of ABC vs. CBS vs. NBC vs. FOX anymore. Only network executives still think that way.
The broadcast networks continue to stubbornly refuse to promote one another’s new shows, while gladly accepting ads from their real competitors – namely premium cable networks and streaming services. The idea that a new show produced by CBS can’t be promoted on CBS because it airs on ABC, is, to say the least, ludicrous. Another point that illustrates how absurd this all is – the broadcast networks accepted ads for most streaming services, but not for CBS All Access, for no reason I can find other than it had “CBS” in its name. As soon as it rebranded itself as Paramount+, the other broadcast networks started happily taking its ads (as I had predicted thy would).
In this year’s Super Bowl on NBC, there were 10 promos for NBC shows and 8 for its steaming service, Peacock. But there were also 2 ads for Disney+, 2 for Prime Video, 1 for Netflix, 1 for HBO Max, 1 for HBO, and 1 for AMC+. There were none for ABC, CBS, Fox, or CW.
In what other business does a company refuse to advertise its product to the largest group of readily available customers? These aren’t just random consumers the broadcast networks are choosing not to pursue. These are their prime prospects, whom the networks know are already watching similar programming, who are at that moment most receptive toward receiving a message about other TV shows. They are already watching and engaged with the exact type of program the networks are trying to promote. I’m not sure how to say it any more plainly.
It is essential for the broadcast networks to finally understand that keeping viewers tuned to any broadcast network is the best way to keep them in the broadcast arena and get them to switch over to their programming. A broadcast hit on one network actually does benefit all networks – it reminds the industry and the press that except for the occasional cable blockbuster (such as The Walking Dead or Yellowstone), nothing else is capable of delivering as large an audience at one time as a successful broadcast series. Yet the broadcast network seem perfectly willing to encourage their viewers to seek out other platforms.
Why are rankings more important than ratings?
The networks (and the press) have long considered program rankings far more important than actual ratings. This is likely another reason the broadcast networks still refuse to cross-promote one another – they’d rather they all decline and the other networks decline more, than they all grow, but the other networks grow more.
I still cringe when I see an article that talks about how well a program performed, winning its time period with a 0.5 rating among Adults 18-49 (it seldom mentions that the 4th place network got a 0.35 rating). The headline here should be, “If a 0.5 rating is good enough to win the time slot, the broadcast networks have big problems,” or, “If less than two-tenths of a rating point separates first and fourth place, who cares who’s #1?”
The upfront is designed to reward rankings over ratings, and enables the networks to continually raise prices for shrinking audiences. I led research departments at major ad agency groups for more than 30 years, and while media buyers would often ask for program or network ranking reports, I can’t recall many instances where anyone asked if a show or network’s actual ratings were up or down from the previous season. If I was putting together a ranker chart for a presentation, I was never asked to include the actual ratings (in fact, I was usually asked not to).
For the larger cable networks, ranking among the top 10 matters more than growing their audience. I worked at a cable network where even though our average rating was up from the previous year, we slipped from 10th to 11th place among adults 25-54. This was considered a disaster. The fact that only three-tenths of a rating point separated the 3rd and 20th place cable networks was not relevant. The following season, our average rating was unchanged, but we had managed to climb to 8th place (because other networks declined). Celebration time.
Focusing on rankings, and hurting other networks at the expense of your own audience growth, is short-term thinking that leads to long-term decline. Imagine how the industry (and press) would react if each broadcast network increased its audience next season. The only reason it won’t happen is because the networks don’t want it to.
What audience measurement currency should be used this upfront?
The Video Advertising Bureau (VAB), the industry trade group that represents both broadcast and cable networks, is demanding that Nielsen stop releasing its new “Big Data” monthly audience reports, which include set-top-box data and smart TV Automated Content Recognition (ACR) data to complement Nielsen’s traditional age/sex panel data. The VAB cites initial data provided to the industry as “rife with illogical audience patterns and contradictions, that render it currently unusable.” They want any new data that could be used in pricing advertising inventory held back until after the upfront, and want Nielsen to explain how the data was created. After the upfront, the industry can examine the data. The VAB also believes that offering two different measures leading into upfront negotiations will just serve to create confusion.
Nielsen responded that it was disappointed the VAB chose to raise its concerns in the press, and that Nielsen has been in regular contact with its clients to review the audience methodology. Nielsen went on to say “…a trade group associated with traditional TV channels is an incomplete and biased subset of the video marketplace. We prefer to work openly with the entire industry to get the best measurement solution. Furthermore, based on client feedback across buyers and sellers we made the decision to allow either data set to be used for trading in the fall.”
One key question should be, do industry expectations of what audience data “should” look like matter? The answer if you want accuracy is no. But since accuracy has never been as important to the buyers and sellers of commercial time as stability (without which the industry will have trouble functioning), the practical answer is yes.
This is one reason no new measurement service has been able to unseat Nielsen as national industry currency, nor is any likely to. The industry relies on trending data and a degree of stability, A new system that generates substantially different data from Nielsen is scary. Since virtually no one has ever really tried to understand how accurate Nielsen ratings are, no one wants to deal with trying to figure out if a new system that reports significantly different data is actually more accurate. And if it provides essentially the same data, what’s the point in switching away from the only company with 50 years of experience and some of the best researchers in the business?
While much of the industry pretends to want the most accurate measurement possible, the reality is that sellers want higher ratings and buyers want stability.
I’ve been saying for a few years now that so-called demographic cohorts, the foundation of Nielsen audience samples, no longer necessarily have similar viewing habits or even access to the same viewing options – particularly when it comes to streaming services, DVRs, and multi-media devices. This makes current sampling procedures woefully inadequate in projecting total U.S. television viewing.
I don’t know about you, but my viewing is not nearly as stable and predictable as it was 10 years ago. I have a DVR and subscribe to multiple streaming services. When Netflix recently dropped the 4th season of Ozark, my linear TV viewing changed dramatically for a week or so as my wife and I watched all seven episodes and then caught up on the regular shows we missed via DVR (we forgot to record one HBO show, so we caught up with that one on HBO Max). This happens whenever a streaming services drops one of our favorite series – our viewing pattern changes, even if they drop just one episode a week rather than a full season. Often times we will wait until two or three episodes are available so we can watch more than one at a time.
Here’s my problem with both the VAB and Nielsen perspectives. There is no question that census-level “big data” is more accurate than a relatively small national sample used in Nielsen’s panel. There is also no question that the panel will provide more stable and “logical” data. But Nielsen always likes to have it both ways. It positions itself as the arbiter of good research when it suits its needs, and then as simply a data provider when it suits other needs. By saying it is merely providing data and it’s up to buyers and sellers to decide which to use, it is in fact putting its stamp of approval on both. In reality, one is better and should be used as marketplace currency. Until both buyers and sellers can agree on which is “best,” it is probably a good idea to hold off until after this year’s upfront, and then spend the next few months examining and validating the new data.
It should be noted that anytime you dramatically improve audience measurement, the previously highest rated networks will tend to decline and the lower rated ones will tend to increase. When Nielsen switched for the old meter/diary measurement to people meters, there were some significant changes in reported viewing patterns – no one thought they were “illogical” because we all understood it to be a vast improvement in measurement methodology. Of course, at the time, there were limited viewing options, and it had been long assumed that the old diary system resulted in human bias that cause the most popular TV shows, and those that aired multiple times a week in syndication to be overstated. In today’s much more splintered video environment, with many more cable networks, numerous streaming services, and multiple viewing platforms, no one knows how a vastly improved audience measurement methodology will or “should” impact reported viewing.
Should Disney+ and Netflix offer lower-priced advertising tiers?
Yes.
Is it better for a streaming service to drop an entire season at once
or on a weekly episode basis?
I’ve always felt as though companies that owned both linear TV networks and streaming services tended to drop streaming series episodes once-a-week because they don’t want their network audience to become dependent on bingeing, but rather continue to expect new weekly episodes, which has always been the ad-supported linear network model. This accounts for how Disney+, Hulu, HBO Max, Paramount+, and Peacock schedule most of their original series. Apple TV+ probably does the same because it does not have the extensive libraries or acquired programming the others have stockpiled, so it benefits them to give viewers a reason to come back every week. And I’m sure that all believe they will delay subscriber churn if viewers need to return every week for two or three months to watch one of their favorite shows (instead of watching 10-13 episodes in less than a week).
Netflix, of course, has always dropped entire seasons at once and couldn’t care less about the linear network model. It also has so much more original content than any other streaming service that it doesn’t need any individual show to keep viewers coming back. Amazon Prime Video used to drop entire seasons, but recently moved toward dropping a couple of episodes and then one per week. This could be because they are not producing the same quantity of programming as in the past, and are putting on more “big event” series such as The Wheel of Time and the upcoming The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
There are a number of ways Netflix benefits from dropping full seasons of series. When they drop an even moderately popular series, it will tend to show up on Nielsen’s weekly list of most viewed streaming shows. And with the streaming service and the press reporting meaningless data such as billions of minutes viewed, Netflix’s full seasons have a tremendous advantage over other streamers’ once-a-week episodes. Given the PR value of dropping entire seasons at once, which does lead to increased subscribers (who want to watch the “most popular” shows), I only see upside for everyone doing so – at least for some of their key shows.
I know with my own viewing habits, I never remember which day of the week a given streaming show debuts, so I tend to forget about a weekly show, and then wind up going back to it after two or three more episodes are available.
Comments