Numbers spin gets creative
Cablers try to be positive about ratings
Compared with broadcast rivals, cable stations have never been able to brag about big numbers. And shrinking network audiences have long had the Big Six on the defensive. Now, with content crowding the airwaves and even the iPods, cable nets have been forced to get creative.
Rather than directing their energies into creating better shows, they are pumping up piddling numbers into grand pronouncements.
Execs tout prizes for most attentive audiences, most Web site hits or, best of all, draws viewers that really pay attention to commercials.
Research and publicity teams are working overtime for nets that can't deliver the ratings good. The result: Like awards day at elementary school, everyone goes homes with a trophy.
Among the more creative press releases:
n Bravo recently patted itself on the back for doomed series "Project Greenlight," canceled after viewers gave it the red light, for being TV's "No. 1 most attentively viewed reality show" according to one study.
n Every year Discovery Channel touts news that non-subscribers rank the network first in interest among all major networks, noting that that they also took the top prize "among persons who never subscribed to cable."
n Even teen haven MTV pumps up its second-tier performers like reality sitcom "Run's House" by noting that 250,000 logged on to MTV's broadband channel Overdrive to stream footage.
Cablers are looking emphasize the pros of shrinking niches, often dividing demos to conquer. It can mean splitting hairs between affluent viewers from the middle-class folk, or having higher rates of viewer retention over an episode.
Broadcasters regularly pronounce their shows tops in such categories as "suspense thriller" and "Thursday night comedy."
Networks like Lifetime and Spike TV have commissioned and publicized expensive studies, analyzing the likes and dislikes of women and men, respectively. Showtime insists that their on-demand usage, which cannot yet be measured, would add significant bulk to their overall ratings.
Even once-mighty HBO has succumbed: net topper Chris Albrecht recently told the New York Times that Sunday tallies don't matter, only "multiple showings."
Cable programmers say the extra information helps better target their viewers; advertisers, they say, appreciate the specificity.
Stacey Lynn Koerner, Initiative exec VP-director of global research integration, says the information does make a difference.
While advertisers aren't yet willing to pay a premium for an attentive audience, "it's not just about quantity. That's the old argument," she says. "It's about the quality of the audience. It may be too soon to say that quantity isn't the lead factor - the industry still has its mechanisms for doing business - but eventually we're going to get there. It's already starting to happen."
Some media buyers are spinning another story.
"At this point, audience share for a given network is decreasing. Parsing demos or measuring 'engagement' and 'brand recall' is a way for them to prove to us and our clients why we should continue -- not increase -- our investment in them," says one buyer at a top firm.
A senior broadcast exec says it's a sign that the playing field has been leveled. "We faced cable (in regards to audience erosion) for a long time, and now cable is facing cable," he says. "Fragmentation is hitting everyone."
In other words, after years of getting a free pass from Madison Ave., cablers now have to fight it out with the Big Six to eke out ad coin increases. Execs whose numbers aren't up to snuff, are now wooing in other ways.
Court TV pacted with Starcom and several other ad agencies to define new metrics that would guarantee to advertisers viewers would both see their commercials and pay attention to them. It's an agreement that has required substantial coin from Court TV.
The net exec says for broadcasters - which draw millions of more viewers than their cable brethren - it'll be business as usual "until advertisers start paying for attentive eyeballs instead of regular ones."
Court senior VP of sales strategy Debbie Reichig says that's about to change.
"Our deal with ad agencies is about making a promise to hit all our marks," she says. "Why pay for people who aren't paying attention? It will be interesting to see how long (other networks) can get away with not being accountable."
And not every number is spin.
MTV continues to top itself among the teen set, and MTV Networks chief digital officer Jason Hirschhorn says providing online usage statistics is not about supplementing poor ratings.
"MTV stands for something regardless of the shows that run on the channel. We want to make sure that brand exists on all platforms, whether it is on your phone or your IPod."
Hirschhorn wouldn't disclose figures, but says ad revenue generated by online and other non-traditional content platforms "is becoming a significant part of our bottom line."
