9TH

EDITION

Media Programming
STRATEGIES AND PRACTICES

Susan Tyler Eastman

Indiana University

Douglas A. Ferguson
College of Charleston

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 16 15 14 13 12
 Brief Contents
Detailed Contents iv
Preface i x
PART ONE Introduction to Programming 1
1 A Scaffold for Programmers 3

PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming 43

2 Prime-Time Network Programming Strategies 45
3 Multichannel Television Strategies 91
4 Online Television Strategies 128

PART THREE Understanding Key Processes 155

5 Program and Audience Research and Ratings 157
6 Syndication for Stations, Cable, and Online 206

PART FOUR Television Programming Practices 243

7 Non-Prime-Time Network Programming 245
8 Television Station Programming Strategies 271
9 Basic and Premium Subscription Programming 303
10 Public Television Programming 340

PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices 375

11 Music Radio Programming 377
12 Information Radio Programming 429

Annotated Bibliography 4 6 0
Internet Media Sites 4 66
About the Contributing Authors 4 68
Index to Program Titles 47 2
General Index 47 6

iii
 Detailed Contents

Preface ix

PART ONE

Introduction to Programming 1
CHAPTER 1 ■ A Scaffold for Programmers 3
by Susan Tyler Eastman and Douglas A. Ferguson
What Is Programming? 4
The Process of Programming 8
The Lure of Lore 12
Structural Considerations 14
The Elements of Programming 18
A Model of Programming 23
External Influences on Programmers 27
The Pressures and Pulls 41
Notes 42

PART TWO

Frameworks for Media Programming 43

CHAPTER 2 ■ Prime-Time Network Programming Strategies 45
by William J. Adams and Susan Tyler Eastman
Blurring the Boundaries 46
Vertical Integration 48
Audience Targeting 55
Prime-Time Ratings 64
Prime-Time Scheduling Practices 67

iv
 Detailed Contents v

Program Renewal 70
New Program Selection 75
Promotion’s Role 79
Changing Format Emphases 80
Network Decision Making 87
The Risks and Rewards Ahead 88
Notes 90

CHAPTER 3 ■ Multichannel Television Strategies 91

by Susan Tyler Eastman and Michael O. Wirth
Multichannel Video Programming Distributors 92
The Big Gamers 93
Selection Strategies 97
Scheduling Strategies 114
Evaluation Strategies 117
Promotion Strategies 118
Local Origination on Cable 119
Community Access on Cable 124
What’s Sneaking Up 126
Notes 127

CHAPTER 4 ■ Online Television Strategies 128

by Douglas A. Ferguson
The New Programs 129
Web Program Providers 132
Enhanced Viewing 138
Video Games and Virtual Worlds 140
A Conceptual Framework 143
Strategic Considerations 146
Specific Approaches 148
Online Measurement 151
What’s Coming Fast 152
Notes 153

PART THREE

Understanding Key Processes 155

CHAPTER 5 ■ Program and Audience Research and Ratings 157
by Douglas A. Ferguson, Timothy P. Meyer, and Susan Tyler Eastman
Decision-Making for Programmers 158
vi Detailed Contents

Program Testing 161

Qualitative Audience Research 163
Ratings Services 166
Ratings Terminology and Measurement Computations 174
Television Market Reports and Other Programming Aids 180
Radio Reports 185
Cable Ratings 189
Online Research Services 192
Ratings Limitations 195
Future Challenges 202
Notes 205

CHAPTER 6 ■ Syndication for Stations, Cable, and Online 206

by John von Soosten and Douglas A. Ferguson
The Syndication Chain 207
Program Acquisition 213
Ratings Consultation 217
The Decision Process 223
Revenue Potentials 226
Payment 230
Cable and Syndication 233
Online Syndication 234
The International Marketplace 236
What Lies Ahead for Syndication 239
Notes 241

PART FOUR

Television Programming Practices 243

CHAPTER 7 ■ Non-Prime-Time Network Programming 245
by Robert V. Bellamy and James R. Walker
Non-Prime-Time Dayparts 246
Scheduling Strategies 248
Sports 250
Soap Operas and Game Shows 253
Weekday News, Information, and Talk 256
Weekend News and Information 262
Children’s Programming 263
Late-Night Weekend Entertainment 268
The Effects of Consolidation and Cable 269
Note 270
 Detailed Contents vii

CHAPTER 8 ■ Television Station Programming Strategies 271

by Robert B. Affe
The Regulatory Wave 272
The Digital Wave 273
Sources of Television Programs 273
Network Programming for Affiliates 275
The Network–Affiliate Agreement 279
Preemptions 280
News and Local Programming 281
Syndicated Programming 284
Station Dayparts 287
Station Promotion 298
What Lies Ahead for Stations 300
Notes 302

CHAPTER 9 ■ Basic and Premium Subscription Programming 303

by Susan Tyler Eastman and Douglas A. Ferguson
Competing Content Networks 304
The Proliferating Nonbroadcast World 305
Selecting Strategies 312
Scheduling Strategies 322
Evaluating Apples and Bananas 327
The Many Channels 328
Hyping Subscription Networks 337
Audio Services on Cable 337
Twisting Paths for the Future 338
Notes 339

CHAPTER 10 ■ Public Television Programming 340

by Glenda R. Balas
A Special Kind of Television 341
Program Philosophy 343
The Network Model 344
Multicasting 348
Multiple Platforms 348
PBS Responsibilities 349
Types of Station Licensees 353
Program Production 357
Syndicated and Local Programming 362
Scheduling Strategies 365
National Promotion 368
Audience Ratings 369
viii Detailed Contents

Developments Ahead 371

Notes 373

PART FIVE

Audio Programming Practices 375

CHAPTER 11 ■ Music Radio Programming 377
by Gregory D. Newton and Matthew T. Kaiser
The Shifting Ground 378
A Little History 379
Choosing a Format 391
Step-by-Step Selection Process 398
Implementation 402
The Station Sound 405
Marketing and Promotion 417
News and Other Nonentertainment Programming 421
Network and Syndicated Programming 423
What’s Coming for Radio? 427
Notes 428

CHAPTER 12 ■ Information Radio Programming 429

by Matthew S. Pierce and Robert F. Potter
Information Versus Entertainment Radio 430
The Rise of Information Radio 435
Information Programming Formats 441
All-News Formats 443
Talk Formats 445
The Content Infrastructure 450
On-Air Talk Techniques 452
Information Formats on Public Radio 454
What Lies Ahead 457
Notes 459

Annotated Bibliography 460

Internet Media Sites 466

About the Contributing Authors 468

Index to Program Titles 472

General Index 476

 Preface

T his book about media programming deals

with both the structured and unstructured
media. By structured we mean the traditional mass
communication media of broadcast television and
gaming such as Farmville, Carville and Cityville, plus
X-Box, Nintendo and their kin. We incorporate these
in the unstructured group because they consist of giant
masses of content from which users select however
radio and the cable networks. These services have they prefer. Online media is inherently VOD (video
long sent prepackaged programs to viewers and listen- on demand). Nonetheless, much of the online world
ers in linear series organized by time and day. We is filled with non-programming and falls outside the
focus on ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and PBS, and include purview of this book. But we do refer to blogs and
CW, MyNetworkTV, Telemundo, TeleFutura and podcasts, insofar as they are carriers of content that
Univision and affiliated stations, the major cable net- relates to the structured and unstructured program-
works, such as CNN, MTV, TNT, USA, HBO and so ming media.
on, the satellite TV and telephone TV services, such as The primary reason for including both structured
DirecTV and AT&T, and the radio and audio net- media content and rivaling unstructured content is
works. Although these channels’ programs can be that they share an economic and marketing universe.
recorded and replayed, on a structured service, each They compete for the attention of the same viewers,
program was originally selected to fit in a single chan- listeners and users, and they compete for the same
nel to create an image and set of expectations about dollars, although the revenue streams operate in dif-
that channel. Of considerable importance is the fact ferent ways. And they are coming closer together.
that many programs get replayed on co-owned chan- Indeed, over the next decades, broadcasting and
nels or are later sold in syndication. Of even more cable will fade as broadband distribution rises, but
importance is that this structured industry is moving for now, all must coexist and share the audience’s
toward on-demand programming, thus becoming attention.
more like the unstructured industry. Change continues to be the media’s most endur-
By unstructured we mean the parts of the huge ing characteristic, and the contents of this book have
online world that carry old and new television pro- most value when they not only describe and inter-
grams and radio shows, talk and music that come pret the present but also predict the patterns of the
via the web to your laptop or tablet or cell phone— future. The next media revolution is well begun, and
or perhaps your TV set. While we focus primarily the once-rigid barriers between methods of deliver-
on the unstructured services that provide television ing programming are dissolving, as are barriers
programs and movies, such as Netflix, Google between domestic and foreign programming. The
and Hulu.com, we include the personal media of authors make educated assessments of likely changes
YouTube, Facebook and MySpace, as well as online in the near future, while science fiction imaginings

ix
x Preface

edge closer and closer. 3D television without glasses ■ New media only partly subsume old media. Tele-
is certainly coming but hasn’t reached most living vision has gone from black-and-white to color to
rooms yet. digital to HD and is going to 3D (although most
screens lag behind and don’t display HD signals,
let alone 3D), while television is simultaneously
The Changes going online. And only about three quarters of
U.S. household have broadband access, not all of
Six major shifts in the industry guided the revision that high speed. LP records quite thoroughly
for this edition. They can be summarized as conclu- replaced 78 RPM, but then CDs replaced records,
sions or operating principles: and now online downloads to iPods and cell
■ Multiplatform strategies inform media decisions phones are replacing CDs. Radio has in part gone
today. The conventional TV networks reacted to from analog to digital and from broadcast to sat-
the newest media by trying limited multiplatform ellite and to online, but HD radio has not yet been
marketing, but changing economics and audience widely adopted in home, although it has become
behaviors now make cable and the internet par- standard for new cars. In each big change, the
allel to broadcasting, and if not yet equivalent, strength and speed of the takeover has varied and
they are the future in programming and profits. in many cases, the old medium persists alongside
Where once the broadcast networks viewed cable the new.
and the internet merely as vehicles for marketing ■ Analog is dead, and digital is becoming HD. The
their content, broadband and cable are now either makers and distributors of media content now
full partners or full competitors to the broadcast largely ignore the millions of analog receivers in
media. Now every kind of receiver (computers, homes (and cars) and presume they will inevitably
phones, tablets and TV sets) must be considered in join the digital age. Although cable, satellite and
every decision to buy, make or schedule telephone distributors offer hundreds of channels
programming. as digital signals, the media companies expect to
■ Cross-media have become enmeshed media. drop most plain digital in favor of high definition
Diverse media outlets have been assimilated in the not-distant future. Households today may
within giant media corporations. Broadcast net- contain a mix of analog and digital media, but
work and stations, cable networks and systems over-the-air television and radio consumers are
and online video services now operate within sin- getting left behind. While only about a third of
gle commercial conglomerates. This has led to digital subscribers now take high-definition ser-
conflicting goals within corporations in which vice, the industry expects full conversion in a few
programming decisions sometimes advantage years. While only half of households have high-
some owned segments and disadvantage others to speed internet access now, more than 90 percent
maximize overall profits. The full ramifications of will have it in a few years. Although the digital
Comcast’s purchase of NBCUniversal, for exam- gap is shrinking, it persists between older and
ple, will not emerge for a decade. While cross- younger people and urban and rural households,
fertilization and reuse of broadcast programs on despite sporadic regulatory efforts.
both cable and online is old news, the three kinds ■ Reducing, reusing and recycling are now the
of media are now more deeply embedded—to the driving strategies behind programming decisions.
point where some distinctions have been erased. While the traditional networks broadcast the
Television companies no longer act without full classically defined the main program genres, new
consideration of online impacts. And now radio is types of programs are emerging in spite of old
becoming audio and no longer separate from terminology. Game shows and reality programs
online, iPods or the telephone. have merged and exploded across television.
 Preface xi

Meanwhile, YouTube mushrooms with new pro- ■ Part Five addresses the rapidly morphing audio
gram ideas, and Facebook illustrates the audi- media of music and information.
ence’s need for interaction. While program types
Although so much is changing right under our
are expanding, schedules everywhere fill with
noses, this book largely preserves the classic media
reused tried-and-true favorites. Because the net-
subdivisions as a convenience for chapters and
works strive to reduce the total number of
because the process of amalgamation and reemer-
expensive programs they need to fill their sche-
gence remains ongoing … ongoing. Someday, as in
dules, an essential part of current strategy has
science fiction, all kinds of media will merge into
become replaying of episodes more often and
mega-conglomerate media businesses serving all the
recycling shows on co-owned cable channels and
different kinds of receivers. TV sets, laptops, tablets
online.
and smart phones—and who knows what—will be
■ Wirelessness and pay are the directions of the just different sizes and shapes of wireless computers.
future. Although the traditional wired media of But we aren’t there yet, not by a long shot.
cable, satellite and telephone remain strong media Two indexes appear at the book’s end, along
businesses for now, wireless ways to receive tele- with a brief bibliography and a long list of internet
vision and audio are becoming commonplace. It is media sites. The authors also maintain a website at
likely that virtually all entertainment media will www.media-programming.com where updates and
become wireless (perhaps delivered via light rather links are posted. The site can also be searched from
than in the presently used parts of the spectrum!) www.wadsworth.com. Also at the book’s close
and almost all media will require some sort of pay you’ll find brief bios of the editors and authors.
in your lifetime. The word television now encompasses much
more than it did a handful of years ago. The impacts
of digitalization, internet penetration and media
Chapter Organization consolidation continue to work their ways into
viewers’ homes and will remain the dominant forces
The organization of this edition of Media Program- operating to change programming strategies and
ming has been altered to catch up with changes in practices in the coming decade. At the same time,
ownership patterns and technology distribution, as the slow growth in the number of U.S. viewers and
well as to give greater prominence to the unstruc- listeners is giving greater emphasis to serving the
tured media because of their current interest to fast-growing Hispanic and Latino audiences and
readers. greater importance to providing programming for
other countries. Concurrently, competition from
■ Part One introduces the strategies and principles
foreign-made programs is attracting more U.S. view-
guiding the structured and unstructured media
ers while rising local media industries in other coun-
and tells what programmers need to know.
tries are creating stiffer competition abroad for U.S.
■ Part Two looks at programming from the per- media companies. These will continue to be major
spectives of prime-time broadcast—the gorilla on pulls and pressures on overall programming strategy
the block—as well as multichannel cable/satellite for the coming decade.
and online networks.
■ Part Three builds understanding of the processes
and problems of ratings and syndication, and if Our Thanks and Appreciation
you don’t understand them, you don’t understand
anything. We celebrate and appreciate our contributing
■ Part Four focuses on the practices of specific kinds authors and thank them warmly: William J. Adams
of programming situations. of Kansas State University; Robert B. Affe of Indiana
xii Preface

University; Glenda Balas of the University of New Edward Fink of California State University at
Mexico; Robert V. Bellamy of Duquesne University; Fullerton; Deborah Goh of Nanyang Technological
Matthew T. Kaiser of the University of North University; Simon Licen of the University of Ljub-
Carolina; Timothy P. Meyer of the University of jana; Patrick Parsons of Pennsylvania State Univer-
Wisconsin-Green Bay; Gregory D. Newton of Ohio sity; Elizabeth Perse of the University of Delaware;
University; Matthew S. Pierce of Indiana University; Nancy C. Schwartz, The Academic Edge, Inc.; the
Robert F. Potter of Indiana University; John von late Daan van Vuuren of SABC; and David Weiss
Soosten of SiriusXM; James R. Walker of Saint of Montana State University.
Xavier University; and Michael O. Wirth of the Uni- And most of all, we thank Rebecca Donahue of
versity of Tennessee. Working under someone else’s Cengage/Wadsworth, who has been the best editor
deadlines and requirements isn’t easy, but these con- we could have had, and whose gentle and thoughtful
tributors were gracious and responsive, and have online presence much resembles the style of her pre-
our gratitude. We also give special thanks to those decessor at Wadsworth, Rebecca Hayden. The first
who contributed to past editions of this book. Much of these two wonderful women made this book pos-
of what they had to say remains part of the present sible; the second helped us keep our sanity and sense
book. of humor during this edition.
We also thank those who wrote the boxed We dedicate this edition to the two Rebeccas, as
additions—the delightful blogs that spice up this well as to Lewis Klein and the memory of Sydney
book: James Angelini of the University of Delaware; Head, who together had the original idea for this
Timothy B. Bedwell of Media Quarry, LLC; Andrew book so many decades ago.
Billings of Clemson University; Mike Bloxham of
Susan Tyler Eastman
Treadline Interactive; Dom Caristi of Ball State Uni-
Douglas A. Ferguson
versity; Frank J. Chorba of Washburn University;
PART

1
Introduction to
Programming
Part One Outline
Chapter 1
A Scaffold for Programmers 3

1
This page intentionally left blank
 1
CHAPTER

A Scaffold for Programmers

Susan Tyler Eastman and Douglas A. Ferguson

Chapter Outline
What Is Programming? A Model of Programming
The Big Changes Selection
The Themes Scheduling
Promotion
The Process of Programming Evaluation
How Programming Is Unique
What Does the Audience Want? External Influences on
Programmers
The Lure of Lore Technological Influences
Structural Considerations Economic Influences
Ownership Influences
Sources of Programs
Regulatory Influences
The Uniqueness of Scheduling
Ethical Influences
The Need for Promotion
The Pressures and Pulls
The Elements of Programming
Compatibility Notes
Habit Formation
Control of Audience Flow
Conservation of Program
Resources
Breadth of Appeal

3
4 PART ONE Introduction to Programming

I t’s a wake-up call the first time someone says to

you, “Wait. I’m watching a movie on my iPod.”
Or maybe it was an iPhone. Or an iPad. Americans
use electronic screens of one sort or another for an
might be called a program director or general man-
ager (or “hey, you”); at a television station or net-
work, the decisions are made the very highest
corporate levels (the people called “sir”) because so
average of at least eight hours a day. This book many tens of thousands of dollars, even millions, are
focuses on decisions affecting the content of those involved in each decision. Regardless of the person’s
screens. The chapters look at the strategies of all position title, the job will be to choose content that
kinds of television (broadcast, cable, online) and targets the desired audience, design a schedule, make
audio (radio, satellite, internet), as well as the daily sure the content is effectively marketed, and monitor
practices of the electronic media industry. Although the outcome—a job description that applies to
new technologies often capture our immediate atten- both the established media and the newest media.
tion, in the media world “content is king,” and we’ll Of course, it’s highly likely that being talented at
show you why. This chapter introduces the kind of the job leads to more successes.
programming specific to the electronic media—not If a channel has weakly pulling shows, it needs
what computer programmers normally do—and out- new programming, in the most tangible sense,
lines the complex media industry. because owners usually seek large audiences for
their advertisers. Always remember: The main func-
tion of commercial media is to deliver an audience to
What Is Programming? advertisers. Even Facebook and YouTube are sup-
ported by advertising. The new shows a program-
Programming can refer to an outcome or a process. mer chooses must appeal to more viewers (or
It can describe either a group of programs on a radio listeners in the case of radio, users in the case of
station, a television network, or cell phone, as in the web) than did the old shows. Somebody orga-
“I really enjoy the programming on that new cable nizes the hour to hour display of new videos on
channel”—or the act of choosing and scheduling YouTube, just as somebody chooses the hourly
programs on a broadcast TV station, subscription sequence of television channels. But day to day,
channel, or online service, as in “My job is program- once the big decisions are instituted and the shows
ming; I pick most of the shows my channel carries.” running, evaluation of some kind of audience ratings
Like the programmer who handles many cable chan- takes the front seat for programmers.
nels, the online programmer also has the job of
choosing but for a video library rather than a single
channel. The Big Changes
The processes of selecting, scheduling, promoting The media world doesn’t hold still, which keeps it
and evaluating programs define the work of a pro- interesting. In case you failed to notice, three
grammer, and they are the subject of this book, changes in society and the industry have dramati-
whether the programmer is a paid employee or you, cally affected programming and continue to do so:
the viewer! The word programs refers to units of con- digitization, internet access and media competition.
tent—some as short as tweets and YouTube videos,
others as long as TV series and Hollywood movies.
As you choose which online sources to watch, load Digital Media
up your iPod, or subscribe to Netflix or Spotify, you Digitization has displaced analog television broad-
are programming for yourself, but someone else casting and changed the equipment that consumers
placed that content where you could get at it. use to receive television. Anything can be a “televi-
At a radio station or small cable channel, the sion” now, or so it seems. Box 1.1 asks whether you
person paid to handle the programming tasks are really at the cutting edge. Digitizing television
 CHAPTER 1 A Scaffold for Programmers 5

1.1 Are You Really Watching HDTV?

A lot of people think they are watching HD when they’re

not. It takes three things to have an HD picture:

1. A digital HD screen for your TV or computer set, duh.

you’re getting only a digital signal but not an HD signal.
You have to pay extra for HD.

Look at detail in the close-ups: Can you see the whiskers

2. A program shot by an HD camera: Older cameras were grow?
not in HD format, and even today, many local events,
Look for detail in the distant background: Can you see
including regional sports, are commonly produced using
the faces and clothes of individual fans at
older non-HD cameras—even if the screen looks like the
a game?
right spread-out aspect ratio. So if you watch a lot of old
movies, you probably aren’t getting them in real HD, Look for figure/ground separation: Do the foreground
even if they’ve been remastered. figures stand well apart from the background?

3. A contract for HD service from your local cable, phone Get used to real HD because 3D is coming! And
or satellite service. If you aren’t paying for HD service, holography of some sort after that.

gave rise to DVRs (digital video recorders), which in Internet Access

turn enormously increased time-shifting of tradi- That the internet has given rise to enormous changes
tional television programs, as described in 1.2. almost goes without saying. Although everyday use
Having people watch a show on different days at of the internet has been widespread for more than
different times and via different media has had a two decades, it has become faster (although not
powerful and often confusing impact on ratings fast enough for most people), wireless, and easier
and program scheduling. Consumers’ desire for to use (except for the 25 percent of Americans still
time-shifting led to such innovations as on-demand lacking high-speed internet access in their homes).
television, which in turn changed the meaning of a For media programmers, the internet provides four
TV channel. Video-on-demand (VOD) is more like a things:
library than a set of channels. Moreover, viewers
now want HD (high definition) or even 3D reception ■ replay of major movies and network television
on large screens in their homes as well as public series and specials;
places, leading to new production criteria for pro- ■ original programs made for the web by amateurs
grams and much affecting what Hollywood does. or professionals (user-generated content and web
Nonetheless, nearly 8 percent in the United series);
States, mostly in big cities where signals are strong, ■ websites that carry updates and background about
still get along without cable or satellite television (or television stars, program plots, and schedules
the telcos’ UVerse or FiOS) in their homes. (They (enhancements); and
have to go to bars to get the good stuff!) And only ■ a gazillion places for program promotion and
newer cars have HD radio. Smart phones and tablets
advertising.
now show some TV shows and other kinds of pro-
gramming, another byproduct of digitization of tele- Both program promotion and program replay
vision and the telephone. At the same time, smart matter: They influence the all-important ratings.
TV sets let users switch between television and the Internet usage measures provide another kind of
internet. The new media only partly replace the old “rating.”
media, but they have generated new ways for audi- As the whole world seems to know, the spread
ences to use media. of the internet via wireless signals led to social media
6 PART ONE Introduction to Programming

1.2 The DVR Factor

D igital video recorders (DVRs) change viewing habits.

Those who own them grow very fond of (and
dependent upon) them. Those who have original or
Even more important to conventional viewing patterns is
that DVRs usually come bundled alongside enormous
packages of digital services, including VOD. Because the
updated TiVos are often fiercely loyal to them—more so TV services commonly have informational bands that
even than the owners of unbranded models from cable and appear for a few seconds across the bottom of screens,
satellite operators. Those who do not own them cannot they do two things: Besides distracting the viewer from
understand all the fuss. They’ll find out, eventually. Some immediate involvement in the upcoming program, they cer-
forecasters predict that DVRs will be in 80 percent of tele- tainly make using the up/down channel changing buttons
vision homes by about 2015. (old-style surfing) quite unappealing. Digital cable rapidly
To the uninitiated, DVRs appear to be glorified VCRs or becomes menu-driven television, not channel-driven.
recording DVDs, with video stored on a random-access Satellite services also come bundled with DVRs to make
hard drive. But DVRs can pause and instantly replay live pay-per-view possible, and cable operators supply DVRs to
TV, allowing more viewer control. DVRs play back while digital, HD and 3D subscribers for a fee, with the goal of
recording, allowing the viewer to time-shift more easily encouraging pay-per-view sales. Indeed, manufacturers of
than ever before. The internal menu systems driven by television receivers promise to build the DVR functions into
daily downloaded program information make recording the sets themselves. Many viewers don’t want an additional
so very easy. DVRs beat VCRs hands down: no codes, no box connected to their TV sets.
stop-start times, no clocks to set; just choose a program So what happens to programming strategies? Are the
from the menu of upcoming options (or during a live traditional practices of hammocking, tentpoling, bridging
promo or during the actual show) and hit record. Record a and leading-in (see Chapter 2) relevant in a DVR-enabled
show once or every time it is shown, regardless of what home? Some say not, but some say not so fast. Will the
time or day. There is no need to know what night a show added expense keep most people away or will bundling of
is on because the DVR does all the thinking. It even can be services make the price for adding a DVR insignificant?
told to ignore any show reruns during daily or weekly Guide listings are not universally popular. DVRs vastly
recordings. Viewers simply visit their DVR program menu improve them. How will widespread use of DVRs become?
and find what they want, when they want it. Dayparts are One for every TV in the house? A few viewers may remain
irrelevant. Channels are irrelevant. And commercials are content with the way things were before DVRs, but not
meant to be skipped. many. Stay tuned in the coming years and find out.

communication. Once upon at time, AT&T and explosion of such cheap-to-produce quasi-reality
other phone companies were the social media. You shows as Survivor and American Idol; it upped the
called people on the telephone. Facebook, Twitter number of reruns during prime time; and it changed
and the like have taken over as the vital parts of audience measurement practices. To compete, the inter-
interpersonal communication, affecting daily per- net found success with elaborate online games such as
sonal life and even underpinning national uprisings Farmville, a guzzler of user time. (Have you tried puppy
in the Middle East and elsewhere. But time spent on watching? It’s another time devourer.) Competition for
social media takes away from time for consuming audiences has motivated the adoption of “green” strat-
traditional broadcast and cable programs. egies (of a sort) for the big as well as small television
Competition with the internet for precious audi- corporations: Programs must now be reduced, reused
ence time has forced drastic changes in television pro- and recycled (and whatever other R-words you can
gramming. For example, competition drove the think of) more than ever before.
 CHAPTER 1 A Scaffold for Programmers 7

Media Competition Ownership powerfully affects programming. In

addition to political slant, such as with Fox cable
Finally, Comcast bought NBC Universal (creating
and MSNBC, the financial clout of an owner and
NBCUniversal, for some odd reason). This giant step
the size of its total audience influence the purchase
reflected consolidation not just within an industry seg-
price of programs: Money matters. And the number
ment but across competitive boundaries. And it was a
of co-owned outlets directly affects a program’s
“buy up” rather than lateral or down: A cable operator
distribution: Audience size matters. The larger the
bought a major broadcast network, along with its
financial risk, the more conservative big owners
ownership in a dozen cable networks. A newcomer
become. Consolidation leads to more reduce, reuse
bought an old-old-timer. Since the 1980s, broadcast-
and recycle rather than to innovation.
ing and cable have been primary rivals, battling head
to head for viewers, but it normally takes a large group
of cable networks to match the ratings of a single
The Themes
broadcast network in prime time. So for several
reasons, this merger shocked many industry insiders. The pressures arising from these three big changes
Cross-media has now become enmeshed media. are themes throughout this book. All chapters in
The number of cable networks exceeds 500, this book examine how programs (units of content)
though many are co-owned by other networks or are selected (or not selected), how content is
very small splinter services. The top 25 get by far arranged in schedules or menus of various kinds
the most viewing and have the most subscribers. (or all over some screen), how the content is pro-
No one can say how many program services there moted to audiences or users and advertisers, and
are online, but about a half-dozen are best known how content and audiences are evaluated (at least
for providing web series, while YouTube, iTunes by the industry, even if that’s not how you see
and their cohort supply virtually infinite and chang- things). We are especially concerned with the limits
ing quantities of videos. In contrast, the number of arising from technology, financing, regulations, pol-
broadcast networks seems to have stabilized at ten icies and marketing needs, and you should be too.
(or nine depending on who you count): The Big Four ■ One central premise is that how content is paid for
of ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC; plus CW, MyNet- determines much of its structure and availability,
workTV and PBS; plus Univision, Telemundo and and the long-term trend is to pay for use (whether
TeleFutura, the three Spanish-language networks. you like it or not).
(PBS often gets left out, leaving nine commercial
■ Another thrust is how the mass orientation and
networks.) But, around the edges, Google seeks to
traditionally rigidly linear structuring of the
make YouTube into a broadcast network, and Net-
broadcast media is adapting to emergence of per-
flix would like to join this exclusive group, so the
sonal and mobile media. (How much difference do
number of networks could change.
you see?)
One significant point is the growth in audiences
for Spanish-language networks: Univision is the fifth ■ We focus on the methods and processes of con-
largest network, far bigger than CW or MNTV or sumption of digital video and audio media, which
any single cable network. A major point is that are dissolving fixed ideas about “channels” and
Comcast’s purchase of NBCUniversal from General “dayparts.”
Electric, as well as AT&T’s, Google’s and Netflix’s ■ Still other recurring themes arise from the ways
aspirations, signal a major shift in the relationships the once-clear distinctions between networks,
among the controlling media entities, and these syndicators and cable companies are fading, and
moves are the likely forerunners of more consolida- while some former competitors are becoming
tion. And new relationships between the social enmeshed through partnerships and mergers, cer-
media and the commercial media are in the wind. tain pressures keep other competitors well apart.
8 PART ONE Introduction to Programming

■ Another recurring topic is how programmers To cover all bases, most big media companies
struggle frantically on a daily basis for bigger have expanded their brands into groups of channels,
shares of the overall American audience and spe- such as the 5 channels of ESPN, the 11 channels of
cific sub-audiences. HBO/Cinemax HD, or the dozen or so channels
■ We are always concerned with how the big media owned all in or part by NBCUniversal and its
conglomerates are co-opting and commercializing owner Comcast. In the case of specialty cable and
online, mobile, social and noncommercial pro- internet channels (called niche networks) such as the
gram content. Military History Channel, Black Entertainment Tele-
vision, Comedy Central and the Tennis Channel (or
■ At the same time, the persistent patterns of daily
still smaller networks focusing on pets or cooking or
work and living continue to influence the avail-
cars or houses or shopping), the programmer may be
ability and arrangement of most media entertain-
more interested in pleasing a particular audience sub-
ment content (and you don’t even notice).
group than in reaching an audience outside the tar-
■ Finally, the realities of economics always over- geted group. Of course, the larger the size of that
shadow all aspects of media programming. target audience, the easier it is to make money.
Look for examples of how these themes emerge in the Very narrowly targeted channels cannot survive
following chapters about specific media situations. long, even on the internet, unless they carry adver-
tising (but if audiences are small, few advertisers will
buy) and/or charge subscription fees—if enough
The Process of Programming people are willing to pay to get the service. But audi-
ences tend to expect most programs to come for free,
Programming is both a skill and an art. The primary so other means of generating money are essential.
goal in programming advertiser-supported media is All programmers must deal with certain limita-
to maximize the size of an audience targeted by tions, most of them economic. Program resources
advertisers. The only way to accomplish this goal is are scarce. Good shows cost a lot of money. Unfor-
to satisfy the needs and wants of that audience, what- tunately, bad shows are also expensive (except on
ever they are today and tomorrow and tomorrow. YouTube). Good or bad, the four largest broadcast
Present-day technology permits viewers them- networks combined (ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC) spend
selves to choose programs from dozens of sources more than $10 billion annually on programs and
(such as broadcast stations, cable/satellite channels, rights to major events. Their collective share of the
SiriusXM, Netflix, YouTube), giving consumers total audience shrank for several years but has cur-
more-or-less instant access to hundreds—even thou- rently flattened at about one-third of viewers at any
sands—of programs. But oddly enough, most people given time. Audiences are available to consume media
prefer to let someone else do the programming for only so many hours per day, and less of that view-
chore. Viewers tend to choose channels and web- ing went to the Big Four networks as cable networks
sites, but expect someone else to have filled those and then games and social media captured more of
channels/sites in an expert way. Even YouTube the audience. At the same time, Univision’s TV audi-
viewers may choose a topic or known video to ences are swelling in size. In the case of television
start with, but then they typically click on whatever programming for which viewers pay a fee, there is a
follows (despite the commercials). limit to how much they will spend before they start
In the case of mass-appeal channels, such as the complaining to Congress about subscription fees.
major television networks and larger cable networks One byproduct of smaller network audiences in
and internet services, programmers go after as many the United States has been greater efforts to market
viewers as possible. Most advertisers assume that the U.S. program content in other countries. CNN is a
demographic groups they want to reach will be well worldwide service; Disney runs Spanish-language
represented in the total audience, if it’s large. channels in South America and other parts of the
 CHAPTER 1 A Scaffold for Programmers 9

world. Although ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC are three quarters of U.S. homes and represents maybe
quintessentially American channels, and their U.S. (at least at unsettled times) half of all internet use
popularity depends on them staying so, their parent worldwide. Beginning with a website is the likely
corporations can be increasingly involved with cable path for many future entrepreneurs.
and broadcast channels in other countries. Just as Reaching a national audience is becoming less
U.S. car makers pushed for years to get into the difficult. Internet cafes and Wi-Fi are proliferating,
gigantic Chinese car market, media program produ- and a growing number of program suppliers are
cers yearn to follow in their footsteps. looking for nontraditional program providers. Net-
The following figure (see 1.3) illustrates the not- flix, Hulu and other online video rentals and sales
always-happy relationship between U.S. television services offer another potential avenue for program
viewers and television program services as a tug of suppliers, and the internet’s ability to stream audio
war. The cartoon suggests that as audiences adopt and video programming—looking and sounding
new technologies, programmers must respond with both the same and different from traditional pro-
new strategies for enticing and holding those audi- grams—improves continuously. On the other hand,
ences. Similarly, changing economic, regulatory, and to remain competitive, the broadcasters have long
social conditions usually result in acrimonious ten- been first adopters of content production for new
sions between the sources of programs and their screen technologies—first color, then HD, and now
viewers, listeners and users. 3D programs.
Broadcast programming remains unique
because there is no apparent direct cost to consu-
How Programming Is Unique mers for the most popular shows. Although cable
If Irving Berlin was correct when he wrote that and online programmers siphon away some desi-
there’s no business like show business, then what rable programs, the big broadcast networks are
makes a programming product unique? How are able to provide very popular drama, reality and
programs different from other products that cor- comedy programs, along with top sporting events
porations make for the public? and live news coverage, seemingly absolutely free
Certainly, ease of delivery is key for broadcast- to the audience. Despite all the new media, television
ing. What other product can be simultaneously remains the most used medium (close to 6 hours
delivered to nearly every consumer? Who else can daily), and advertisers know it. They pay for the
attract the biggest audiences? The very biggest sports programs in exchange for having their commercials
and entertainment events still go to the broadcast presented to the audience.
networks, for now. Although the high cost of advertising is passed
In theory, anyone can conceive an idea and sell it to along to consumers, the advertiser’s ability to mar-
a cable channel or a broadcast network or put it online, ket products to huge audiences actually decreases
but the big distributors (cable and broadcast networks the per-item cost of many products because of econ-
through their systems and stations) continue to exert a omies of scale. It usually costs more for producers to
large measure of control over which programs run. market products to a small number of people.
Barriers to entry still limit budding suppliers. Why should radio or television programmers
Nonetheless, it is possible for some program- care how “free” the programs are to the receivers?
mers to start small and build national audiences. In the case of broadcast programming, the low cost
Oprah Winfrey started at a small station doing a to viewers generates audiences large enough to sell
local talk show before achieving national television to advertisers. Contrary to popular belief, broadcas-
prominence and creating her own production com- ters are not in the business of creating programs; they
pany and then more recently her own cable televi- are in the business of creating audiences that adverti-
sion channel (see 8.9 for more on Oprah). Facebook sers want to reach. Even in the case of cable/satellite
was only begun in 2004 and now reaches more than channels and online sites, advertiser support is critical
10 PART ONE Introduction to Programming

1.3 Tug of War

News
Corp

Audience Industry Fox

Viacom Google
Preference/Needs
CBS

Twitter

AT&T
ABC Disney

Program
strategies
Facebook
DVR
Viewing
Verizon
Comcast
NBC
Promotional Advertisers
Web strategies
Pay
Cable

PBS

Uni-
vision
YouTube Availability Time
Basic Warner
Cable Apple

Cable TV
Gamers

Reprinted by permission of Milton Hamburger.

to programmers because costs are seldom borne What Does the Audience Want?
entirely by subscriber or user fees.
The most important part of programming is under-
Programming is a unique product in that it is
standing the audience. What appeals to viewers or
used to lure the attention of consumers so that
listeners or online users? Quite simply, on the sur-
advertisers can show those consumers commercial
face audiences want to be entertained, and they want
messages that help sell other products. Programmers
to be informed. Speaking very generally, these two
work only indirectly for the audience; the primary
elements comprise the whole of programming con-
customer is the advertiser, without whom there
tent (see 1.4 and 1.5). But the devil is in the details,
would be few programs to see or hear. Prime-time
of course.
television might look like YouTube.
 CHAPTER 1 A Scaffold for Programmers 11

1.4 Recipe for Successful Production

A step-by-step procedure for the process of program-

ming would go something like this. First, choose pro-
grams that seem to meet the needs and wants of an
3. Evaluate reasonable costs for program types and time
slots.
4. Evaluate the competition to determine a scheduling
audience. Second, organize those programs into a coher- strategy.
ent schedule that flows from one program into the next.
5. Make sure a program fits in with neighboring
Third, market the programs to the appropriate audience.
programs.
Finally, evaluate the results and make necessary adjust-
ments. This is the basic recipe for cooking the perfect pro- 6. Employ talented performers whom the public likes.
gram schedule. 7. Hire producers/directors/writers with a record of
success.
1. Target a demographically desirable audience.
8. Deal with currently popular subject matter.
2. Choose appropriate programs for that audience.
9. Emulate comparable high-rated programs.

1.5 What Is Quality?

W henever the word quality is attached to program-

ming, viewers think they know what that means. Do
they? Quality often connotes strong production values (lav-
of viewers finds some subjective value that is independent
of objective criteria. If we cannot agree on what constitutes
quality, does it really exist? Maybe those who use the
ish sets, famous performers, riveting scriptwriting, technical phrase “quality television” really mean to say “programs
achievement) and critical acclaim. Those who fight to save that we really like.”
quality programs often see some substantial social value in Programmers are well advised to be careful with the
such shows. word quality as long as so little consensus exists about what
So why is quality lacking in most television shows? Is it it is. It might be better to strive toward shows that are pop-
money, or could it be that the masses want circuses instead ular (or critically acclaimed) by external standards, rather
of high culture? Perhaps quality signifies only that a group than programs that have intrinsic quality.

The demand for entertainment encompasses a comedies with game show elements: they consist of
mixture of comedy and drama. Narrative stories a situation in which “people” compete to win. But
represent the norm, and these stories have a begin- the most successful of these shows also embody a
ning, a middle and an end occurring within each narrative about participants carried over from
episode.1 Characters have goals resulting from a week to week.
desire. Along the way, they encounter some form By the turn of this century, the former reality
of conflict. In a comedy program, the conflict is a format (Survivor and Fear Factor) had resurfaced on
humorous situation resolved in a way that causes a wave of game shows (Who Wants to Be a Million-
the audience to laugh. Sitcoms usually appear in aire?), which was soon overtaken by other types of
half-hour episodes. In a drama, the conflict results blockbuster reality programs (Dancing with the
from a counterforce, often “the bad guys.” Most Stars and American Idol) and two hit game shows
dramas last an hour, occasionally longer. Nonnarra- (Deal or No Deal and Jeopardy). Many of these real-
tive reality programs are more like situation ity shows are competitions that generate a sense of
12 PART ONE Introduction to Programming

urgency, like sporting events do, making them seem Information programming is also driven by nov-
more important to watch than dramas or comedies. elty and entertainment value. Viewers want fresh
Comedies, which had real staying power for stories that promise something new. Critics can com-
decades, were consistently taking a beating in the plain about the trivialization of information, but net-
ratings in the first decades of the 2000s, leading work and syndicated news and information
some critics to wonder whether viewers find serial programming with an entertainment approach (info-
dramas and series reality shows especially addict- tainment) attracts big audiences. Consider, for
ing. By mid-decade, the biggest draws were Fox’s example, the long-time success of 60 Minutes,
American Idol and such crime shows as NCIS: Los 20/20 and The Today Show. These programs mix
Angeles, CSI and The Mentalist. As has always popular topics with more serious information.
been the case, however, such sporting events as In their newscasts, local stations also necessarily
the NFL games swamp all other shows in audience pay close attention to the lighter side of community
size. events, partly because there are fewer opportunities
Comedies and dramas are composed of various for hard news than on the national level and partly
ingredients that appeal to most audiences: engaging because “positive” stories appeal strongly to view-
dialogue, attractive characters, romantic themes, ers. The trend has reached the point that younger
nostalgia, suspense and high emotion, to name a audiences get much of their news from shows that
few. The audiences for all entertainment genres are actually mock the news, such as The Daily Show
also interested in seeing or hearing something novel, with Jon Stewart.
even if it is an old idea with a new twist (see 1.6). Looking at the types of programs demanded by
Reality shows, on the other hand, create a “human audiences is one way to learn what people want,
spectacle” that is every bit as scripted, primarily although it is not a perfect method. Some people
through postproduction editing, as programs with say they want just comedy, for example, but some
a preproduction script. sitcoms have “serious” episodes that address social

1.6 Uncovering the Mystery

M erely asking television audiences what they want is

difficult. Many times viewers do not know what they
want until they see it, and a short while later they tire of it
because really strong predictors, such as when the audi-
ence is available, are not usually controlled by the pro-
grammers (or the viewers).
and crave something new. Programmers must become The most promising way to predict choice seems to be
accustomed to dealing with fickle audiences. The only ref- to study the actual content of programs, but the industry
uge is to uncover the mystery of how the audience makes has sponsored very little generalizable research. What
choices about what to watch. element in a television or radio program is most important?
The process whereby audience members make choices Some say it is the likeability of the main characters. Others
is seldom clear, but researchers use three basic approaches point to the compelling nature of the story or the format.
to predict those choices. One way looks at the uses and Little research has been done in this area, perhaps
gratifications of media consumption. This approach fre- because using structural predictors is easier than using
quently substitutes the self-reported attitudes of viewers for content variables. In any case, studying programming as
more concrete information on their actual behaviors. A a serious topic is not easy. The networks and other pro-
second way uses additional predictors of choice, such as gram suppliers focus on the ratings and on testing ideas
market size, program length, awareness, cable/DVD/sat- and pilots (see Chapter 2), but programming seems to
ellite penetration, and audience availability. Research find- remain one big gamble where instinct is more important
ings in this area are equally unsatisfying or unusable than science.
 CHAPTER 1 A Scaffold for Programmers 13

issues, while some dramas venture into comedy. First, there is the matter of dead genres. A genre
Adding to the general misinformation about pro- is a type of program, such as a western or a sitcom.
gramming is the fact that viewers and listeners At various times in the history of programming,
believe they are programming experts merely common wisdom has declared each genre dead.
because they watch or listen. Most people who Family sitcoms were dead in 1982, they said—until
tune to a broadcast program feel that they could Cosby went on the air. Game shows were dead, they
do a better job of choosing the shows and selecting said—until Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? came
the time slots. If that were really true, of course, along. Reality shows such as America’s Funniest
there would be no need for a book on how to be a Home Videos were very popular in the early
programmer. Programming skills can be learned, but 1990s, and then they were dead—until they came
the art is a bit more difficult than it seems to many back a decade later in the form of Survivor.
people. Second, program lore holds that there is a for-
mula approach to building a successful show. For
example, take a grizzled veteran in an action profes-
The Lure of Lore sion and pair that character with a young person to
create dual appeal—something for both older and
Everyone watches television, so nearly everyone pro- younger viewers. Or hire a big-name star from the
fesses to understand what programs ought to be like. world of movies, music or sports. The problem with
Yet merely having preferences does not qualify a such recipes is that they lead to bland television.
viewer—or a programmer—to make accurate deci- Moreover, fans can name plenty of programs fitting
sions or judgments about program strategy. Because these formulas that got quickly canceled—far more
television viewing is so easy, the audience feels con- than shows that lasted on network television.
fident that putting shows on is really simple: Just Third, program lore preaches that certain for-
make good programs and schedule them when they mats always fail. Anything with chimps. Science-
do not conflict with other good shows! Never make
any bad shows. What could be easier?
Because it’s too hard to explain, the profes- 1.7 A Programming Myth
sionals who work at the major broadcast and cable
networks, along with their counterparts at the indi-
vidual stations in each city, sometimes take a simi-
larly simplistic stand. Always do this. Never do that.
Give the people what they want (see 1.7). Or as Dick
T he late Sydney W. Head was a frequent contributor
to earlier editions of this textbook, and he had this to
say about programming:

Block of the National Association of Television A popular fallacy holds that innumerable workable new
Program Executives (NATPE) preached, “Find out program ideas and countless usable new scripts by embry-
onic writers await discovery and that only the perversity or
what works, what doesn’t work.”
shortsightedness of program executives keeps this treasure
Out of this no-brainer philosophy has grown a trove of new material off the air. But television executives
garden of “rules” that the wisdom of experience has hesitate to risk huge production costs on untried talents and
nurtured. Call it folklore or just lore; many pro- untested ideas. Even when willing, the results rarely differ
grammers believe that achieving success in television much because mass entertainment remains the goal. A
national talent pool, even in a country the size of the United
programming is a matter of avoiding common mis-
States (and even for superficial, imitative programming), is
takes. Unfortunately, programming is much more not infinitely large. It takes a certain unusual gift to create
complicated. But it is useful to examine some of programs capable of holding the attention of millions of
the lore that has grown up around programming. people hour by hour, day by day, week after week.
Certainly some of it may be good advice. Like
most lore, however, the student of programming Sydney W. Head
should be suspicious of universal truths.
14 PART ONE Introduction to Programming

fiction drama has never spawned a major network Sources of Programs

hit, not even Star Trek (although X-Files came
Four basic program sources exist for television and
close). Never bank on satire. The list goes on…
radio: Network programs, syndicated programs,
The internet has become the home for thousands of
local programs and online programs. These compart-
experiments in program content—most of these
ments, however, are by no means watertight. Pro-
amateur, short-lived and attracting few repeat view-
duced shows sometimes develop into hybrid blends
ers in many cases, but attracting millions to the big
of local production and syndication, with an online
successes. A few commercial websites, such as those
counterpart. Network entertainment programs “go
produced by Comedy Central and some other pro-
into syndication” to cable channels or broadcast sta-
fessional producers, generate huge audiences for a
tions after their initial plays on the national network;
time, but not for the many daily hours that charac-
then they may be stockpiled online for On Demand
terize conventional television viewing. So far, only a
replay and aired on tablets. Networks also produce
handful of experimental online programs have given
special short segments of programs suited to tablets
rise to new types of television programs for large
or smart phone reception.
audiences, but more may lie ahead. The same pro-
blems face radio broadcasters who want to compete
with the big guys. Network Programs
This chapter—indeed, the rest of this book— The national, full-service, interconnected network is
outlines what practitioners and scholars generally broadcasting’s way of pooling resources to generate
agree are the real fundamentals of programming. information programming. Newspapers shared news
These are the building blocks that programmers con- and features by means of news agencies and syndicates
struct with, whatever the medium, and they go well long before broadcasting began, but broadcasting
beyond the lore described above. It takes a gift to introduced the elements of instantaneous national
create programs capable of holding the attention of distribution and simultaneous programming. There
millions of people hour by hour, day by day, week are nine national commercial television networks:
after week. Competence in the field comes from ABC, CBS, CW, FOX, MyNetworkTV (MNTV),
understanding the sources of programs, the factors NBC, and the three commercial Spanish-language
impacting audience size, and the influences of tech- networks (Telemundo—TEL, TeleFutura—TFA, and
nology, economics, ownership and regulation on Univision—UNI), plus one public noncommercial tele-
programming strategies and practices. Beyond them vision network (PBS). These ten supply broadcast pro-
lies artistry—or magic. grams by making or purchasing them.
Aside from news, talk and news-related public-
affairs materials which they produce themselves, the
Structural Considerations six English-language broadcast networks buy most
of their programs from the big Hollywood studios
Programming can be seen as largely a matter of (all but one of which are owned by the parent cor-
choosing materials and building a schedule. These poration of one of the broadcast networks). Occa-
two processes—followed by promotion and evalua- sionally they buy from the very few remaining
tion—are the essence of what a programmer does on independent production firms. The tortuous route
a day-to-day basis. Choosing programs depends on from program idea to finished, on-the-air network
circumstances that are closely linked to the source of series is variously described in Chapters 2 and 7.
the programming, and depends even more on pre- Network programmers for public broadcasting
dicting what ratings each show will achieve. Simi- face still another situation. Originally designed as an
larly, scheduling is greatly influenced by whether alternative to the commercial system, much PBS pro-
the type of channel that will carry it is broadcast, gramming comes ready-made from the larger mem-
cable, cell, tablet or online. ber stations specializing in production for the
 CHAPTER 1 A Scaffold for Programmers 15

network and from small independent producers, but programmers who work for cable networks also
it still buys programs, notably the British Broadcast- have far less input into the creative aspects of pro-
ing Corporation (BBC), which now has its own sat- gramming than do their broadcast counterparts.
ellite channel carried on cable in the United States. The great bulk of cable network programming
While PBS selects, schedules and distributes its pro- comes from the same sources as broadcast program-
gramming, no programs are produced by the net- ming—distributors of feature films and syndicated
work itself (although PBS now has its own satellite programs—and, indeed, much of cable content has
channels that compete with its affiliates, but it does been old network programming, although this is rap-
not produce their content either). See Chapter 10 for idly changing as cable networks spend more for
more on public television’s processes. recent off-network hits and greatly increase their
The Spanish-language networks draw much of own production enterprises. Each cable network
their serial programming from Mexico’s Televisa, a seeks for a single signature program that captures
producer of movies and telenovelas (popular soap- attention and gives definition to the whole network.
opera-like serials with a definite ending after some At the same time, the multiplication of digital splinter
months and usually with a moral or educational channels (such as Encore Action, Encore Drama,
point). Some also comes from South America, par- Encore Love, etc., called virtual channels) has greatly
ticularly Brazil. Univision, the fifth-largest television increased the difficulty of the programmer’s task of
network in the country, also produces several long- attracting a large audience for any one channel.
running programs, including the blockbuster of The internet has more varied program sources,
blockbusters: Sabado Gigante. TeleFutura, owned drawing on both conventional television and radio
by Univision, attracts the second-largest prime-time content as well as on original commercial and
audiences among the Spanish-language services. amateur sources. The main sources for web series are
Unlike Galavision, a competing cable network, all Hulu.com, blip.tv and revver.com, although YouTube.
three broadcasters produce newscasts and carry com shows some web series, too. These series may have
live and taped sports, especially soccer and tennis short or relatively long lives, but only a very few ever
matches originating outside the United States. appear on over-the-air or cable television.
About 200 cable program networks deliver the The traditional radio networks once offered by
bulk of satellite and cable systems’ content. Cable ABC, CBS and NBC no longer qualify as full-service
networks (called subscription content networks in networks. Those that have not been sold now resem-
Chapter 9) differ in major respects from broadcast ble syndicators, supplying features and program
television networks. In technical delivery, they are sim- inserts such as newscasts. Conversely, some radio
ilar: in both cases a central headquarters (the network) program syndicators supply stations via satellite
assembles programs and distributes them nationwide, with complete schedules of ready-to-air music in var-
using orbiting satellites to reach thousands of cable ious established formats, much like the TV networks
systems and some affiliated stations (CNN Headline supply schedules of programs, except that the sta-
News, for example, goes straight to some stations). tions now pay the radio networks for the content.
But the financial and working relationships Formerly, the radio networks paid the stations to
between broadcasting affiliates and their networks air the commercials (called compensation), but that
and between cable affiliates and their networks dif- system is disintegrating.
fer fundamentally. In addition to retransmitting
broadcast stations, local cable systems supply hun-
dreds of channels of satellite-distributed program-
Syndicated Programs
ming and must deal with hundreds of networks. Local broadcast programmers come into their own
The traditionally symbiotic relationship between when they select syndicated programs for their indi-
each broadcast network and its 210 or so affiliated vidual stations. They draw upon the following
stations does not exist in the cable field. Most sources:
16 PART ONE Introduction to Programming

■ Off-network series. Programs that have reverted Local Production

to their copyright owners after the network that
Local programs are those shows produced “in-
first aired them has used up its contractual num-
house,” usually by professionals on broadcast sta-
ber of plays (increasingly, the networks demand a
tions (such as the local newscasts), but sometimes
share of ownership rights in many of their shows).
homemade by amateurs who find distribution on
These programs used to go directly to stations, but
public access cable and online channels. Local
nowadays such cable networks as TNT, USA and
newscasts play an important role in television and
A&E gobble up many of the best off-network
radio station strategies (but even newscasts, though
dramas while TBS and the newer broadcast net-
locally produced, often contain a great deal of syn-
works—CW and MNTV—take many of the pop-
dicated material as inserts). Aside from news, how-
ular sitcoms to rerun.
ever, locally produced material plays only a minor
■ First-run syndicated series and specials. Programs role as a program source. It is true that all-news,
packaged independently by producers and marketed all-talk, and all-sports radio stations depend almost
directly to individual stations rather than being first entirely on local production, but those formats cost
seen as network shows (for example, Entertainment so much to run and have such a specialized appeal
Tonight, Oprah and Wheel of Fortune). that they remain relatively few in number, exist
■ Feature films. Movies made originally for theatri- only in the larger markets, and do not have televi-
cal exhibition, although this category has dimin- sion counterparts. Stations simply find syndicated
ished because so many movies go to such premium material cheaper to obtain and easier to sell to
cable networks as HBO, Showtime and pay HD advertisers. Localism is more worshipped than
channels. See 1.8. practiced.

1.8
The Uniqueness of Scheduling
Movies, Movies, Movies Of all the programmer’s basic skills, perhaps sched-

O
uling comes closest to qualifying as a unique radio
f all the program types, the feature film is the most and television specialty. Scheduling a station, cable
in demand because of its popularity on so many system, or network is a singularly difficult process,
different delivery systems. The term window—borrowed and little that is comparable occurs online as yet.
from the world of space flight where it refers to the lim- Even with hundreds of competing channels, the
ited time-space openings when conditions are just right availability of the web, and the proliferation of
for launching rockets—has been applied to the release
remote controls and digital video recorders, the
sequence by which feature films reach their various
audience for one show normally influences adjacent
markets. First, of course, comes the traditional window of
programs. The influence can be to build up adjacent
theatrical release—films are either simultaneously
program audiences or to drag them down. Effective
released in several thousand theaters throughout the
scheduling requires understanding one’s own and
country or put out in stages of “limited release.” Next in
the usual order of priority come releases through the
one’s competitors’ coverage patterns, market and
windows of DVD and pay-per-view cable, then regular audience demographics. Most broadcast stations in
pay cable, then broadcast networks, and finally general a market compete directly for viewers and advertis-
broadcast and cable syndication. Prices for licenses ing dollars, but some viewers are more desirable
(and rentals) decrease at each stage of release as pro- than others, and programmers at stations without
ducts age and lose their timeliness. However, studios a network affiliation or with only a poor affiliation
sporadically experiment with different release cycles for are disadvantaged compared with those program-
specialized movies to see what makes more profit. mers who deliver the most popular network
programs.
 CHAPTER 1 A Scaffold for Programmers 17

Cable system programmers have different pro- programs, the fan clubs and even the program stars
blems. They have to weigh the claims of competing themselves. Unlike most blog and podcast sites,
services for specific channel locations. Being reposi- these are sophisticated promotional sites created to
tioned (moved to a higher channel number) used to capture attention, generate buzz and feed the fans’
be a very contentious issue between stations and yearning for closer contact with programs and their
cable until the FCC mandated that broadcasters get stars. Commercial interests sponsor most of these
the same digital and analog cable channel numbers sites. Not to be outdone, this textbook itself has a
that they used for their over-the-air channels. section within www.wadsworth.com!
This FCC decision, combined with widespread Fred Silverman, a giant in network program-
adoption of digital cable, has pretty much made ming history, understood that how programs were
channel positions a nonissue. Nonetheless, if posi- promoted was as important as how they were sched-
tions are vacant, cable operators prefer to give the uled. The allocation of immensely valuable airtime
choicest positions—the lowest in a group because to program promotion each year on every network
they are easiest to remember—to the most popular and station is clear evidence that the industry is con-
(or most lucrative) services, whether they are broad- vinced of the truism that the best program without
cast or cable-only. Cable operators especially favor promotion has no audience. If the audience doesn’t
the cable channels owned all or in part by their par- know what day, what time and what channel a pro-
ent corporations. gram is on, the old viewers who miss the show will
have a profound impact on the ratings; if new view-
ers don’t see many exciting promos that convince
The Need for Promotion them to watch a network’s shows, their absence
The broadcast and cable networks forgo billions of will certainly also have a profound impact on
dollars in advertising revenue in order to promote ratings.
their programs on their own air, interrupting pro- It is crucial to understand that just a ratings
grams with clusters of promos and cluttering the point or two stands between the number one and
bottom of the screen with animated program remin- number three broadcast network in most years
ders. Such on-air marketing is essential for interest- (and maybe just a point more to number four). Pro-
ing viewers in new programs and new episodes of motion on and off the air is vital to maintaining and
continuing series, and for retaining audiences by increasing standing in that elite group. The same
making them feel satisfied with the program array. situation occurs among cable networks and at the
In addition, millions are spent on paid program local level. Cable networks vie to be among the
advertising appearing in other media, and on mar- top 10 (or top 25), but most differ by only fractions
keting endeavors in cooperation with such retailers of a ratings point. The slight advantage given by
as Kmart or McDonald’s. Stations also cosponsor effective promotion can be the difference between
concerts and sporting events to attract audiences to making that top list and falling to some lower
local television and radio programs. grouping, and advertisers typically buy by grouping.
At the same time, having a presence in the Local stations often vary only minutely in popular-
online world has become a necessity for all ten ity, too, and a great deal of promotion of a newscast
broadcast networks. First PBS and then the five big- or radio format can boost one station above its
gest commercial networks—ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC competitors.
and UNI—developed huge multimedia sites on the Promotion of online programs takes a different
web, and the major studios and most cable networks form nowadays. It largely consists of gaining
followed suit. Television and radio enthusiasts can favored placement in Google lists and other created
now point-and-click their way through myriad listings of favorites or types of sites. Virtually all top
home pages designed by the networks, their affili- placement is purchased on Google, at least under
ates, the studios, the major cable channels, the generic terms. This revenue contributes to a large
18 PART ONE Introduction to Programming

part of a search engine’s income. Placement is no breaking for lunch; enjoying an afternoon lull;
longer luck of the draw or someone’s idiosyncratic engaging with children after they return from
whim except perhaps on individuals’ sites. school; accelerating the tempo of home activities as
Networks, stations, systems and sites are also the day draws to a close; relaxing during early prime
concerned with their overall images. Increasingly, time; and indulging in the more exclusively adult
fostering positive images around the world has interests of later prime time, the late fringe hours
value in building audiences for exported programs and the small hours of the morning. And, of course,
and associated products (this is called branding). compatibility calls for adapting to the changed activ-
Google and Apple have world recognition as brand ity schedules of Saturdays, Sundays and holidays.
names at least as widely known as those of Disney, Programmers speak of these strategies in terms of
CBS, Fox, NBC and the biggest movie studios, and dayparting—scheduling different types of programs
they allot enormous budgets to increasing and main- to match parts of the day known by such terms as
taining those brand names. Promotion, then, is one early fringe, prime time and in the case of radio,
path through the labyrinth leading to high visibility, drivetime.
high ratings and thus high revenue. Cable television’s approach to compatibility has
historically differed from broadcasting’s approach.
Each broadcast station or network has traditionally
The Elements of Programming had only a single channel at its disposal (even if it
shows up on two or three places in the electronic
The various strategies for selecting, scheduling, guide with different numbers). In consequence,
promoting and evaluating programs are derived broadcast programmers must plan compatibility
from a set of assumptions about audience behavior. strategies for what they judge to be the “typical”
These broad assumptions, which are here organized lifestyles of audiences. Most cable networks target
into five groups, become the basis for strategies cap- more narrowly. Like the internet, an entire cable or
italizing on them, even in the changing media satellite system accommodates so many channels
environment: that it can devote some to every type of audience
at all hours, ignoring dayparts. They can cater to the
■ Compatibility
night-shift worker with sports at 6 A.M., to the
■ Habit formation single-person household with movies at 6 P.M., to
■ Control of audience flow the teenager with round-the-clock videos—by using
■ Conservation of program resources a different channel to serve each interest.
The daily share of viewing of the Big Four broad-
■ Breadth of appeal
cast television networks (ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC) fell
below the combined viewing of cable channels several
Compatibility years ago. Broadcasters’ economics—and thus clout—
Scheduling strategies take advantage of the fact that have diminished dramatically because in such large
programs can be timed to coincide with what people metropolitan areas as New York City cable/satellite
do throughout the daily cycle of their lives. The con- penetration has reached 91 percent.
tinuously unfolding nature of radio and television Even so, many cable channels effectively shut
allows programmers to schedule different kinds of down their program services during low-viewing
program material, or similar program materials in dayparts (for example, 3 to 7 A.M.) and let infomer-
different ways, into various dayparts. Programmers cials reign. The owners find it hard to resist the
strive to make their programming compatible with guaranteed advertising income from program-
the day’s round of what most people do—getting length commercials at a time of day when the audi-
up in the morning and preparing for the day; driving ence size is both too small to attract mainstream
to work; doing the morning household chores; advertisers and not large enough to generate viewer
 CHAPTER 1 A Scaffold for Programmers 19

complaints that the usual shows are missing. By con- more year) to accumulate enough episodes for a
trast, internet use climbs when television is weakest. year’s stripping in syndication (including a substantial
number of reruns). Because few weekly shows survive
five years of prime-time competition, the industry
Habit Formation periodically faces a nagging shortage of quality off-
Compatibility strategies acquire even greater power network programs suitable for syndication. Syndi-
because audience members form habits of listening cated game shows, such as the long-running Jeopardy
and watching. Scheduling programs for strict and Wheel of Fortune, fill the gap. Necessarily, cable
predictability (along with promotional efforts to networks also pick up shows that had short runs, but
make people aware of both the service as a whole for lower licensing prices.
and of individual programs) establishes tuning Cable has adopted different patterns. Especially
habits that eventually become automatic. Indeed, in when just starting out, networks such as FX and
spite of having DVRs, some people will go to Oxygen stripped sitcoms not only day to day but
extraordinary lengths to avoid missing the next epi- across most of each evening until their revenues per-
sode in a favorite series the moment it is aired. Pro- mitted more variety in programs. Networks such as
grammers discovered the basic principle in the early A&E, USA and TNT also strip expensive hit dramas
days of radio when the Amos ‘n’ Andy habit became that are freshly off-network in early evenings and
so strong that movie theaters in the 1930s shut prime time.
down their pictures temporarily and hooked radios No one knows whether audiences find them-
into their sound systems at 7:15 P.M. when Amos ‘n’ selves more comfortable with the structured, compat-
Andy came on. At about that time the fanatic loyalty ible, predictable scheduling of traditional television
of soap opera fans to their favorite series also than with a multitude of digital programming
became apparent, a loyalty still cultivated by today’s choices. Researchers investigating channel repertoire
televised serial dramas. have often observed that, when scores of options are
Ideally, habit formation calls for stripping pro- available to listeners and viewers, most tune in to
grams—scheduling them Monday through Friday at only eight or so of the possible sources. For example,
the same time each day, just as evening news is for many years, when Nielsen Media Research sur-
stripped daily on network-affiliated stations. To veyed homes with access to 200 or more television
strip original prime-time programs, however, channels, it used to find consistently that viewers
would require building up a backlog of these expen- watched only about 15 of them for more than one
sive shows, which would tie up far too much capital. hour per week. Which 15 varies by household, of
Moreover, networks want maximum latitude for course. (Nielsen no longer tries to measure repertoire
strategic maneuvers in the all-important prime-time because the definition of “channel” has become so
schedule. If a broadcast network stripped its three slippery.) The increased variety of program choices
prime-time hours with the same six half-hour made possible by digital cable/satellite television and
shows each night, it would be left with only six DVRs seems to have weakened viewing habits. Only
pawns to move around in the scheduling chess about half of viewers (mostly women) choose in
game instead of the two dozen or so pawns that advance the programs they watch. The other half
the weekly scheduling of programs of varying plays with the remote control.
lengths makes possible. Even so, some people may sometimes prefer to
When weekly prime-time network shows go into have only a limited number of choices. They find it
syndication, however, stations and cable networks confusing and wearying to sift through scores of
schedule them daily in strips (one episode daily at options before settling on a program. We’ve all
the same time), a strategy requiring a large number run across the complaint about having hundreds
of episodes. A prime-time series has to have been on a of channels and nothing to watch! Broadcast
network for four years (with the prospect of one scheduling, as a consequence of compatibility
20 PART ONE Introduction to Programming

strategies and a tendency toward habit formation,

preselects a varied sequence of listening and view- 1.9 Television Versus Books,
ing experiences skillfully adapted to the desires and Newspapers, and Movies
needs of a target audience. People can then choose
an entire service—an overall entertainment pattern
(or “sound” in the case of radio)—rather than indi-
vidual programs.
New technologies like DVRs have increased
C ontrolling audience flow becomes problematic
because listeners and viewers have freedom of
choice. Unlike a consumer faced with the limited deci-
sion of whether to buy a book, subscribe to a newspa-
time shifting but are not likely to eliminate the aver-
per, or attend a movie, electronic media consumers can
age viewer’s need to form patterns of behavior.
choose instantaneously and repeatedly by switching
Most people are creatures of habit, and television
back and forth among programs at will. Hence, pro-
viewing is an activity that begs for routines. Indeed, grammers cannot count on even the slight self-restraint
DVRs may actually enhance habit formation that keeps a book buyer reading a book or a ticket buyer
because they make it easier to catch all the episodes watching a movie so as not to waste the immediate
of a favorite show, thus strengthening a habit. Graz- investment. And, obviously, the polite social restraint that
ing via remote controls diminishes for those who keeps a bored lecture audience seated does not inhibit
make use of their DVRs: Viewers can watch live radio and television audiences. Programmers have the
TV and fill in the gaps when “nothing good is on” job of holding the attention of a very tenuously commit-
with saved favorites. ted audience. Its members take flight at the smallest
provocation. Boredom or unintelligibility act like a sud-
den shot into a flock of birds.
Control of Audience Flow
The assumption that audiences welcome, or at least
tolerate, preselection of their programs most of the is crucial to the strategies of small-audience channels
time accounts for strategies arising from the notion that seek to direct the flow away from competing
of audience flow. Even in a multichannel environ- channels to themselves.
ment with dozens of choices, the next program in a Fortunately for programmers, when watching
sequence can capture the attention of the viewers of television on large home screens, many audience
the previous program. At scheduling breaks, when members remain afflicted by tuning inertia.
one program comes to an end and another begins, Although hundreds of options often exist in a
programmers visualize the audience as flowing from cable, satellite, online, and tablet environment, peo-
one program to the next in any of three possible ple tend to leave the channel selector alone unless
directions: They try to maximize the number of stimulated into action by some forceful reason for
audience members that flow through to the next change. Many times, viewers are engaged in simulta-
program on their own channel and the number neous activities that preclude a focused attention to
that flow in from rival channels or home video, at what programs might be available on other chan-
the same time minimizing the number that flow nels. Moreover, programmers believe that children
away to competing channels or activities. can be used as a kind of stalking horse: Adults will
Many scheduling practices hinge on this con- tend to leave the set tuned to whatever channel the
cept. Audience flow considerations have tradition- children chose for an earlier program.
ally dominated the strategies of the commercial The greater number of program options pro-
broadcast and cable networks and affiliates (see vided by cable/satellite/telco and online services and
1.9). Blocking several similar comedies in adjacent the convenience of remote controls and DVRs have
time slots, for example, takes advantage of audience certainly lessened—but not eliminated—the effect of
flow. By contrast, counterprogramming (scheduling tuning inertia. Researchers recognize several ways the
programs with differing appeals against each other) audience uses the remote control keypad to
 CHAPTER 1 A Scaffold for Programmers 21

manipulate programming: grazing, hunting up and

down the channels until one’s attention is captured; 1.10 Reruns

A
flipping, changing back and forth between two chan-
nels; zapping, changing the channel to avoid a com-
nyone who doubts the difficulty of appealing to
mercial interruption; and zipping, fast-forwarding a mass audiences need only consider the experience
recording to avoid commercials or to reach a more of the older media. Of 25,000 to 28,000 new books
interesting point. While grazing has fallen off, jump- printed in any one year, only less than 1 percent sell
ing between two programs (such as two games) and 100,000 or more copies; of 12,000 or so records
zipping through recorded commercials are common- copyrighted, fewer than 200 music recordings go gold;
place. Moreover, the home playback unit has under- of 200 feature film releases, only 5 percent gross the
mined Saturday evening ratings for both broadcast amount of money reckoned as the minimum for breaking
and cable programmers: Huge numbers of viewers even. And yet audiences for these media are small com-
regularly rent DVDs on Saturday nights from Netflix. pared with the nightly prime-time television audience.
Thus, tuning inertia continues as only a modest factor Sometimes audience demands and conservation
to consider in broadcast programming strategies. happily coincide, as when the appetite for a new hit song
Program flow is nearly irrelevant for some for- demands endless replays and innumerable arrange-
mats such as all-news radio, all-weather cable chan- ments. Eventually, however, obsolescence sets in, and
nels, and specialized subscription channels, which the song becomes old hat. Radio and television are
actually invite audience flow in and out. Some for- perhaps the most obvious examples of our throwaway
mats aim not at keeping audiences continuously society. Even the most massively popular and brilliantly
tuned in but at getting them to constantly return. As successful program series eventually loses its freshness
a widely used all-news radio slogan goes, “Give us and goes into the limbo of the umpteenth rerun circuit.
22 minutes, and we’ll give you the world.” One
cable news service used to promote itself in variations A high percentage of the programming on cable
of “All the news in 30 minutes.” The Weather Chan- networks and online consists of repeats of the same
nel doesn’t expect even weather buffs to watch for items. The broadcast networks also schedule plenty of
hours, just to return periodically. reruns and now reuse their shows—repurposing—on
In any case, the overall strategic lesson taught by their other owned broadcast and cable networks and
the freedom-of-choice factor is that programs must online, as well as reformatting them for cells and tablets.
always please, entertain and be easily understood. Material related to the popular programs shows up in
Much elitist criticism of program quality arises simply magazine articles, blogs and talk shows. The internet
because of the democratic nature of the medium. has stimulated production of new programs and pro-
Critics point out that programs must descend to the gram types, but on the whole, online and cable heighten
lowest common denominator of the audience they program scarcity rather than alleviating it.
strive to attract. This fact need not mean the absence One further complicating factor, at least for hit
of program quality. After all, some programs aim at series, is their easy availability on DVD. If someone
elite audiences among whom the lowest common really loves a show, they can buy a whole season or
denominator can be very high indeed. entire multiyear runs as a boxed set and need not
search for it in reruns.
Frugality must be practiced at every level and in
Conservation of Program Resources every aspect of programming. Consider how often
Radio and television notoriously burn up program audiences see or hear “the best of so-and-so,” a com-
materials at a high rate. This is an inevitable conse- pilation of bits and pieces from previous programs;
quence of the continuousness attribute. That fact flashback sequences within programs (especially in
makes program conservation an essential strategy. soap operas); news actualities broken into many seg-
See 1.10. ments and parceled out over a period of several hours
22 PART ONE Introduction to Programming

or days; the annual return of past years’ special- A major aspect of the programmer’s job consists
occasion programs; sports shows patched together of devising ingenious ways to get the maximum mile-
out of stock footage; the weather report broken age out of each program item. One strategy is to
down into separate little packets labeled marine develop formats that require as little new material
forecasts, shuttle-city weather, long-term forecast, as possible for the next episode or program in the
weather update, aviation weather and so on. series; another is to invent clever excuses for repeating
The enormous increase in demand for program old programs over and over; a third, the newest, is to
materials created by the growth of cable television adopt multiplatform strategies for each program as it
and the internet would be impossible to satisfy is conceived. For the best programs, viewers seek
were it not that the multichannel media lend them- more and more experience with each show, its char-
selves to repeating programs much more liberally acters, its plot twists, even merchandise. Programmers
than does single-channel broadcasting. A pay-cable respond to the viewers’ desire for more interactions
channel operates full time by scheduling fewer than by using extensions that may include websites and
50 or so programs a month—mostly movies—and blogs, podcasts and other feedback. Nowadays,
runs each film four to six times. Furthermore, extensions spin off all hit programs. They show up
movies first scheduled one month turn up again in in magazine articles and books while spreading across
the following months in still more reruns, which television in the form of program guests, guest hosts,
pay-cable programmers euphemistically call encores. and guest contestants. In the view of a programmer,
Even the basic cable channels rotate the showing of there’s no end to a good idea.
their movies and series, based on the idea that the Before it ever airs, programmers plan versions
audience at 8 P.M. will be different from the audience of a show for broadcast television, for pay-
at 1 A.M. For example, A&E double-runs (plays the per-view, for various internet locations, for tablets,
same episode of) many of its prime-time series, and for cell phones, for magazines, and so on, although
the internet makes available archives of thousands such multiplatform approaches are usually only
(even millions) of old programs—all of which implemented when a show actually becomes a hit.
makes frugality in sharing and repeating programs The losers—without dedicated cult followings—just
even more crucial. fade away. The point is that any beginner can design
Beginning in the mid-2000s, several of the broad- a winning schedule for a single week on a single
cast television networks began offering regularly channel; a professional has to plan simultaneously
scheduled repeats as part of their prime-time line- for all media as well as for the attrition that inevita-
ups. Borrowing a strategy from cable, the broadcast bly sets in as weeks stretch into the indefinite future.
networks recognized that viewers were accustomed to See 1.11.
having multiple opportunities to see first-run shows
within the same week. “This is inevitable,” said Pre-
ston Beckman, the executive vice president of FOX Breadth of Appeal
Entertainment. “No network can program 22 hours Stations and cable systems recoup their high capi-
any more, or in our case 15 hours.”2 Not surpris- tal investment and operating costs only by appeal-
ingly, the networks chose low-viewing nights for the ing to a wide range of audience interests. This
repeats, conserving the cost of filler programming. statement might seem self-evident, yet for many
Programmers can also make creative use of low- years, some public broadcasters made a virtue out
quality shows. The SyFy Channel features packages of ignoring “the numbers game,” leaving the race
of old monster and ghost movies, and SOAPnet for ratings to commercial broadcasters. But this
replays old daytime soap operas for new generations fundamentally unrealistic viewpoint has given
of fans, just as Nickelodeon reruns old cartoons over way to the strategy of aiming for a high cumulative
and over. Another reuse strategy is evident in pro- number of viewers rather than for high ratings for
grams such as Soap Opera Digest. each individual program. This strategy coincides
 CHAPTER 1 A Scaffold for Programmers 23

1.11 Ripple Effect TV©

T ruly successful TV programs are so compelling that

they draw an audience that is not content to merely
watch. The audience is hungry to go beyond the passive
programs that people talk about—the ones that show up
most often in the blogosphere. With the ripple effect, the
first broadcast is like a stone dropping in water. The big-
and to commune with others in chat rooms and virtual gest splash occurs at the point of impact, but thereafter the
environments—to post videos, download additional con- ring of concentric circles fans out to ripple across a range of
tent, buy the T-shirt, get updates on tablets and phones, platforms, bringing with it further opportunities to profitably
and so on. If a program creates a deep enough sense of harness the audience’s sense of involvement—to allow that
involvement (which is the currency of all interaction), then a audience to develop itself into a community and to satisfy its
creative extension backed up by a rewarding user experi- desires—before coming back (i.e., to the original TV
ence will respond to that desire for further interaction with show’s next episode) for more.
the program.
The programming for which program extensions work Michael Bloxham, Ph.D.,
Vice President, Trendline Interactive
best can be thought of as Ripple Effect TV©. These are the

with the goal of cable/satellite operators, whose cutting across demographic lines and appealing to
many channels enable them to program to small many different social groups. Network television
audiences on some channels, counting on the can surmount differences of age, sex, education
cumulative reach of all channels to bring in suffi- and lifestyle that would ordinarily segregate people
cient subscriptions to make a profit. The internet into many separate subaudiences.
inherently has this broad reach, although not the
big profits—as yet.
The national television broadcasting networks A Model of Programming
continue to “cast” their programs across the land
from coast to coast with the aim of filling the entire As pointed out earlier, the process of actually doing the
landscape. Of course, no network expects to capture job of programming divides into four major parts.
all the available viewers. A top-rated prime-time First, programmers must select programs to go into a
program draws between 10 and 15 percent of program lineup—and separate lineups may be needed
the available audience, although extraordinary for large home screens, for tablets, or for online ser-
programs get nearly double that proportion of vices. Then they must schedule the programs in an
viewers. arrangement that maximizes the likelihood of their
Nevertheless, by any standard, audiences for being viewed by the desired audience. Next, they must
prime-time broadcast television networks are enor- promote them to attract attention to new shows and
mous. Although the audience shares of the Big Four new episodes of series and tell viewers where to find
broadcast networks had dropped from 90 percent of the shows. Finally, they must continually evaluate the
viewers to less than 40 percent by 2012, a single outcome of their decisions. These complex decision-
program can still draw an audience so large it making processes of selection, scheduling, and promo-
could fill a Broadway theater every night for a cen- tion, modified by feedback from evaluation, ultimately
tury. It is important to understand that a rating of determine the size and composition of the audience and
10 still means more than 10 million households are suggest a series of pictorial models.
watching a program, and since households average The model in 1.12 shows each of the major
2.6 people, that means that 26 million people components exerting a proportional influence on
watched a show. Such size can be achieved only by the resulting audience. The model shows that the
24 PART ONE Introduction to Programming

popularity. For all-news and talk radio and televi-

1.12 Basic Four-Part Programming
sion, scheduling surfaces as the arena of competition
Model
and ongoing dynamism. For emerging web series
channels, selection remains the key component.
Selection Scheduling Promotion Audience If the model in 1.12 appears mechanistic, that is
50% 30% 20% Size quite misleading. Even after more than a half cen-
tury of concentrated attention, programming
remains as much an art as a science. And nowhere
is that more evident than in the enormous wealth of
online programming. As the subsequent chapters
Evaluation will reveal, at all stages the processes and outcomes
of programming are affected by the sparkle of
insight, imagination and inspiration.
Reprinted by permission of Milton Hamburger.

Selection
selection component contributes roughly 50 percent The figure shown in 1.13 illustrates some of the
to ratings; the scheduling component contributes many components affecting the selection stage for
about 30 percent; and the promotion component electronic media that are spelled out in the following
contributes about 20 percent. These proportions, chapters. For the broadcast networks, these compo-
however, vary widely for particular media, for par- nents include the scarcity of top-notch writers, the
ticular programs, for different times of day, and even high financial risk of trying markedly different pro-
at different times in media history. gram ideas, and the escalating costs per episode for
Selection, for instance, was probably much the onscreen and off-screen talent. For cable net-
more important and promotion much less important works, the same factors are important for choosing
in the 1950s when CBS and NBC dominated televi- programs, as is the need, usually, to target an under-
sion viewing. Increasing competition in television served audience group. As significant as individual
came first from ABC and later from FOX, then
from cable, then from even more broadcast net-
1.13 Selection Factors
works (UPN and the WB which later merged into
CW). Then PAX morphed into Ion, UNI grew up
and added TeleFutura, Telemundo added viewers, Au
d ien y
and FOX invented MNTV. Now the internet, tablets ce v elt
and smart phones compete directly with broadcast ha
bit No
s
television, altering the relative importance of each Selection
component in the television programming process.
Moreover, scheduling has to be understood as oper- Tre
ndin
ating now across the various media. Overall, compe- s t ess
Co
Dif
y

Talent availability

tition has boosted the importance of promotion and

ilit

fer
tib

diminished the salience of scheduling, especially for

en
pa

new programs and new services.

tia
m

tio
Co

In contrast to television, for popular all-music

n

radio stations promotion is sometimes the most sig-

nificant component in the determination of radio
audience size and composition. On-air contests and
games have a great deal to do with music station Reprinted by permission of Milton Hamburger.
 CHAPTER 1 A Scaffold for Programmers 25

programs are, even more important is the overall elements, the amount of inherited viewing between
composite that creates a “format” for the cable or adjacent programs, has been consistently shown to
radio channel or internet site. hover around 50 percent in prime time. This means
Additional factors that affect the selection of that half of the viewers watching Program B on a
programs for cable and satellite networks include channel had already watched Program A on that
the need for differentiation from competing chan- channel.3 Program B’s other viewers come from
nels, costs relative to other program types, and the other channels or are newly tuned in for the evening.
ability to capture space on local cable or satellite Inheritance, however, is known to be much lower
systems to reach an audience. On the internet, imag- between incompatible programs and between nonad-
inative designs and antiauthority appeals to teen and jacent programs. Few of the viewers of a romantic
young adults are key elements. drama, for example, would choose to stay tuned for
In radio and online music programming, enor- a violent action movie.
mous efforts go into choosing the songs that appeal Moreover, inheritance is dramatically lower
to a particular demographic and psychographic outside of prime time. One big exception is between
group. Whether they are called music directors or two adjacent soap operas, when inherited viewing
programmers, the crucial task of the people making usually goes up. By contrast, only 10 percent of tele-
these efforts is to find and keep current the songs vision viewers are likely to flow from program to
that the audience will tune in to hear. program in the morning daypart because of the
other activities and obligations of their daily lives—
going to work, for example.
Scheduling In radio, careful attention to each nuance of
It has been long understood that the size of song rotation and news story rotation leads to ongo-
the prime-time television audience is affected by ing scheduling adjustments. Similar attention to
the amount and type of competing programs, the detail is required of online music and video, but as
amount of viewing inherited from preceding pro- Chapter 4 explains, most of early focus was on the
grams, and the compatibility between adjacent technology, and scheduling strategies have only
programs (see 1.14). The most studied of these recently gotten attention and continue to alter as
they seem successful or unsuccessful. Most websites
schedule by topic, genre or alphabetical name.
YouTube and its many imitators let viewers know
1.14 Scheduling Factors which clips and shows are “most recent” or “most
popular” so that users can go directly to that
Ha n programming.
mm tio
ock peti Ordering by title or recency also applies to sites
ing m
Co that replay actual television shows (Netflix, Hulu and
Scheduling Hulu Plus, Crackle, TV-4-PC.com, your-free-satellite.
Inh com, free-internet-tv.com, the-free-tv.com, and vari-
eri ous iPad apps). Counts of hits reveal movements,
ted
ng vie and measures of time-spent-watching a show tell the
cki wi
Blo ng presumed length of viewing (only presumed because
ity
bil

computer users are often doing more than one thing

Ra
ati

nk

simultaneously), but content on many sites that might

mp

ing

be called “programs” doesn’t divide into tidy half-

Co

hour-long and hour-long parcels. To date, systems

haven’t been refined for counting what’s watched
Reprinted by permission of Milton Hamburger. on smart phones, for example.
26 PART ONE Introduction to Programming

Promotion At local stations and at national and global networks,

a static program lineup tends to lose ground, while
The figure shown in 1.15 names some characteristics
ongoing refinements help to maintain and even
that impact the effectiveness of promotional spots on
increase audience size. This shifting of program
the air—such as the location of spots within a pro-
times much irritates habitual viewers!
gram, the position of those spots within breaks, the
In 1.16, evaluation has a wide range of consti-
distance between the promotion and the promoted
tuents, some directly related to program audiences
program (Next? Later tonight? Next week? Next
and others of larger social scope. For example, the
month?), and the familiarity of the program to view-
success of the competing programs affects a pro-
ers or listeners. Such considerations as the physical
grammer’s interpretation of ratings. A show with
environment of a message, the number of people
low ratings scheduled against a megahit on another
reached, and the frequency of seeing or hearing the
channel might well be considered reasonably suc-
message also affect the efficacy of both on-air and
cessful, whereas the same show in a less challenging
print promotion. Program promotion is constantly
location would be expected to perform much better
manipulated in the struggle to gain and hold ratings.
in the ratings. Consider, for example, the inherent
difficulty of trying to target men viewers (on net-
Evaluation works other than the one with Monday Night Foot-
Programmers must constantly appraise programs ball) on Monday nights during football season.
using ratings, hits or other measures, interpreted by In addition, the programmers’ specific assump-
the honed instincts and experience of the programmer. tions about an audience’s behavior and viewing or
Here, evaluation refers to the ongoing interpretation listening motivations affect how programs are
of quantitative information and qualitative judgments selected, scheduled and promoted. In one town, for
that results in revisions of show selections, changes in example, workers start and end their jobs early,
the scheduling of already selected programs, and mod- making afternoons a good time to program to
ifications in their promotion. One important result of them, whereas in another town, companies have var-
increased competition from cable and new broadcast
networks, as well as from the internet, has been to
drive the process of programming into constant flux. 1.16 Evaluation Factors

1.15 Promotion Factors

ce levels
Toleran Au
Clu di
tte ity en
r iliar ce
es

Fam
sh
yl

ar
st

e
n
sig

Promotion
De

Evaluation
s

Dis
nd

Tec
on tan
tre

ati ce hn
olo
e

c
Lo
nr

gy
Ge
Co
cy

nst
en

lue
Stock va
ruc
qu

tio
Fre

Reprinted by permission of Milton Hamburger. Reprinted by permission of Milton Hamburger.

 CHAPTER 1 A Scaffold for Programmers 27

ied schedules, lessening impact on the number of radio stations. Other factors that programmers must
available afternoon viewers. Consider how complex constantly scope out are the trends in popularity of
programming would be in a country where the peo- particular program genres, fads in star performers,
ple speak not just one or two but 11 different lan- styles in design and sound effects, and so on. The pro-
guages (see 1.17 for a description of television in grammer’s nearly unconscious awareness of what is
South Africa today). going to become popular and his or her ability to cap-
Programmers’ understanding of the impact and ture it in programming decisions comprise much of
use of the newest technologies is also vital. Smart what is meant by the creative side of programming.
phones and tablets, as well as DVRs, have much Although some critics have decried the constant
affected the processes of program selection and changes in television program lineups in the last dec-
scheduling, and the growth of online music listening ades, industry experience suggests that ongoing
has altered the strategies of traditional broadcast change is essential. Programmers tend to assume
that audiences—especially the highly desirable
young adults—are fickle, have short attention
1.17 Television in Many Languages spans, become easily bored, follow fads, and find

W
other forms of entertainment. It may be that many
program ideas (and songs) wear out and become
ith a population of just 46 million people, South
stale more rapidly than in the past, partly resulting
Africa has only five national television channels
from clones, reruns, repeat plays of music, or web
and no regional channels. Of these five, the South African
chat about a series or song. It may be that perfor-
Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), similar to the BBC in
mers peak for a shorter time than in the past as a
Britain and the CBC in Canada, programs and distributes
three channels nationwide. These channels have to serve
result of constant media attention. It may also be
a population that speaks 11 different languages, and that programmers perceive their careers to depend
although much of the audience is bi- or multilingual, a on identifying and eliminating tiny flaws in program
large proportion does not understand English. lineups and formats. Whatever the reason, ongoing
Most of SABC’s programs are nonetheless in English, feedback from the evaluation process is a critical
including such American daytime and prime-time shows component of the programming process.
as Oprah, The District, and The Bold and the Beautiful. In sum, the basic model of selection, scheduling,
South African–made “soapies” and mini-dramas are also promotion, and evaluation guides the approaches to
very popular. Within these shows, programmers mix specific programming situations that appear in sub-
languages and also use English subtitling to overcome sequent chapters of this book. Collectively, the main
the language problem. To serve educational and politi- model and its parts (1.12 to 1.16) illustrate some
cal needs, national and international news is broadcast major components of the programming process
in 7 of the 11 languages at various times and on differ- that vary in the strategies for specific situations.
ent channels. As you might imagine, scheduling These strategies, as well as the commonplace prac-
becomes an enormous challenge! tices of programming—and the magical creative ele-
The two competing (non-SABC) channels in South ment—are the topics of this book.
Africa broadcast only in English, although one of them,
e-tv, presently attracts the second-largest audience in the
country. The other is a subscription (pay) movie channel. External Influences on
All five of South Africa’s television channels carry
advertisements.
Programmers
Daan van Vuuren Beyond learning the nuts-and-bolts programming
Former Director of Audience Research SABC, South Africa framework, the novice programmer must deal with
Reprinted by kind permission of Linda van Vuuren. strong external pressures that powerfully—at times—
affect decision making, for good or ill. Five sets of
28 PART ONE Introduction to Programming

influences are outlined briefly in the following sections. Another huge technological influence is the
Because the distribution system influences the kinds of inevitable creeping convergence of computers, tele-
programming chosen, technological issues are consid- phones and television. There is little doubt that the
ered first. Without money (economic influences), of various media have begun to come together in and
course, there can be no widespread development of out of the home. For example, the merging of per-
new technologies. From economics flows some kind sonal communication assistants (Palm Pilots, Black-
of structure, creating ownership influences. Whenever Berrys, Treos and their clones, best known by the
corporations and economies get in the way of individ- older name of PDAs) with cell phones and tablets
ual rights, governments create regulatory influences. and Wi-Fi internet access signaled the arrival of por-
Finally, this chapter discusses what is morally right table web/television (see Chapter 4). Surprisingly,
about the work of a programmer (ethical influences). convergence came to handheld devices before it
For example, does the end (ratings success) justify the fully arrived in living rooms!
means (pandering to fickle viewers)?

Economic Influences
Technological Influences There is a saying in business: “Good, fast, cheap—
The long-term effect of media digitization has been to choose two.” The idea that quality, speed and price
lessen station dependence on traditional national cannot all occur at the same time is also true for pro-
networks for television and radio programming, gramming. If most programming is like cheap fast
both as sources of original material and of off- food, then we should not be surprised that the quality
network syndicated material; indeed, it tends also to is not high. The cost of extremely well-executed pro-
reduce the number of local stations (see Chapter 8). gramming is high, and only two or three new TV
The development of HD dramatically affected view- series survive through a second season or longer (see
ers’ choice of channels, and 3D is next. Although 3D Chapter 2). Each year, program development costs
is attracting top-notch production talent, relatively hundreds of millions of dollars. In other businesses
little makes it all the way to home television receivers it is known as Research and Development. In televi-
as yet. The newest portables can display entire televi- sion it is called failure, or futility, or a wasteland.
sion broadcasts, and some run on solar power. The The high failure rate of television programs
broadcast networks may be the biggest guys on the attracts constant attention in newspapers and maga-
block, but they find themselves less able to invest in zines and in TV news and talk shows like Entertain-
high-cost series programming because of the audi- ment Tonight, but when television shows are
ence’s shift to watching cable networks, playing compared to other sources of entertainment, such
back rented and purchased DVDs and downloads, as movies, books and Broadway plays, the TV fail-
and playing games on the internet for long hours. ure rate does not seem so serious. The kinds of pro-
Contributing to this audience erosion is the grams prevalent at any given time can be directly
increased difficulty of persuading affiliates to clear all linked to economics. Some programs can be pro-
requested time for network schedules. At one time the duced cheaply: soaps, game shows, talk shows, real-
networks had considerable leverage over affiliates ity formats and tabloid news. In each case, there is
because the networks leased the coaxial-microwave little expense involved because there is no need for
relays that were the sole real-time program distribution top-name stars or sophisticated writing. These
system. Clearances of network programs were virtually shows may not win many awards, but they create
automatic then. Now, however, satellites give affiliates audience demand without incurring huge costs.
many alternate sources of instantaneous delivery at rea- Economic pressures also include the cost of wait-
sonable cost. All this encourages the emergence of new ing for a show to “grow” into its time slot. Consider-
program providers. Nonnetwork group owners play a able lore has evolved about several programs that had
prominent role among them. early low ratings and might never have become
 CHAPTER 1 A Scaffold for Programmers 29

successful but that were, for various reasons, allowed parent corporation. As Chapter 2 explains, to boost
to stay on the networks’ schedules despite their rat- profits, when networks have a strong show, they give
ings. Some shows seem to need incubation time to it their best time slot. When they have a strong show
“find an audience.” Amazing Grace was such a in a weak time slot, they often sell it to others (as
series, almost getting cancelled several times before Warner Brothers did with Friends to NBC). If a
rising in the ratings in the fifth year. Some program time slot is strong but the owned show is weak, the
producers feel that the audience never gets a chance network normally tries to buy better programs from
to discover some shows because cancellations come others. If both the show and the time slot are weak,
too quickly because so many millions of dollars are at then the network should recycle its own library (old
stake. movies) or buy cheap reality shows.
In addition, a situation can arise where a show Ownership also directly affects programmers
is canceled even when it finishes among the top at the lower levels of the hierarchy. Nowadays,
shows for the week. Anyone who remembers The nearly all broadcast stations and cable systems
Single Guy or Jesse will realize that some successful belong to companies that own far more than one
shows owe most of their success to the preceding station or system. The profitability of broadcast
program. If the lead-in show has a huge audience, and cable investments attracts corporate buyers,
even a precipitous falloff can leave a strong audience who gain important economies of scale from mul-
share for the weaker following program, but pro- tiple ownership. Because they can buy centrally in
grammers want shows that maintain or build the large quantities, they can get reduced prices for
audience shares from the preceding shows. As Chap- many kinds of purchases, including programs. Cur-
ter 2 explains, programs that “drop share” are can- rent Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
celed, regardless of seemingly high rankings. and Justice Department policies encourage the for-
mation of multimedia companies and very large,
diversified conglomerates, making group owner-
Ownership Influences ship the pattern of the industry. Although the failed
To function in media programming, it is necessary to merger between AOL and Time Warner was the
know who the major players are. The six media first signal of the web’s to major-player stakes,
giants in 1.18 are the companies that have enormous now Google and Facebook loom over the entire
interests throughout broadcasting, cable and the industry. And although AT&T owns only cable
internet. The major commercial television studios systems and phone lines, its executives ponder con-
and producers appear in 1.19. As these charts show, tent ownership, for sure.
these big companies own powerful media interests In broadcasting, the owner of two or more sta-
and combine production, distribution and exhibition tions within a given type (AM, FM, TV) is called a
of programs—the condition called vertical integ- group owner, while in cable television the owner of
ration. The expansion of these mega-corporations three or more cable systems is called a multiple sys-
into all aspects of media was an outcome of the repeal tem operator (MSO). To group MSOs with satellite
of the financial interest and network syndication rules and telephone companies that deliver television, the
(Fin-Syn). broader term multichannel video programming dis-
Because much of media content is produced by tributor (MVPD) applies. About three-quarters of
network-run or network-owned studios, program- the nearly 1,300 commercial American television
mers must make difficult choices among competing stations are under group control (one-third are con-
company interests when acquiring shows. Enhancing trolled by the top 25 groups), and big groups control
the parent corporation’s stock market value usually about three-quarters of the 12,000 U.S. radio sta-
outweighs the importance of higher ratings on a par- tions. In cable, the percentage of systems is even
ticular channel, and executives at the highest levels higher, with more than 90 percent owned by an
are generally focused on maximizing revenue to the MVPD.
30 PART ONE Introduction to Programming

1.18 The Players

 CHAPTER 1 A Scaffold for Programmers 31

1.19 The Producers

T he veteran movie and television producers were tradi-

tionally the Big Seven studios of the Hollywood enter-
tainment motion picture industry until Sony bought MGM-
Federal Communications Commission in 2003 to require
that the broadcast networks buy 25 percent of their content
from independent producers. Instead, now the networks
UA in 2004 (reducing the seven to six). Currently, the have some kind of ownership in 100 percent of what they
Big Six studios are Sony (Columbia TriStar, MGM), Walt air, at least in prime time. Moreover, the five major
Disney Studios (Buena Vista, Miramax, Touchstone), Para- networks now require company ownership in all that their
mount (CBS), 20th Century Fox (News Corp.), NBCUni- O&Os buy in the syndication marketplace. This may be full
versal, and Warner Brothers (CW)—though many would or partial participation, but as you can imagine, the eco-
focus on the main four: Columbia TriStar, NBCUniversal, nomics of independent production are no longer
20th Century Fox, and Paramount. “independent.”
In addition, the independent production houses make This pie-splitting situation has driven buyouts and mer-
Hollywood their base of operations. Among independent gers and will soon kill off some production companies…if it
producers, Wolf Films, Carsey-Werner-Mandabach, hasn’t already. As examples, consider the independent
WorldWide Pants, David E. Kelley and Steven Bochco producers listed above. As of 2010, Wolf Films’ television
used to be regular and prolific producers for the networks arm was officially “associated” with NBCUniversal, as was
and the syndication market. But independents are increas- WorldWide Pants. David E. Kelley now does not do pro-
ingly being acquired by large studios, as when New World duction on his own, instead working mainly for FOX or
bought Stephen Cannell Productions, Viacom purchased ABC. Steven Bochco, while still listed as an independent
DreamWorks, King World Productions went to CBS after its producer, no longer has any dealings with broadcasting.
split-up from Viacom, and Witt/Thomas Productions was Witt/Thomas, a company that can trace its history back to
taken over by Warner Brothers. Not much is left. the beginnings of television in the 1950s, has been taken
Consider the prime-time lineup in 2003–04. According over by Warner Brothers. Like Steven Bochco, Carsey-
to the Coalition for Program Diversity, that season CBS Werner-Mandabach refused to sell and found its television
owned 98 percent of its programming. FOX owned 80
market dried up. It no longer exists.
percent, ABC owned over 70 percent, and NBCUniversal
owned nearly 60 percent of prime-time programming. The William J. Adams, Ph.D.
Coalition for Program Diversity unsuccessfully lobbied the Kansas State University

Group ownership of the right stations in the Each of the Big Four television networks and
right markets can be remarkably profitable. ABC, CW (jointly owned by CBS and Time Warner) now
CBS, FOX and NBC’s owned-and-operated stations has about 200 affiliates and owned stations. MyNet-
(O&Os) constitute the most prominent group- workTV (MNTV) has about 165 affiliates, and Tel-
owned constellations. The O&Os of just ABC, emundo (owned by NBC) has about 145, while ION
CBS, FOX or NBC in the top three markets— (formerly Pax) had somewhat less reach at about
WABC, WCBS, WNYW and WNBC in New York; 100 affiliates and soon became a syndicator rather
KABC, KCBS, KTTV and KNBC in Los Angeles; than a network.
WLS, WBBM, WFLD and WMAQ in Chicago— Perhaps surprisingly, although it is the fifth
gross more revenue than any other groups. FOX, strongest network overall in ratings, Univision has
currently with the largest potential television reach, just about 50 affiliates, as does its owned co-
is owned by Rupert Murdoch, the international network, TeleFutura (see Chapters 2 and 7). In
media magnate (see 1.20). those 50 markets, Univision’s ratings often exceed
32 PART ONE Introduction to Programming

1.20 Rupert Murdoch and News Corp.*

N ews Corp. (which might easily be called the FOX

Empire) is a giant among giants. Its annual revenue is
nearly $35 billion, making News Corp. the third largest
■ Newspaper and information holdings include The
Wall Street Journal (in America and Asia), the Dow
Jones Newswires, The Times and The Sun in Europe,
entertainment media conglomerate in America, barely and almost 150 titles in Australia.
behind only the Walt Disney Company (approximately ■ The company owns HarperCollins Publishers in the
$40 billion) and Comcast NBCUniversal (estimated western English-speaking world (U.S., Canada,
$65 billion combined in January 2011, and yes, Europe, New Zealand, Australia), and 40 percent of
NBCUniversal is now one word). HarperCollins India.
News Corporation’s holdings are vast. The annual ■ Digital media holdings include MySpace.com and the
report shows divisions in countries around the world for websites for all Fox shows (e.g., AmericanIdol.com,
filmed entertainment, television, cable network program- TheSimpsons.com).
ming, direct broadcast satellite television, newspapers and ■ News Corp. even owns 32 percent of Hulu and
information services, integrated marketing services, book 50 percent of the National Rugby League in Australia
publishing and more. A sampling of media properties illus- and New Zealand. (It once owned the Los Angeles
trates how vast the Fox Empire is. Dodgers, too.)
■ It owns all things 20th Century Fox, including film and The “fox” who controls this vast media empire is Rupert
television studios and distribution, music recording
Murdoch (born Keith Rupert Murdoch on March 11, 1931),
and publishing, product licensing and merchandising,
an Australian turned naturalized American (in 1985) who
Fox Searchlight Pictures and more.
began his media career with one newspaper in Adelaide.
■ It operates all things FOX, including broadcast and
Like all hugely successful moguls, Murdoch receives frequent
cable networks, which cover the Fox Broadcasting
criticism. A large scandal rocked his empire in the summer of
Company—one of the “Big Four” networks along with
2011 when one of his British publications, News of the
ABC, CBS and NBC in America—plus MyNetworkTV,
World, was implicated for illegally obtaining information
FoxSports, 27 owned-and-operated TV stations, many
other Fox channels around the world, Fox News, FX, and invading privacy, including bribing and phone hacking.
Fox Movie Channel, Speed, Fuel TV, FSN, a number The allegation that tipped the scale was hacking into the
of sports programs and networks globally, the STAR voice mail of murdered teenager Milly Dowler, possibly
channels in Asia, Sky Italia in Europe, 39 percent of deleting messages and leading her parents to think she was
British Sky Broadcasting, various percentages of the still alive. The tabloid closed its doors, publishing its last
National Geographic channels globally and more. issue on July 10, 2011. Soon after, News Corp. dropped

those of all other networks. Of course, how big each broadcast group owners generally employ a head-
station’s market is determines how many people can quarters executive to oversee and coordinate pro-
see the broadcasts, although cable channels spread gramming functions at owned stations with varying
reach even further. Some of the advantages and dis- degrees of decentralization.
advantages of group ownership are spelled out in As for cable, the days of adding and swapping
1.21. bunches of new systems has largely passed. The
Because broadcast stations have a legal obliga- largest MSOs focus instead on competing with
tion to serve their specific communities of license, phone companies such as AT&T and Verison (its
group owners must necessarily give their outlets a FiOS service supplies video; see Chapter 3). Systems
certain amount of latitude in programming deci- tend to create geographically close groupings, thus
sions, especially decisions that affect obligations to generating savings in management. Some MSOs
serve local community interests. Beyond that, have given slightly more autonomy to their local
 CHAPTER 1 A Scaffold for Programmers 33

its $12 billion bid to acquire the remaining shares of “a catalyst for change” in media. One implication is that,
British Sky Broadcasting. Rupert and his son, James, were while a few people always condemn new ideas, the suc-
called to testify before a British Parliamentary Committee cess of his enterprises demonstrates that hundreds of mil-
regarding the allegations. Murdoch denied responsibility lions want to buy his programs, services and publications.
for what happened, arguing that the decisions were made Another implication is that his successes have forced others
by those he trusted. However, he did say he was in the media business to change, too… and perhaps not
“shocked, appalled, and shamed” at what had happened, always for the better.
apologizing in an advertisement “for the serious wrongdoing
that occurred.” At the company’s annual shareholders’
meeting in Los Angeles on October 21, 2011, some
called for his ouster, but Rupert and his sons James and
Lachlan survived the vote, retaining control of the media
empire.
The scandal caused many in America to question, once
again, the rightness of behemoth media conglomerates.
Can Fox news reporters and journalists from News Corp.’s
many other print and electronic media be objective in
reporting on the man who has the power to fire them? How
can reporters be removed far enough from managers to
operate independently, or can they? What do you think
about media consolidation in light of the News Corp.
scandal?
In addition to the phone hacking charges, other criticism Photo of Rupert Murdoch at the World Economic Forum, January
is aimed at Murdoch, too. For example, while some of the 26, 2007, used by permission under the Creative Commons
programs on FOX television are applauded for their wit and Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license, courtesy of the World
Economic Forum. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rupert_
innovation, such as The Simpsons and House, others are
Murdoch_-_WEF_Davos_2007.jpg.
derided for their debauchery and meanness, such as Family
Edward J. Fink, Ph.D.
Guy and Hell’s Kitchen. No one can argue, though, that California State University, Fullerton
FOX network has spawned some megahits, such as Amer-
ican Idol and Glee. Murdoch has often claimed that he is *Columbia Journalism Review (www.cjr.org/resources/).

managers as they try to trim headquarters’ budgets Executives concerned with programming, like
to reduce overhead. Nevertheless, cable group own- those in every other aspect of broadcasting, cable,
ers tend to centralize programming more than and new media, constantly need to update their
broadcasting groups do because cable has no special knowledge of the rapidly evolving field and the rap-
local responsibilities under federal law (as does idly increasing competition. The electronic trade press
broadcasting). Programming in the case of cable sys- provides constant updates, but even more important
tems refers to what networks they carry, although are the many trade and professional associations that
many of the largest MSOs also own several cable provide personal meetings, demonstrations, exhibits,
program networks, so they also produce programs seminars, and publications. Dozens of such associa-
and have a vested interest in distributing them to tions bring practitioners together at conferences on
all the markets they reach, irrespective of local every conceivable aspect of the media, all of which
preferences. touch on programming in one way or another—
34 PART ONE Introduction to Programming

1.21 Group Ownership

T he main programming advantages of group owner-

ship are the cost savings in program purchases,
equipment buys (such as computers, servers, and cameras),
group has no immediate need but which it would like to
keep out of the hands of the competition by holding
them on the shelf until useful later. Also, group execu-
and service charges (such as by reps and consultants) that tives have bird’s-eye views of the national market that
accrue from buying at wholesale, so to speak. Insofar as sometimes give them advance information, enabling
groups produce their own programs, they also save them to bid on new programs before the competition
because production costs can be divided among the sev- even knows of their availability. For their part, producers
eral stations in the group—a kind of built-in syndication often minimize the risk of investing in new series by
factor. Moreover, group-produced programs increasingly delaying the start of production until at least one major
are offered for sale to other stations in the general syndi- group owner has made an advance commitment to buy
cation market, constituting an added source of income for a series. Many promising program proposals for first-run
the group owners. access time languish on the drawing boards for lack of
Group buys often give the member stations first crack an advance commitment to purchase.
at newly released syndicated programming as well as a The stations in the top four markets that are owned and
lower cost-per-station. Distributors of syndicated pro- operated by the national television networks exercise
grams can afford such discounts because it costs them extraordinary power by virtue of their group-owned status.
less in overhead to make a sale to a single headquarters Each such O&O group reaches about two-fifths of the entire
than to deal individually with many stations (see Chapter U.S. population of television households, making their col-
6 on Syndication). A large group can deliver millions of lective decisions to buy syndicated programs crucial to the
households in a single sale. Large group owners can success of such programs. Thus, these few group-owned
also afford a type of negative competition called ware- stations influence national programming trends for the entire
housing. This refers to the practice of snapping up syndicated program market. So important to the success of
desirable syndicated program offerings for which the programs is their exposure in the top markets that some

conferences on advertising, copyright, education, owned content and from charging fees for giving
engineering, digital media, finance, law, management, priority to certain signals on the internet. This dis-
marketing, music, news, production, programs, pro- agreement pits giant broadband companies as Com-
motion, research, satellites and telephone, to name cast, Google, Verison, AT&T and Time Warner
just some. against those who favor treating the internet like
Licensing groups provide the legal and eco- telephone lines, where all comers get free and equal
nomic environment that ensures that artists get treatment. The pivotal issue might be called “pay to
paid royalties for their works. The best-known of play,” meaning that distributors are likely to give
these associations, organizations and groups are favored treatment to companies that pay the most
listed in 1.22, with more about the most important (see Chapter 4).
of all associations to programmers—the National Broadcast radio and television, more than most
Association of Television Program Executives other kinds of businesses, must live within con-
(NATPE)—in 1.23. straints imposed by national, state and local statutes
and administrative boards. Moreover, public opin-
Regulatory Influences ion imposes its own limitations, even in the absence
The hottest topic in media regulation is net neutral- of government regulation. The trend to “let the mar-
ity, the idea that FCC should develop rules prevent- ketplace decide” led to enormous media conglomer-
ing broadband companies from favoring their ates and limited government involvement. Only a
 CHAPTER 1 A Scaffold for Programmers 35

syndication companies offer special inducements to get The big cable and telephone system owners (MVPDs)
their wares on the prestigious prime access slots on network have many of the same advantages as broadcast groups,
O&O stations. These inducements can take the form of however. Cable systems normally obtain licenses to carry
attractively structured barter syndication deals or cash pay- entire channels of cable programming rather than individ-
ments to ensure carriage. The latter type of deal, known as ual programs or program series (see Chapters 3 and 9).
a compensation incentive, occurs primarily in New York, Thus, major MVPDs, negotiating on behalf of hundreds of
the country’s premier market. local cable or phone systems and tens of thousands of
Although O&O stations remain legally responsible for subscribers, gain enormous leverage over program suppli-
serving their individual local markets, they naturally also ers. Indeed, a cable network’s very survival depends upon
reflect the common goals and interests of their networks. As signing up one or more of the largest MVPDs.
an example of a rather subtle network influence, consider Group headquarters programmers and their sometimes
the choice of the prime access program that serves as a extensive staffs impose an additional layer of bureaucracy
lead-off to the network’s evening schedule. An ordinary that tends to slow local decision making. Local program
affiliate (that is, one bound to its network only by contract executives know their local markets best and can adapt
rather than by the ties of ownership; see Chapter 8) can programming strategies to specific needs and conditions. A
feel free to choose a program that serves its own best group-acquired TV program may be well suited to a large
interests as a station. An O&O station, however, must market but will not necessarily meet the needs of a small-
choose a lead-in advantageous to the network program market member of the group. When a huge MVPD such as
that follows, irrespective of its advantage to the station. Comcast makes a purchase for hundreds of different sys-
O&O stations also must take great care in choosing and tems, not every system will find the choice adapted ideally
producing programs to protect the group image, especially to its needs. Group ownership imposes some inflexibility as
in New York, where they live next door to company the price of its economies of scale.
headquarters.

few rules remain that programmers must know to managers continue to adhere to the basic fairness
avoid possible violations within their jurisdictions. concepts as a matter of station policy. Day-to-day
enforcement of such rules and policies devolves
largely on the production staff in the course of opera-
Fairness and Equal Opportunity tions, but programmers often articulate station poli-
Both broadcast stations and local cable-originated cies regarding balance and stipulate compliance
programming must observe the rules governing routines. Fairness looms large in talk radio and talk
both the appearances of candidates for political television because the talk so often deals with contro-
office (equal time) and station editorials. The versial topics.
equal-time rule for political candidates demands
that broadcasters and cable access channels (not
cable or satellite operators) provide equal opportu- Monopoly
nities for federal candidates, effectively preventing Traditionally, various rules have limited concentra-
entertainers and news personnel from running for tions of media ownership, all of them aimed at
office while still remaining on their programs. ensuring diversity of information sources—in keep-
Although the FCC has formally abandoned its ing with implicit First Amendment goals—although
specific Fairness Doctrine concerning discussion of the recent trend has been to loosen the rules. None-
controversial issues of local importance, many theless, group owners of broadcast stations are
36 PART ONE Introduction to Programming

1.22 The Associations

H ere is a list of important organizations, along with

the home page listings (when available) for the
World Wide Web.
Music Licensing Groups
American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers
(ASCAP): www.ascap.com
Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI): www.bmi.com
Major Industry Trade Associations SESAC: www.sesac.com
National Association of Broadcasters (NAB): www.nab.org
National Cable & Telecommunications Association
(NCTA): www.ncta.com Technical Societies
Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA): Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers
www.rtnda.org (SMPTE): www.smpte.org
Writers Guild of America—West & East (WGAW & Society of Broadcast Engineers: www.sbe.org
WGAE): http://wga.org & www.wgaeast.org International Radio & Television Society (IRTS): www.irts.
Independent Film Association (IFTA): www.ifta-online.org org
Visual Effects Society (represents special effects artists):
Programming Organizations www.visualeffectssociety.com
National Association of Television Program Executives International Association for Radio, Telecommunications
(NATPE): www.natpe.org and Electromagnetics (NARTE): www.narte.org
MIPTV: www.miptv.com
National Federation of Community Broadcasters (NFCB):
www.nfcb.org Marketing and Sales Organizations
Alliance for Community Media (ACM): www.alliancecm. Television Bureau of Advertising (TVB): www.tvb.org
org Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB): www.rab.com
Media Communications Association International (MCAI), Syndicated Network Television Association (SNTA):
formerly the Independent Television Association: www.snta.org
www.mca-i.org Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau (CAB): www.
Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP): onetvworld.org
www.aicp.com Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing
Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (CTAM): www.ctam.com
(AMPTP): www.amptp.org Promax: www.promax.tv

particularly sensitive to regulatory compliance in

of telephone, internet connection and satellite
this area because they have a high financial stake
television channels in some communities. Now
in compliance and, of course, are conspicuous tar-
Comcast’s XFinity, AT&T’s U-Verse and Verizon’s
gets susceptible to monopoly charges.
FiOS battle head to head for subscribers in many
For many years, cable franchises were regarded
large markets.
as “natural monopolies,” because it seemed uneco-
nomic to duplicate cable installations (overbuilds).
Telephone companies, however, have stepped into
this breach. Upgrading existing telephone lines to
Localism
fiber permitted digital broadband delivery (called The FCC traditionally nudged broadcasters toward
DSL), starting the trend for phone companies to a modicum of localism in their program mixes, and
compete for cable consumers by offering packages expected licensees to find out about local problems
 CHAPTER 1 A Scaffold for Programmers 37

1.23 National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE)

W hen television programmers formed their own pro-

fessional organization in 1962, they called them-
selves the National Association of Television Program
executives, offering a huge array of feature films (singly and
in packages), made-for-TV movies, off-network series, first-
run series, specials, miniseries, documentaries, docudra-
Executives (NATPE)—tacitly acknowledging that member- mas, news services, game shows, cartoons, variety shows,
ship would be dominated by general managers and other soap operas, sports shows, concerts, talk shows and so on.
executives who play more important programming roles Trade publications carry lists of exhibitors and their offerings
than those specifically designated as programmers. at the time of the conventions. (Chapter 6 gives a
Although programmers may track the performance of pro- selection of syndicators along with examples of their
grams and come up with the ideas for new purchases, the offerings.) At the same time, the largest portion of sessions
executives are the ones who authorize the money—and at recent NATPE conferences has been dedicated to the
make no mistake, programs are enormously expensive, new media, but the attendees were largely new-media
running into the tens and hundreds of millions in large
companies and content producers seeking ideas about
markets just to rerun off-network hits.
how to gain distribution.
The broadcast station programming team usually con-
One industry source estimated that 90 percent of
sists of the general manager, sales manager and program
NATPE attendees continued to be focused on the traditional
manager. In cable organizations, the executive in charge
buying and selling of programs, while 10 percent were
of marketing plays a key management role and may have
focused on the new media. Europe has a similar annual
the most influence on programming decisions. In recent
program trade fair, MIPTV. Formerly at that fair, the flow of
years, the role of program manager at many network affili-
commercial syndicated programming between the United
ates has diminished as higher-level staff members frequently
States and other countries ran almost exclusively from the
make programming decisions.
Syndicators put programs on display nationally and United States.
internationally at a number of annual meetings and trade Public broadcasting first whetted American viewers’
shows. For showcases, they rely especially on the annual appetites for foreign programs. And with such specialized
conventions of NATPE and the National Cable Television cable services as the Discovery Channel, featuring foreign
Association (NCTA) held each spring. Starting in 2003, documentaries, and Bravo, with foreign dramatic offerings,
NATPE faced some competition from the Syndicated Net- as well as AZN Television’s Asian programs, and Univi-
work Television Association (SNTA), which meets in New sion’s Mexican and Spanish programs, the international
York in conjunction with the Association of National flow has become somewhat more reciprocal, although the
Advertisers (ANA) that every year holds its well-regarded United States is still much more often an exporter than an
Television Advertising Forum. importer. Just as at the NATPE conventions, there is great
At the annual NATPE conventions, hundreds of syndi- interest at the MIPTV trade fair in innovation and new digi-
cators fight for the attention of television programming tal media.

in a station’s service area and to offer programs fundamentally in their programming outlook from
dealing with those problems. In licensing and license traditional broadcast programmers.
renewals, the FCC gives preferential points for local Nonetheless, increased competition for audi-
ownership, owner participation in management and ences now drives local broadcasters and cable opera-
program plans tailored to local needs. However, tors toward increased localism. In many cases,
localism seems to be getting less and less emphasis. localism has boosted the financial return for those
Moreover, cable operators are not licensed by the stations with a long, honorable history of commu-
FCC and so have no such federal public-interest nity orientation. It is good business to serve the com-
mandate, and as a result, cable programmers differ munity, not merely a requirement. On the other
38 PART ONE Introduction to Programming

hand, economic forces lead to giant corporations for Copyright Royalty Tribunal for distribution (mostly
whom localism gets more lip service than action. to sports rights holders).
The Cable Act of 1992 went further and insisted
that cable systems receive retransmission consent
Copyright from broadcast stations for their signals, which led
With the exceptions of news, public-affairs and local some to believe that cable operators would finally
productions, all owned programs entail the payment pay broadcasters for retransmission. The issue
of royalties to copyright owners—whether broad- seemed largely resolved when most affiliates of
cast, carried by cable, or distributed over the inter- major television networks made deals with cable
net. (Of course, user-supplied content such as on operators for a second local cable channel in lieu
YouTube only necessitates royalty payments when of cash payment.
replayed on commercial services.) Programmers In 2007, however, several small cable operators
should understand how the copyright royalty system agreed to pay the CBS network a per-subscriber fee
works, how users of copyrighted material negotiate (cable compensation) for the right to carry its pro-
licenses from distributors to use such material, and gramming, a break-through for broadcasters.
what limitations on program use the copyright law Although the initial amount was small (about $.50
entails. per subscriber), the deal set a new precedent in
Broadcast stations and networks usually obtain cable/broadcast relations that gave broadcasters
blanket licenses for music from copyright licensing leverage in eventually gaining a second revenue
organizations, which give licensees the right to unlim- stream (in addition to advertising), something long
ited plays of all the music in their catalogs (in pro- desired by broadcasters and, until then, adamantly
grams, promos or song play). For the rights to refused by cable operators (more on this topic in
individual programs and films, users usually obtain Chapter 3). Nowadays, periodic battles erupt
licenses authorizing a limited number of performances between broadcasters and cable MVPDs, threaten-
(plays) over a stipulated time period. One of the pro- ing the loss of favorite programs or, horrors, a foot-
grammer’s arts is to schedule the repeat plays at stra- ball game in one or another market until negotiated
tegic intervals to get the best mileage possible out of settlements are is reached. Chapter 2 deals more
the product. with this hot topic. The hungrier broadcasters get,
Stations and networks obtain licenses for the the more they become anxious to share the sub-
materials they broadcast, with fees calculated on scriber dollars going to MVPDs.
the basis of their over-the-air coverage, but cable A related copyright matter, the syndicated
television systems have introduced a new and exclusivity rule, often called syndex, gives television
exceedingly controversial element into copyright stations local protection from the competition of
licensing. Importation of distant signals have signals from distant stations (notably superstations)
stretched the original single-market program license imported by cable systems. The rule is based on the
to include hundreds of unrelated markets all across long-held principle that a station licensed to broad-
the country—to the obvious detriment of copyright cast a given syndicated program has normally paid
owners (the producers), the ones who stand to make for exclusive rights to broadcast that program
money from the reuse of their programs. The Copy- within its established market area. Satellite retrans-
right Law of 1976 took at stab at solving this prob- mission of certain stations (the half-dozen supersta-
lem by introducing the compulsory licensing of cable tions) undermines this market-specific definition of
companies that retransmit television station signals. licensing and divides audiences. The rule requires
It provided retransmission compensation to the cable systems to black out imported programs
copyright owners in the form of a percentage of that duplicate the same programs broadcast locally.
cable companies’ revenues that went directly to the Most syndicators avoid selling their shows to
 CHAPTER 1 A Scaffold for Programmers 39

superstations in order to make the shows raunchy talk-radio hosts (shock jocks), the FCC
“syndex-proof.” has repeatedly advised broadcasters that censorable
indecent language could include anything that
“depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as
Lotteries, Fraud, Obscenity, Indecency measured by contemporary community standards
Federal laws generally forbid lotteries, fraud and for the broadcast medium, sexual and excretory
obscenity, and laws regarding them apply to locally activities or organs.” Raunchy radio content from
originated cable as well as to broadcast programs. Howard Stern led the FCC to levy a $1.7 million
Conducting gaming and cheating audiences are defi- fine on his syndicator (see Chapter 12), eventually
nitely forbidden activities, and the fines are prohibi- driving Stern to unregulated satellite radio. The
tive. Shows that feature state-run lotteries, however, increase in number and size of indecency fines that
are an exception to the rule. If a state says stations started in 2004 hastened the migration of most adult
can air the state lottery, the FCC doesn’t care, but radio programming to Sirius XM. By the late 2000s,
stations cannot run their own lotteries to make pressure on stations to excise certain indecent words
money. Programmers also need to be aware of from programming seemed ironic—given that the
special Communications Act provisions regarding U.S. president and other elected officials had pub-
fraudulent contests, plugola and payola (see Chap- licly used some of them.
ters 11 and 12). Moreover, the FCC has designated late night as
Indecency, a specialized interpretation of a safe harbor on television and radio for adult mate-
obscenity laws, appears to apply only to broadcast- rial. It is noteworthy that in this designation the
ing. The 1984 Cable Act sets specific penalties for commission used the words for the broadcast
transmitting “any matter which is obscene or other- medium, implying that broadcasting should be trea-
wise not protected by the Constitution” (Section ted differently from other media, a concept out of
639), but subsequent Supreme Court decisions keeping with much FCC-sponsored deregulation.
affirmed that cable operators qualify for First Thus, cable networks feel free to schedule dramas
Amendment protection of their speech freedom, as at 7 or 8 P.M. that most broadcasters would only
does the internet. This puts on those alleging obscen- air at 10 P.M.
ity the heavy burden of proving the unconstitution-
ality of material to which they object; in fact, several
court decisions have overthrown too-inclusive Libel
obscenity provisions in municipal franchises. In News, public-affairs programs, and radio talk shows
practice, MVPDs have greater freedom to offend in particular run the risk of inviting libel suits.
the sensibilities of their more straitlaced viewers Because of their watchdog role and the protection
than do broadcasters, whose wider reach and depen- afforded them by the First Amendment, the media
dence on the “public airwaves” (electromagnetic enjoy immunity from punishment for libel resulting
spectrum) make them more vulnerable to public from honest errors in reporting and commentary on
pressure. For some years, Congress has shown public figures. Unlike on the internet, broadcasters
signs of tightening the restrictions on cable, includ- must take due care, however, to avoid giving rise
ing restrictions on nudity. to charges of malice or “reckless disregard for the
In a 1987 ruling, the FCC broadened the previ- truth.”
ous definition of prohibited words in broadcasting Though the media traditionally had won most
to cover indecency. That definition had been based libel cases brought against them, by the early 1990s
on a 1973 case involving the notorious “seven dirty this trend had been reversed, and juries awarded
words” used by comedian George Carlin in a huge fines. Moreover, win or lose, it costs megadol-
recorded comedy routine broadcast by WBAI-FM lars to defend cases in court. Managers responsible
in New York. Responding to complaints about for news departments and radio talk shows need to
40 PART ONE Introduction to Programming

be aware of libel pitfalls and to institute defensive (such as cutting football games or a network’s entire
routines. These defenses include issuing clear-cut signal) until fee agreements are reached.
guidelines, ensuring suitable review of editing, and
excising libelous matter from promotional and
other incidental material. To assist local program- Ethical Influences
mers, the National Association of Broadcasters Programmers continually wrestle with standards.
(NAB) has issued a video that illustrates some of They are not necessarily questions of media freedom
the common ways news programs inadvertently but of taste. What is good taste? Like anything else,
open themselves to libel suits. the definition depends on a consensus of the people
who have to live with the definition.
Over a period of time, the erosion of public
Digital Must-Carry taste standards has mirrored the erosion of other
Since the late 1990s, the FCC has pushed for con- aspects of public life (such as manners). Viewers
version of all U.S. television households to digital might be more offended if television were the only
reception both to foster efficiency and to release culprit, but it is increasingly impractical to expect to
the traditional over-the-air (analog) channels for be able to take a walk in the mall or go for a drive
reassignment to Wi-Fi, mobile telephony, and other on the highway without being assaulted by some-
uses. A 2006 Geneva agreement set 2015 as the one’s “free speech” in the form of a lewd T-shirt
world switch-off date, after which no country need or scatological bumper sticker. In the process, the
protect the analog signals in adjacent countries, and public consensus about “what is shocking” impinges
most countries have moved swiftly to convert. As of on “what is good taste.” Some viewers will defend a
2012 about 92 percent of U.S. households had con- program with violent or sexual content by saying,
verted, and the process went even more swiftly in “You think Show A is bad. It’s not nearly as bad
Europe where the EU mandated switch-off at the as Show B.” Show A becomes the standard, and
end of 2012. The rise of 4G smartphones and tablets Show B is the exception, until Show C comes
puts even more pressure on the system to free up along. Then Show B becomes the new standard,
spectrum. and Show C the new exception.
The FCC’s fundamental must-carry rules The ever-widening spiral may not be rapid, but
require cable companies to carry all locally-licensed there seems to be a steady broadening of what is
television stations, and the HD regulations require acceptable. Programmers are caught between the
carriage in the station’s originating format (HD in expectations of one audience that wants “in your
most cases), while also providing a non-HD digital face” entertainment and the complaints from
signal for subscribers without HD equipment. These another audience that struggles to hold onto civility.
rules explain the very long repetitive lists of channels A minority of producers (and their networks) go for
each cable operator provides. What will happen, shock value and try to lower the standards one small
and how fast, with 3D is an open question, but notch at a time. Like the drops of limestone slowly
when 3D becomes commonplace for stations, the accumulating on the floor of a cavern until a stalag-
must-carry rules are likely to apply. mite forms, the amount of impolite language and
However, splinter signals from a station do not situations has grown into high peaks in some pro-
have must-carry protection. Moreover, broadcast grams on evening television, especially late-night
networks cannot charge cable companies license shows. The exposed right breast of Janet Jackson
fees unless retransmission consent agreements have in Super Bowl 2004’s halftime show apparently
been reached instead of must-carry. As already men- was the final straw for the FCC, which immediately
tioned, such negotiations have led big cable opera- began to reassert its regulations against indecent
tors to hold specific signals hostage temporarily programming, as it does periodically.
 CHAPTER 1 A Scaffold for Programmers 41

Not everyone agrees there is a problem with radio and television have the means to maintain
program standards. Here is a look at the arguments some level of decency in the mass media.
currently in vogue when the topic of ethical stan- How did things get so out of whack? When
dards is discussed. there were only three networks, the Standards and
“It’s just entertainment.” The public derives its Practices departments held a pretty tight rein, but
values from such institutions as family, schools, when pay movies and MTV came along, the compe-
churches and the mass media, but as the authority tition for audiences heated up. Certainly, the most
of families, schools and churches declines, the con- egregious examples of sex and violence come from
tent of radio and television programs takes on a movies and music videos, yet some viewers want still
larger role in the socialization of young people. more adult content. The slow erosion of civil public
“If you don’t like it, turn it off.” True, but I can behavior also affects media limits, but the amounts
turn off only my own television set. My neighbors’ kids of sexual and violent content are merely surface
will still be intoxicated by the violence in afternoon chil- issues. What matters are deeper concerns about
dren’s programs. They will also learn from prime-time how people in society learn to solve problems and
television and soap operas that it’s all right to be pro- get along in spite of differences.
miscuous. The cultural values of a nation are not wired
to my individual ability to shut off my set. If someone
poisoned all the drinking water in my area, you might The Pressures and Pulls
say, “If you don’t like it, don’t drink it.” I guess I could
buy bottled water, but I have to live in the same society Well into this new millennium, the landscape of tele-
that my neighbors’ children inhabit. vision continues to undergo a sea change, and you
“Parents have the responsibility to monitor have to ride on it or with it. Currently, the industry
programming.” This argument rarely comes from a pressures consumers to switch from digital to high
parent, unless it’s a parent who works as an execu- definition. While broadcasting remains the largest
tive at one of the broadcast networks. Anyone who and most powerful advertising medium, the new
thinks this will work is overly wishful. Children will media check its growth.
see what they want to see if it is readily available at a The Federal Communications Commission has
friend’s house, their daycare center, the mall or other indicated that over the coming decades, broadcasting
group viewing locations. One person who has some will be replaced by broadband. Eventually, media
control over the ready availability of seamy pro- entertainment may go entirely wireless, replacing
gramming is the programmer. both broadcasting and cable (including most satellite
“Censorship, even voluntary censorship, vio- transmissions). And some new technology will even-
lates First Amendment rights.” The Bill of Rights tually replace the Wi-Fi of today, perhaps internet
has 10 amendments, but somehow the first gets all signals carried by light fixtures that fluctuate below
the attention, perhaps because the media readily our visibility. Magic, huh? Certainly more upheaval
control what gets our attention. A lot of other free- in the communications business world lies ahead.
doms are equally precious to the well-being of citi- Instead of a wealth of free programming, all
zens, such as the right to a fair trial. The community entertainment content may eventually require some
standards of the present age would easily shock the form of pay. We are evolving toward paying once
framers of the Constitution. for access to a movie or television program on any
A drinking water analogy is apt. If a very slow and all media devices. But there’s a long way to go.
poison is released into the water supply and results At this time, the strategy for the traditional media
in amoral, uninformed residents, then the culprits seems to be “if you can’t beat them, buy them.” In
are those who work for the treatment plant. Like- essence, a single company must program at least two
wise, those who choose and schedule programs for versions of itself—one in broadcast (or cable) and one
42 PART ONE Introduction to Programming

in broadband. In addition to online services, programs broadcast world. A cluttered screen doesn’t work
with ads now appear on cell phones and tablets, and well on a cell phone.
Americans own nearly as many cell phones as televi-
sion sets (and the Japanese seem to own more tablets
than laptops). Indeed, worldwide, there are far more
Notes
cell phones than television sets. Because the spread of 1. Several narrative series have had another characteristic:
advertising to multiple media threatens the traditional Not only do individual episodes have ends, the entire serial
financial model of broadcasting, the big companies concludes after some years, such as Lost and 24 and for
have bought, merged and developed their way into telenovelas. This limited format has moved to cable chan-
all aspects of media, becoming media giants with fin- nels such as Syfy, with series such as Stargate Universe and
Andromeda that run to a conclusion.
gers in a wide range of media pies.
2. Bill Carter, “MEDIA; TV’s Loneliest Night of the Week
Influences work both ways: Although viewers
Is Starting to Look Very Familiar.” New York Times, June
quickly noticed that broadcast television adopted 21, 2004. www.NYTimes.com/
many features of computer screen displays, particu- 3. J. G. Webster, P. F. Phalen and L. W. Lichty. Ratings
larly in newscasts and sports, ironically, the current analysis: The theory and practice of audience research,
online world is growing to look more like the 3rd ed. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2006.
PART

2
Frameworks for
Media Programming
Part Two Outline
Chapter 2
Prime-Time Network Programming Strategies 45
Chapter 3
Multichannel Television Strategies 91
Chapter 4
Online Television Strategies 128

43
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 2
CHAPTER

Prime-Time Network
Programming Strategies
William J. Adams and Susan Tyler Eastman

Chapter Outline
Blurring the Boundaries Summer Schedules
Prime Hours Premieres
The Scandals
Program Renewal
Vertical Integration Program Lifespan
Diminishing Audiences Pivotal Numbers
The Prime-Time Advertising Program Costs
Game
New Program Selection
Audience Targeting Program Concepts and Scripts
Ideal Demographics and Flow Advances and Pilots
Classic Scheduling Strategies Schedule Churn
Appointment Viewing
Promotion’s Role
Prime-Time Ratings Changing Format Emphases
Sweeps and Overnights
Pocketpieces and MNA Reports Network Decision Making
Prime-Time Scheduling The Risks and Rewards
Practices Ahead
Shifting Network Seasons
Limited Series
Notes

45
46 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

A chapter on prime-time network programming

in this day and age! To many of you it must
seem like a manual for the proverbial rearrangement
of deck chairs aboard the Titanic—after it hit the ice-
On the positive side, the networks represent
brand names that are known around the world.
The CW and MyTVNetwork, the newer English-
language networks, strive to catch up with the estab-
berg and has sunk up to its deck. In the last half- lished entities, just as the Spanish-language networks
decade, the broadcast networks (Six English- Telemundo and TeleFutura strive to catch up with
language now according to Nielsen) lost over half front-runner Univision. Moreover, because network
the audience they had and now have prime-time rat- audience sizes have plunged in recent years, major
ings that are the equivalent of those of the better cable changes in how the traditional networks select,
networks. In 2009 both Broadcasting & Cable and schedule and evaluate programs have occurred, the
Variety stopped publishing weekly ratings, probably focus of this chapter.
because they were so embarrassing to the networks.
Nonetheless, despite the shrinking size of network
audiences, prime time still matters a great deal to a Blurring the Boundaries
lot of people.
The ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC television net- During the last few years the separation between the
works are the most recognizable parts of their parent five top media companies has begun to blur. This
corporations although not the most profitable seg- started when CBS and Time Warner partnered, turn-
ments. They haven’t been that for a long time. But ing the WB and UPN into the CW, thus also giving
even today they serve three key functions. First, the CBS access to Warner Brothers productions. Viacom
networks often act as loss leaders drawing attention owns Paramount and once owned CBS, and while
to the programs and stars, despite being outdone in officially Viacom and CBS are separate companies,
profits by owned stations (O&Os), cable networks, they still share the same chairman and several other
theme parks, publishing and other commercial inter- board members. Disney and ABC are wholly
ests. Second, they are systems for cross-promoting enmeshed, and Comcast, with its dozens of cable
these other less visible corporate counterparts. networks, now controls NBC.
Third, it can be argued that until recently the At the same time, several networks have
major networks’ advertising and entertainment launched such joint online ventures as Hulu (see
roles were most useful because they deflected criti- Chapter 4). It is owned by Disney, News Corp and
cism from other aspects of the company business. Comcast/NBCUniversal. In 2011, Warner Brothers
The TV networks act as magnets for people who purchased Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes, thus giv-
want something to complain about—and noise ing it an outlet equal to Hulu. Warner Brothers
about actors and TV shows limits potentially nega- plans to introduce a system that will allow videos
tive stories related to other corporate interests. downloaded on Flixster to be saved so that they,
All roles have weakened, however, in the last like DVDs, can be viewed at any time. How much
few years. ABC, CBS and NBC’s ability to generate they’ll charge for this service and whether CBS will
and control news related to their corporate busi- be a favored participant is unknown, but just the
nesses diminished very fast once FOX’s cable news, suggestion was enough to send Disney and Apple
the internet and talk radio broke their collective into fits. The takeover of Rotten Tomatoes seems
voice monopoly (of course, a bad smell surrounds odd as this site does not offer videos. It reviews
FOX’s parent company for the goings-on in films, and people were openly wondering just how
London). Nowadays, there is plenty of chatter valuable those reviews would now be when one of
about every success and every blunder made by the producers of those films owned the site.
any of the networks, sometimes with political and Regardless of what one may think about all this
economic ramifications. merging, it will continue. Even as you read this, the
 CHAPTER 2 Prime-Time Network Programming Strategies 47

Big Five are negotiating still other joint agreements

in the areas of production and distribution. Broad- 2.1 Original Programming’s Role

T
casting’s survival in the face of Netflix and other
internet innovations, while still facing the threat of
he major difference between the broadcast net-
rising cable audiences, necessitates new relationships works and cable networks has long been the
among competitors. amount of original programming used. The top five
broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, UNI) have it
Prime Hours throughout their schedules. While the cable networks
generally have original shows in only a portion of their
Of the more than 50,000 hours the nine broadcast schedules, there are so many cable networks that the
networks program yearly, about one-quarter is sin- amount of original programming available for off-network
gled out for special critical attention—the nearly 170 syndication coming from cable now almost equals that
hours of commercial prime-time programming each coming from the broadcast networks. Moreover, cable is
week. That figure, multiplied by 52 weeks, equals moving toward more original syndicatable production
more than 8,800 hours of prime-time network pro- (see Chapter 9) even as broadcasting moves away from
grams a year provided collectively by ABC, CBS, it. As a result they are now challenging broadcasting for
NBC, FOX, UNI, CW, MNTV, TEL (Telemundo) off-network syndication dollars. More importantly, as
and TEF (TeleFutura). broadcasting has moved more and more into programs
Audience ratings throughout the day are impor- with no afterlife, and as they have continued to push half
tant, of course, but prime-time ratings are the ones hour sitcoms for the syndication market, cable has begun
everyone takes note of, especially those of the Big to take over the international market.
Five (ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC and Univision). The 22
prime-time hours—from 8 to 11 P.M. (EST) six days
each week and from 7 to 11 P.M. on Sundays— about part of any schedule. It remains the focus of
constitute the center ring for the traditional networks, critical and regulatory concern. The prime hours
the arena in which their mettle is tested. FOX make or break a network’s reputation and continue
programs 15 hours on seven nights of the week, to be the most visible part of an entertainment cor-
competing head-to-head with the older networks. poration’s businesses (see 2.1).
CW programs 13 hours (avoiding Saturdays), and
MNTV programs 10 hours, dodging both Saturdays The Scandals
and Sundays. Univision fills 28 hours weekly, starting When we talk about broadcast television, we are
at 7 and running until 11 P.M.; some of this program- really talking about one small part of five giant
ming is duplicated on TeleFutura. Telemundo pro- entertainment monopolies that use their airwaves
grams all of prime time but not necessarily with to endlessly cross-promote the various parts of
original content. (Filled with a mix of original pro- their businesses, to influence government and,
duction and syndicated Mexican and South American when possible, to swallow or defeat competitive
programs, Univision nonetheless beats all competition threats. The network morning shows have become
in some markets.) thinly disguised vehicles for promoting the parent
Prime-time programs are the traditional source company’s prime-time and cable interests. The mag-
of virtually all off-network, online and much foreign azine business is obsessed with promoting the latest
syndication plus DVD, tablet and smart phone sales, stars, newest series, and happenings on the com-
and in consequence, remain the centers of long-term pany’s cable and broadcast networks. Even the ven-
profit potential. Also, while the rating difference erable 60 Minutes finds it an absolute necessity to
between prime-time and non-prime-time periods interview the latest author from Simon & Schuster,
may not be as large as it once was, prime time is owned by CBS. (To this day, few people realize the
still the most heavily promoted and most talked publisher and CBS are actually part of the same
48 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

company, just as few of you students realize many of taken over by giant international entertainment
your expensive textbooks (but not this one) and 60 corporations. Although the giants became more
Minutes come from the same company.) and more powerful, they could not stop the ratings
They all do it. Fox News runs the latest results from slide (see 2.2).
American Idol, a FOX reality show, as if they were the Faced with eroding audience shares, declining
news equivalents of another war, and virtually every revenues and increased competition for viewers
FOX news personality just happens to have a book, (often from other parts of their own companies), in
which he or she mentions constantly, and which just the late-1990s the broadcast networks turned to the
happens to be published by HarperCollins, a News Federal Communications Commission. In response,
Corp-owned publishing house. NBC hypes government in the 1996 Telecommunications Act the FCC
proposals as if they came from Heaven itself—as long relaxed many of the rules governing broadcasters.
as there’s a contract in it for GE. ABC news shows end- The most dramatic changes in regulations affected
lessly hype the goings-on at Disney, and CBS loves to ownership, eventually permitting the networks to
work stars, who just happen to be in the latest Para- own stations reaching 35 percent of the population.
mount picture, into their top programs. Further FCC relaxation on ownership or the grant-
In 2006, this cross-promotion resulted in a disas- ing of exemptions has continued since that time
ter for FOX when the public responded with outrage allowing more cross ownership (owning radio sta-
over O. J. Simpson’s book on “here’s how I would tions, other TV stations, print interest and so on).
have committed the murder if I had done it.” The reac- With this enormously increased potential clearance
tion grew so loud it forced the cancellation of the book for each network’s programs (unlike affiliates,
deal, a primetime “news” special interview, and owned-stations can’t decline any network programs,
resulted in the firing of a well-known editor at Harper- no matter how poorly some are doing), combined
Collins (owned by News Corp). CBS executives with the power of affiliation and very deep corpo-
breathed a sigh of relief as people forgot about their rate pockets, the Big Four quickly took over the best
2004 Super Bowl costume malfunction, about which stations in the top markets.
the official line still remains “we knew nothing.”1 Moreover, the FCC also removed program
In 2010 NBC got embroiled in the Leno/O’Brien ownership limits (the so-called financial interest
late-night debacle (see Chapter 7), and in 2011 they rules), thus permitting the networks to actually
were caught censoring the words under God from own the programs they broadcast. The networks
the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of the Davis then used their clout to put an end to most indepen-
Cup. In each case, there is little doubt that both dent production houses, eliminating competition
the industry and Hollywood were truly shocked by and becoming, as never before in the history of elec-
the public’s reactions. Why did uproar happen over tronic media, the true producers of their programs.
these network programming disasters? The answer Thus, most of the programming process, from pro-
is they affected the few truly legendary shows still duction of programs (by owned studios) to distribu-
left on the networks. These bad decisions caught tion via the broadcast or cable network through
the population’s interest and forced them to come owned stations and cable systems or through the
face-to-face with what mainstream television had web-through owned web sites, to publicity from
become. They didn’t like it. the TV and online units that promote everything, is
largely controlled by a few enormous companies.
Being vertically-owned limits what program-
Vertical Integration mers can do. For example, each network increas-
ingly feels pressure to program with series owned
During the 1980s and 1990s, broadcast ratings fell. by its parent company even if those programs
Stockholders panicked, and the networks were sold don’t work. By 2004, no programs were aired that
to other companies, which themselves were then the networks did not at least partially own. Indeed,
 CHAPTER 2 Prime-Time Network Programming Strategies 49

2.2 Graph of Network Ratings

50.0

40.0
Total Rating for Broadcasting

30.0

20.0

10.0
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
Year

This graph shows the total ratings for all broadcast networks from 1989–90 to 2010–11. FOX was added in 1990–91. UPN and WB
were added in 1994–95 and the Spanish language networks were added in 2006–07. For ratings by network see table 2.4.

in an ironic turn of events, the production arms of clearance fights with large cable or satellite systems
the Big Five companies (particularly that of Time over rights payments and over which other
Warner, which was strong in production but much company-owned networks would have to be carried.
weaker in distribution) were complaining that other These battles actually resulted in one or both of
members of the Big Five wouldn’t even look at their these two major broadcast networks being pulled
proposals for new shows until they had been given a off the air for a short time in some areas, with dev-
share of ownership. One outcome was that Time/ astating results for short-term ratings and advertis-
Warner partnered with CBS to create the CW to ing revenues, as well as for long-term audience sizes.
gain access to the CBS network. Then, over the New Year’s holiday in 2010, News
Problems arise when business decisions made by Corp went to the mat with Time/Warner cable over
the parent corporation fail to adequately consider retransmission fees paid to run Fox O&O stations in
their impact on the television network (see 2.3). In nine major markets, even going off the air for a time.
recent years, FOX and ABC have been in several Time/Warner soon agreed to significantly higher
50 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

fees. Suddenly there was a new standard and the lowest at 2). Indeed, by mid-decade, cable’s collective
other major companies wanted in. The allure of an ratings in prime time had passed those of the combined
extra one to two billion dollars in “found” money broadcast networks. By 2011, individual cable pro-
was just too great, even though it may mean even grams carried in prime time—like Jersey Shore, Bill
further erosions to their audience.2 O’Reilly, True Blood, Deadliest Catch and others—
Even worse, the entire industry seems bent on were beating competing network broadcast shows in
self destruction. In the face of massive declines in the ratings, as were such Spanish language programs
the audience, both unions and stars continue to as Sabado Gigante, Univision’s highly rated variety
demand ever-increasing salaries. A look at the net- series, and Soy Tu Duena (Women of Steel) its top
work ratings in 2.3 indicates that the networks did rated novella. Removing such megahit shows as CSI
not recover from the writers’ strike that affected the and American Idol from the analysis would drop the
2008–2009 season. (One axiom of programming is average ratings even further. It’s easy to understand
that loyal viewers who are forced to change their why problems with just one show, such as Two and a
viewing habits rarely change back.) Half Men at CBS or the end of Smallville on CW, can
But the unions aren’t the only problem. Back in throw an entire network into panic.
2003 it was huge news when NBC agreed to pay
each cast member for Friends a million dollars an
episode just to keep them for one more year. At The Prime-Time Advertising Game
the time, original episodes of Friends had rating of Traditionally, prime time has been the financial
about 15. More recent problems with Charlie Sheen jewel in the media crown, pulling in billions of dol-
of Two and a Half Men revealed that he was being lars each year for the networks. Until recently, the
paid $2 million an episode, plus his share of syndi- drop in audience size has been compensated for by
cation revenue and whatever other perks he con- higher advertising rates, by adding more spots
tracted, but Two and a Half Men was only getting within programs (many prime-time shows now air
about a 4 rating, and that’s less than half what the 20 minutes of ads per hour), and by producing
show was getting only a few years earlier. While it fewer episodes. Increases in advertising rates, as
may have been the number one sitcom in the country high as 15 percent per year, have not been uncom-
just then, that is more a sad comment on situation mon, and complaints from advertisers have been
comedies ratings than praise of the show. shrugged off. Where else can they go?
As far as the major broadcast networks are con- Most prime-time advertising spots are sold in
cerned, production costs have just gone too high, late May and early June during the up-front sales
which is one reason the cable networks are moving period. Advertisers guarantee themselves access to
in fast on original production (see Chapter 9). They top programs or desired time slots by locking them
can do the same show for a fraction of the cost in at least three months in advance. Of course,
because salaries are lower (cable networks are because the programs have not aired, there are no
exempt from many union rules) and they seldom ratings with which to set prices. Therefore, the prices
produce their shows in Los Angeles. for ads are based on estimated ratings provided by
advertising agencies and guarantees provided by the
networks. If a network does not make the guaran-
Diminishing Audiences teed rating, it will have to run spots for free until the
As 2.3 shows, American broadcast network ratings number of missed points is made up. If a program
have been falling over the last two decades. Indeed, does much better than predicted, the advertisers get
the average primetime rating in 2011 was 2.9 for the a bargain. The system appears to favor the adverti-
broadcast networks (FOX highest at 3.8 and NBC sers, but that is seldom the case.
 CHAPTER 2 Prime-Time Network Programming Strategies 51

2.3 Average Prime-Time Network Rating from September to May, 1980 to 2011

Year ABC CBS NBC FOX WB/UPN/CW UNI/TEL

1980–81 18.0 19.0 17.2

1981–82 17.7 18.5 15.2
1982–83 16.6 17.7 14.5
1983–84 16.2 16.8 14.5
1984–85 15.0 16.5 15.8
1985–86 14.3 16.0 17.1
1986–87 13.6 15.4 17.1
1987–88 12.7 13.4 15.4
1988–89 12.6 12.3 15.4
1989–90 12.9 12.1 14.5
1990–91 12.0 11.7 12.5 6.1
1991–92 12.2 13.8 12.3 8.0
1992–93 12.1 12.9 12.0 8.1
1993–94 12.1 11.7 10.3 7.1
1994–95 11.7 10.8 11.5 7.1 1.9/4.1
1995–96 10.5 9.6 11.6 7.3 2.4/3.1
1996–97 9.2 9.6 10.5 7.7 2.6/3.2
1997–98 8.4 9.7 10.2 7.1 3.1/2.8
1998–99 8.1 9.0 8.9 7.0 3.2/2.0
1999–00 9.3 8.6 8.5 5.9 2.6/2.7
2000–01 8.4 8.6 8.0 6.1 2.5/2.4
2001–02 6.3 8.1 8.8 5.7 2.5/2.7
2002–03 6.0 7.9 7.4 5.8 2.5/2.2
2003–04 5.9 8.5 7.3 6.0 2.5/2.3
2004–05 6.4 8.4 6.6 5.3 2.4/2.3
2005–06 6.0 7.3 5.8 5.5 1.9/1.5
2006–07* 6.2 7.8 5.7 6.2 2.0 2.0/0.5
2007–08 5.7 6.4 5.1 6.4 1.6 1.8/.6
2008–09y 2.9 3.1 2.8 3.6 .9 2.0/.7
2009–10 2.4 3.6 2.5 2.9 ** 1.1/**
2010–11 2.3 3.6 2.0 3.8 ** 1.2/**

Note: The chart combines ratings for ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CW, UNI and TEL in the September to May season years when they were
operating with a rating above 1. The FOX network started broadcasting before 1990, but for the first few years its ratings were not reported
in the trade press. Similarly, Univision and Telemundo were not included until 2007. At present, CW, Telemundo and MNTV get ratings of
less than 1 (as small as .4 or .3) and shares of just 1, so they fall within Nielsen’s margin of error and are not reported.
*WB and UPN were combined, for the most part, into CW in 2006.
y
This season involved a writers’ strike that affected the numbers
**Ratings dropped below 1 and were not reported.
52 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

2.4 Owners and Audits

A recent event illustrated how corporate profits can

dominate the business decisions of subsidiaries.
According to trade reports, Peter Jackson, internationally
such as Peter Jackson, this closed bidding practice costs
tens of millions of dollars. In short, rather than allow the
audit, New Line was willing to forgo a potential hit movie
recognized for his Lord of the Rings movies, broke off worth billions.
relations with New Line Cinema, a Time Warner com- More recently, the producers of Smallville have been
pany, and would not participate in a New Line Hobbit locked in legal battles with the CW. They claim the CW is
prequel because Time Warner refused to permit an inde- giving Warner Brothers-owned stations and other Warner
pendent audit of the reported $4 billion income from the Brothers affiliated entities special deals for very low prices
Lord of the Rings trilogy. This ended production until New on Smallville, thus cheating the producers out of millions in
Lines’ options on the Hobbit ran out because, without the profit sharing. However, insiders say this is just how things
New Zealand production facilities, it was too expensive for are done these days. In an ever-narrowing market, both in
New Line to do. terms of product and competition, pressures come from all
It is widely believed that New Line was only allowing sides. No one part of the company is allowed to threaten
companies that its parent owned to bid on such things as the overall bottom line, even if that means massive losses in
foreign distribution, broadcast and cable rights, DVDs, revenues for individual parts of the company or squeezing
merchandising and so on. For the parent company, such other people involved with the project even when the
arrangements provide a great advantage: All profits come company must work with them in the future.
to it, and money can be moved around so that taxes are William J. Adams, Ph.D.,
lessened. The difficulty is that for independent producers Kansas State University

In actual numbers, although the ratings look the sponsors have to take programs they don’t really
small, each point represents a percentage of the 116 want and spend more than they would if they just
million television households in America (as esti- bought the strongest shows. Although sponsors
mated by Nielsen in 2012). Thus, a 2.4 rating stands object, they continue to buy just as they always
for about 2 million households, each with an average have. After all, where else are they going to go?
of 2.6 people viewing. Even a rating as small as 2.4 Until recently, that “where else?” question ended
means the program is attracting 6 to 7 million people all discussion. It has always been easier for the adver-
at one time. Such ratings are sufficient for many tising industry just to do what has always been done.
advertisers and still better than average cable pro- For 20 years the compensation rates for the agencies
grams earn, but the biggest advertisers are getting placing advertisements declined steadily (from around
nervous as they also have to pay a lot more for 15 percent in the 1980s to the low single digits), giv-
broadcast programs than for cable programs. ing them no incentive to make extra efforts.
The ability to predict ratings is weak at best, and As audience size continued to decline and net-
the networks tend to be very conservative in their work ad rates skyrocketed, however, the corporate
guarantees. For the last few years, the networks sponsors themselves began to get back into the act.
have further protected themselves by refusing to sell During the 2004–05 season, many of the biggest
the top-rated shows except as part of package deals. sponsors refused to go along with network attempts
In other words, if sponsors want to buy time in a to make double-digit increases in advertising rates,
program like The Mentalist or The Good Wife, they forcing the broadcast networks to drop increases
also have to buy time in much weaker shows. In this back to 6 to 8 percent. For the first time in that
way the networks assure the sale of time slots that season, almost half of all prime-time slots had not
might otherwise be left open. Of course, this means been sold by the end of the up-front sales period,
 CHAPTER 2 Prime-Time Network Programming Strategies 53

and cable and the internet reaped the benefits. The

networks haven’t forgotten this scare.3 2.5 Cutting the Cord

W
In 2008 top advertisers refused to pay ABC,
CBS and NBC a so-called integration fee of $125
ired Magazine compared the cost of the internet
million on top of whatever prices they had negoti- television with traditional TV (by which they
ated during the upfront sales period. Advertisers meant signals delivered via cable or satellite). To equal
pointed out this fee made sense when someone had the cost of cable or satellite, they calculated that the
to physically insert ads into programs, a practice average person dropping cable or satellite would
that no longer existed (and a fee that FOX, the need a digital antenna to get broadcast stations ($50),
CW and cable networks did not charge4). Adverti- Hulu ($119.88 per year), Joost, YouTube, TV.com,
sers also continue to object to the practice of calcu- network Web sites (free), Netflix instant ($107.88 per
lating the ratings by totaling “live plus three days,” a year plus a Roku box at $79.99), and Apple TV or
practice that drives up their costs (see Chapter 5). Amazon Video on demand ($229 for the Apple box,
Both FOX and the CW are moving toward more $1.99 per-show for average definition programs; for
integrated ads, in other words, product placement hi def, the authors figured $517.40 per year for one
deals, and ABC and CBS are beginning to test the show per week night). The savings to move from
waters.5 cable/satellite TV to internet TV was $360 to $540
Moreover, cable networks and the internet are (depending on whether one was replacing satellite or
no longer the only real competitors for advertising a cable premium package) during the first year and
dollars or for content. Much of the challenge for $720 to $900 per year thereafter. Cutting the cord
advertising revenues seems to be coming from sounds like a good deal for savvy viewers, but what do
cash-plus-barter syndication deals (discussed in advertisers and broadcast networks do then?*
Chapter 6). Some syndicated programs outdraw William J. Adams, Ph.D.
Kansas State University
most network shows, and the prices they can
demand from the spot ad market reflect that *Wired Magazine, Sept. 2010, “Wired’s guide to picking your
power. By mid-decade, the syndicated Friends, Sein- perfect tv setup.” Wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_howto_
feld, and Two and a Half Men pulled more than watchtv/
$200,000 per 30-second spot, and several others
drew at least half that amount (see 2.4).
Advertisers must also deal with the new non- up. Many reality shows can’t be syndicated, can’t be
traditional ways of obtaining programming. For rerun on the air, can’t be sold overseas or online, and
years broadcasters took comfort in the fact that have no value as DVDs. Once viewers know who
they were free while all alternatives cost a lot. As won, they don’t want to see the shows again.
the alternatives begin offering more choices and ser- FOX, however, figured out how to make extra
vices than broadcasting, the industry quickly learned money from the reality show American Idol and
that many people were willing to pay for what they used the process to justify the cost of producing
wanted (see 2.5). Glee. This new method is separate from traditional
In short, networks are no longer the economic advertising or syndication revenues. American Idol
powerhouses they once were, but the profits for gives massive promotion to singers (often several
their parent companies keep growing because they people going into the finals—not just the winner)
own most of the alternatives. Nonetheless, concern who are then signed by Columbia Records, with
about program production is mounting. So far, the whom FOX has a profit-sharing deal. These singers
broadcast networks are still expected to produce the then go on tours using FOX-owned promoters with
original programs that then feed the rest of the system. audience tickets sold through FOX-owned outlets.
But as networks rely more and more on cheap reality Much the same is true for Glee, which by all previ-
programs, the pool of programs with an afterlife dries ous standards should be too expensive to be
54 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

produced for television. But, not only does it pro- Also, product placement began to affect pro-
duce top numbers (relatively speaking) with 18 to gram content. Sears, while not the actual producer
33 year olds, it’s also a hit in DVD sales, sales of of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, did make a
recordings by the cast, tickets to cast tours, in inter- huge investment, in return for which the reality
net sales of the production numbers (which can be show prominently featured Sears products in their
downloaded after each show for a nominal price), makeovers. As a result, in the 2011 sweeps, Extreme
and online sales of re-viewings of the episodes. Makeover ranked number 5 for product placement
While these moneys don’t go directly to the with 45 occurrences—still minimal compared with
FOX network, they do go to News Corp thus mak- American Idol’s 102 occurrences (it was number 1
ing both shows worthwhile investments. As an in product placement according to Nielsen).
added bonus, the other networks can’t rush into Perhaps the most interesting development, how-
production with Glee knock-offs as there are very ever, was illustrated by a deal TNT made to insert
few people in Hollywood who know how to do products into reruns of Law & Order. Generic pro-
musicals anymore. After all, it was assumed to be a ducts were digitally replaced with brand names that
dead format. This practice of creative aftermarket paid for the privilege. Sometimes described as virtual
selling of a program and its participants suggests advertising, this is the next logical step in computer-
one profitable direction for broadcasting’s future. generated content. Already widely used in sporting
In addition, too many spots in breaks and high events, virtual ads do not require the actual place-
ad rates have caused a rethinking among advertisers, ment of a physical product. The advertisement exists
and the result has been an enormous increase in only in the computer.
product placement within programs on FOX and With virtual ads, advertisers can aim their mes-
the CW. Product placement was standard practice sages to specific markets. For example, Coca-Cola
in the early days of television, and it has been a big now pays to have the judges on American Idol
moneymaker in movies ever since ET followed that drink their product. But through the use of virtual
trail of Reese’s Pieces. Cable networks have aggres- ads, in New York those judges could be drinking
sively sought out companies to place their logos or Vanilla Coke, while in California they sip Caffeine
products in prominent positions on original cable Free Diet Coke, and in the South it might be Classic
shows. But until recently, the broadcast networks Coke filling those glasses. The same process can be
were reluctant to follow the trend, calling it demean- used to replace the generic products shown in older
ing, and claiming it cheapened the value of the tra- TV shows with high-paying brand names. Of more
ditional spot advertisement and could possibly raise concern to advertisers is the fact that the same pro-
legal issues. cess can be used to replace an existing brand name
The smaller networks, however, with less to lose with a higher-paying competitor. In the past, prod-
given their lower ratings, were willing to try. Soon, uct placement was forever. No more. If Coke won’t
the cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was not only kick in more money, the stars may be drinking Pepsi
drinking but also mentioning Coke products, and a in the reruns and Dr. Pepper on the DVD. The
yellow VW was prominently featured in Smallville. maker of M&M’S could finally correct its earlier
As the money began to roll in, the traditional net- marketing mistake and have ET follow their little
works wanted a piece of that action, and soon chocolate product instead.
brand-name products were appearing everywhere The multiplatform strategy was the next
except in ABC, CBS and NBC’s prime-time shows. response to declining advertising revenues. The net-
Product placement became so common that Nielsen works began distributing their most valuable prop-
Media Research launched a new service in 2004 erties across many media, packing the additional ad
called Product Placement Measurement to allow time—at high rates—with broadcast. Advertisers
subscribers to track their products and those of who wanted mass network exposure were then
their competitors through various TV shows. forced to develop plans for internet, cable, tablets
 CHAPTER 2 Prime-Time Network Programming Strategies 55

and even iPod media. Beginning in 2008, CBS and

NBC also began demanding that out-of-home view- 2.6 The Aging Audience

I
ing be counted and began placing dedicated screens
in unusual places. By 2011, NBC had partnered with
ronically, network audiences are aging, far beyond
IdeaCast which has TV screens in over 900 health what most can imagine. As of 2010 (the latest pub-
clubs and with the University Network which is on lished numbers), these were the median ages of network
181 college campuses. Similarly, CBS purchased viewers:9
SignStory outright, which operates screens in 1,400
grocery stores and partnered with Ripple which has CW 34
1,500 screens in specialty retail locations like Jack in FOX 44
the Box, and aligned with Automotive Broadcasting ABC 51
which provides screens in car dealerships.6 NBC 49
In 2010 ABC, CBS and NBC joined FOX and CBS 55
CW in moving production of their non-sitcom pilots Univision 34
out of California. Film L.A., which tracks produc-
tion, noted a 42 percent drop in pilot production Such aging scares network executives because the
between 2005 and 2009. That didn’t mean fewer trend potentially affects advertising revenue and the via-
pilots were being made; they just were not being bility of many kinds of programs. One response has been
made in California. By 2011, Los Angeles and the to focus on the ratings for certain desirable segments of
state had declared “runaway” productions a crisis, the audience. The few youth-oriented programs being
while Las Vegas was announcing plans to build a offered, such as Glee, get lots of hype. Even supposedly
studio. This represents a loss of $100 million dollars “young shows” often aren’t: The median for Two and
to the Los Angeles region alone. The reason the pro- One Half Men is 50 and Dancing with the Stars is 60.
duction is moving out is simple: Costs drop dramat-
ically. Not only do productions get out from under
strict union rules, but they also get a 10 percent to
25 percent reduction in taxes.7 asked whether the networks would know the main-
While ABC, CBS and NBC have only moved stream if they were drowning in it (see 2.6). For the
pilot production away, FOX, CW, Univision and last 30 years, the broadcast networks have relent-
Telemundo also moved actual series production lessly pursued one segment of the audience to the
out. While California is suffering a financial crisis, exclusion of other television viewers. Programs
production in areas like Hawaii, Florida, Colorado have been targeted toward the younger, more
and Chicago is booming. Canadian and Mexican urban audience in the major population centers—
studios are running at capacity. Univision and Tele- matching the coverage area of the network owned-
mundo have massive production in Miami and in and-operated (O&O) stations—and away from the
Mexico; most of it is original programming, which more thinly populated rural markets where the net-
they now syndicate to Spanish-speaking countries works have no direct ownership interests.
instead of just buying programs from them.

Ideal Demographics and Flow

Audience Targeting When NBC programming head Paul Klein first pro-
posed the concept of ideal demographics back in the
In 2003, James Poniewozik, writing for Time maga- early 1970s, he believed the networks could go after
zine (owned by Time Warner), noted the falling his so-called ideal demographic group without
numbers for broadcast television and asked, “Does losing the rest of the audience because at the time
the mainstream still exist?”8 He might better have it was widely agreed that people watch television,
56 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

not shows. In a three-network era, Klein reasonably and syndication as well as to broadcasting. A pro-
assumed that viewers were forced to stay with one of grammer for E!, for example, when commenting on
the networks, so why not go after the most desirable its generally low numbers said, “I could create a stunt
audience? To Klein, that meant urban women 18 to pretty easily that would pop a household rating, but I
34 years of age. He believed they were the most sus- would bring in people my parents’ age.”13
ceptible to advertising and controlled the economy. Many syndicators seek the younger 18 to 34
They were also, it was claimed, the largest segment audience, particularly for their daytime program-
among the many demographic divisions. ming, even though this demographic group is practi-
When faced with critics who pointed out that the cally nonexistent during daytime hours and not what
over-50 crowd had more money and that the poten- many sponsors want. When ABC announced the can-
tial television audience consisted of as many men as cellation of their soap operas in 2011 and replaced
women, Klein simply dismissed the older audience as them with talk programs, sponsors pulled out en
too set in its ways (to respond to advertising) and masse, pointing out if they wanted talk audiences,
dismissed men as non-shoppers. Almost at once, they’d have bought talk shows in the first place.
there were signs he might be wrong. The year CBS When asked about the popularity of reality
and NBC introduced ideal demographics to the shows, Betsy Frank, executive vice president of
schedule, their ratings plunged, and ABC found itself research and planning for MTV and one of the
in the unaccustomed position of being Number One. most quoted professionals in the business, pointed
Klein thought that just proved his point. The audi- to the appeal to young audiences. She went on to
ence hadn’t left; they had just changed channels.10 argue that the ideal MTV viewer should be under
By the mid-1970s there were clear signs of audi- 25. She pointed out that this group represents
ence erosion. The networks denied it, claiming meth- 70 million people, only 7 million fewer than the
odology errors in the ratings. By the mid-1980s there baby boomers.14 It is ironic to note that MTV itself
were no more denials. What had been a trickle was pulls ratings of only about 1 in this group, implying
now a flood. Broadcasting was hemorrhaging view- that only about 1 million of those 70 million poten-
ers, largely to cable. As the audience got smaller, the tial viewers actually watch MTV.
ideal changed slightly and shifted to consist of urban At the broadcast network level, the program-
women 25 to 49 years (all races). By 2004 “women” mers argue they know that targeting the ideal demo-
had been dropped from official statements, but many graphic group creates problems, but they have little
argued that it was still understood. When network choice because most advertisers demand this audi-
ratings showed a massive loss of male viewers during ence. ABC and NBC claim that two-thirds of all
the 2003–04 season (a combined broadcast network prime-time advertising money is spent on this
loss of almost two million men a night), advertisers group. Of course, this argument is a little like
weren’t surprised. To paraphrase what they told the ESPN looking at its advertising and claiming adver-
reporter, “What are the networks offering that men tisers only want sports. Realistically, what else could
would want to watch?”11 Indeed, targeting Klein’s they buy on prime-time broadcast networks?
ideal audience had produced a programming “gender To be fair, CBS argues the ideal should be
gap” between male and female viewers. higher, 25 to 54 years to be exact (which happens
More recently the press has complained about a to be closer to their audience demos), and FOX
liberal versus conservative political gap in network argues that 18 to 34 year old urban men should be
programming.12 Moreover, the assumption that included (a group they just happen to appeal to), but
younger women control shopping could now be advertisers argue that the question itself is wrong. It
challenged by a trip to any supermarket. may be that any demographic approach is outdated
An obsession with 18- to 49-year-olds, called because so many companies now use psychograph-
“the most desirable audience” or “the audience ics, or lifestyle data, to target ads—not just age, sex
most demanded by advertisers,” applies to cable and ethnicity.
 CHAPTER 2 Prime-Time Network Programming Strategies 57

Aside from a program’s demographics, the net- strong program, the anchor show. Also known as
works look for audience flow from program to pro- the lead-off, this first prime-time show sets the
gram. Each network hopes to capture and hold the tone for the network’s entire evening. It is believed
largest possible adult audience, especially from that this maneuver can win or lose a whole night
8 P.M. until 11 P.M. or midnight, with a recent and thus affect the ratings performance of a full
emphasis on late-night offerings (a time period week. Programmers have traditionally believed
which draws a much larger percentage of young that the network winning the ratings for the first
people). Network strategies are usually directed hour of prime time also usually wins the entire
at achieving flow-through from program to pro- night.
gram within prime time—that is, encouraging the A strong lead-off used to be considered so
audience to continue to watch from show to show, important that the major networks routinely
although this tendency grows weaker as the num- moved a popular established series into the 8P.M.
ber of program options increase and as the hour (EST) position on every weeknight, even if it meant
gets later. Networks continue to try to produce raiding, and thus weakening, strong nights to get
flow by careful scheduling, such as placing pro- proven shows for lead-offs. A classic example
grams with similar story lines one right after occurred in 2003 when the WB moved Smallville
another, although remote controls, digital guides, to the first spot on Wednesday and on Sunday to
too many options and DVRs make flow-through shore up those nights, while FOX in 2010 put
difficult to achieve. Nonetheless, virtually all tradi- Glee as the lead-off to Tuesday, moved House
tional scheduling strategies have been designed to back to the lead-off position on Monday and used
maintain this flow. American Idol as the lead-off on several days of
the week.
As ratings continued to slide, fewer successes
Classic Scheduling Strategies remain to move around, making this strategy fade
Programmers believe that surrounding a newcomer in importance on most networks, even though
with strong existing shows ensures the best possi- their programmers continued to express faith in it.
ble opportunity for the newcomer to rate as high By 2007, NBC was scheduling cheaper scripted or
as the established hits. Several strategies have reality shows to lead-off prime time; inherently,
long been used to achieve protection for new and such shows are low-rated, at least to start, and
underperforming series. About a dozen strategies thus would provide no lead-off power. At the same
now dominate prime-time scheduling: anchoring, time, however, FOX led off Mondays with its hit
leading-in, hammocking, blocking, doubling, linch- Prison Break, and CW led off Thursdays with the
pinning, bridging, counterprogramming, blunting, strong Smallville, using these as evening anchors.
stunting, supersizing, seamlessness, rotating and CBS uses its many versions of the CSI franchise in
sampling. a similar way.
Several of these protect new programs, others
2. Lead-in Strategy. Closely related to the lead-off
build flow or challenge competitors. While many
or anchor show, the lead-in strategy places a
years of practice have shown the usefulness of
strong series before a weaker (or any new) series
these strategies, they are becoming much less practi-
to give it a jump start. Theoretically, the strong
cal as they depend on a reservoir of strong, estab-
lead-in carries part of its audience over to the next
lished series, and broadcasting now has very few of
program. A new series following a strong lead-in
these available.
has a modestly better chance of survival as com-
pared with a new series with no lead-in or a weak
1. Anchoring Strategy. All schedulers use the lead-in. To get a strong lead-in, the networks often
strategy of beginning an evening with an especially shift strong series to new nights or times. No show
58 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

is safe in any schedule position, as King of Queens program within a set of similar dramas or sitcoms
and Becker found out when they were moved from filling an entire evening (or at least 2 hours of one
their strong Monday slot to act as lead-ins for the type) is a venerable and respected practice.
short-lived The Brotherhood of Poland, N.H., and The theory of blocking is that an audience tun-
subsequently sagged in their ratings. ing in for one situation comedy will stay for a sec-
3. Hammock Strategy. Although scheduling ond, a third and a fourth—if the sitcoms are of the
strategies can help bolster weak programs, it is same general type. The first show in a group usually
obviously easier to build a strong schedule from a aims at young viewers or the general family audi-
strong foundation than from a weak one. Moving ence. Each ensuing series then targets a slightly older
one of a pair of established series to the next later audience, thus taking advantage of the fact that as
half hour and inserting a promising new program children go to bed and teenagers go out or do
in the middle time slot can take advantage of homework, the average age of the audience goes up.
audience flow from the lead-in program to the Blocking works best during the first two hours of
rescheduled familiar program, automatically pro- prime time but typically loses effectiveness later in
viding viewers for the intervening series. This the evening.
strategy is known as hammocking the new series— Traditionally, the only risk was believed to be
in other words, a possible audience sag in the that a new comedy might lack the staying power of
middle will be offset by the solid support fore and its “protectors” and damage the program that fol-
aft (also called a sandwich, with the new show as lows. Today we know there are other risks such as
the filling). burn out: So many programs of the same type that
The 2003–04 season provided a classic ham- people get sick of the whole genre. We also now
mock example with The Apprentice shoved know that when broadcasters place too much reli-
between Friends and ER. Hammocking is one ance on just a few types of programs, the cost of
strategy that continues to be effective, but it can those shows goes up dramatically. When Paul Klein
provide misleading information on the strength of declared no real need for variety back in the ’70s,
the center show. For example, much was made at and that the networks could just concentrate on sit-
the time of the relatively high ratings for The coms and crime dramas, then the cheapest programs
Apprentice, but in truth, even in its protected spot, to produce that could still pull large audiences, he
it lost almost 4 points compared with the Friends believed that the cost of production would go down.
lead-in and 2 points compared with ER. More- But costs went up. By the 1980s, half-hour sitcoms
over, when moved to the unprotected Wednesday cost more than either westerns or science fiction
night slot, it dropped into the bottom third of the hours. We now know that any time the networks
ratings. Hammocking guarantees a new series will rely heavily on any one genre, its cost skyrockets,
get sampled, however, which automatically gives making this a dangerous strategy in more ways
the new show a better chance. The Apprentice, than one.
slightly revised into The Celebrity Apprentice, and Examples of blocking (also called stacking) are
protected initially in a hammock, became one of easy to find in prime-time schedules every year on all
NBC’s few successful shows. This strategy, how- the networks. During the 2006–07 season, FOX
ever, presumes a network has enough strong formed a successful animated/family sitcom block on
shows to create hammocks, an assumption that is Sundays of The Simpsons, American Dad, Family
increasingly rare. Guy and War at Home, which is still mostly in
4. Blocking Strategy. By 2011, this was the most place five years later. Recently, the networks have
used, albeit least effective, of all programming blocked hour-long dramas, games and reality for
strategies. Block programming or placing a new whole evenings—for example, CBS’s NCIS to
 CHAPTER 2 Prime-Time Network Programming Strategies 59

NCIS: Los Angeles to unforgettable on Tuesdays or with fewer and fewer real hits, the networks have
FOX’s Prison Break to House, two cult hits one after had to find ways to use the few strong shows still left
another for a time. to them. This is one of those ways. Also known as
5. Doubling Strategy. One hot trend, now that tentpoling, the network focuses on a central, strong
networks have fewer hit shows to work with, is show on weak evenings, the linchpin, hoping to use
creating blocks using the same show, running epi- that show to hold or brace the ones before and after
sodes of the same sitcom one right after the other. it. This strategy was the basis for NBC’s move of
Called doubling, it started with FOX, which ran Law & Order: SVU to Saturday nights and CBS’s
Cops, followed by Cops—and then finished the move of Cold Case Files to 9:00 on Sundays. These
block with America’s Most Wanted. In 2005–06, moves also formed blocks, an added bonus, and
ABC doubled Lost on Wednesdays, while FOX demonstrate that scheduling strategies are often
doubled That 70’s Show and NBC doubled Scrubs. combined. NBC’s shift of focus to its 9:00 shows—
By the next season, the CW was doubling Reba all away from 8:00 anchors—exemplifies the use of
across the schedule. linchpins.
Since networks don’t increase the number of 7. Bridging Strategy. The bridging strategy is not
episodes produced, the negative byproduct is that a as common in commercial broadcasting as the
much-doubled show must go into reruns even other strategies, but it has been useful to public
sooner—which can easily trigger burn out. ABC broadcasting and such cable networks as TBS and
found this out when it overused Who Wants To Be HBO. Bridging has three variations. The best-
A Millionaire, and it was also the case with Deal Or known one is the regular use of long-form pro-
No Deal, Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader and grams (one-and-a-half hours or more) that start
the Law and Order franchise. Even at this writing, during the access hour and continue into prime
the powerhouse CSI variations are dropping in the time, thus running past the broadcast networks’
ratings for the entire franchise. lead-offs and negating their strategies (for viewers
One variation is to run an old episode followed who might have changed channels). HBO, for
by a new episode. By mid-decade, hit comedies, example, often schedules a hit movie starting at 7
reality series and even a few hour-long dramas were or even 7:30 P.M. (EST) to bridge the start of net-
being doubled and even tripled as with Terra Nova. work prime time.
Another variation involves stripping episodes on The second variation of bridging involves
different nights like a miniseries. This has become a starting and ending programs at odd times, thus
common practice with short-run series like Ameri- causing them to run past the starting and stopping
can Idol, Dancing With The Stars, Survivor and points for shows on other networks. This creates a
The Bachelor. Shows such as According to Jim, bridge over the competing programs, which keeps
Extreme Makeover, Deal or No Deal and Arrested viewers from switching to other channels because
Development have appeared night after night, but they have missed the beginnings of the other
usually for just a few weeks at a time. Copying shows. For example, TBS regularly starts its pro-
cable networks like USA, TNT and A&E, the grams at 5 minutes after the hour. As a result, TBS
broadcast networks occasionally turned an entire viewers are forced either to watch the next TBS
evening over to one show, as ABC did sporadically show or tune into another program already in
with Desperate Housewives and CBS did with the progress.
original CSI. CBS has used the bridging strategy successfully
6. Linchpin Strategy. Most scheduling strategies in its Sunday night lineup. The network regularly
rely on having enough strong programs around runs Sunday football games (or other sports)
which to build a schedule for new series. However, beyond the hour point, thus throwing the rest of
60 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

the night off by about 10 minutes. This means that mere fact they broadcast in Spanish is a counter
the audience that watches 60 Minutes is stuck with to other broadcasters, and puts them in an entirely
CBS for the night. NBC and FOX have copied this separate competition group in some markets,
practice with their Sunday afternoon sports broad- although Univision’s own data shows many of
casts. The alternatives for viewers are to leave a its shows are watched by sizable non-Spanish-
show before it is over or to tune in to the compe- speaking audiences.
tition late. 9. Blunting Strategy. Networks that choose to
A third variation on this strategy involves match the competition by scheduling a show with
scheduling half-hour shows against hour-long identical appeal are blunting the competition. For
shows on the competing networks. FOX, by plac- example, in the 2006–07 season, CBS and NBC ran
ing a strong show like King of the Hill first, forced CSI: New York and Medium against each other on
the audience to watch the weaker Oliver Beene or Wednesdays, and ABC and NBC ran Grey’s Anat-
tune into the middle of hour-long programs on the omy and ER against each other on Thursdays, in
other networks. The risk is that viewers may go to each case effectively splitting the legal-show fans and
cable or turn to the DVR. Modern viewing habits, medical-show fans. Such blunting attempts often
split screens and digital guides have further weak- don’t last long as one show usually proves more
ened this strategy as many people now watch more popular than the other.
than one show at a time, just switching back and If two networks are already blunting each other,
forth when something exciting seems to be a third network that counterprograms often gets
happening. higher ratings than either of the other two networks.
8. Countering Strategy. The networks also sched- In other words, the two networks running similar
ule programs to pull viewers away from their com- programs split part of the audience, while the
petitors by offering something of completely counterprogrammer, in theory, gets everyone who
different appeal than the other shows, a strategy likes its program plus all those who dislike the genre
called counterprogramming. For many years, for being blunted on the other two channels. One recent
example, ABC successfully countered the strong, example occurred when ABC ran the magazine
women-oriented series offered by CBS and NBC on show Primetime against CSI and Medium; another
Monday nights with Monday Night Football—until occurred when CBS ran Shark against Grey’s Anat-
2006 when the games went to ESPN. To counter omy and ER.
Desperate Housewives and Cold Case Files, NBC 10. Stunting Strategy. The art of scheduling also
introduced Sunday Night Football. ABC clearly includes maneuvers called stunting, a term taken
counterprogrammed CBS’s Survivor with Ugly from the defensive plays used in professional foot-
Betty. ball. Stunting includes scheduling specials, adding
Traditionally, counterprogramming challenged guest stars, having unusual series promotion and
the ideal demographics approach because it relied otherwise altering the regular program schedule at
on finding a large, ignored group of viewers and the last minute. Beginning in the late 1970s, the
scheduling a program for them. In the late-2000s, networks adopted the practice of deliberately
the CW was countering the older networks by making last-minute changes in their schedules to
programming for teenage women, while FOX pro- catch rival networks off guard. These moves—cal-
grammed for young urban men. Univision coun- culated and planned well ahead of time but kept
terprograms the English-language networks by secret until the last possible moment—were
stripping three shows, Heridas de Amor, La Fea intended to blunt the effects of competitors’ pro-
Mas Bella and Mundo de Fieras, across the week grams. Generally such maneuvers are one-
from 7 to 10, Monday through Friday, then vary- time-only because their high cost cannot be sus-
ing its 10 P.M. and weekend shows. Of course, the tained over a long period.
 CHAPTER 2 Prime-Time Network Programming Strategies 61

Scheduling hit films, using big-name stars for 11. Supersizing Strategy. In recent years, the net-
their publicity value, and altering a series’ format works have developed a form of stunting used
for a single evening are common attention-getting mainly for the sweeps months. This method, called
stunts. Glee has provided a number of classic supersizing, allows them to pull questionable series
examples: Top musical personalities “drop in” on off the air without having to find another show to
rehearsals. Such stunts have high promotional fill their time slots. To fill the time, the network adds
value and can attract much larger-than-usual length to their biggest hits and advertises them as
audiences if well promoted. Of course, the fol- specials. Supersizing is now common for hit sitcoms
lowing week, the schedule goes back to normal, and reality series, although rare so far for hour-long
so these efforts get people to sample shows but dramas. Doubling can be considered a similar strat-
rarely create long-term improvements in series egy with the same goal. Networks often schedule the
ratings. supersized climax of their reality shows to coincide
CBS used another form of stunting when it with sweeps weeks.
paid more than $4 billion for rights to sporting
events (including Major League Baseball) during 12. Seamless Strategy. In the 1990s the networks
the 1990s. This proved to be a financial disaster. turned to still another strategy intended to accel-
Although the network expected to lose money erate the flow between programs. First NBC, fol-
most years, it hoped that the rewards from pro- lowed by the other networks, eliminated the breaks
moting CBS shows during the World Series and between key programs (Seinfeld to Frasier, for
championship games would be worth the cost. example). Viewers normally make most use of their
Those hopes proved fruitless, and CBS lost tens of remote controls in the two minutes or so that has
millions of dollars with no ratings improvements traditionally occurred between programs, thus
to show for it. running the end of one program right up against
Investing in popular but unprofitable specials the start of the next avoids the opportunity for
to promote other shows on a network remains a remote use. This is called a seamless transition, and
popular form of stunting, however. The Olympics its goal is to keep viewers watching whatever net-
are a perfect example. NBC acknowledged that work they began with.
the money paid for the 2004, 2008 and 2012 In another twist, ABC (soon copied by the
Summer Games would be more than it could get other networks) instructed producers to cut out
back, but it planned to use the games to promote all long title and credit sequences and to begin
and then lead directly into the new fall season, every program with an up-tempo, attention-
thus justifying the cost. It liked this arrangement getting sequence. Titles then appear later in a
so much it paid $4.38 billion for the next four program, some times as much as 10 minutes into
Olympics (2014 to 2020). the program after viewers have, presumably, been
Strangely enough, ABC, which first discovered hooked. At the ends of programs, all networks
the real value of sports, has pulled out of most have experimented with split screens and
megasports bidding, arguing that the big sporting squeezed credits. Originally, some program action
events have become too expensive to be worth (or “bloopers”) filled part of the screen to hold
their price tags (although co-owned ESPN put in a viewers’ attention right into the next program (or
losing bid on the 2014–2020 rights). ABC may very close to it). However, this space now usually
well have been right because so far NBC’s plans contains ads or promos for the upcoming series.
don’t seem to be working when viewed from Another variation on this strategy involves run-
outside the network. On the other hand, perhaps ning a “next” icon or a promotional crawl for
NBC’s image and ratings would be worse without the upcoming series over the last segment of the
the Olympics rights! preceding show. Many viewers find this
62 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

incredibly annoying, and the networks (and follow it to its normal night. In a variation in
advertisers) know it, as witnessed by the fact that 2010, Cape aired its premier episode on both net-
they never do it during the ads. But promotional work and cable channels during the first
crawls on programs have the added advantage of week—cross-media scheduling. To be effective, like
making home recordings off-the-air less desirable, many other strategies, such practices have to be
and thus, the networks believe, a spur to DVD combined with heavy promotion campaigns during
sales. the initial showing advertising the show’s normal
13. Rotating Strategy. This is a very old strategy day and time.
being reintroduced because of a shortage of original Although these scheduling practices can readily
episodes and the need to have original programming be identified in prime-time network lineups, there is
during sweeps periods. In the early days of network little reason to believe any has an overwhelming
television, the very popular Jack Benny Show ran impact on viewing. Most were developed at a time
every other week, regularly alternating with another when few people had remote controls or DVRs, and
program. By 1960, this practice had disappeared, digital cable’s wealth of channels and the internet
but then some cable networks reintroduced it in a didn’t exist. On-demand options and recording via
slightly different variation. As they moved toward DVRs also encourage viewers to do their own sched-
more original production, but usually ordered uling. Today, the audience has little reluctance to
merely 10 to 13 episodes, cable programmers were change channels, and there is no shortage of places
faced with the problem of what to do when original to go
episodes ran out. The web carries rebroadcasts of highly rated or
They solved the problem by scheduling more much-talked-about shows, further undermining net-
than a single series for the same time slot. For work efforts to manipulate audience flow on televi-
example, Syfy Channel runs 10 to 13 weeks of sion during prime time. Nonetheless, most experts
Warehouse 13, followed by 6 to 8 episodes of believe that well-defined and executed application
Eureka followed by 7 episodes of Merlin. This of these programming strategies helps a broadcast
allows Syfy’s programmers to maximize the value of network hold onto significant portions of the view-
the original episodes while spreading out production ership. They continue to believe this even in spite of
costs, having a total of 26 episodes, which with falling numbers for network programs. On the other
reruns, fills a whole season. By 2011, the networks hand, the ratings might be worse … or so networks
were beginning to do the same thing with reality like to think.
series. For example, FOX and CBS each scheduled a
hit, American Idol and Survivor, to run during
sweeps and then filled the time between sweeps with Appointment Viewing
other, far less popular programs. Until now, sched- For decades, scholars have argued about how people
uling multiple series for a single time slot has been watch television. For most of the last 50 years, prac-
largely limited to reality shows on the broadcast titioners assumed people passively watched the set—
networks, but the practice (and the need) is not programs (the least objectionable program the-
spreading. ory). In short, when they had time (availability),
14. Strip Sampling Strategy. In the last five years, a viewers tuned in and then looked for something to
technique to get new programs sampled appeared: watch.
new series aired on several different nights across About a decade ago, some researchers began con-
their premier weeks—horizontal stripping. The tending that people actively planned their viewing
theory is that wide exposure will allow as many around specific programs that would continue their
people as possible to see the show and thus will current mood or change a bad mood. This view proved
 CHAPTER 2 Prime-Time Network Programming Strategies 63

to be a hard sell in an industry that had long dismissed were surprised to find that people were willing to
the idea of program loyalty in all but a few cases. For buy DVD sets of complete seasons of their favorite
example, everyone recognizes that many soap opera television series. While ABC, CBS and NBC long
viewers plan their activities so they can watch their resisted offering their shows in DVD sets, FOX and
favorite afternoon programs—that is, appointment the CW made a sizable portion of their profits from
viewing. But, experts argued, this happened rarely in these sets and even program for them.
prime time, perhaps only with such megahits as Amer- Changing concepts of ordinary viewing beha-
ican Idol, live sporting events, or occasionally with viors makes the successful selection and scheduling
highly-touted miniseries (mostly the domain of public of mass-audience programs increasingly difficult for
broadcasting and cable these days). programmers. The truth is, as far as the major net-
Some shows, like Glee and NCIS, generate loy- works are concerned, programming is bait. It is a
alty and exhibit appointment viewing; their fans are lure to get viewers to watch commercials and a com-
willing to pay extra fees for on-demand viewing modity that can be resold to stations, mainly their
and DVD sets. When researchers looked closely at own O&Os, as syndicated bait to get viewers for
program preference, they found that viewers their ads. The discovery that series could be resold
develop strong mental images about when their as DVD packages forced programmers to begin to
favorite programs are on and tune in with those consider the actual value of the program itself
programs in mind. This presented a very different (see 2.7). For programmers, however, appointment
view of habitual viewing, which had always been
assumed to be a factor in channel or network loy-
alty. This understanding of the power of viewers’
mental images of network schedules led to intensifi- 2.7 The Value Question
cation of the amount and type of on-air, print and

T
online promotion in order to create and manipulate
such mental images. Simultaneously it led to o further complicate matters, the industry can’t figure
renewed interest in creating programs that spur out which shows have resale value. FOX, for
viewing by appointment—that is, shows that are example, planned The Simple Life, its “Paris Hilton meets
so special or events so unique that viewers plan Green Acres” reality series, for fast DVD release. The
their time around them. On the other hand, the network applauded as the series’ ratings climbed, got
the DVD set to the stores only one week after the series
continual shuffling of the schedule is a practice
finished its run on the air, and then watched as sales
that breaks down habitual viewing and thus
went nowhere.
increases viewer frustration.
Meanwhile, Firefly, which FOX had dumped without
It must be understood that despite program loy-
even using all of the ordered episodes, went straight to
alty and appointment viewing, people do not tune in
the top of the DVD sales lists and stayed there. It was
every week. Most viewers do not change other plans subsequently rushed into production again as a theatrical
to watch even their favorite television programs. movie. At the same time, the success of Family Guy on
They find comfort in knowing the series will still DVD, another of FOX’s cancelled series, was so great
be there next week and that they can watch missed FOX un-cancelled it. Its performance on the network,
episodes in rerun or on DVR. however, was and still is only mediocre (ratings of about
DVRs have also profoundly changed people’s 2), revealing that loyalty and a willingness to buy a
views of when they have to watch. The time- series on DVD are not necessarily related to broadcast
shifting of favorite programs is now a common prac- audience size. The CW has known this for years as DVD
tice because DVRs make it easy; this has become so sales make up a huge part of the profits for two of its
important that several days after a program first airs series, Smallville and Supernatural.
are now included in the ratings. Many programmers
64 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

viewing may not only refer to the planning of activi- produced more often. These demands have led to
ties to allow the viewing of a series; it may also be a ratings being reported continuously and in a number
measure of how much a viewer enjoys a particular of different ways, many of which are outlined in
series and how much money and time he or she is Chapters 5 and 6. As a quick heads up, for prime-
willing to invest in it. time network programming, the most common of
these are the sweeps, overnights, pocketpieces and
multinetwork reports.
Prime-Time Ratings
Regardless of whether an advertiser wants sheer ton- Sweeps and Overnights
nage or a specific audience segment, currently, com- Four times each year a highly controversial rating
mercial spot costs depend mainly on the absolute event occurs—the sweeps. In November, February,
ratings plus 3 days (= total estimated audience) of May and July, Nielsen Media Research uses people
the programs in which the commercials occur. Niel- meters in the larger markets and diaries in the smal-
sen is developing ratings for commercials from its ler markets to gather audience viewing behavior that
minute-by-minute people-meter data, but those are is converted into ratings, shares and demographic
not yet in common usage. A television advertiser, information for local television stations and a grow-
in contrast to an advertiser on a formatted radio ing number of cable networks. The sweep results,
station, must pay for all viewers, whether or not particularly the November and February periods
they fall within the desired target audience. Esti- when audience viewing levels are at their highest,
mated program ratings are the major determinant directly affect the rates these cable networks and
of the cost of a commercial spot. local stations (including network-affiliates and
Ratings, however, lack precision. As pointed O&Os) charge for advertising time.
out in Chapter 5, network ratings estimate the view- Traditionally, the summer sweeps were of less
ing of 116 million television households using data importance. One summer the ratings dropped so
collected from 12,000 cooperating families, and it is badly that affiliates began to balk at clearing net-
very unlikely that these estimates are exactly right. work summer shows, but in recent years some of
In fact, statisticians sometimes claim that no sub- the biggest hits have actually started during the sum-
stantial difference exists between the 10th-rated and mer. This has led the networks to claim they have
50th-rated shows in prime time; the differences in moved to a full 52-week season.
their ratings could result from nothing more than The stations demand that the networks display
inevitable sampling errors. their highest-quality merchandise during the sweeps
Because advertisers (and ad agencies) have agreed periods to attract the largest possible audiences and
to base the price of a commercial spot on the absolute maximize ad revenues. This practice makes the four
number, however, they ignore this inability to measure sweeps periods, especially November and February,
small differences. A top program such as The Office highly competitive and, at the same time, not always
that has a rating of about 4 and an advertising price the most valid indicators of a network’s or station’s
of $450,000 per 30-second spot will generate millions real strength.
of dollars more in revenue than a program such as National ratings take several different forms.
Cougar Town with a rating of about 3 and a spot Aside from the sweeps, the overnights are the most
price of $200,000, even though the difference in rat- avidly monitored ratings data. They are gathered
ings between the two is statistically meaningless at the through people meters which sample 25,000 people
levels normally set by statisticians. The treatment of (5,000 for national ratings and 20,000 for local
ratings as absolute numbers by both advertisers and ratings) in 56 major markets. The overnight ratings
networks has led to fights over unmeasurable fractions are used to monitor overall urban audience reaction
of a rating point and demands for more measurements, to such “program doctoring” as changes in casts,
 CHAPTER 2 Prime-Time Network Programming Strategies 65

character emphases and plot lines, and to compare inexpensive to make, and the concept has been
the viewing of major sporting events on broadcast sold to producers in other countries, who use the
and big cable networks. The overnights also indicate same program idea and title but staff the house
immediately whether a new program has “taken with people from their own countries. In Brazil, for
off” and captured a sizable audience in the urban instance, Big Brother is one of the highest-rated pro-
markets. Advertising agencies also use the overnight grams, and the contestants are considered major
numbers to make predictions about specific shows stars. While most game, reality and talent shows
that then become the basis of ratings expectations have no life after their first run, either as DVDs,
(and sales rates). off-network syndication or network reruns, the con-
For example, when Smallville first started, it cept may have value and be syndicatable. Programs
was predicted to get a share of 3 but actually got a like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, Deal Or No
7, thus making it a hit, even though its subsequent Deal, Dancing With The Stars, The Bachelor or
ratings were at the bottom for all series. Since that Survivor had no value to the international market
time, its DVD sales have made its rating almost irrel- as programs, but had great value as ideas. When
evant, as it has run for 10 years, never getting more syndicated, the other country actually produces it.
than a 4. Indeed, CW was almost in a panic as it While the money may not come directly to the net-
finally announced the series would end in 2011. work, it still comes to the parent company. Of
Missing the predicted number (getting one much course the money for traditional off-network syndi-
lower than expected) in the overnights during the cation never came directly to the network either.
first few weeks of a newly introduced program’s And the process reverses: NBC bought the idea for
run spells cancellation unless the ratings show a Voice from non-U.S. sources. (Simply stealing the
hint of growth—or unless the program is expected show, as Norman Lear did with All In The Family,
to have stronger appeal to a specific audience. JAG is no longer an option.)
was canceled by NBC but picked up and run suc- Other series, such as The West Wing and Bones,
cessfully by CBS, which argued that it had a strong were only moderate rating performers but generated
rural and male appeal not represented in the city- strong critical and special-interest appeal and thus
based overnight ratings. CBS was subsequently remained on the schedule, giving them time to grow
proven right. Recently, when Friday Night Lights into true rating success stories, which led to big sales
was dropped by broadcasting, it was picked up by as DVD sets (and long runs on cable for Bones). Still
cable and run successfully. other programs, such as Heroes, were designed to run
Sometimes international appeal is a factor in let- on both a broadcast network and a cable network at
ting a show build an audience. For example, Prison the same time, requiring advertisers to predict com-
Break was only a moderate rating success for FOX, bined ratings/shares. Some programs like Monk were
but it showed strong international potential and not designed for running on both cable and broad-
offered a racially diversified cast during a year with casting but have because parent companies try to
little other racial diversity in prime time. Thus, double the value of an unexpected success.
Prison Break was renewed while higher-rated series Even though the ability to accurately predict the
were canceled. In 2010, Hawaii 5-0 found itself in numbers, especially for new series, is very low, adver-
much the same situation. It was not high in the rat- tising agency predictions still have tremendous power.
ings, but its international syndication potential For example, during the 1999–00 season, advertisers
seems to be very high so it was proclaimed a hit. predicted Secret Agent Man would get barely a 2
Still other shows that are cheap to produce but share. As a result, the series was canceled without air-
have no aftermarket potential may be held because ing even one episode. Who knows? Given a chance,
the shows’ concepts are so valuable. For example, the audience might have turned to it as they did to the
Big Brother has always had ratings of about 2 or 3 summer surprise hits Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
for CBS, hardly great numbers. But the show is and Survivor (the first one), both of which were
66 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

predicted to generate ratings so low they didn’t even It comes from the 12,000 national people-meter
get a regular season start. On the other hand, the households selected to match census demographic
same agency experts predicted that Coupling would guidelines for the entire country. Though this infor-
be one of the highest-rated new series in 2003–04. It mation is published only every other week, these data
certainly did not live up to that prediction. are available to Nielsen subscribers via computer the
next day. A data bank provides, upon request, data
not only for the nine major broadcast networks but
Pocketpieces and MNA Reports also for selected cable networks.
The ratings report traditionally of greatest interest to As 2.8 shows, more than 11 million people
the creative community, and the one most familiar to watched CBS’s Cold Case that Sunday from 8:15
the public, is published every other week in a small to 9:15, and the program’s average rating for the
booklet known as The Nielsen Pocketpiece (see 2.8). hour was 10.5 with a share of 15. At the same

2.8 Sample Pocketpiece Page

 CHAPTER 2 Prime-Time Network Programming Strategies 67

time, more than 10 million people watched FOX’s rating times 2.6). They point to the percentage
Major League Baseball game, getting a rating of 9.5 increase over last year, a show’s first-place position
and a share of 17 or so for that 8:15 to 9:15 P.M. in a time slot, the percentage of the ideal audience it
hour of the game. ABC also did well with Extreme captures, and so on—anything but the actual rating
Makeover: Households, watched by nearly 9 million numbers, which are usually dismal. A decade ago
people; that show got a rating of 8.8 and a share of programmers joked that the ratings books were
13. NBC did less well in the competition, attracting designed to be complicated so that any programmer
just under 5 million people to American Dreams that could find something that he or she was doing right.
week. The show got a rating of 4.3 and a share of 7. Now they keep the ratings a secret. Nielsen permits
Just over 3 million people watched WB’s Charmed, the ratings for only the top 25 programs to be
and it got a rating of 3.0 and a share of 5 (quite reported in the press.
satisfactory for WB, now called the CW). The rating
for the series Doc on PAX (now called ION) aver-
aged about a 1.0, with about a 1 share. Prime-Time Scheduling Practices
At present, Nielsen is handling almost 1,300
computer requests for pocket-piece data monthly, The entire process of prime-time programming
suggesting that its people-meter data may eventually breaks down into three major phases: deciding to
replace or diminish the importance of the over- keep or cancel already scheduled series, developing
nights. Unlike the urban nature of the overnights, and choosing new programs from the ideas pro-
the pocketpiece provides estimates for the entire posed for the coming season, and scheduling the
nation, including ratings/shares and the all- entire group. To understand program evaluation,
important demographics for both prime time and selection and scheduling, the changing concept of a
daytime, plus general information such as average season needs to be spelled out.
ratings by program type, number of sets in use by
days and by dayparts, comparison of television
usage between the current season and the one pre- Shifting Network Seasons
ceding, and other details. From the 1950s to the present, the main viewing
Network programmers also find Nielsen’s year has periodically expanded or contracted until
Multi-Network Area Report (MNA) very useful. it settled on 40 weeks, usually running from late
The statistics in this report cover the 70 leading pop- September to the end of May. The remaining 12
ulation centers in the country, represent about two- weeks (off-season) occur in summer. Production
thirds of total television homes nationally, and break cost increases combined with a high mortality rate
out the O&O markets. The networks use MNA decreased the size of episode orders for renewed
reports to compare the performance of the major series to 20 or 22 episodes by the 1990s, filling in
networks without the distortion caused by the one- the season with specials and reruns.
and two-affiliate markets included in the national Nowadays, ABC, CBS and NBC tend to order
Nielsen reports (although few now exist). MNA just 6 to 10 episodes at a time, although occasional
reports include the so-essential demographic break- 22-episode guaranties are given to capture a high-
outs and give the networks figures related to their profile producer or star. And network contracts
owned stations without distortion from smaller mar- now say “cancelable any time” (although Charlie
kets where they have no ownership interests. Sheen sued claiming they had no right to cancel
As network ratings have fallen, the way the net- Two and a Half Men, or rather to cancel him, as
works report them has also changed. Very few press CBS continued with the series). Even having 22 epi-
releases or promotional materials actually refer to sodes fails to cover the May sweeps; but these sweeps
the ratings or shares anymore. Rather, they report are important to affiliated stations while being too
the millions of people who viewed something (the expensive for the networks to fill with specials.
68 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

Because the network license fee gives the right Limited Series
to two showings of each episode for the one pay-
Starting back in the 1990s, the networks began
ment, and because the networks need to get their
interrupting the regular season with tryouts of new
money’s worth out of every episode, for the last
series in strong prime-time slots. March, April and
decade reruns have begun early and often. They
the summer months became tryout months for lim-
are usually scheduled at the end of the fall season
ited series (generally four to six episodes). This off-
in December (no ratings then) and between the Feb-
and-on method of scheduling allows the networks to
ruary and May sweeps. Traditionally, weaker epi-
test a new program under the best possible condi-
sodes used to be rerun in summers, but the need to
tions while preserving original episodes of the most
fill 40 weeks has resulted in reruns of nearly all epi-
popular series for the May sweeps.
sodes during the main viewing year, with episodes of
Whether inserting a new series into the ongoing
quickly canceled series, new pilots and original real-
prime-time schedule is an effective strategy is debat-
ity series saved for summers.
able. New shows usually get highly inflated ratings
Specials, sports and limited-run tryouts fill the
while in a popular show’s time slot, but such ratings
remaining weeks of the regular season. However,
seldom hold up when new show moves into their
the definition of a “special” has become extremely
much weaker permanent slots. At the same time,
loose. During a recent season, specials included
constantly interrupting a popular show tends to
rejected pilots, such fluff shows as ABC’s 21 Hottest
cause its ratings to go down. Series tried out during
Stars Under 21, and so-called news specials that
the summer months suffer from the opposite effect.
were indistinguishable from the regular news maga-
Because summer ratings are so low, even if a pro-
zines and reality shows.
gram significantly improves ratings for the slot, the
It used to be that placing a program on hiatus (a
absolute quantity of viewers seldom looks good, and
rest or break) meant that it was awaiting cancella-
the usual result is quick cancellation.
tion. Over the decades, a few series came back from
Many reality series, including American Idol
a hiatus with a new actor or plot line, and stayed on
and Dancing with the Stars, however, were planned
the schedule, but most just disappeared. Nowadays,
as limited-run series scheduled during sweeps weeks.
if a series has 22 episodes to air, original episodes
Having only a few episodes reduces production costs
end before Christmas and then return in February
and allows the producers to stage much publicized
or March to run without interruptions to the season
tryouts around the country (that people pay to
finales in May sweeps.
watch and participate in) between actual runs of
Another option for filling gaps in the schedule is
the program. Survivor now follows the same year-
stripping, which refers to scheduling episodes of a
round tryout scheme, but was originally a limited
program, usually a magazine series like NBC Date-
summer series.
line, on several different days across the week. This
In truth, the majority of new series are aired
practice has not seemed to harm the numbers for
first in limited-run experiments, not pilots. The
news format shows, but it killed Who Wants to Be
majority of new programs tried by ABC, CBS,
a Millionaire? as a network show. However, after a
NBC and FOX run for fewer than eight weeks. In
hiatus of a year Millionaire returned as a syndicated
contrast, UNI, TEL and the CW tend to leave new
series, and later went back on ABC as a special. In
series on for a full season, but some programmers
more limited form, stripping has been employed
argue that this stems not from a different philosophy
with such situation comedies as Till Death, Scrubs,
but from a lack of the money required to constantly
Reba and That 70’s Show, and with such reality
develop replacements. (MNTV and TEF carry
shows as Next Top Model, Survivor and Nanny
mostly rerun entertainment series.)
911, which often run two and sometimes three
Programmers argue that limited-run series in all
times a week. FOX dose this regularly with Ameri-
seasons are the wave of the future. They point to the
can Idol and Dancing With The Stars.
 CHAPTER 2 Prime-Time Network Programming Strategies 69

success of such cable programs as Monk and The that did not make the fall schedule. (Previously,
Sopranos, which ran 8 to 12 weeks, went off, and these pilots would never have been seen by anyone
then came back later for another 8 to 12 weeks. This outside the network programming department.) By
allowed cable programmers to stretch the run of the the 1990s, not only were network ratings down
popular original series into the summer months, but the costs for program development were so
when they often wiped out the networks in the high that the networks could no longer absorb the
ratings. expense of the development stages for new shows
However, as with most things concerning the that never reached the air.
networks, the situation is not quite that simple. In Summer became the arena for reruns of weak
broadcasting, the combination game/reality formula series episodes or episodes of quickly canceled series
used in Celebrity Apprentice, Survivor, The Amaz- that were paid for but never used, and for episodes
ing Race and American Idol forces programmers of never-scheduled shows or reruns of canceled
into a scattered scheduling approach. A new game series. Running pilots as made-for-TV movies, sum-
has to start and run its course as one person is mer specials, and short-run tests of series became
thrown off the show each week, and then end the three ways to recoup much of a network’s invest-
game. It then takes several weeks to get the next ment. By 2007, the networks had begun to repeat
episode of the game ready for broadcast. Something their top shows on Saturday nights, further exhaust-
has to fill the weeks between the main reality series, ing their rerun potential for summers.
so why not use another cheap reality game and then However, the practices of doubling, tripling and
alternate them back and forth in the schedule? In stripping episodes during the regular season, com-
cable, programmers used the broken-run strategy bined with airing many unscripted series, which can-
largely because they could not afford a full 22 epi- not be successfully rerun, began leaving little that was
sodes. They needed the money from the first run to fresh for the summer months. Indeed, the neglect of
produce the second run. This scattered approach to the summers by ABC, CBS and NBC made them a
scheduling helped disguise the fact that there weren’t gold mine for the cable networks, which began killing
very many original episodes being produced. the broadcast networks in the summer ratings. In
Network-planned limited runs of such high-cost addition, the affiliated stations worried about the
series as Lost serve much the same purpose. Limiting extreme ratings drops during July sweeps.
the number of episodes produced each season keeps FOX further complicated the picture when it dis-
production costs down and produces revenue to sup- covered that summer was a good time to get people
port more production. Theoretically, this type of to sample series they did not normally watch. This
scheduling also builds anticipation in the audience, network was able to build an audience for several
allowing a network to promote an upcoming series of its regular series by continuing original episodes
almost like a special event that hypes the ratings dur- into summer, which were supported by active promo-
ing sweeps weeks. ABC shocked many fans in 2007 tional campaigns. To take advantage of the potential
by announcing Lost’s end date of 2010, after a six- for discovering its shows, FOX began heavily pro-
season run. The producers claimed that fans moting its reruns as a “second chance to see what
deserved the security of knowing that all the you have been missing.” FOX’s success was later cop-
show’s convoluted storylines would play out fully as ied by NBC in its “New to you” promotion that
intended. emphasized the fact that “if you haven’t seen it, the
program is new to you.” By the early 2000s, this
strategy was sufficiently successful to force the other
Summer Schedules networks to pay more attention to their summer sche-
In the late 1980s, the networks began using March dules. Most networks now schedule at least one or
and April, as well as summer, for testing new pro- two new series during the summer, although none
gram ideas in short runs and airing rejected pilots seems intended to continue during the main season.
70 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

Even when a summer series generated a lot of talk or actually reduced the sampling of new shows. For
higher-than-expected ratings, as was the case with the example, viewers who find an appealing show at a
short-run FOX series Roar, the show was dropped certain hour in early September are unlikely to check
the minute September rolled around. out new shows when they debut some weeks later at
Until the breakthrough by extremely cheap the same hour. Viewers also won’t stay around (or
unscripted (this doesn’t mean no writers, it just come back) when a new show they like vanishes for
means no union writers) series like Survivor, even several weeks while the network stunts. As a rule,
when a summer series outperformed expectations, fans of comedy will find another comedy at that
it was seldom picked up. Programmers generally hour and stick with it; fans of drama will become
wrote these offerings off before they ever went on loyal to another drama.
the air. As a result, a show must break all records In addition, a large number of new network pro-
to get attention from programmers who have grams, particularly replacement shows, begin their
already moved on to next season’s planning. runs in January or February, thus creating a second
The original Survivor on CBS, which ran only season on the networks. By late fall each year, the fate
during the summer of 2000, was such a surprise of most prime-time programs already on the air has
megahit. It spawned several clones (look-alike become clear. Holiday specials usually preempt those
shows) for the subsequent season (Temptation Island, destined for cancellation or restructuring, while more
The Mole and Big Brother), and then American Idol, popular series go into reruns and special holiday
a summer copy of a British series, did the same thing episodes, which are often cut together pieces of ear-
for FOX. Suddenly summer was seen as the time to lier episodes with a loose plot—such as characters are
try reality series. With the advent of original summer trying to remember something—to tie them together.
schedules and the promotion of reruns as original By January or February the networks are ready
programming for people who normally watched the to launch their second seasons—with almost the
competition, the July ratings books took on more same amount of promotion and ballyhoo as are
importance as a measure of network and pay-cable accorded the new season premieres in September or
pull, as a limited vehicle for pre-fall testing, and inci- October. Nonetheless, they then promptly preempt
dentally, as a way to satisfy affiliates. the new schedule to promote and run special pro-
gramming for the February sweeps, and then they
introduce more new series in March. As a result, it
Premieres is hard to argue that there are clear seasons any lon-
Traditionally, the networks premiered their new ger. Rather, network programming has become a
series during a much-publicized week in late Septem- round of constant changes. As a strategy, this is
ber. However, in 2004, because of the late summer called the continuous season approach. Indeed,
Olympics, the networks declared the end of fall pre- back in 2009, NBC said there were no more seasons,
mieres as such. The reality is that series have debu- and the others have adopted the same practices.
ted in scattershot fashion for the last decade, usually Schedule changes are occurring every week.
throughout September and October (and occasion-
ally as early as August or as late as November).
Theoretically, spreading out the premieres keeps Program Renewal
new programs from getting lost in the rush, gives
viewers maximum opportunity to sample each new Evaluation of on-air shows goes on all year. The
network show, and accommodates interruptions critical times for new programs starting are before
caused by baseball playoffs, the World Series and the sweeps in November, February, May and July;
other major events such as the Olympics. In fact, those doing badly during sweeps are then quickly
spreading out “premiere week” has diminished the replaced before the next sweeps occur. The final
excitement associated with a new season and decision on whether to return an iffy program to
 CHAPTER 2 Prime-Time Network Programming Strategies 71

the schedule the following fall is usually made 5. The scarcity of outstanding program forms and
between March and May because the networks fresh, top-rated production and writing talent,
showcase their fall lineups at their annual affiliates as well as a network propensity for formulaic
meetings during those months and up-front sales series, which leads to a great deal of copying
begin. Last-minute changes, however, occur right and very low levels of originality
up to the opening guns in the fall. 6. The loss of key actors because they become
bored or move on to other projects
Program Lifespan 7. The move toward the cloning of prime-time
The average lifespan of popular prime-time series hits, which results in a sameness that causes
has declined steadily over time. In the 1950s and even the best ideas to wear out faster
1960s, such shows as The Ed Sullivan Show, Guns- The shortened lifespan of prime-time series
moke, What’s My Line? and The Wonderful World reflects the complexity of program license contracts
of Disney endured for more than 20 years. These that generally ran for five to seven years. Each new
records for longevity will probably never be matched episode of a program is assigned a license fee,
again in prime time—with the exceptions of news whether the show is produced by the same company
magazines and cartoons like The Simpsons. By that owns the network intending to carry the pro-
1980, a program lifespan of 10 years was regarded gram or another entity. The license fee size varies
as a phenomenon. By the 1990s, 5 years was an out- with cost factors such as costumes, special effects,
standing run for a successful series. sets, stunt work, the amount of location versus stu-
A decade later, because the networks became dio shooting, cast size, the producers’ and stars’
the producers, they gained a vested interest in the reputations, the program’s track record, the demand
longevity of their programs. Series such as Small- for series in the same genre and so on. Traditionally,
ville, Supernatural, NCIS, 7th Heaven and Law and this cost represented about three-quarters of the
Order are now moving back toward 10-year life- actual cost of production and told the executive pro-
spans. The networks have become very reluctant to ducers how much they were going to have to kick in
cancel anything that succeeds, even modestly, if they to actually make the program.
can make a profit from it. When a series first makes it to the air, the net-
Several factors accounted for this shortened work controls the contractual situation and usually
lifespan: requires several concessions from everyone involved.
1. Above all, the high cost of renewing writers, At this time, the producer commonly has to sign
directors and actors after an initial contract over such rights as creative control, spin-off rights,
expires limitations on syndication and scheduling control.
Everyone also agrees to a specific licensing fee for
2. The increased sophistication or, some argue, the
the run of the five-year contract, regardless of the
shortened attention span of the viewing audience
program’s success (after all, most shows fail). Typi-
3. The constant media coverage of television cally, this licensing fee makes no concession for shar-
shows and stars (as in Entertainment Tonight, ing the profits should the program become a hit.
People and Us magazines, the morning talk However, when the producer and the network now
shows and so on), which wears out each series work for the same corporation, the leverage lies with
idea quickly the parent company (see 2.9).
4. The practice of syndicating a series while it
continues its network run, of releasing DVD
sets, and of doubling and tripling (or other Pivotal Numbers
overusing while on the network), which leads to Choosing which programs already on the air will
burnout continue and which will be pulled (renewals and
72 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

2.9 License Contracts

T raditionally, producers practice deficit financing (pay-

ing more to produce a series than the network pays in
license fees) because the potential profit from off-network
Under such renewal conditions, a network could some-
times profit by dropping a popular show. But because
finding hits has been so difficult, the networks generally
syndication can run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. decide it’s better to give in rather than have another huge
If a show is a hit, the producers can make up any losses. hole open up in their schedules. For example, NBC did bite
Producers typically agree to licensing contracts lower than the bullet with the moderate hit ER, paying $13 million per
actual production costs in order to get their shows onto the episode for one year just to keep this centerpiece for its
networks so they have chances to be hits. Thursday night schedule.
For those few shows that really succeeded, in the old The repeal of the financial interest rule, however, meant that
days, at the end of the first contractual period (normally five the networks could (and do) now own the programs. Because
years), the tables were turned: Now the producers and the network is itself the producer, tables don’t turn so completely
stars enjoyed the advantage because the series had a track (oh, actors can still get pushy, and the unions can cause trou-
record. In short, if the network wanted to keep making the ble, as they did during the 2008 season), but all costs and
series, concessions would have to be granted, usually in profits belong to the same corporation, giving it enormous
the form of much higher salaries or bigger shares in profits leverage over salaries and profit sharing. Although deficit
for the producers. Friends illustrated this dilemma when the financing is still practiced for tax purposes, it occurs between
stars each demanded $1 million an episode in 2003–04 arms of the same company. One outcome of the new power
even before any other salaries or production costs were relationship is that the networks seem to hold the few big hits
figured. longer even as cancellations for new series come quicker.

cancellations) is perhaps the easiest decision network possible, while programs in the top third are usually
programmers have. The decisions are based squarely renewed. The most difficult decisions for network pro-
on the network’s profit margin—in essence, sub- grammers involve programs in the middle third—the
tracting the cost per episode from advertising reve- borderline cases—or programs that
nue. Normally, revenue has been directly related to 1. are weakening but are nearing their fifth year.
ratings. Until the 1980s, a weeknight rating below
20 (or an audience share of less than 30) almost 2. are only just beginning to slide in the ratings.
always resulted in a program’s cancellation on any 3. are highly rated but draw the wrong
network. But because of steady network audience demographics.
erosion, by the mid-2000s, the Big Four’s numbers 4. produce low ratings but draw a high percentage
had plummeted to a minimum weekday prime-time within a desirable demographic group.
rating of 4 and a share of 9. 5. have low ratings but high profit margins.
If the profit margin is high enough, such as with
CBS’s series Big Brother, a show will be retained 6. produce strong critical approval but marginal
with even lower numbers. Thus, profitability is the ratings.
source of the power of reality programs. A few, such Occasionally, the personal preferences of a top
as American Idol, have high ratings numbers, but network executive, the reaction from critics, letter-
most do far worse than hour-long dramas. But typi- writing campaigns or an advertiser’s support may
cally, unscripted shows are incredibly cheap to pro- influence a decision, but the prevailing view is that
duce, making the profit margins enormous. cancellations had far better come too soon and too
Entertainment series stalling in the bottom third often than too late. Indeed, network programmers
of the Nielsens are usually canceled as soon as insist that advertisers and corporate headquarters
 CHAPTER 2 Prime-Time Network Programming Strategies 73

will not tolerate a program that doesn’t offer instant “the new reality revolution” because of the genre’s low
success. cost, in spite of disastrous rerun numbers and no syndi-
Replacement series, however, rarely do signifi- cation potential. Currently, a new reality show costs at
cantly better than the original programs in the ratings least $1,500,000 per episode. Even such megahits as
(see 2.10), and they push development prices even Survivor cost only about $3 million per episode,
higher. Therefore, large group owners occasionally whereas the price tag for an episode of Two and a
pressure their networks to hold on to problematic Half Men is close to $20 million. (Original cable series
shows. Group owners can affect cancellation deci- cost much less than the broadcast equivalent because
sions, as can direct participation from key sponsors, they are done in non-union shops outside of
but this happens only rarely. For example, in 2003 California.)
Procter and Gamble pulled its advertisements (pur- Because the company controlling the network
chased during the up-front buying) from Family now usually owns the production, it has to cover
Law, saying the content was not what the company all costs, so the fee itself is largely irrelevant except
had been promised. As a result, CBS was forced to to the accountants at tax time. For accounting pur-
pull the offending episodes from the rerun schedule. poses, the license fee is still used to allocate the
In addition, the O&Os can affect a decision because actual cost of production to various departments,
they report to the same parent corporation. Such pres- and it tells the network how much it has to earn
sure can be positive (to hold) or negative (to kill). during first run and then during rerun to break
More than the other networks, FOX and CW even. How networks allocate these costs varies enor-
seem less traditional and readier to look for poten- mously and largely depends on what will generate
tial profits outside those generated by advertising. the lowest tax bill at the end of the year. At present,
They are more likely to keep shows with strong one of the biggest cost factors is how a program is
off-network syndication or DVD sales potential, produced from a technical standpoint (see 2.11).
and seek shows with potential for non-direct sales Because there are only a limited number of top
from tours or music sales and on-demand or internet producers and writers for any given genre, especially
revenues. high demand for a particular type of show forces
costs up. By 2012, the fee for a successful reality
series had gone up almost 400 percent but was still
Program Costs far below the cost for any other type of program-
In addition to ratings, profits left after subtracting ming (with the exception of news magazines like
licensing costs from advertising revenues influence 20/20).
program cancellations. Two prime-time programs A show’s potential for profits in syndication
of the same length, on the same network, with iden- also affects how high its license fee can go. Action
tical ratings will, ideally, produce identical amounts hours have traditionally been expensive to produce
of revenue for that network. If, however, one of but have been highly syndicatable in both the
them has slightly higher per-episode licensing costs, domestic and international markets. They are also
say as little as $100,000 an episode, over the length highly desirable for the parent companies’ own
of a season that difference would equal just over cable networks. However, following the takeover
$2 million more in costs. It is clear that the program of most independent production houses, the number
with the higher licensing cost will be canceled before of original action series dried up. In 2004–05 there
the lower-cost series. In recent years, the networks were only three action hours available in syndica-
have scheduled more program genres with low pro- tion, Andromeda, Stargate SG1 and Mutant X. By
duction costs—witness the proliferation of news 2007, no original action hours were on the market.
magazines and reality shows in prime time. In 2008, only one new series, Legend of the Seeker,
Nonetheless, unexpected megahits like Survivor was offered. It was produced in New Zealand, but
and American Idol have led programmers to promote distributed through Disney (ABC). For the broadcast
74 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

2.10 Time Slot Ratings

T he history of ratings for the time slot a program fills

may be the strongest measure of how that program
will perform. After all, a “history” takes into account such
ones where previous programs failed. In the last 20 or so
years, more than half of all new shows have been sched-
uled in prime-time slots that already ranked in the bottom
factors as the competition, the leads in and out on all third of the ratings, and most were also in slots ranked third
channels, the network’s myths and policies, and the pub- compared to the competition. Clearly, the strength of a time
lic’s viewing habits and expectations. The reality is that slot should be considered when the decision is made to
more than 80 percent of the series scheduled in new time hold or cancel a series.
slots (new or moved shows) do not alter either the ratings or This, however, has not usually been the case at the
the ranking for their slots significantly. This means that a networks: In practice, a program’s rank and absolute rating
series placed in a top-rated time slot probably will be a top- overrule expectations for a time slot. As a result, a series
rated series, and conversely, a series placed in a weak with a 9 rating would usually be held, while a series with a
position will be weak. 4 would be cancelled, even if that 9 represented a loss of
The majority of the remaining shows get lower ratings several points (by comparison with the lead-in program or
than their time slot averaged in the previous season. This the previous program in that slot) and the 4 represented a
means that when a series does change the historical pat- gain. Because there is only a small chance that a series will
tern, the change is usually for the worse. Chances are less significantly improve the ratings for a time slot, considering
than 5 percent that a program will significantly improve the ranking an absolute rating appears to be self-defeating in
ratings for the time slot even at the generally accepted 68 the long run.
percent level (one standard deviation rather than the two Because the majority of available slots are going to be
normally used in research). weak in any case, wisdom suggests holding onto series that
Low-rated shows are subject to a widely accepted con- improve the numbers and slowly rebuilding holes in the
dition called double jeopardy. According to this idea, low- schedule would be sound practices. Because a short
rated shows have both low exposure and little chance of replacement series is very unlikely to do any better and is
getting more exposure. This is because popular programs expensive to develop, common sense would also seem to
are chosen by more people, and those viewers are more advocate holding onto new programs longer to give them
committed to the shows. Thus, unpopular programs suffer time to build audiences. After all, Seinfeld generated ratings
from increasingly fewer and less-committed viewers. of only 11 and 12 during its first year (which now seems
Obviously the best scheduling ploy would be to place incredibly high, but stunk back then), losing badly to Home
every series in an already strong position, an impossibility Improvement. Nonetheless, the pattern of the three major
in programming. The slots open to programmers are usually networks has been “decide quickly” and “cancel fast.”

2.11 Production Methods

A ccording to data from NATPE, as of 2005, physi-

cally producing a program on film (not including the
cost of talent) ran about $1,000 per minute. Tape was less
editing, special effects, and so on—ran about $7,000
for 45 minutes of high-definition product (less than $100
for minute). This enormous cost differential—about one-fifth
expensive but still around half that cost. Producing the pro- the cost of film—drove the high-definition revolution in
gram digitally—using a digital camera and a computer for Hollywood.
 CHAPTER 2 Prime-Time Network Programming Strategies 75

networks, this meant a lucrative part of the syndica- an hour-long series into several more programs with
tion market had evaporated in less than five years. only minor changes. Originality has never been a big
This part of the market has been taken over by cable selling point for broadcasters, but franchising pro-
which is now relied on for almost all hour-long syn- grams creates extreme sameness because a fran-
dicated product. chised show merely has a different cast and
Crime dramas then surfaced as a means to fill perhaps location. By the mid-2000s, CSI had been
network schedules at a somewhat lower cost than cloned to three different cities (Las Vegas, Miami
action hours, resulting in schedules full of Law & and New York) and blended with JAG to form
Order and CSI look-alikes. Although the network NCIS. Law & Order had added a Special Victims
studios were cranking out afternoon talk shows Unit and Criminal Intent, and followed them with
and judges banging various gavels, they were gener- even more analysis in Criminal Minds. People were
ating few dramas outside of crime and lawyer only half joking when they suggested that next we
shows. (The main exception was The Mentalist, the would have Law & Order: SUV where the charac-
success of which gave rise to a handful of “psych” ters would investigate crimes from large sponsor-
shows.) At the same time, the networks were having placed vehicles.
no luck producing new hit sitcoms, resulting in a Over at FOX, they were working on turning
certain amount of panic in the syndication market. American Idol into a franchise by changing music
styles or featuring contestants of different ages. For
network programmers, franchising has three enor-
mous advantages:
New Program Selection
1. Generating hour-long programs for foreign
Phase two in planning a new fall season—selection syndication or whose premise can be syndicated
and development of new program ideas—poses internationally
more difficult problems than ongoing program eval- 2. Reducing decision making for new series ideas
uation. The four networks consider as many as
3. Creating signature programs to be identified
6,000 new submissions every year. These submis-
with a network, thus helping to set it apart from
sions vary from single-page outlines to completed
other program suppliers
scripts that come from writers or producers. Deci-
sion makers favor ideas resembling previously or Viewers have generally had to look to cable for
presently successful shows. They even quietly agree fresh ideas in such programs as Six Feet Under, Nip/
that almost all so-called original successes are in fact Tuck, Burn Notice, Warehouse 13 and so on. But
patterned after long-forgotten programs. American the most popular cable shows are sometimes reused
Idol, for example is just the Original Amateur on sister broadcast networks, as was the case with
Hour with a snotty Ted Mack. Glee merges the Monk and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. This
musical with a dramatic series, a modestly innova- double scheduling of the same show is called repur-
tive idea, copying a Disney cable movie and 7 Brides posing and goes both ways. For example, NBC ran
for 7 Brothers, the last broadcast effort. all three versions of Law & Order on its co-owned
One year, NBC promoted its move toward new USA and later syndicated the original series to TNT.
and daring ideas with Titans, described as a “quirky It also ran Heroes on the co-owned Syfy Channel. In
yarn about a big city lawyer returning to his home- fact, the entire SOAPnet channel seemed to be a way
town in Ohio,” despite this being the same plot as for ABC to rerun its afternoon soap operas at night
Providence, Judging Amy and Ed. But then, none of for women who work during the day. One has to
the other networks have been any more original. wonder what will happen to it now that ABC is
The newest way of generating additional net- down to one soap opera. But Heroes proved so pop-
work programs is franchise programming—cloning ular with younger viewers that NBC broke the
76 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

“avoid sci-fi” rule in 2008 and experimented with and then NBC to allot more money to develop new
Journeyman, Bionic Woman and (unbelievably) the program ideas. The network that has recently
weird Chuck. dropped the most in the prime-time ratings is always
the hungriest for fresh ideas and the most willing to
risk trying them.
Program Concepts and Scripts Before authorizing any production, the program
Many program concepts are dismissed out of hand; executive will first order one or more full scripts and
others are read and reread, only to be shelved a bible. Nowadays, a network typically pays about
temporarily—or even permanently when a network $50,000 for a half-hour comedy script and $70,000
is worried that the idea might possibly be a hit but for a one-hour drama script. Exceptional (read suc-
won’t take the chance and doesn’t want anyone else cessful) writers demand much higher prices. The
to chance it. A few, usually variations on present hits bible outlines characters and their relationships, sug-
or linked to top stars or producers, get a favorable gests sets that will be needed, and summarizes future
nod with dispatch. Such big-name directors as Barry script ideas or the way the program can develop
Levinson, Oprah Winfrey or Rob Reiner are during its proposed run. At this stage, the producer
courted and given contracts to develop anything also looks for production locations—at least for the
they want, but without promises to actually run pilot—outside of California.
the shows. The networks fight desperately to find
that immediate hit that will pull in a young
audience. Advances and Pilots
Of the thousands of submissions that land on A pilot is a sample or prototype production of a
the networks’ desks, roughly 600 are chosen for fur- series under consideration. Pilots afford program-
ther development. At this point, all parties sign a mers an opportunity to preview audience reaction
step deal, a contract providing development funds to a property. Each of the Big Four networks orders
in stages to the producer. In the past, a step deal between 30 and 45 pilots to fill expected gaps in its
also set compensation rates if the show were success- new season lineup (fewer for CW and Spanish-
ful and gave the network creative control, which are language networks). Once a network decides to
still important when a show is not wholly owned by film or tape a pilot, it draws up a budget and
one network. advances start-up money to the producer. The bud-
As a rule, step deals authorize scripts or, in get and advance may be regarded as the third major
some cases, expanded treatments. The approved step in the program development process.
concepts often take first form as special programs, Half-hour pilots cost from $1.5 million to
made-for-TV movies or, increasingly, test characters $3 million, depending on things like sets, costumes,
in established shows. For example, the characters special effects, star power and so on, with one-hour
Green Arrow and Aquaman were introduced in drama pilots costing more than twice that amount.
Smallville, both of which became strong contenders Traditionally, pilot production costs were generally
for their own series. In the end, the CW decided to higher than costs for regular season shows because
keep them part of Smallville, but that may now new sets had to be built, crews assembled and start-
change as that show has ended its run. If a concept up costs paid. (However, the ongoing costs for the
was submitted initially in script form, a rewrite may few megahits have recently risen far higher than the
be ordered with specific recommendations for costs of their pilots.)
changes in concept, plot or cast (and even new wri- FOX and many producers have denounced the
ters and in some cases, producers). pilot system because of its incredible expense and
Until recently, ABC traditionally supported abysmal success rate. FOX demands 5- to 10-minute
many more program ideas at this stage than CBS, presentation films in place of full-blown pilots for
NBC or FOX, but ratings shifts have led first CBS many shows, but this radical idea has met strong
 CHAPTER 2 Prime-Time Network Programming Strategies 77

2.12 The Program Development Process

Process begins with the review of new ideas submitted in the form of pitch sessions,
requested submissions, open submissions, or company-developed proposals.

Step 1: Possibilities

Reject Basic contract turning

over creative control and
setting basic pay schedule
for 5 to 7 years

Step 2: Possibilities

Reject Shelve Assign to Provide money for

another producer script development

Step 3: Possibilities

Reject Shelve Assign to Provide money for

another producer pilot

Step 4: Possibilities

Reject Shelve Assign to Set aside for possible Provide a limited

another producer mid-season replacement episode order

resistance from the other major broadcasters. Now- The decisions to select series for airing based on
adays, of the approximately 130 pilots produced their pilots usually take into consideration the
annually, many are formatted as made-for-TV following:
movies. These can be played on regular movie
nights and sold internationally as parts of movie 1. Current viewer preferences as indicated by rat-
packages, thus recouping the investment even if ings or profit margins
the series idea is not picked up. Series failing to 2. Costs
make the final selection list for the fall season are 3. Resemblance between the proposed program
held in reserve in anticipation of the inevitable can- and concepts that worked well in the past
cellations. After seeing the pilots, the networks also
“short order” some backup series, authorizing pro-
4. Projected series’ ability to deliver the targeted
demographics for that network and its adverti-
duction of four to six episodes and additional
sers and its O&Os
scripts in case a backup show used as filler is unex-
pectedly successful. For a visualization of the devel- 5. Types of programs the competing networks air
opment process, see 2.12. on nights when the new series might be scheduled
78 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

The following are of secondary weight but also In most cases, these preemptions were caused by
relevant to a judgment: running extra episodes of an already existing series
(for example, running hordes of back-to-back epi-
6. The reputation of the producer and writers
sodes of Reba)—or by reversing the existing shows
7. The appeal of the series’ performers (the talent) (for example, so cleverly flipping Grey’s Anatomy
8. The availability of an appropriate time period and Desperate Housewives) for just one week, or
9. The compatibility of the program with return- by blocking the network’s franchise shows for a cou-
ing shows ple of weeks (such as running all the CSIs on the
same night or all the Law & Orders, or just one
10. The longevity of the concept (for example, in a
version three times, or…or…). Such preemptions
program centered around children, the pro-
hurt the long-term ratings of the bumped shows:
ducer must remember children grow up)
Lost audiences don’t come back. Very few examples
Finally, increasingly relevant are these factors: of churn were the result of airing specials.
In short, regularly-scheduled series were missing
11. The number and type of countries that might
from their scheduled slots almost two out of every
buy the show or idea in syndication
four weeks between September and May. The wri-
12. The ability to reuse the show in another co- ters’ strike can account for some of this during the
owned venture (another broadcast or cable 2008–2009 season, but nothing accounts for it dur-
network) or platform (internet or mobile media) ing the other years. And the churn rate was even
13. The size of the potential DVD sales market worse during the summer.
14. The viability of inviting other companies to Changes now occur weekly and it’s virtually
share the initial expenses impossible to tell when the network is trying a
stunt, fixing a move that didn’t work, or dumping
15. The possibility for advertiser tie-ins or cross
a show quickly. It is hard not to agree with Brooks
promotion.
(see 2.13) that this constant motion represents panic.
Of equal importance is whether the parent corpo- A program that a network wants to get rid of can
ration can control the entire process from production be canceled outright or manipulated (time-shifted or
to multiplatform distribution. The chief programmer churned) until its ratings fall. Manipulation some-
juggles all of these considerations and perhaps others. times makes good public relations sense when a
show is critically successful or widely popular—but
not quite popular enough among the desired demo-
Schedule Churn graphic groups. Some critics have suggested that this
Stunting has resulted in a continual shifting of was the problem with Touched by an Angel. Analysis
prime-time schedules, called scheduling churn. of program churn over the long haul leads to two
(Here the term churn refers to the continual shifting conclusions:
of programs within the network schedule and should 1. An individual program’s ratings almost always
not be confused with the term subscriber churn as it fall when it is moved two out of three weeks
is used in the cable and pay-television industries.) (especially when moved in the second season).
Moving programs in the schedule, using short
2. A new series—one that had improved upon the
runs and cancelling quickly are not the only causes
time slot it was originally given—always fails
of churn. These actions don’t take into account net-
when moved.
work preemptions of their own shows, which have
become distressingly commonplace. Indeed, over Prime candidates for purposive schedule manip-
the last four years, each of the four major networks ulation include programs with higher-than-average
has averaged about a 40 percent preemption rate. production costs that would cause managerial
 CHAPTER 2 Prime-Time Network Programming Strategies 79

2.13 Explaining Network Churn

I ndustry expert Tim Brooks, author of The Complete

Directory of Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows,
blamed much of network churn on “panic.” He pointed out
When one of these shows eventually slid downward,
though, the overall ratings for that network went into a free
fall. When this happens, as it inevitably does, program-
that ratings had been declining since the mid-1970s but mers panic.
that the decline was not steady. Rather, ratings would first Instead of changing the practices that seem to be driv-
drop and then stabilize for a few years. When this hap- ing the audiences away, they do more of them. For exam-
pened, programmers would proclaim success, claiming ple, when ratings began another free fall in 1997,
they now had control of the problem (and then they would programmers went into another schedule-shuffling frenzy.
continue doing exactly what they had been doing). By 2004, the heavy reliance on reality series had multi-
These periods of stability were related to specific pro- plied the problem because such series almost always
grams that, for a time, according to Brooks, brought in big decline significantly in audience size in their second sea-
audiences. During the 1980s, it was Cosby; then in the sons and have no afterlife in either syndication or as DVD
mid-1990s it was Roseanne and Home Improvement. Later sets. Those based on a gimmick, like The Simple Life, often
the numbers again stabilized when ER and Seinfeld fall apart completely. Franchise shows seem to hold up
became hits, then Survivor further solidified them for a time. better in syndication, but never match the original in ratings.

problems if abruptly canceled (because they are sup- their broadcast and owned cable channels. For some
ported by a highly-placed executive or advertiser). big-budget or especially promising shows, paid
The 1995 shift of Murder, She Wrote on CBS from advertising in program guides and magazines also
Sundays to Thursdays may have been an example of helps draw audience attention, often through cross
this type of move. Two notable shifts, The West promotion deals with advertisers.
Wing from Wednesday to Sunday in 2005–06 and Concurrently, the networks open elaborate
King of Queens in 2006–07 from Monday to websites for each new program containing character
Wednesday, are probably examples of purposive bios and pictures, the backstory of the series and the
schedule shifts. Once low ratings or even a down- current plot line, merchandise to buy, interactive
ward trend is achieved, network programmers can chat groups, feedback options, recent episodes or
point to the numbers to justify cancellation (on the previews of upcoming episodes and other elements.
few occasions when some justification seems useful). On-air promotional announcements are believed to
During panics, however, programs seem to be play a pivotal role in the ratings success of a pro-
moved for no apparent reason: Merely showing the gram. Particularly essential are the on-screen tune-
parent company that something is being done seems in messages, now taking up a significant portion of
to be the real programming strategy at such times. airtime. Websites have a different function: They are
thought to build loyalty to the program and involve-
ment with specific characters, both contributing to
Promotion’s Role satisfaction with a series and to frequent viewing.
In the fall, on-air promos plug every program
All broadcast networks use frequent on-air promo- scheduled to appear in a season lineup. Weak or
tion and online promotion, as well as paid advertis- doubtful offerings needing extra stimulus get extra
ing, to introduce new and moved programs. exposure on all platforms, at least until the network
Beginning as early as mid-July and continuing surrenders. Not until a program is safely past the
through November, networks intensify promotion rocks and shoals of its first several airings (or until
of both their programs and their overall images on the network decides it can’t risk more early trials)
80 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

does promotion let up. At least minimal on-air pro- the-scenes specials is also critical for capturing atten-
motion continues as long as a show is on the sched- tion. Some networks also join with major businesses,
ule, but websites fade away (from lack of updates) such as Kmart, Sears or McDonald’s, to jointly pro-
when a show seems destined for cancellation. At this mote the new season or a specific program.
point fan sites take over (see 2.14). Promotions in print, on the air and on the web
In addition, networks use print promotion, espe- are the primary ways networks invite viewers to try
cially magazines and newspaper listings, to catalog out programs. They are also the means by which the
offerings for particular evenings. For a long time, networks convince viewers to associate a program
TV Guide magazine was so important to network with a particular network (franchising or branding).
television that programmers sometimes delayed At the same time, parent corporations are demand-
schedule changes so that the alterations could make ing heavy cross-promotion of a company’s many
TV Guide’s deadline for affiliate program listings. subsidiaries—such as the CW using its TV shows
The promotional value of TV Guide was enormous to promote music from Atlantic, Elektra, Reprise,
until its format became unwieldy after the digital Rhino and Warner Bros. Records—which uses up
channel explosion. Cable systems now provide elec- air time that would previously have been used to
tronic guides, essential because of the huge numbers promote episodes of individual programs. And it
and types of channels (digital, HD, 3D), with several leaves less and less program time.
ways of sorting and classifying program titles.
Magazines like People and Us have become
major outlets for printed promotional materials,
often run as features and not identified as promo-
Changing Format Emphases
tional material. Cross-promotion using morning
To minimize risk, networks continue to rely on the
shows and cable outlets carrying popular behind-
traditional winners in prime time—situation come-
dies, dramas and movies—and somewhat reluctantly
added unscripted programs (in shorthand, reality) to
2.14 Fan Sites this exclusive list. Another change has been the

V
increased use of specials, a term encompassing one-
irtually every program has fan sites on the internet, time entertainment programs, major sporting events,
and these remain long after the networks have for- and more infrequently, news documentaries or inter-
gotten a series. Indeed, one key function of fan sites is views. Nonetheless, the proportions as well as kinds
the more or less illegal sharing of taped episodes among of formats dominating evening schedules have altered
fans. (According to Variety, studies have shown most over time (see 2.15).
people would use official downloads if they were Situation comedies and crime dramas have a
available and at low prices; most people only pirate long history in network television, stretching back
what the networks don’t offer.) In addition, there are to such shows as The Life of Riley and Dragnet in
people who collect copies of virtually everything TV the early 1950s all the way through The Big Band
does, even if the networks don’t think the offerings have Theory and CSI in the late 2000s. In one recent sea-
any value. Somewhere out there are people who think son, the broadcast networks offered over 75 sitcoms
My Mother the Car was a great show. Truth is, most and 30 crime dramas; in a subsequent season, the
people don’t think of it as pirating when they find a show distribution had flipped to 17 sitcoms and 38 dramas
“in the trash” that the networks threw away. The net-
plus 26 unscripted shows (and another 22 dramas on
works, or at least their parent companies, might strongly
Univision). The concentration of shows into sitcoms
disagree with that. At present, the networks are not
and dramas occurred because they:
keeping up with technology in their programming, their
promotion, or their archiving. ■ attracted sizable audiences in the young female
demographics.
 CHAPTER 2 Prime-Time Network Programming Strategies 81

■ syndicate well off-network. A fast-paced variety, talk, and game show, Sabado
Gigante airs every Saturday evening and attracts
Unscripted shows supplanted some of this con-
huge Spanish-speaking audiences inside the United
centrated group because they:
States and throughout South and Central America.
■ are comparatively inexpensive to produce. About 100 specials each year on U.S. television are
sports specials, including the annual Super Bowl and
Because of demand the cost of sitcoms and
World Series games. The remaining 100 divide
crime shows produced in the United States has esca-
among dramatic specials and news specials, includ-
lated beyond that of most other formats. (Univision
ing interviews such as those by Barbara Walters, and
buys its soap-like dramas—telenovelas—less expen-
occasional documentaries.
sively from Mexico or produces them in Miami.) As
Entertainment specials often attract superstars
a result, the crime drama has moved to the franchise
(such as Robin Williams or Bob Newhart) whose reg-
route, and situation comedies have begun to all look
ular motion picture work, performance schedules or
alike. Although examples of top-rated shows in both
health prevents them from participating in series pro-
of these types can be found, their overall success rate
grams. Star-studded specials can invigorate a sched-
has declined steadily. Most years, the networks do
ule, encourage major advertiser participation,
not produce even one truly successful new sitcom (or
provide unusual promotional opportunities, and gen-
drama).
erate high ratings and critical approval. However,
Situation comedies fall into two main types:
they cost a lot of money and are consequently rare.
family-based comedies like Two and a Half Men,
Programs such as Glee or Saturday Night Live now
George Lopez and How I Met Your Mother—and
bring in these superstars as guests. In some cases,
occupational comedies like Becker, The Office and
stars may actually beg, or rather have their agents
Scrubs. Together, these two types account for more
beg, to get on the program. A flood of award
than three-quarters of all situation comedies offered
shows, clones of the Academy Awards and Grammy
over the last 20 years. More unusual sitcom formats
Awards, are now promoted as “Star-Studded Spe-
such as 10 Things I Hate About You or That ’70s
cials,” but few are as big a draw as the annual Acad-
Show occasionally turn up, but only in limited num-
emy Awards. Indeed, many so-called entertainment
bers. Crime dramas have slowly changed—from pri-
specials are merely long forms of regular series or
vate citizen do-gooders like Magnum P.I. to gritty
regular episodes with big-name guest stars.
police dramas like NYPD Blue to investigations of
For example, the record-breaking final episode
somewhat revolting body parts like CSI and Bones.
of M*A*S*H (amassing an extraordinary 77 share)
The mid-1990s also saw the return of court-
was an extended episode of the existing series, as
room dramas, often in connection with a police
was the final episode of Seinfeld. Friends did several
show (as was the case with Law & Order and
long-form shows leading up to their final episode, all
Law & Order: SVU), or on their own (as in The
of them called specials. Network programmers are
Practice, Judging Amy and Without a Trace). Small-
awake to the possibility that too many specials dif-
ville, an unusual comic book format, is most likely
fering sharply from the regular programming might
to become the franchise for the CW using the Justice
interrupt carefully nurtured viewing habits beyond
League characters now part of Smallville.
repair—hence, the trend toward long-form episodes
Of the approximately 700 specials each year,
of regularly scheduled series. Such shows also have
more than 500 have been entertainment specials
the advantage of being relatively inexpensive to pro-
for young adults, such as the Justin Timberlake
duce and promote, and they exploit existing audi-
specials, the Charlie Brown Christmas specials and
ences, thus reducing risk.
Univision’s long-running Sabado Gigante, often con-
Nowadays, network prime-time sports consist
sidered a special even though it is part of the regular
of playoffs and championships in the major sports,
schedule. That’s because of the type of program it is.
82 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

2.15 Is There a Doctor in The House?

A lways a runner-up. That might be that way to describe

medical dramas on the broadcast networks. Never
the dominant format, but always there, usually in the top
It’s hard to think of Emergency as groundbreaking—but
for the first time, a medical show had an ensemble cast, not
just two major characters. What was meant to form a bridge
10. However, over the years, they changed. between action-adventure and medical drama also formed a
Back in 1948, medical programs were serious science. bridge between the existing formula and its next incarnation,
Starting on the old Dumont Network (and then moving to which occurred in 1982 with St. Elsewhere. Set in a big-city
CBS), The Johns Hopkins Science Review was one of those teaching hospital, St. Elsewhere was a complete break from
shows critics loved and very few people watched. It offered the programs with the God-like doctors that preceded it.
the latest breakthroughs in medicine and other areas of Here doctors were all too human, with some driven by
science (a topic that has moved to evening newscasts). In money, others by a yearning for fame. Instead of solving
the early 1950s, long before Googling, the program was everyone else’s problems, doctors started worrying about
where people went to get the latest word on the polio epi- their own. The whole show was somehow less antiseptic,
demics and the treatments. It was also where they went to grittier, more inner-city, and the topics they dealt with ranged
see the latest information about rockets. When it went off from breast and testicular cancer to AIDS to rape and gang
the air in 1954, it was replaced with two shows: Medical violence and so on. This was the show that made it okay for
Horizons on ABC—a series, like Johns Hopkins, which men to appear nude, at least from behind. Doctors on tele-
presented the latest breakthroughs, but only in medicine— vision would never climb back up on the pedestals they had
and Medic on NBC, which dramatized case files from the previously occupied. Even when the doctor is a certified
Los Angeles Medical Association. Medic was more suc- genius, such as in FOX’s House, he’s still an arrogant jerk.
St. Elsewhere’s most enduring legacy, however, was the
cessful, but both typified the ways the medical profession
ensemble cast. From that time, right through Gray’s Anatomy,
was dealt with during the 1950s. Medicine was serious
no one or two stars carried a medical drama. From the point
stuff, and even when stories were dramatized, they came
of view of producers this has the huge benefit of allowing
“theoretically” just from the facts.
stars to leave and new ones be brought in without damaging
That all changed in 1961 when two groundbreaking
the show. As a result, ensemble programs can run forever, so
shows hit in the same year. Dr. Kildare (taken from the
long as there’s a sickness to tackle. Notably, not a single
movie of the same name) and Ben Casey both featured a
character who appeared in the early episodes of NBC’s ER
brilliant, but nonconformist young doctor and his wise,
was still there when it finally finished its 15-year run in 2009,
older mentor. These doctors did more than cure sickness—
and yet the show continued to be a top-10 contender. By
with almost God-like success: They also solved an endless
evolving over time, the medical drama has not only kept itself
array of other people’s personal problems. For the next 20
healthy but has been longer-lived than most formats.
years, right up until Trapper John, they set the formula for
successful medical dramas. But in 1972, a slight change William J. Adams, Ph.D.
began to creep in with the premiere of Emergency. Kansas State University

as well as special events such as the Olympics are relegated to the weekends (see Chapter 7). Most
(see 2.16 about Roone Arledge’s extraordinary soccer, wrestling, Nascar, and other sports com-
influence). FOX and NBC, in particular, often use mand prime time only on cable, not on the broad-
sports to fill the first two months of the new cast networks.
prime-time season, introducing regular series as late Cable has become the true home of sports. Even
as November. Although the networks carry a great ABC responded to pressure for the network to do
deal of football, basketball, baseball, tennis, and something to attract more “ideal women,” even at the
golf, and Univision has soccer, most of these shows expense of its traditional audience for the long-running
 CHAPTER 2 Prime-Time Network Programming Strategies 83

2.16 Roone Arledge: The Man Who Brought Sports into Prime Time

W hen Roone Arledge was first hired by ABC in 1960

as a lowly assistant producer, the television net-
works considered sports to be second-rate entertainment.
prime time. Monday Night Football, an Arledge creation,
premiered in 1970 and quickly became a phenomenal
success in the ratings. (It is worth noting that CBS and NBC
Even professional team owners at the time believed that had both rejected the NFL’s proposal for the show.)
televised sports existed to sell tickets for the ballparks. During the 1970s, one sport after another moved into
Roone Arledge could not have disagreed more. He was prime time, and fees for broadcast rights for sports sky-
convinced that sports programming could entertain the fans rocketed because of soaring revenues from prime-time
at home, and under his leadership, the sports broadcasting advertising.
industry was completely recreated. In the following decades, sports programming expanded
Arledge came up with a revolutionary approach to further into network schedules, and limited choices have
producing sports: He borrowed the production techniques given way to lineups containing dozens of channels devoted
of entertainment and used them to duplicate the experience to exclusively to sports. In addition, many professional lea-
of actually attending a game at the stadium. He used many gues, college conferences, and even some individual teams
more cameras, microphones and graphics in his sports tel- have started their own television networks (though they are
ecasts than his competitors had ever used, and he experi- more like syndicators than real networks). Also, some profes-
mented constantly with new technologies. Arledge and his sional leagues have partnered with cable and satellite provi-
team of talented engineers pioneered or refined the use of ders to offer premium access to all regular and postseason
underwater cameras, handheld cameras, isolation cam- games. Sports has continued to dominate much of broadcast
eras, field microphones, split screens, instant replay, slow schedules, with league playoffs and championships consis-
motion and freeze frames. Their efforts resulted in new tently among the highest-rated programs year after year.
production techniques that heightened the drama of sport- Despite starting with very limited resources, Arledge
ing events. Arledge also began the practice of focusing on transformed ABC Sports into the preeminent sports network
the personalities and stories of the athletes. He invented of the day and initiated a phenomenon that lasts to today.
what was called “up close and personal” coverage—air- Although Arledge died in 2002, his immense influence will
ing pretaped biographical features of athletes right before continue to be seen for decades to come. He forever
their events—to involve viewers emotionally with the changed ABC, and beyond that network, programming
players and the outcomes. strategies and schedules for all television, the economics of
During the 1960s, the television networks aired sports professional and college sports, and the way that viewers
only on weekend afternoons. But ABC’s successful prime- watch sports on television.
time broadcasts of the 1968 Olympic Games convinced
Arledge, by then the president of ABC Sports, that sports Timothy B. Bedwell
programming could compete with sitcoms and dramas in Produce, Media Quarry, LLC.

Monday Night Football, and shifted the show to ESPN. news magazines and game shows. It refers to the
(Also, ESPN makes more money for Disney than ABC types of programs that do not require the expensive
does, which probably affected the move.) Big sporting writing and controlled production used for other
events do bring prestige to the network, are popular series. While such shows have writers providing
with affiliates, and fill out advertising packages by ad-libs for hosts and outlining situations, the writing
delivering male viewers of all ages, but the costs paid costs as well as talent costs are minimal compared
by broadcast networks for the biggest events no longer with other genres. These three types of programs are
match returns. certainly not new. The magazine format goes back
Unscripted programming is the overall term decades, game shows ruled the airwaves during the
used by the industry to cover reality programs, 1950s, and artificial situation shows can be traced
84 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

back at least as far as Candid Camera. What is new directly by a network’s news division and have
is the power they command. earned consistent though middle-of-the-pack ratings
Like the sitcom, there have been some immense for years. Like the other unscripted formats, maga-
hits in the reality genre. American Idol, Survivor and zine series are, comparatively, very cheap to pro-
Dancing with the Stars have had staying power, but duce, and unlike reality series, several have been
others, such as Joe Millionaire, did well once but fell able to run forever with little decline from their ini-
apart once the gimmick was known. To date, nearly tial ratings. They also serve as prestige programs for
all reality series have dropped substantially in the the networks (see 2.17). But like reality series, mag-
ratings during their second outings. Even the most azine shows have no afterlife. Neither type works
popular series in this format (with the two notable well in rerun, and they have no life as a DVD set
exceptions of American Idol and Survivor: Vanuatu) and no syndication potential, although in some
don’t match on a regular basis the ratings of a CSI, rare cases their ideas may be franchised to other
Gray’s Anatomy, The Mentalist, The Office or other countries.
top scripted series. Game shows enjoyed a brief resurgence in the
The power of reality is that it is incredibly cheap late 1990s, were badly overused, and then appeared
to produce: less than one-tenth the cost of scripted to vanish. Actually, they merged with reality series,
programs. The networks have also been able to stan- most of which are now games, but in its purer form,
dardize reality shows by fitting them into a rigid for- the game show had been relegated to syndicated
mula: A group of people you hope you never meet in access time (for instance, Jeopardy and Wheel of
real life backstab and cut each other’s throats on the Fortune).
way to a big prize; during each show, one partici- Although increased costs have led to fewer
pant is thrown off after the group performs some movie nights over the last few years, three types of
outlandish stunt; the outcast then hits the morning productions regarded as movies still fill some of
talk shows and news circuit to hype the ongoing prime time on the broadcast television networks:
program. The only thing that changes is the situa- (1) theatrical feature films, those made originally
tion. One variation that makes critics groan is the for release in theaters; (2) made-for-TV movies, sim-
dumbed-down quiz show, epitomized by Are you ilar to feature films but made specifically for net-
Smarter Than a Fifth-Grader?. Because reality work television airing in a two-hour format
shows are so cheap to produce, they also provide a containing commercial breaks; and (3) miniseries,
way to create original summer programming, thus multipart films made especially for broadcast airing
helping the move toward a full 52-week schedule. in installments. All three types share these major
But the flurry of creativity that characterized advantages for the networks:
some of the early entries has now settled into as for- ■ They fill large amounts of time with material that
mulaic a pattern as most sitcoms. One problem with
usually generates respectable ratings.
reality series is that many of the concepts were bor-
rowed from popular shows in Japan and Europe, ■ They make it possible to air topical or controver-
and thus our versions are very hard to sell back. sial material that may be deemed inappropriate
The other major problem is that each show needs a for regularly scheduled network series or can be
gimmick, and to maintain the shock value (and thus taken directly from the headlines.
generate hype), the situations have been pushed ■ They permit showcasing actors and actresses who
closer and closer to outright pornography or life would otherwise never be seen on television.
risking situations. We may yet get our first on-air ■ They allow the network to reward stars from their
tragedy. popular series by giving them a movie.
Magazine series like 60 Minutes, 20/20, Prime-
time, Dateline and so on are almost as numerous as The three kinds of movies also share one major
reality series in prime time. The shows are produced disadvantage—extraordinarily high cost for the
 CHAPTER 2 Prime-Time Network Programming Strategies 85

2.17

T ick tick tick tick. A ticking watch quickly became

synonymous with CBS’s groundbreaking, hour-long,
investigative news magazine, 60 Minutes, when it
Bomber who had been found guilty and sentenced to
death. McVeigh ranted against the U.S. government, and
subsequently face-to-face interviews with death-row inmates
launched on September 24, 1968 (the stopwatch were made illegal. In 1995, 60 Minutes did not run a
appeared after few episodes). Legendary news producer story, for which it was criticized. The producers had infor-
Don Hewitt (1922–2009), who directed venerable CBS mation that Brown & Williamson, a tobacco company, had
newsman Edward R. Murrow for the first few years of See disregarded information about the health risks of its cigar-
It Now (1951–1958), directed the first televised presi- ettes and had tampered with the tobacco to enhance the
dential debates in 1960 (Kennedy v. Nixon) and pro- effect of nicotine. Don Hewitt hesitated to run such a
duced the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite for scathing expose, and instead The Wall Street Journal broke
years, created this prime-time Sunday staple, serving as its the story. Eventually, 60 Minutes aired an altered version,
executive producer until 2004. It is the longest-running, minus some of the most incriminating evidence. The Oscar-
regularly-scheduled, prime-time broadcast program in nominated film, The Insider (1999), dramatizes this inci-
American television. It has garnered 78 Emmys and five dent. When all is said and done, though, it is expected that
Peabody Awards. It was the top-ranked show for five hard-hitting journalism, as championed by 60 Minutes, will
years and among the top-10* Nielsen-rated programs for run into criticism sometimes; otherwise, it can be argued
23 seasons (1977–2000). It continues to be among the that the reporters are not doing their jobs.
top-20 shows each week and the most-watched news Doing their jobs is a hallmark of the 60 Minutes
magazine. TV Guide ranks it number six among its “50 investigative team. Whether reporting on Vietnam and
Greatest TV Shows of All Time,” and the only news pro- Watergate in the early years or the current presidential
gram in its top 10. administration, this original and time-honored news mag-
Today’s investigative techniques of hidden cameras, azine, which its creator, Don Hewitt, said married “show
“gotcha” guerilla tactics, and re-edited interviews can be biz” and “news biz,” is considered to be the preeminent
traced to 60 Minutes. Originally hosted by Harry Reasoner investigative program on American television. It paved the
and Mike Wallace, other journalists and commentators way for many that followed, including ABC’s 20/20
have come and gone in the 40-plus years of this storied (1978), PBS’s Frontline (1983), NBC’s Dateline (1992),
program. Morley Safer, Lesley Stahl, Andy Rooney and and others. It has been franchised in other countries,
others became household names and celebrity reporters including Australia, New Zealand and Peru. Audio
thanks to this high-profile “magazine for television” (as broadcasts of the show are distributed by CBS Radio,
Reasoner introduced it in the first episode). Part-time corre- and commercial-free audio podcasts are available from
spondents include a laundry list of legendary news person- iTunes. The TV broadcasts stream on CBSNews.com
alities, including Ed Bradley, Connie Chung, Anderson and CNETTV.com. The show has its own website at
Cooper, Walter Cronkite, Katie Couric, Bryant Gumbel, CBSNews.com and its own YouTube channel, http://
Lara Logan, Dan Rather, Diane Sawyer and Eric Sevareid. www.youtube.com/user/60minutes?ob=5. It has
Through the years, 60 Minutes has been embroiled in spawned a few other series, such as the short-lived
controversy for some of its reporting. In 1982, a package 60 Minutes II, and it has a relatively new web
asserted that General William Westmoreland withheld series, 60 Minutes Overtime (http://www.cbsnews.com/
information about the Vietnam War from key people in 60minutesovertime), with internet-exclusive content beyond
Washington. Westmoreland denounced the story, and the TV program. A pretty good run for a show that just keeps
60 Minutes issued a statement that it did not believe the on ticking….
general was unpatriotic, while standing by the accuracy of
the report. In 2000, the program landed an exclusive Edward J. Fink
interview with Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City California State University, Fullerton
86 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

networks. Miniseries are typically the most expen- new characters and plot ideas—especially for material
sive, and theatrical movies the second-most costly. that might be too risqué for broadcast networks!
Both are more risky in ratings than made-for-TV The made-for-TV movie has replaced the pilot
movies, but all three remain popular because they as the major method for testing new series ideas.
fill big chunks of time and can be used to temporar- Programs such as Glee, succeeded as television—or
ily plug holes in the schedule until programmers can in this case cable movies (High School Musical)—
figure out something to schedule. before becoming series. Made-for-TV movies as
Theatrical movies have declined in popularity pilots have four distinct advantages:
because of exceptionally high costs and generally
1. They can be profitable.
low ratings when run on the Big Three networks.
The truth is that by the time a theatrical movie 2. They can target a desired demographic group.
makes it to broadcast TV, it is already very late in 3. Audiences and affiliates like them.
its life cycle. It has played the theaters, run on pay- 4. They have international syndication potential as
per-view, and is probably available on VOD. It may theatrical movies.
have been released for rental, run on cable movie
channels and sold as a DVD. Consequently, ratings TV movie pilots now average $5 million to
on the networks are almost always disappointing, make (some as high as $10 million), but they pay
even for the biggest blockbusters. Made-for-TV their way whether or not the concept ever becomes
movies just perform better. Miniseries not only per- a series. Even when they fail, the networks usually
form better but also have a strong afterlife in foreign have made a healthy profit on the TV movie’s initial
syndication and as DVDs. run, its foreign syndication and the DVD sale. More-
Many viewers and critics bewail the disappear- over, the made-for-TV movie has the advantage of
ance of the dramatic anthology format: a set of being made-to-order to fit within a network’s exist-
single-episode television plays presented in an ing schedule. It can target a specific audience to
unconnected series. What actually happened was maintain a night’s flow and avoid the disruptions
that the anthology format went through a style that specials often cause.
change and returned as the made-for-TV movie. The success of limited series on PBS’s Masterpiece
During the 1955–56 season, the very peak of the Theatre led the commercial networks into the produc-
anthology era, dramatic anthologies made up tion of multipart series presented in two to six episodes
about 526 hours of prime time. In the 1989–90 sea- on successive nights or in successive weeks. Called
son, a peak year, 624 made-for-TV movies aired in miniseries, they could run for as long as 10 or more
prime time (not including those made for cable). hours, typically beginning and ending on Sunday
The best of these movies compare favorably with nights—the night of maximum viewing. Shorter mini-
the best of the dramatic anthologies of the earlier era. series tend to be scheduled on sequential nights, while
Such movies also allow the networks to respond longer series stretch over two weeks, skipping the eve-
quickly to major news events. The Scott Peterson case nings on which the network has its most popular pro-
was a movie even before it went to trial. The Elizabeth grams. These extreme long forms, however, have
Smart and Jessica Lynch stories became competing become very rare because of their exceedingly high
films on more than one network, and the big guys cost. Despite the advantages of blockbuster ratings,
fought about who was going to be first to do the prestige, critical acclaim and series potential, the broad-
Anna Nicole Smith story almost as much as the law- cast networks switched from long-form to short-form
yers fought about who was going to get to bury her. miniseries (four to six hours).
Hot topics like drugs, sex and teenage problems can be Such high-level fantasy concepts as Merlin,
dealt with in movies in ways a prime-time series just Alice in Wonderland and Leprechauns, the Romeo-
doesn’t allow (see 2.18). TV movies shown on co- and-Juliet takeoff, earned high ratings on the networks
owned cable channels are another method of testing but also sold well internationally and as DVD sets
 CHAPTER 2 Prime-Time Network Programming Strategies 87

2.18 The Movie Mistakes

O ccasionally, made-for-TV movies can show how badly

out of touch with their audiences the networks can be.
CBS was truly shocked by public reaction to its docudrama
showed it again. ABC reacted to the success of Mel Gib-
son’s The Passion of the Christ (in spite of negative Holly-
wood and mainstream press) by rushing its alternative
on President Reagan. It seems to have never occurred to version of the Passion out for the 2004 Easter season, but
CBS’s higher-ups that much of the public would take the network seems genuinely surprised that Judas bombed.
offense at its portrayal of Mrs. Reagan as a shrew and the After all, the made-for-TV movie had a religious theme; why
former President as a bumbling but affable storyteller. The didn’t it work? Recently a network announced plans for an
public’s reaction to the tendency to make things up for animated series on Jesus Christ as a teenager having pro-
dramatic effect seems also to have stunned the Hollywood blems with his overbearing father. Will they ever learn?
community. When the press picked up on the public outcry,
Viacom quickly pulled the show from CBS and moved it to William J. Adams, Ph.D.
Showtime, which immediately declared it a hit and never Kansas State University

marketed on the air during the original network show- often results in (1) canceling programs favored by
ing. NBC adopted the practice of putting delayed millions of viewers, (2) countering strong shows by
repeats on its cable networks about one week after ini- scheduling competing strong shows, (3) preempting
tial broadcast airings, thus producing another round of popular series to insert special programs, and
advertising revenues. Widespread adoption of this (4) falling back on reruns late in the season when
multistep profit system, similar to the one used for the outdoors beckons and audience levels begin to
Hollywood motion pictures, made the miniseries drop off.
more popular than ever by the turn of the century. However, the type of program, the ranking as
But a decade later, such event programming has compared with the competition, the size of produc-
become rare for broadcasting, budgets going instead tion fees, and the target demographic group may be
to original production for cable. as important as the ratings in cancellation decisions.
New situation comedies, strongly desired by the net-
works’ O&Os, and reality-based series are much
Network Decision Making more likely to be held than other kinds of series pro-
ducing equivalent ratings. Also, series with low pro-
Few program decisions precipitate as much contro- duction fees are more likely to be held than more
versy as the cancellation of programs. Because com- expensive programs, and finally, series that appeal
mercial television is first of all a business—with to the network’s concept of “proper demo-
tens of thousands of stockholders and billions of graphics”—and some would now argue “political
dollars committed for advertising—the networks’ correctness”—may be held even when ratings are
overriding aim is to attract the largest possible low. And occasionally, like once in a decade or so,
audience in the ideal demographic range at all audience outcry restores a favorite for a while, as in
times, or at least to appear to be trying to do that. the case of cancelled and then revived Jericho on
Networks always aim at the number-one position. CBS or Friday Night Lights, which got new life on
Traditionally, ratings have been considered the cable. Critical approval and the extraordinary pro-
most influential prime-time programming variable, motional opportunity that public acclaim provides
and the networks make many controversial deci- also figure in decisions to cancel or hold low-rated
sions each year based on these numbers. This new programs (see 2.19 and 2.20).
88 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

2.19 The Critics

A cclaim usually has some effect only in the absence of

other rating successes. The kudos for Hill Street Blues,
for example, bolstered NBC’s image at a time when it was
school student and a teacher to Dawson’s Creek to gener-
ate negative press. ABC did the same thing with NYPD
Blue. The nude scenes were there to stir up controversy.
sorely in need of prestige, persuading programmers to stick After the press furor generated by the Madonna/Britney
with the show even in the face of low ratings. The same Spears kiss, CBS was probably trying to trigger similar
connection between critical acclaim and patience even in press attention with its 2004 halftime show at the Super
the face of low ratings can be seen for the moderately Bowl. It just didn’t count on how negative the public reac-
rated The West Wing on NBC or Bones on FOX. Some- tion would be. Many argue that the atomic bomb detona-
times the networks decide to go along with the critics, at tions on 24 and Jericho, the grittier aspects of Prison Break
least until something with better numbers comes along. and the graphic details in CSI and Bones have also been
On the other hand, critical shock also seems to be designed to generate such shock. Instead of being bowled
desirable as far as the networks are concerned. The WB over, however, the critics have raved about the new
openly admitted that it added a love affair between a high realism.

The Risks and Rewards Ahead wrong time period, the wrong concept, the wrong
writing, the wrong casting, poor execution of a
Supposedly, the major networks prowl for the good idea, poor execution of a bad idea, overwhelm-
breakthrough idea—the program that will be differ- ing competition, the wrong night of the week, and a
ent but not so different as to turn away audiences. dozen other factors. Conversely, success is very hard
The Cosby Show was one such show in 1984–85, as to analyze or copy, even though that has become the
was ALF in 1986. Married ... with Children aston- driving goal of the broadcast networks.
ished viewers in 1987, Roseanne made a splash in Although the actual cost of production has gone
1988, Friends reintroduced the buddy sitcom in down dramatically through the use of digital tech-
1995, and Malcolm in the Middle suggested an nology and computer-produced effects, other factors
entirely new idea for the family sitcom in 1999. have canceled out the savings and caused the full
The biggest change was the rebirth of the prime- cost of production to continue to skyrocket. Some
time game show with Who Wants to Be a Million- of those factors are directly related to programming
aire? in 2000—after an absence of nearly 40 years— decisions and seem to be the opposite of what many
and its combination with reality in the form of Survi- would naturally assume would happen. For exam-
vor. Next came graphic special effects and mystery ple, the inability of programmers to produce success-
that produced the success of CSI beginning in 2002, ful shows has actually caused the price of
and then the blatant sex in Desperate Housewives. Its production to go up. With so few true hits, program-
success relaxed standards all through the broadcast mers seem willing to pay almost anything to keep a
networks. Then CBS came up with The Mentalist, successful program, as demonstrated by the incredi-
which spawned a half-dozen medium and psychic ble amounts paid to renew such series as ER and
shows. Most recently, FOX reinvented the musical Two and a Half Men.
with Glee, though few have attempted to copy it. The networks are also locked in bidding wars for
In recent years, all four major networks have top specials and sporting events, again causing the
had entire seasons without a single new hit. In prices to go through the ceiling. In a strange type of
truth, network programmers can only guess what domino effect, however, as the top price levels have
the next hit will be and why it succeeds. A program gone up, directors, writers, actors and people in all
failure is easier to analyze. It can result from the other branches of production have also demanded
 CHAPTER 2 Prime-Time Network Programming Strategies 89

2.20 The Censors

T he broadcast Standards and Practices Department, a

behind-the-scenes group, theoretically used to exercise
total authority over all network programming. Cynically
to air a locker-room scene that included nude men photo-
graphed, as the producer put it, “tastefully from the back.”
By the mid-1980s, child abuse, abortion, and homosexu-
and often angrily called “censors,” the department once ality were the problematic topics, while the 1990s brought
acted as policeman and judge for all questions concerning the thorny questions of AIDS, condoms, obscene language,
acceptability of material for broadcast. It often found itself and, as always, how explicitly sex could be shown.
walking a thin line between offending viewers or adverti- By the mid-2000s, concern focused on violence, nudity,
sers and offending the creative community. It had to decide drinking, and smoking, and one of the hottest issues was
between the imaginative and the objectionable. whether some reality shows were rigged. This question
Members of the department typically read submitted scripts; surfaced with the discovery that certain exciting scenes in
attended rehearsals, filmings, or tapings; and often previewed Survivor were staged and that ABC network executives had
the final products before they aired. They were everywhere. If, overruled the judges in their American Idol clone, Last
in the department’s lordly judgment, a program failed to con- Comic Standing—a show in which the audience suppos-
form to network standards in matters of language or taste, it edly selected the next top comedian—apparently to pro-
could insist on changes. Only a decree by the chairman or duce a more demographically-friendly result. At the same
president of the company could overturn its decisions. time, gay groups and other liberal organizations were
However, Standards and Practices was one of the first demanding more positive portrayals of gays in program-
areas cut back when budgets grew tight in the 1990s, and ming, and some producers wanted even more graphic and
as a result, this department has little day-to-day impact controversial depictions of sex in prime time.
today (although its existence is loudly touted during election The present situation has led to some very strange
years when an increase in media criticism usually occurs). reactions, especially noticeable on cable. The Syfy Chan-
Moreover, even when it had considerable power, over the nel, for example, owned by NBC Universal, bleeps out
years the department’s criteria for acceptability were forced bad words on some shows but ran Tripping the Rift for
to change. In the early 1920s, one of the hottest issues was years, which is little more than animated porn. Now the
whether such a personal and perhaps obscene product as network censors seem focused on political correctness and
toothpaste should be allowed to advertise over the radio on gaining points with minorities, not on offending special
airwaves. By 1983 the hottest question was whether interest groups like gays. As long as programs don’t cross
NBC’s censors would permit a new series, Bay City Blues, the lines set by the FCC, pretty much anything goes.

more. As a result, costs at all levels have gone up even programmers would leave most new series alone for
as ratings have gone down. The network takeover of at least a year to see if they could build audiences.
production not only didn’t slow this process, how- The continual hope for that one elusive program
ever; it actually increased the rate of its rise. that will break the trend, however, produces a type
At the same time, the incredible failure rates have of feeding frenzy in which no programmers are will-
resulted in an insatiable demand for replacement ing to deviate from the present destructive cycle.
series. It is not at all uncommon for half of new Predicting the future of any medium is a risky
prime-time series to fail by network standards within undertaking at best. As ratings and compensation con-
their first six weeks. These shows have to be replaced, tinue to fall, eventually the largest non-network group
and because development is the most expensive phase owners may decide they can do better on their own.
of production, the constant demand for new series It would be natural for such group owners to either
has sent development costs out of sight. As these increase their participation in original syndication
new programs rarely do better than the preceding production for their own systems or join with disgrun-
series in those time slots on the same channels, one tled old executive producers as to form new produc-
would presume, just considering the economics, that tion houses, thus in essence becoming networks
90 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

themselves. For ten of its owned stations, FOX created Indeed, the mixed broadcast/cable/online model
MyNetworkTV to replace the prime-time shows that now used by ION and Univision is the likely future of
UPN formerly supplied. the business. In any case, one thing is clear: The next 50
Such scenarios suggest that the future American years will bear little resemblance to the last 50 years.
broadcasting system could more closely resemble the
system that presently exists in such countries as
Notes
Japan, rather than what is now familiar. In short, 1. Eggerton, J. (Feb. 9, 2004). Sexy halftime stunt has
there would be more networks but fewer affiliates affiliates fuming. Broadcasting & Cable, pp. 6, 37.
(and maybe way fewer stations, as Chapter 4 sug- 2. Littleton, C. (Feb. 22–28, 2010). Free tv’s found
gests). That is to say, the networks would be doing money. Nets and their affils revel in new coin from cable.
their own productions, which would then be distrib- Variety, pp. 1–37.
uted through whatever stations they own as part of a 3. Becker, A. (March 3, 2008). Buyers give lowdown on
much larger entertainment wing of a corporation. upfronts. Broadcasting & Cable, pp. 3–26.
Companies like Hallmark have been doing pro- 4. Eggerton, J. (Feb. 18, 2008). Advertisers rankled by
duction for years (nowadays Hallmark has its own network fees. Broadcasting & Cable, pp. 3–26.
cable network). Is it possible that they could join with 5. Ives, N. (March 16, 2011). American idol returns to
other large companies to make their own shows? dominance in product placement. Advertising Age. adage.
com/article/mediaworks/American-idol-returns-domi-
Many, like Sears and Procter and Gamble, seem to be nance-product-placement/1494191
threatening that now, arguing that they couldn’t possi-
6. Guthrie, M. (Jan. 21, 2008). Out-of-home tv: Now it’s
bly do worse than the present broadcast system. Only everywhere. Broadcasting & Cable, pp. 4–21.
time will tell how the present situation will work itself 7. Schneider, M. (April 12-18, 2010). Pilots depart from
out. Only six things seem to be sure bets right now: coasts: L.A., gotham deemed too expensive for nets. Vari-
ety, pp. 1–20.
1. Television is not going to go away: Might
8. Poniewozik, J. (December 29, 2003). Has the main-
change a bit, but it’ll live.
stream run dry? Time.
2. The power of the big broadcast networks to 9. Bauer, D. (April 17, 2011). Broadcast tv audience aging
control information and entertainment will faster than us population. Huffington Post. www.huffing-
continue to decline, forcing the networks to tonpost.com/2010/08/16/broadcast-tv-audience-agi_n_
change into new entities. 683009.html
10. Klein, P. (1979). Programming. In S. Morgebstern
3. The division between broadcasting and cable (ed.), Inside the TV Business. New York: Sterling.
will continue to blur as the companies buy into
11. Amdur, M. (Nov.2, 2003). Case of the disappearing
one another and begin to mirror each other and eyeballs: Big bucks at risk as nets suffer separation anxiety.
make greater use of the internet. Variety. variety.com/article/VR1117894931?refcatid=
4. Aftermarket selling of reality and other shows 1275&printerfriendly=true
will become the centers of creative effort. 12. Gilbert, C. (April 21, 2011). How Democrats and
Republicans use the media (very differently). Journal Sen-
5. Virtual advertising and product placement will tinel. www.jsonline.mobi/more/news/120368144.htm
expand into regular programming as revenues 13. Romano, A. (July 22, 2002). At E!, Youth will be
from traditional advertising decline. served. Broadcasting & Cable, p. 22.
6. Multiplatform strategies will become part of every 14. Frank, B. (July 7, 2003), Check out why young view-
program proposal and central to all productions. ers like reality programming. Broadcasting & Cable.
 3
CHAPTER

Multichannel Television
Strategies
Susan Tyler Eastman and Michael O. Wirth

Chapter Outline
Multichannel Video Pro- Audience Size
gramming Distributors Repetition and Ratings

The Big Gamers Promotion Strategies

Cable Systems Local Origination on Cable
Satellite Systems
Entertainment Channels
Telephone Systems
Local-Origination News
Selection Strategies Programming
Technical Considerations Community Access on Cable
Legal Considerations
Changing Usage
Economic Considerations
Nonlocal Programming
Marketing Considerations

Scheduling Strategies What’s Sneaking Up

Evaluation Strategies Notes

91
92 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

D o you get a lot of tweets and postcards from

the company that supplies your television
service? Or from the companies that don’t? How
many ads try to persuade you to add a zillion chan-
(MVPDs)—or sometimes “multivideo program dis-
tributors” because the full definition is too big a
mouthful. (In some jokes, they are the “most valu-
able program distributors.”) Most MVPDs offer a
nels and upgrade to HD? Change to DirecTV? Switch mix of voice, internet and video services, so calling
to U-verse? Upgrade to Xfinity? Or add FiOS to your AT&T, for example, a “telephone company” or
cell service? Competition among the wired and video Comcast a “cable company” describes their history
service companies is fierce. The battle for subscribers rather than their current broadband business. On
and revenue has now moved to the mobile media, and the other hand, DirecTV is primarily a satellite
soon will expand to potential adopters of 3D. video distribution company. For all types of
MVPDs, it’s video that accounts for the largest
part of the revenue stream, but the distinction
between video (or television) and internet has
Multichannel Video become largely one of hardware rather than content,
Programming Distributors and that hardware is slowly merging. By 2015, it is
expected that more than 90 percent of the country’s
New communications technologies and looser fed- households will subscribe to some kind of multi-
eral regulations created a whirlwind in the market- channel programming distributor, some for a single
place for multichannel service providers. Cable, service, such as internet or cable connection, but
satellite and telephone companies began blanketing many for a large expensive “trifecta” of services.
homes and offices with combos of digital television, Only 1 percent of those subscribers will be dial-up
DVRs, on-demand video, voice telephony and fast households, the rest broadband. At the same time,
(and superfast) internet connections. Cellular com- online video distribution or “over the top video”
panies got into the game by offering 3G/4G and will continue to grow with an increasing number
Wi-Fi internet connections and wireless video pro- of consumers choosing to “cut the cord” to get
gramming. Despite active competition, consumers’ their TV over the internet. Current MVPD penetra-
monthly bills grow steadily larger, easily to $100, tion is about 92 percent (see 3.1), and it should grow
$200 and, in some cases, even higher. to over 95 percent within the next ten years thanks
Cable, satellite and telephone companies are the to a significant expansion in online video distribu-
major broadband carriers: They use telecommu- tion. Most consumers will take a mix of services.
nications signals of far higher capacity than earlier All three distributors, cable, satellite and tele-
in the twentieth century, thus “broader bands.” phone companies, provide wide ranges and changing
Companies that provide broadband signals to lineups of digital video and audio programming. Cable
deliver video programming are collectively called and telephone companies also offer high speed internet
Multichannel Video Programming Distributors and both wired and wireless voice services as they

3.1 MVPD Subscribership 2012

Subscribers % /116 m. USTV HH %/107m. MVPD HH

CABLE 70 million 60% 66%

SATELLITE 32 million 26% 30%
TELEPHONY 5 million 5% 5%
Non-MVPD 9 million 8% 8%
 CHAPTER 3 Multichannel Television Strategies 93

compete for customers, more or less. It’s that “more or chapter because they do matter to the communities
less” that makes the differences…and maybe the win- they serve. But they aren’t in the big game.
ners. As one Bell Atlantic (now Verizon) executive pre-
dicted, “The people who will win this game are the
folks who provide depth and breadth in programming The Big Gamers
and knock-the-socks-off customer service.”1 Thus,
major players that offer the best service along with Three types of program retransmitters dominate the
the most kinds of services—nearly all of which contain MVPD business: terrestrial wired cable, direct satel-
programming content of one kind or another—have lite broadcasters, and terrestrial wired and wireless
the long haul advantage. The broadband technologies telephone phone systems, although increasingly, the
that deliver multichannel media certainly give viewers big cable companies offer both wired and wireless
more options and more flexibility, but at a high cost. services. Collectively, the nine biggest MVPDs served
And the huge expense of the complex technologies has more than 75 percent of the 116þ million U.S. tele-
forced many smaller companies to merge (or leave the vision households in 2012, and since about 8 percent
game). of households have no MVPD service, that leaves
Irrespective of the kind of owner—cableop, way less than 20 percent for all the smaller operators.
satco, or telco (the short-hand terms for cable oper- In addition, foreign-managed companies of these
ator, satellite company, and telephone company)— types reach millions more subscribers around the
the job of multichannel programmers is normally to world. (Is there any urbanite in the world under age
select, schedule, evaluate and promote channels of 30 who doesn’t have a cell phone?) Not surprisingly,
television and audio programming out of the hun- the more than a thousand U.S. operators of these var-
dreds of content networks (described in Chapter 9) ious distribution systems face common problems.
and to provide wired and wireless phone and inter-
net services. However, the meaning of “select” is far
different than in broadcasting as described in Chap- Cable Systems
ter 2. Rather than select individual programs, The term cable system refers to geographically
MVPD programmers must choose whole channels bounded and franchised wired companies using fiber
for their lineups, depending as much or more on optic and coaxial cable to deliver from dozens to hun-
financial negotiations than type of content. Indeed, dreds of video and audio program channels to sub-
the biggest current battle is to determine how much scribers. Nearly all also offer broadband (high-speed)
money video distributors will pay the program pro- internet and wired telephone services, and the biggest
ducers and how various middlemen (banks, credit cable systems also offer wireless (4G/3G/Wi-Fi) voice
card companies, mobile phone carriers, software and video. Typically, local cable operators pick up sig-
and hardware companies) will get their share of nals from several orbiting satellites and terrestrial
cell and video revenues. Moreover, the spread of broadcast antennas and then redistribute them via
HD followed by VOD and 3D has made the com- cable wires to homes and other buildings. Subscribers
petitive marketplace even more complex and confus- pay from $40 to $150 or more per month for cable
ing for the programmer, the distributor and the services; the total depends on the number of services
consumer. taken by the consumer, how many set-top boxes
Video programming is predominantly a nation- (STBs) are being rented, whether they opt for digital
wide business. Nonetheless, a few local cable pro- video recorders (DVRs), and how many VOD movies
grammers remain that serve a city or limited were rented in a particular month. The most basic
region. These programmers’ jobs focus on producing cable service—retransmission of local off-air local
and then scheduling programs for one or more chan- station signals and a few cable networks—may be
nels of local or regional cable or, more likely, web available for as little as $30 or $40, but most house-
offerings, and they are discussed at the end of this holds want (many would say “need”) far more than
94 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

3.2 Top Five Cable Operators, 2012 3.3 U.S. Satellite DBS Services, 2012

Cable Internet Phone N of sub % of Video

(millions) (millions) (millions) (millions) TVHHs Channels

Comcast 22.8 17,6 9.0 DirecTV 19.3 17 370

Time Warner 12.4 10.0 4.5 DISH Network 14.1 12 400
Cable
Cox 4.9 3.9 2.5
Charter 4.5 3.3 1.8
Cablevision 3.1 2.7 2.2 hard to bite off a tiny share of the business. The two
main satcos provide service packages of between 60
and 400 channels and charge between $35 and $115
per month for their packages, while the newcomers
offer only a few dozen channels, albeit at far lower
that, adding high-definition, premium, or 3D channels; monthly cost to subscribers.
DVR and STB fees; internet service; and/or both land- If long-term success in the competition among
line and cell phone service. MVPD services depends on their ability to provide
As the chart in 3.2 shows, Comcast (which also consumers with all communications services—a
owns 51 percent of NBCUniversal) is the dominant “triple play” of video channels plus broadband
force in cable television and home internet service internet access and telephone service—satcos are
and is third largest (after AT&T and Verizon) out of luck. Both big satcos supply plenty of HD
among providers of telephone service. Comcast, (but not 3D so far), and DISH offers somewhat
together with the other four largest multiple system more channels while DirecTV offers exclusive
operators (MSOs, the term for the companies that sports packages. But neither has the ability to com-
install the wires and manage local service in multiple petitively supply high-speed internet connections or
franchise areas)—Time Warner Cable, Cox, Charter any kind of phone service unless they join forces
and Cablevision—serve about three-quarters of all with a terrestrial phone or cable company, which
cable subscribers. Comcast itself consists of hun- eats into profits (and is sometimes hard to explain
dreds of separate geographic franchises in 39 states to potential consumers). The third generation of
welded into one huge operating company. just-launched communications satellites has far
larger capacity than previous satellites Nonetheless,
satcos are not likely to cost effectively compete with
Satellite Systems cableops and telcos (see 3.4), making satellite com-
The term DBS is used only in the United States; in panies poor contenders for high speed internet cus-
the rest of the world, DTH (direct-to-home) means tomers except in rural places with no other options.
all kinds of home satellite delivery services. As you The particular advantage of satcos is that they can
probably know from frequent advertising messages, bring service to the millions of households outside
the two biggest companies providing domestic DBS metropolitan areas.
service are DirecTV and DISH Network. Jointly,
they have about 33 million subscribers (28 percent
of multichannel households). Telephone Systems
As 3.3 shows, by 2012 about 19 million house- The term telephony refers to service for both stan-
holds subscribed to DirecTV, and about 14 million dard wired phones and wireless or cell phones. By
subscribed to DISH, although such startups as 2012, analog voice telephone service had largely
VOOM and the Christian Sky Angel were trying given way to a digital meld of voice and data in
 CHAPTER 3 Multichannel Television Strategies 95

3.4 Getting to Today’s Satellite TV

S atellite systems traditionally referred to three signal

distribution methods:
(1) low-power C-band home satellite dishes (HSDs);
the most desirable geosynchronous satellite slots because of
aggressive bidding by DirecTV and EchoStar (DISH). The
modern, high-power Ku-band satellites allow subscribers to use
(2) medium-power Ku-band direct-to-home (DTH) satellite dish antennas of one to two feet in diameter. (The Japanese
systems, such as Asia’s STAR TV; and broadcast video and data using an even higher frequency
(3) high-power Ku-band direct broadcast satellite (DBS) band, Ka, to antennas the size of American half dollars.)
systems, such as DirecTV and DISH in the United States and Between 2011 and 2012, a new generation of satel-
SKY in Europe. lites was launched with ten times the capacity of earlier
The oldest form of satellite program delivery, TVRO communications satellites. WildBlue and HughesNet,
before the 1980s, required huge backyard dishes (often among others, offer satellite internet service with download
two or three yards in diameter) that were often banned by speeds of 1.5 to 2.0 Mbps and upload speeds of
horrified neighborhood associations—but the business was 256 Kbps for a cost of around $80 per month for their
really killed off by the scrambling of satellite signals and the fastest service offering. This is 30+ times faster than dial up,
FCC’s requirement that home dishes be licensed (no more but considerably slower and more expensive than the high
free out of market NFL games). Now consumers must pay speed internet service offered by cableops and telcos
for service through a cable or satellite company, and the (via FiOS and U-verse). In addition, it takes a measurable
large dishes have almost totally disappeared from urban amount of time for signals to go up 22,000 miles and
and suburban backyards. (Only a few remain in the west come back down again, which leads to noticeable delays
and up in Alaska where signals are hard to get.) and sluggish performance for internet users who participate
The medium-power Ku-band DTH services lasted only a in internet gaming or who watch streaming video feeds. As
short while in America, selling off to DBS largely resulting from a result, such services are primarily aimed at rural markets
their smaller channel capacity and getting squeezed out of that are not served by cableops and telcos.

the larger markets, and mobile service (meaning most urban areas, your local phone company has
tablets or cell phones). Public and in-home Wi-Fi digital lines and is linked with a cellular company
are other services that cableops and telcos can so that together they can provide any or all wire
offer, and they have become an increasingly desired line phone, cell phone, and internet service (at least
component of both television and computer access. through DSL [digital subscriber line]). The largest
Counting who delivers how much of what is phone companies also typically offer some type of
complicated by the two kinds of telephone service— multichannel video service. But the smaller compa-
wired and wireless. AT&T, Verizon, Qwest/Century- nies lack the nationwide array of cell towers that
Tel, Comcast and thousands of small local phone AT&T and Verizon have; in spite of roaming
companies provide wire line telephones, but the hot contracts, calls just die in a lot of places outside
business is cellular service—where Verizon remains the home area.
dominant because AT&T’s threatened purchase of Verizon (FiOS) and AT&T (U-verse) have
T-Mobile did not suceed. invested billions of dollars installing fiber and digital
Table 3.5 shows the percentage of subscribers to upgrade a significant portion of their urban and
with the two major kinds of service in the domestic business landline networks so they can offer broad-
market. AT&T and Verizon are clearly the national band services capable of competing with those
mega-giants, with Sprint much smaller and third in offered by cable companies. However, most rural
line with respect to cell phone service but Qwest/ areas continue to be served by twisted copper pairs
CenturyTel has 10% of landline subscribers. In that are inadequate for offering video or high-speed
96 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

3.5 Comparative Telephone Subscribership

Landline Subs (% share) Cell Subs (% share)

Sprint Nextel 0 (0%) 53 million (18%)

AT&T 39 million (45%) 101 million (34%)
Verizon 25 million (29%) 108 million (37%)
T-Mobile 0 (0%) 34 million (18%)
Qwest/CenturyTel 9 million (10%) 0.9 million (0.3%)

3.6 Wireless Cable

T here is another small player in the MVPD game.

Operating alongside cable companies are a few
microwave distributors of video called multichannel multi-
below 100,000, which represents less than 0.1 percent of
the multichannel video distribution marketplace.
Implementing another vision for using the MMDS spec-
point distribution service (MMDS) operators, more com- trum in the late 1990s, MCI WorldCom and Sprint each
monly called (rather ironically) wireless cable. Wireless purchased a significant number of MMDS operators (alto-
cable operators broadcast channels of local television and gether, about 60 percent of the total MMDS licenses) with
cable networks using microwave frequencies from an the intention of using this spectrum as the “last-mile” con-
antenna located on a tower, tall building, or mountain. nection to homes for the provision of high-speed data and
Homes, apartments, and hotels receive the signals by using voice services. When sending video to cell phones and
a small microwave dish, typically about 16 to 20 inches in other wireless devices captured consumers’ interest, the
size. A set top converter, identical in function to a cable TV spectrum was re-deployed for wireless video and popularly
set top box (STB), has to be located near each TV receiver. named Wi-Fi.
MMDS most successfully served portions of large cities Although still and moving video pictures are rapidly
where tall buildings are not too numerous to block the line- appearing on cell phones, pagers, and personal commu-
of-sight microwave signal, but their inability to simulta- nication assistants (PCAs, formerly PDAs, such as Black-
neously provide high speed internet connection and a large Berrys) using this MMDS spectrum, most of the material
enough menu of video, coupled with signal security issues, comes as short form video because of the small size of the
killed them off except within apartment complexes where screens. 4G smart phones (iPhones, Androids) with broad-
landlords want to provide a multichannel television service. band capability have had a dramatic impact on mobile
The number of wireless cable subscribers has dropped delivery of email, high speed internet, and data service.

internet connections. FiOS service is available to FiOS is the only broadband network that takes
16 million households in Verizon’s wire line service fiber all the way to the home. Although this means
area (i.e., it is available to about 60 percent of Ver- that it can offer the fastest broadband internet ser-
izon’s potential wire line subscribers); U-verse is vice, it also means that it is the most expensive to
available to 27 million households in AT&T’s wire- build. U-verse is an IPTV (Internet Protocol TV) ser-
line service area. FiOS and U-verse are only available vice that uses VDSL (very high bit rate digital sub-
to households actually passed by the upgraded net- scriber line) to distribute signals via a significantly
works. So cable companies continue to have the upgraded but less expensive network (compared to
superior broadband network in most U.S. geo- FiOS). FiOS and U-verse provide high quality, wire
graphic areas. line competition for cable companies. However, they
 CHAPTER 3 Multichannel Television Strategies 97

rarely compete with each other (because there is lit- one channel is going after men 18–49, then other
tle overlap between the markets in which Verizon co-owned channels normally need to target other
and AT&T offer wire line telephone service). FiOS demographic groups—younger, older, women, or
has almost 4 million video/cable subscribers and teens or kids, or people with a particular hobby or
about 4.5 million high speed internet subscribers. lifestyle interest (in cars, in cooking, in fashion or in
U-Verse has over 3.5 million subscribers to its specific sports). However, not all networks stick to a
video/cable and high speed internet services. single audience all the time. The broadcast networks
cast a very wide demographic net most of the time,
but when the Olympics rolls around, all networks
Selection Strategies owned by whoever has the rights (for the last couple
of decades, NBCUniversal) must share the huge
A strategy is a plan to achieve a goal, such as to win mountain of programming and perhaps target some-
by defeating competitors. For MVPDs, the ultimate what different groups than their usual programs do.
goal is to make money, of course, and generally, And then there is Syfy Channel, owned by
MVPDs make money two ways: by signing up sub- NBCUniversal. You’d think it would be full of science
scribers for their various services and by selling fiction movies and series, and it regularly carries Star
advertising. They do best if they capture more Gate Atlantis, Star Gate Universe, or Eureka (mostly
subscribers—and hang onto them—than others in in summers) and disaster and monster films, but it
the same business. Each newer technology becomes also carries WWE Smackdown. And one night a
a platform for potential profit, so corporations week Syfy schedules people tiptoeing around old
encompass many layers of strategies. Each small buildings with flashlights pretending that they see
part of a system has its own goals and plans that ghosts! The authors don’t know who watches that.
normally have to be made to mesh with what the The point is that selection of programs is as
higher-ups want. complex for cable networks as it is for broadcasters,
In the case of the highest corporate media levels, but they are working across many channels instead
an overall strategy includes such segments as lobby- of largely within a single channel (or one broadcast
ing for regulatory advantages, minimizing tax rami- channel plus an online version, at any rate). At the
fications, supporting research and development of same time, all program-related strategies have to
new technologies, planning for growth, consolida- take account of shifting seasons, program contracts
tion and mergers and so on. These strategic elements and life spans, as well as the development and pro-
reach beyond the programming concerns of this motion of signature programs. Nonetheless, those
book but may affect them. The meshing of various content networks owned by an MVPD have even
goals and strategies becomes more complex when more considerations to weigh, some of which may
many broadcast and cable networks operate under narrow a network’s choices to targeting audiences
a single corporate owner, as is the situation with not served (at a particular day and time) by the
Comcast, Disney, Time Warner, Viacom and News rest of the media corporation. And they may narrow
Corp, who must strategize to effectively program for selection tactics to programs that work as well for
many of the fixed and mobile media. Who owns a smart phones and tablets as for larger screens.
content producer and what else that corporation Because some MVPDs (satcos and telcos) do not
owns (and its overall financial condition) affects own program content networks, and thus must con-
what its individual parts can do and not do. centrate on passing through programming owned by
From the perspective of a single program net- others, their selection strategies focus completely on
work, the goal is to make money for the parent cor- negotiating pay for replay rights.
poration by selecting programs that attract Some experts predict complete conversion to a
audiences that advertisers want to reach (usually totally on-demand video distribution system by mid-
the 18–49 age group). On the other hand, if decade. Other experts predict a complete move to
98 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

wireless distribution of television at some point in Technology is not the same from company to
the future. However, several roadblocks will slow company. VOD comes under different names and
any transition. These include overlapping technical, with different characteristics. Comcast calls its ser-
legal, economic and marketing circumstances affect- vice “On Demand,” and if you have a Comcast dig-
ing cable, satellite and telephone delivery and recep- ital STB, programs and movies (many free and some
tion and thus programming selection strategy. Not for a fee) are instantly available via an On Demand
all factors inhibit innovation and change, however; channel, and you can watch the same episodes and
some encourage them. Successful programmers jug- movies as often as you like. Some other cable com-
gle all the variables of physical and legal limits, panies, with less advanced tech, offer only Pay Per
licensing and marketing costs, along with revenue View (PPV) and charge per viewing of a rotating set
potential, to select the best options for their coverage of movies and specials. (Decoding and billing num-
areas, and thus the mix of services necessarily varies bers can be supplied online or by telephone.) Satcos
somewhat from town to town and from one com- require subscription to their DVR service to get a
pany’s footprint to another. much more limited form of VOD (compared to
Many selection considerations relate to technol- cable, FiOS and U-verse). Besides being slow
ogy and law because the former is changing so rap- (remember all those miles up and down the signals
idly, while legal applications and interpretations are have to travel), while the files gets loaded onto your
trying to catch up. We look first at seven hot topics DVR’s hard drive, the programs are only available
in media technology. for a limited time and then will be erased. If you
want to watch a downloaded movie again, you
need to pay again.
Technical Considerations
Just as one aspect of new tech becomes clear, some
other development seems to undermine that under-
2. Capacity
standing! But here are some tried and true elements Capacity is currently less of a problem for most
of media technology. MVPDs. Construction of optical fiber Hybrid
Fiber/Coax (HFC) systems throughout the country
in the 1990s combined with digital compression of
1. Location and Income video signals (so that more channels can be trans-
Technology is not the same throughout an MVPD’s mitted through the same amount of bandwidth)
territories, let alone throughout the country. Distri- enormously increased cable’s broadband carrying
bution and reception technology in urban areas is capacity. The end of over-the-air analog television
far advanced over rural areas, where great geo- in 2011, widespread consensus on distribution stan-
graphic distances and low household density make dards, and continued advances with respect to digi-
both wired and terrestrial wireless signals expensive, tal signal compression means wire line multichannel
even impractical. The huge footprints of satellite sig- distributors have greatly expanded their technical
nals better serve large rural areas. capacity. Telcos can only bring competitive multi-
Those who can afford to subscribe to the maxi- channel video services to communities where they
mum of what’s available have far more advanced have fiber wiring fully installed (see 3.7). However,
and faster services. The less a household spends on rapid expansion of 4G/3G/Wi-Fi capacity for cell
tech, the slower it is likely to be. A related matter is phones is occurring in high-usage urban areas, mak-
tech dependency: Part B needs Part A in order to ing video via smart cell phones (e.g., iPhones) and
make Part B work. Households cannot access video tablets (e.g., iPads) a reality.
on demand (VOD) without paying for an operator- It also takes time for companies to roll out the
supplied digital set-top box (STB). (TiVo won’t newest distribution technologies, and not all compa-
work for Comcast’s on-demand, for instance). nies operate on the same schedule. One part of a city
 CHAPTER 3 Multichannel Television Strategies 99

3.7 The Role of Fiber Optics

A nother element in the conversion to digital systems is

fiber optics. Cable systems and telephone companies
are evolving toward all-fiber communication networks
dorms and classrooms—when part of the signal travels via
ordinary telephone or cable lines. At present, FiOS offers
the only complete fiber to the home (FTTH) service. If Veri-
because of their much higher capacity (as much as 1,000 zon is able to identify a set of highly valued consumer ser-
times a comparable thickness of coaxial cable), better vices that require the additional speed achieved by taking
picture quality (because fewer and different types of fiber all the way to the home, it could gain it a significant
amplifiers are required), and greater reliability (through advantage relative to its competitors. Failure to identify such
redundancy because systems typically use only a portion of a service will result in lower profitability relative to its com-
capacity and thus have plenty left over for backup petitors due to the higher costs associated with FTTH.
channels). Although enough miles of optical fiber have been strung
In most systems, however, fiber installation ends at to reach to the sun (and probably back again), and fiber
nodes that serve something between a neighborhood and delivers data at the rate of one billion bits per second (a
a block or so of homes (fiber-to-the-node—FTTN)—because gigabit), fiber has been used primarily as a long-haul
installing fiber all the way to individual homes (fiber- medium. Away from big cities, a shortage of high-speed,
to-the-home—FTTH) will not be cost-effective for the fore- local-access connections between consumer residences and
seeable future. The cable industry believes that most ser- MVPD operators persists. As the quantity of high-speed
vices, including high-speed internet connection and VOD, internet connections increases, however, the number of spe-
can be adequately provided with FTTN, and that they can cial paid services via wire will dramatically increase, and the
continue to increase system capacity as needed by moving cost of these services may decline. Whether cable operators
the nodes closer to the “neighborhood” (i.e., having each or telephone companies will ultimately dominate—or split—
node serve a smaller number of homes). the delivery of high-speed internet service to U.S. homes has
Users of up-to-date office campuses that are equipped been a big question for the communications industry. At
with fiber all the way, however, commonly notice (and present, cable is winning with an almost 60 percent share of
complain about) a significant lessening of speed and reli- U.S. high speed internet subscribers compared to about
ability at home—compared with their all-fiber offices, 40 percent for telcos (see 3.1).

may have technologies available that other parts (video, audio, voice, data), and the number of func-
don’t, causing negative consumer reaction (compa- tions it performs (and thus services it delivers) can be
nies have to field lots of calls and say “sorry, not gradually increased over time…all the way to virtual
available in your area”) and consequent political projects and 3D. On the other hand, as new band-
fallout. width intensive services are developed, such as
The fundamental element in capacity is opera- holography if and when it ever becomes practical
tional bandwidth, the width of the frequencies that for television, the demand for spectrum will continue
signals can use. Years ago, plain-old-telephones used to expand.
a mere 5 kHz of bandwidth, so high and low sounds
were cut off. Cable began with MHz wires but
today, the 1 GHz fiber platform is widely installed 3. Digitization
throughout urban areas. MVPDs view fiber and For cable, the high cost of upgrading systems to all-
amplifier technology in terms of platforms, or levels digital transmission and providing advanced set-top
of potential capability, and the 1-GHz platform has boxes has led the industry to utilize a phased rollout
tremendous capacity. With appropriate design archi- strategy. Cable operators seek to retain as many of
tecture, it can be utilized for mixes of digital signals their subscribers and advertisers as possible while
100 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

moving step-by-step into digitization as the eco- On the home recording front, the public’s rapid
nomic payback becomes visible. An overnight shift adoption of digital music and DVD players killed off
was impossible because it would have required all VCRs and videocassettes (except for the preschool
cable subscribers to have a digital set-top box for children’s market). About 86 percent of all house-
every television set in the home. holds have DVD players. Although Blu-Ray won
Although all broadcast stations supposedly the DVD standards battle in home playback, victory
ended analog transmission in 2011, most homes came a bit late. Access to many of the same pro-
still have some analog TV receivers (with a digital grams over the internet has slowed Blu-Ray’s pene-
conversion box). Additionally, the capital expendi- tration, and creating libraries of DVDs is a practice
ture connected with the transition to digital was that is likely to fade away. Consumers can load
quite high, so MVPDs vie for high-end customers movies and TV shows at high speed on flash drives
and look for services that will attract additional rev- if they want portability, so the DVD becomes unnec-
enue. As the internet becomes a bigger part of the essary. Meanwhile, Hollywood is rushing to play
television system—and vice versa—subscriber choice catch-up by digitizing its enormous libraries of old
will expand dramatically. movies and television series to make them available
For satellite companies, digitization was never online…once a bullet-proof digital rights manage-
an issue. DirecTV and DISH Network launched ment (DRM) system is fully in place.
their operations as fully digital systems, often tout-
ing the quality of their picture and sound in their
marketing efforts to consumers. Although each of
4. High-Definition Television
these DBS systems uses a different digital video com- Virtually all prime-time television programs and
pression system, both are able to deliver on their major sporting events on ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC
marketing promises. Satellite companies are, how- and PBS appear in HD. Over 100 cable networks,
ever, restricted by the number of transmission chan- including ESPN, CNN, TNT, A&E, USA, TLC,
nels currently licensed to them by the FCC: 46þ for Comedy Central, several Discovery channels, the
DirecTV and 107þ for DISH. Using present-day dig- pay networks and most regional sports networks,
ital compression standards of 12 to 1, DirecTV can as well as the largest television stations, offer much
transmit more than 600 channels, and DISH can of their evening programming in HD.
send around 1,300 to subscribers—far more than Although more than 60 percent of homes have
most cable systems offer. The extra bandwidth is HD screens, nonetheless, three-quarters of viewing
used in a variety of ways including: distributing still occurs in standard definition for two main rea-
local TV signals back into local markets (i.e., local sons. First, many consumers haven’t hooked their
into local), for their slow internet and for delivering sets up to HD signals—requiring a special HD set-
limited VOD services. top box from an MVPD for a monthly fee. Second,
From the consumer’s perspective, digitization much TV viewing takes place on non-HD TV sets
necessitates the eventual replacement of all existing away from the main set, though such sets are slowly
television sets and usually devoting a higher propor- being replaced with HD-capable screens in homes.
tion of discretionary income to subscriber fees. HD Moreover, older television reruns will continue to
and 3D are further add-ons. Because most people look like standard definition on any screen because
have several sets and won’t throw out old ones that of the way they were produced (the kind of cameras
work, the industry has been forced to recognize that they were shot with).
not all TV sets will be digital even in digital house- DirecTV dishes and receivers can handle the stan-
holds and, moreover, that some of the remaining dard compressed digital standard-definition signals
8 percent of non-MVPD U.S. households will con- (non-HD signals) and HDTV signals from satellites
tinue to depend on inexpensive down-conversion in both progressive format (scans like computers in
boxes for each TV set. 720p HD) and interlace format (scans like television
 CHAPTER 3 Multichannel Television Strategies 101

3.8 The Competing Scanning and Recording Systems

H igh-definition television (HDTV) contrasts with

standard-definition television (SDTV) and lower-
definition TV systems used in other countries. SDTV (480i)
HDTV channels into their channel lineups. This system is,
not surprisingly, supported by cable operators, as well as
by ABC and FOX. One additional option is 480p, with
has 480 lines of resolution and uses interlace scanning. 480 lines of resolution scanned one after another progres-
The HDTV system called 1080i has 1,080 lines of resolu- sively on the screen. It allows for transmission of either
tion and displays images using a form of interlaced scan- multiple programs in the space of one channel or data
ning that first transmits all the odd lines on the TV screen services such as internet access. It is, quite logically, sup-
and then the even lines. This system of HDTV is supported ported by Microsoft and various computer companies who
by CBS, NBC and the CW. The competing HDTV system, use progressive scanning, and 480p is considered to be
called 720p, offers 720 lines of resolution and displays enhanced-definition television (EDTV) not HDTV. Finally, the
images using progressive scanning, which means it trans- SDTV standard in the United States is not the same as the
mits each line from top to bottom. This system provides standard in Europe and other places, just to keep things
image quality close to that of 1080i. Moreover, when interesting. So don’t buy a DVD somewhere else and
transmitted at 24 frames per second instead of the usual expect to play it at home in the States.
60 frames per second, cable operators can squeeze more

in 1080i ATSC). The differences between systems are deterrent to marketplace penetration of 3D televi-
described in 3.8. Indeed, a single satellite receiver can sion sets.
function simultaneously as a digital television receiver
for over-the-air signals and for high definition of
both kinds and provide seamless switching among all 5. On-Demand Television and Audio
channels, accompanied by Dolby Digital surround In spite of the significant cost of doing so (cableops,
sound. satcos and telcos pay bigger rights fees for programs
Of course, 3D is also beginning to penetrate the and movies stored in an on-demand library), cable
marketplace, with and without glasses. 3D will be a operators have been rapidly rolling out various on-
big draw for sports bars and other public places demand services because they have the potential for
now, but 3D works best on the small hand-held or great profitability. Competing technologies exist, but
game screen at present. Without glasses, the viewer Comcast’s strong market power tends to set the
must look squarely at the screen to get the 3D effect standard for other cableops, as well as for telcos.
(as on a smart phone or home game machine). In In one system, content gets streamed in real-time
crowded informal settings such as bars, glasses are though a set-top box or DVR; in another, content
a considerable annoyance. (It is possible that the is downloaded to a computer, DVR or—for audio
jump to holography will occur before any kind of only—a portable media player. Internet television is
3D gets widely adopted.) However, as with HD, a a form of downloaded VOD, as is the format some
large enough quantity of 3D games, programs and airlines have adopted, called AVOD.
movies will have to be produced and distributed If the rights holders and distributors can agree on
before consumers will become interested in investing a mutually profitable fee structure, a complete shift to
in expensive 3D television sets. Creating such con- this form of interactive transmission by cable and telco
tent will take a considerable amount of time and operators is likely. In the decades ahead, many experts
financial investment by the content creation and dis- predict that very few live broadcasts will occur. Even-
tribution industry. Additionally, the current lack of tually, only a few networks will deliver real-time sports
a de facto technical standard for 3D TV is also a and breaking news; the rest of television will be
102 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

on-demand programming, operating much the same allows program distributors—whether cable, satel-
whether the consumer seeks entertainment or informa- lite or broadcaster—to reconstitute programs and
tion, and looking the same to the consumer whether movies in viewable form on home equipment.
the original source was once called a broadcast, New and complex technical solutions are
cable, satellite, telephone, wireless or online network required to manage the delivery of these different
and whether the programs are watched on television, content types in an integrated and harmonized way
computer, smart phone or tablet screens—or no that has to be entirely transparent to the consumer
screens at all. of the multimedia services. Such solutions are com-
To imagine the near future of television, con- ing but both technical and financial impediments
sider radio and its shift to MP3s and then internet slow the process.
downloads. Ultimately, on-demand services will Set-top converters, for example, have some
mean the realization of a greatly expanded channel downsides for subscribers. Most converters defeat
universe by combining the vast resources of the the utility of the television’s original remote control
internet with most preproduced and recorded video and interact poorly with purchased DVRs (such as
and audio programs and, less happily, with a large TiVo), frustrating subscribers and generating com-
supply of commercial messages targeted to individ- plaints. Moreover, subscribers must pay monthly
ual consumers. The speed of this huge change, which for each converter box, raising monthly bills in
is now in progress, depends on several things. These homes with many television sets. (The national aver-
include the deployment of smart set-top boxes (with age is three, and it is common to have as many as
complex software) and the spread of greater stan- five or six TV sets and a mix of accompanying DVD
dardization among technologies via open or flexible players and DVR units.) Now that smart digital
architectures (infrastructures that can transform any boxes have replaced analog boxes, cable program-
kind of signal into something the viewer can see and mers face difficult decisions about how to provide
hear whenever they want to view it and on whatever sophisticated capabilities without disrupting service
screen on which they want to view; see 3.10 about to households with only elementary capability.
MPEG-21). At the other end, the speed of transfor- For a long time to come, there will be house-
mation also depends on consumer willingness (that holds (or secondary TV sets) that will need simple
is, desire) to purchase video “by the program” in down-converters to take digital signals back to ana-
their homes. log signals ($30 at the supermarket). DVRs incorpo-
rate hard drives and fancy computing functions,
giving them replay, record, search and other capabil-
6. Standardizing Standards ities, and they become increasingly sophisticated
To take advantage of complex information flows with each generation. Cable operators are in a tran-
and to seamlessly mix signals coming from many sition period, moving inexorably from limited
sources—from computer data, broadcast television, addressability toward a totally addressable digital
cable television, telephone, banking signals, infrastructure that should eventually eliminate one
shopping credit records, fax and so on—requires of DBS’s current advantages over cable.
common standards—from sophisticated switching The newest intelligent boxes include a cable
centers down to the basics of jacks and plugs— modem, advanced graphics, greater speed and a
across the entire communications industry. Wide- “triple-tuner” architecture that allow customers to
spread adoption of the MPEG-2 transmission and simultaneously watch television, access blogs and
storage formats for video and audio and MPEG-4 vlogs on the internet, record several channels talk
(the chip language for digital video compression) on the telephone and use their tablets to wirelessly
have been steps on the way to industry-wide stan- interface with the set-top box. Rollout proceeds in
dardization that apply to broadcasting, cable, satel- fits and starts because of the increased capital invest-
lites, telephone and the internet. Their utilization ment required to deploy such smart boxes and
 CHAPTER 3 Multichannel Television Strategies 103

because of the continuing development of new set- Imagine watching a television show, then instantly
top box capabilities. Instead, set-top converters ordering the soundtrack or a particular star’s dress
evolve and mutate, gaining abilities until they reach or sweatshirt, without even having to dig out a
the full-service, intelligent two-way platform. credit card. The charge for the item will simply
Once standardization of the technology is appear on the monthly service bill. Viewers could
achieved—at some date in the future—such million- also play along with a popular game show or do
circuit converters (and DVRs) will probably move banking and pay bills without getting up from their
inside television sets, but adoption of such advanced living-room or office chairs—all by clicking a remote
technology will require replacement of all home elec- or, more likely, through use of their tablet. Although
tronic equipment, and thus widespread adoption will some of these functions can be done at present on a
be slow in arriving. In the meantime, incorporation of computer, all require more than merely clicking a
high-definition signals and connections to other digi- button.
tal services must be worked out among industry com- Some interactive options are already available
petitors, further slowing implementation of new from a number of cable and satellite operations:
services. All the user interface hurdles will delay DISH in the United States; SKY Broadcasting
implementation of these and many additional techno- in the United Kingdom; TPS and Cable Lyonnaise
logical advances. in France; PrimaCom in Germany; Via Digital in
Spain; and Galaxy Latin America, the exclusive pro-
vider of DirecTV in Latin America. Such companies
7. Interactivity as Canoe Ventures, OpenTV, ICTV Inc. and Visible
It was once thought that program guides, home World have been working with MVPDs and pro-
shopping and games would push the cable industry grammers to expand viable business models for
toward implementation of secure interactivity (two- interactive television in the United States.
way communication between users and cableops).
Instead, advertising has been the driving force in
meshing the internet with television in home living Legal Considerations
rooms. Advertisers want minute-by-minute access to Selection strategies have a legal side, too, and we
usage patterns, and most want consumers to have look at eight concerns here. Like all businesses,
the ability to click to access additional information MVPDs must adhere to federal law, state law and
about products that interest them, the kind of thing municipal agreements, and several long-established
easy to do on a computer. Coming first to cell policies promulgated by Congress, enforced by the
phones and tablets, as broadband gets to more FCC and upheld by the courts particularly affect
homes, spillover into programming will occur. All programmers.
kinds of programs—from education to cooking to
comedies—may eventually avail themselves of the
ability to ask viewers to respond in real time. 1. Universal Access
Interactivity via the internet has already revolu- One congressional media policy is the goal of equal-
tionized information gathering about audiences and ity for rural and urban users. This goal has more
methods of calculating audience size, and its spread than a century of tradition in government regula-
to television is altering both the revenues available to tions encouraging and then demanding access to
cable, satellite and telephone companies and pro- utility and telephone services for all citizens, and it
gram content. For example, with some advanced drives many policy decisions regarding television
interactive setups, viewers can tune in to a live sport- and the internet. Above all, communication technol-
ing event, then choose their own camera angles, ogies are viewed as essential to the proper operation
select the most recent statistics or purchase their of a democracy—for both their informational and
favorite players’ jerseys—all by clicking a remote. their educational capacities. Thus, access for all the
104 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

public, irrespective of household income or geo- local broadcast television signals. Without a legal
graphic location, is a policy goal. requirement forcing cable systems to carry all local
For several decades, the main method of imple- broadcast stations, cable operators could have
menting this goal was a federal mandate requiring excluded some stations from easy access to cable
the delivery of terrestrial radio and television broad- viewers because the installation of cable connections
cast signals to all homes. Historically, Congress usually means over-the-air antennas are discon-
viewed cable and satellite services as secondary to nected. Cable operators could be expected to want
broadcast service, though the courts tended to equal- to carry highly watched network affiliates of the
ize their value. Since 1996, access for all to the inter- major networks—but to have less desire to carry
net has been a goal, but implementation lags behind small-audience religious, foreign-language, educa-
policy, largely because imposing regulations on the tional, public and quasi-independent stations and
internet early in its development was widely seen as shopping affiliates. Shopping channels, for example,
inhibiting innovation and speedy growth. Although compete for viewers with channels owned by the
dial-up access is now widespread in rural areas, cable MSO or shopping channels with which the
regulators’ attention has shifted to ways of encour- operator has a favorable financial arrangement.
aging affordable availability of broadband and wire- Any broadcaster excluded from cable systems
less services. would be greatly threatened financially because of
An important part of that access is to AT&T’s decreased audience reach. Congress (eventually sup-
and Verizon’s data networks. Although existing ported by the courts) decided cable “must carry all.”
voice roaming rules allow local competitors to con- Next, the question shifted to whether satellite
nect to other networks for out-of-area telephone services, which wanted to carry the most highly val-
calls (voice), it took a 2011 FCC decision to force ued local TV stations in each market, had to carry
the big guys to permit access for data—meaning all local broadcast signals. Would DBS have to pro-
sending pictures, doing email, searching Google vide retransmission of all local stations (called local-
and watching online video. Smart media require into-local service), eating up considerable bandwidth
large amounts of bandwidth to accommodate all and necessitating high scrambling costs because their
the things consumers want to do, and their expecta- footprints overlapped many markets? On the one
tions are the same whether they live in urban or hand, DBS providers had long sought the lifting of
rural areas. Providing consumers who live in rural prohibitions against carrying any local terrestrial
areas with “adequate” access to broadband will broadcast television stations; on the other hand,
require governmental subsidization through the gen- they said that being required to carry all local sta-
eration of universal access fees along with the pay- tions in order to carry some local stations, irrespec-
ment of higher monthly fees by these customers. tive of content, would be difficult, very costly, and
not in the public interest. Even with sufficient capac-
ity, hypothetically satellite operators offering merely
2. Must Carry the affiliates of all nine broadcast networks plus a
One of the most contentious regulatory issues of the PBS station to all 210 markets would require the
1990s—carrying well into the twenty-first century— operators to catch more than 2,110 signals, scram-
is the required carriage of signals. The issue of must ble them, and then selectively unscramble 10 signals
carry divides the program providers (networks) from for each market.
the distributors (local cable systems, telcos and It was decided that although DBS companies
DBS companies) and even more vociferously divides have the option of providing local-into-local service,
local broadcasters from other multichannel video they would not be required to do so. However, if
distributors. they carry one local market TV station they are obli-
Initially, the must-carry question was whether gated to carry all the stations in that market. Today,
cable operators should be required to carry all DISH offers local into local service in all 210
 CHAPTER 3 Multichannel Television Strategies 105

Designated Market Areas (DMAs) and DirecTV’s programming stream under the current must-carry
local-into-local service reaches more than 94 percent rules. At the moment, carriage of secondary digital
of U.S. television households. DBS subscribers typi- television programming depends on successful nego-
cally pay a monthly fee to receive their local chan- tiations between local TV stations and MVPDs
nels via DBS unless they purchase a program (cableops, telcos and satcos) through the retransmis-
package that includes local channels as part of the sion consent process. At the same time, Congress
cost of the package. has made it very clear that it expects local TV sta-
After the turn of the century, the contentious tions to broadcast some form of HDTV, not just
issue shifted to digital must carry. Although federal multiplexed SDTV.
law required broadcast stations to shift from analog
to digital signals, as long as a significant portion of
the public could receive only analog signals, broad-
3. Net Neutrality
casters had to (for economic as well as political rea- Then the whole topic of must carry rotated sideways
sons) distribute both kinds of signals. Most cable to become a concern about the internet carrying (or
operators however, claimed that they lacked the not carrying) all content in the pipeline without
channel capacity to provide two signals for every favoritism or overage fees. Dubbed net neutrality,
broadcast station (along with a wide range of both the fear is that internet service providers (cable com-
analog and digital cable networks) and that most panies especially) might install equipment that
households could only receive analog signals. At blocks competitors’ programming, or even more
the same time, broadcasters argued that their enor- likely, inhibit high-bandwidth usage by creating tier-
mous financial investment in digitization would ing systems or instituting overage charges. The ques-
be squandered unless local cable operators were tion to be decided is whether carriers should be
required to carry both their analog and digital sig- prohibited from exercising data discrimination.
nals during the transition from analog to digital. The Some online games, for example, require huge
FCC declared that cable operators were required to amounts of bandwidth.
carry either the analog or the digital signal, not both. Another high-bandwidth usage group of ser-
Once the conversion to all digital was accom- vices is peer-to-peer communications (P2P).
plished, the battle shifted to multicarriage, or carriage Although it originally referred to file sharing systems
of multiple digital (but non-HD) signals from one sta- such as BitTorrent and Napster, the concept has
tion as opposed to only carrying that station’s high- been broadened to social communication among
definition signal. Congress’s announced intention is peers as in YouTube, Facebook, and social games.
to shift the country to high-definition television. P2P ties up large amounts of bandwidth with ser-
Complicating the issue, the larger stations now vices that typically don’t make money for the carrier
argue that the most viable business model for many (or its parent corporation). In addition to concerns
stations might be to divide a digital channel into a with usage based data discrimination, public interest
hybrid HD service (less than true hi-def) along with advocates are concerned that broadband providers
several other SDTV (standard-definition television) (cableops and telcos primarily) might favor their
multicast program services, rather than fill it with own content and applications (or of third parties
only one channel of true HDTV. In essence, many who pay for priority) over other content and appli-
broadcasters wanted to copy cable networks by cations. Cable companies, for example, might rather
becoming multichannel program suppliers and deliv- consumers consumed its cable television networks
ering multiple channels of programming (perhaps all than played elaborate games such as Farmville or
news or local sports, all old movies or non-English chatted on Facebook.
programs—some hybrid HDTV and some not). The FCC established Net Neutrality Rules in
However, to date, the FCC has ruled that a sta- late 2010. These rules: (1) require all broadband
tion is entitled to carriage of only one primary video providers to publicly disclose their network
106 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

management practices (transparency), (2) restrict “pay” indirectly for carriage of their local stations;
broadband providers from blocking internet content and licensing some local news to cableops for local
and applications (no blocking), and (3) bar fixed video-on-demand. By contrast to the cableops,
(not mobile) broadband providers from engaging in DISH, Verizon and AT&T decided in 2007 to pay
unreasonable discrimination in transmitting lawful direct cash for the rights to retransmit local TV sta-
network traffic-including favoring their own con- tions, which rang loud warning bells of change in
tent/applications or that of third parties who pay the industry.
for priority over other content/applications (no With the rise of strong competition in the
unreasonable discrimination). No one is very happy. MVPD marketplace among cableops, satcos and tel-
cos, “must have” local television stations (ABC,
CBS, NBC and FOX network affiliates) now have
4. Retransmission Consent the leverage to negotiate direct cash payments from
In 1992 Congress allowed local television stations to cableops (and other MVPDs) for carriage of their
choose between being carried free of charge by cable signals. In fact, retransmission consent fees are the
systems or negotiating with the operators for some fastest revenue growth area for big four network-
compensation for carrying their signals (retransmis- affiliated television stations accounting for 12 per-
sion consent). After some years in the courts, the law cent or more of a many station’s cash flow.
was upheld, and stations have the choice of opting Recently, some spectacular battles over retransmis-
for inclusion under the must-carry rules or giving sion consent between content owners and redistribu-
permission for carriage, with the majority of stations tors have flared. ABC, for example, cut its signal to
picking the latter. In order to deliver local-into-local Cablevision systems the day of the Academy
service, the Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act Awards, which led to a settlement just as the Oscars
of 1999 also required DBS companies to seek aired; and Time Warner Cable and FOX settled a
retransmission consent agreements with those televi- heated retransmission consent dispute the day before
sion stations that chose this option over must carry, the Sugar Bowl.
thus essentially treating all multichannel distributors Then tablets become the hot issue—and by
alike, including telephone companies. extension other mobile media like smart phones.
When the rules first went into effect, most cable Viacom (owner of MTV and Comedy Central) and
MSOs refused to pay direct cash for any broadcast Scripps (owner of HGTV and the Food Network),
signal. Consequently, the broadcast networks (and supported by other content owners, demanded that
other major group broadcasters) initially exchanged distributors (Time Warner Cable and Cablevision)
their owned-and-operated stations’ retransmission pay a premium for streaming television channels to
rights for cable carriage of cable channels owned new media like iPads. The cable operators in turn
by their parent corporations, such as FX, MSNBC, insisted that the right to distribute to other media
Food Network and ESPN2. This worked for a while. was already covered by previous retransmission con-
By the turn of the century, however, Disney and tracts for cable carriage.
FOX (along with others) were aggressively seeking There are two main concerns here: One is who
leverage against such major cable operators as Cox supplies the app for content channels: Will consu-
and Time Warner. Their tactics included requesting mers use apps arranged by their cableops, apps pro-
more favorable channel placement (lower or “good” vided by content channels, or downloads through
digital numbers—the easy-to-remember ones) on paid services like Netflix? Or all of the above? Hav-
systems for all Disney or FOX-owned cable net- ing iTunes, for example, provide the app has advan-
works; asking MVPDs to pay relatively high tages because it can log fees to an existing account,
monthly per-subscriber fees for carrying new cable and its apps can be made to work only within the
networks owned by Disney or FOX; entering into an consumer’s home, not as a mobile service (without
ad barter arrangements with cableops to get them to extra fees). Every company in the middle of the
 CHAPTER 3 Multichannel Television Strategies 107

3.9 Mobile Wallets

C ell phones with embedded chips are set to replace

credit cards and bank cards: A simple swipe, and a
bill is charged or money falls from the ATM. But the same
carriers want to collect fees for every use of their phones.
Consumer protection groups fear that any new system
will cost consumers more, in part because fancy new
battle for pieces of fees charged for tablet apps is being equipment would have to be installed everywhere.
fought over the cell phone among somewhat different Nonetheless, after a decade of debate, agreement is
players. The banks and big payment networks (Visa, slowing inching forward. Isis, a joint venture by AT&T,
MasterCard) want to continue to collect fees from mer- Verizon and Discover, is experimenting with a system of
chants; Google and PayPal want a new system that gives mobile payment, as is Barclaycard in Britain and the
them cuts as servicers like banks; and Apple and mobile United States.

3.10 MPEG-21 and the Future

O ne hopeful sign is the current tentative agreement on

MPEG-21, a comprehensive new technical standard
for multimedia on the near horizon. It speaks to the pro-
rights associated with multimedia content and under-
standably seek to acquire income from those who make
use of their content, MPEG-21’s appeal is that it inte-
cesses of exchanging, accessing and manipulating grates two critical technologies: one that allows consu-
video and audio across all media—from the internet to mers to search for and obtain content—either personally
broadcasting to wired and wireless transmissions of all or through the use of intelligent agents—and another
kinds. It potentially divides the monetary pie for the that presents content for consumption that preserves the
participants in any exchange, and one of its great usage rights (through payment of royalties) associated
appeals is that it can readily exclude unpaid file shar- with the content. However, MPEG-21 is more a hope
ing. Because different parties have intellectual property than a reality at present.

distribution process wants some revenue from the and cannot carry. Some MVPDs, for example, have
stream, and iTunes and Netflix naturally want policies against carriage of adult programming.
healthy cuts (see 3.9). Moreover, parent cableops often sign agreements
The second main concern is how to count audi- with program suppliers that have the net effect of
ences. The more television viewed by consumers on compelling carriage of a particular cable network
iPads and other tablets, the greater the importance of on all their systems irrespective of whether it
counting every viewing of every program in order to might be the best choice for each market. A cable
sell advertising effectively. Chapter 5 outlines the mea- network naturally wants the largest possible audi-
surement problems. How this will all work out and ence and can offer discounts to a cableop to
what it will cost consumers are unknowns (see 3.10). encourage wide carriage. Channels with a lot of
violence and sexual material have been the biggest
problems. With giant cable operators having thou-
5. Corporate Policies sands of local systems scattered across the country,
In addition to legal carriage requirements enforced standardized channel selection is unlikely to be an
by the FCC, the policies of the parent corporation ideal fit for every location but it is economical for
may impose restrictions on what a local system can the MVPD.
108 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

6. Franchises couple more sets of rules are relevant in some

situations.
Historically, every cable system has had to win a fran-
chise (a contract) from a local municipal government
in order to operate in the local geographic area. Once 7. Syndicated Exclusivity
cable operators receive a franchise, most are required Another area of federal concern has to do with exclu-
to pay a percentage of their revenues into local gov- sive rights to show syndicated programs. Federal reg-
ernment coffers. This is called the franchise fee, and ulations now enforce the syndicated exclusivity rule
cable subscribers see it listed on their monthly bills. (often called syndex), which requires cable operators
Local government justifies charging operators a fee (and now satellite and telephone program carriers
because they are making commercial use of local too) to black out syndicated programs on imported
infrastructure (streets, trees, public rights of way) signals (distant stations or satellite-delivered cable
that belong to the whole community. Cable operators networks) in an area when any local station possesses
then list the franchise fee on the bill (typically about 5 exclusive rights to the syndicated program. For exam-
percent of the subscriber’s monthly statement) to ple, if both WGN, the Chicago superstation, and a
inform cable subscribers about this so-called tax. local station in Indianapolis (or Kansas City, Fresno,
In addition, local franchise agreements often spec- Atlanta or wherever) happen to carry rerun episodes
ify that cable operators must provide a specific num- of Frasier, and IF the local station has stipulated
ber of public, educational and government (PEG) exclusivity in its contract with the syndicator (usually
access channels. DBS companies also have public for a stiff price), the superstation must be blacked out
interest obligations amounting to 4 percent of their or covered up with another show in the franchise
channel capacity. DirecTV, for example, carries area when Frasier is on the local station.
C-SPAN, NASA TV, Link TV and others. The advent Most importantly, the syndex rule also applies to
of Verizon’s and AT&T’s entrance into the multichan- sporting events carried by satellite. Because most local
nel television business led many states to replace local cable systems lack the insertion equipment to cover up
franchising with state franchising requirements for one program with another, such superstations as
telcos in order to speed up their competitive entry KTLA, WPIX and WGN have tried to make them-
into the multichannel video distribution business. selves as “syndex proof” as possible by scheduling
Periodic refranchising of local cable operators only original programming or paying for exclusive
used to be a hurdle for each cable operator and national rights to syndicated shows as WGN did with
local government every 10 years or so. Since 1992, American Idol Rewind and 24. Another example is
local communities have been forbidden to grant TBS’s having exclusive national rights to The Andy
exclusive or monopoly franchises, so telcos cannot Griffith Show for many years but losing them to Via-
be excluded. At the same time, local communities com’s TV Land when its term of license ended in the
must legally prove that an incumbent franchisee has mid-1990s. DBS and telcos are also required to provide
provided inadequate service—a difficult thing to dem- syndicated exclusivity to local TV stations. But the
onstrate to a court’s satisfaction—in order to refuse most valued syndicated programs are sporting events
to renew an existing cable provider’s franchise. When because they involve live original programming, huge
coupled with the ever-changing multichannel compet- audiences and big advertising revenue; in consequence,
itive landscape, cable operators appear to have a the cost for exclusive national cable or satellite rights
strong renewal expectancy with respect to refranchis- for sports programs is usually very high.
ing, which, in theory, makes it more difficult for local
authorities to negotiate for improvements. In sum,
federal regulations have generally freed MVPDs to 8. Antennas
program as they wish, with the exception of the Another bone of contention has to do with regulations
must-carry and retransmission consent rules. But a about antennas. The FCC’s Over-the-Air Reception
 CHAPTER 3 Multichannel Television Strategies 109

Devices Rule removes the ability of local governments, away from satcos and telcos and getting non-
property owners and covenant-controlled communi- MVPD subscribers to subscribe). Nearly every
ties to restrict individual home-owners’ ability to aspect of the cable and satellite business involves
install outside antennas (dish or aerial) in order to cost expenditure as well as potential income. In
receive video programming signals from television sta- deciding whether to carry a new channel, operators
tions, wireless cable providers and satellite/telephone have to calculate whether the benefits (revenues) will
systems. The rule prohibits most restrictions that (a) outweigh the expenses. On the benefit side, revenues
unreasonably delay or prevent installation, (b) unrea- come mostly from monthly subscriber fees and
sonably increase the cost of installation, or (c) preclude advertising time purchases; on the outgo side,
reception of a signal of acceptable quality. The rule expenses include the cost of carrying and installing
applies to subscribers who place video antennas on the program services, paying for copyrights, and
property they own, including condominiums and paying for churn. Understanding the basic econom-
cooperatives that have an area for the subscriber’s ics of MVPD program delivery involves knowing
exclusive use (such as a balcony or patio) in which to who pays whom.
install the antenna. The rule also applies to townhomes In general, MVPDs pay to carry content. Most
and manufactured homes, as well as to single-family established cable networks require each local cable,
homes, and in essence greatly increases the number of satellite, or telephone operator to pay a monthly fee
potential customers for wireless cable and DBS service. for each program service supplied, calculated as a dol-
lar amount per subscriber per month, and ranging
from a few cents per sub to more than $6 per sub for
Economic Considerations ESPN. A number of the more than 600 cable networks
By the second decade of the century, just over eleven come without charge to redistributors (especially
hundred (1,162) separate cable companies operated highly specialized services), and a very few actually
in the United States, down slightly from a decade pay the MVPDs for carriage (mostly retail or brand-
ago (1,191 in 2000). To reduce operating costs and new services offering short-term arrangements). In the
increase operating efficiencies, cable companies past, Univision paid some cable operators a small
bought, merged or swapped systems to create large amount per Spanish-surname subscriber (rates varied
clusters of geographically adjacent or nearby cable with the quarter of the year), but its great popularity
systems. Operating all (or most) of the systems in a ended the need for such payments. FOX paid cable
local area under a single manager saves significantly operators for one year to add Fox Sports to their sys-
in overhead and marketing costs. It has also allowed tems. Cableops now pay Univision and FOX a per-
the cable industry to achieve the size required to gen- subscriber-per-month fee to distribute these networks
erate the billions of dollars of cash flow required to to their subscribers.
upgrade the cable system plant in order to offer Shopping services are a notable exception; they
broadband, telephone service and video on demand usually pay local cable operators a small percentage
services. Clustering is clearly more efficient than of sales as a carriage incentive and may operate as a
operating a patchwork of scattered systems in differ- barter network on an exchange-for-time basis, similar
ent counties and different states. Studies also show to the barter programs discussed in Chapter 6. A dis-
that above the 5-million-subscriber mark, significant tributor such as Home Shopping Network presells
economies of scale emerge. Because most U.S. homes most advertising spots, although a few local availabil-
can subscribe to cable if they want to, but only ities (avails) may be included as an enticement for the
about half do, growth for cable companies can be cable service to carry the channel. Nonetheless, most
achieved in only two ways: sell more varied domes- MVPDs pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars
tic services (high speed internet service, telephone each month for the cable networks they carry.
service, etc.) to existing subscribers and do a better Premium movie networks (HBO, Showtime,
job of acquisition marketing (taking subscribers Starz, Cinemax and others) have a different licensing
110 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

pattern: The local MVPD gets between 40 and 50 television companies have subscription revenues
percent of the monthly fee paid by subscribers, and plus only national advertising.
the remainder goes to the program network. This fee-
splitting arrangement explains why MVPDs offer so Subscribing The number of new subscribers in the
many premium channels and are so anxious for their United States to MVPDs has been slowly increasing for
subscribers to upgrade. more than a decade. Consumers who want to sign up
One successful method of gaining shelf space for for cable or a competitor can do so as virtually all homes
a new program service is to offer equity holdings are “passed” by the wires or a satellite signal. Thus, the
(partnership) to MVPDs. Systems are more moti- focus of the big MVPDs has been on upgrading current
vated to place an owned service advantageously on subs to higher levels of service. Fees for minimum service
the system because they benefit from its success. on cable have been kept low by federal mandate (that
On-demand services threaten to change the is, rates have been regulated), and basic service (the
game. If, eventually, all or most existing programs minimum level) usually includes only the local broad-
are constantly available, then what selection strategy cast stations and local-access channels. But few people
can a corporation or a channel adopt? One part of settle for just basic television service; they want broad-
current strategy is certainly for content producers to band internet and more digital channels. So customer
hang onto specific program rights as long as possible bills rise rapidly, keeping MVPDs profitable.
to force viewers to seek the most desirable shows via Typically, beyond the local stations’ signals, addi-
just one channel. Or alternatively, in the future, a tional channels are divided into tiers of programming,
corporation might create a large shared pool of such as an expanded basic or “classic” tier, other dig-
VOD programs accessible from any co-owned ital service tiers including foreign language tiers, mul-
channel—convenient for audiences but making mea- tiple premium movie and sports tiers, and several HD
surement of individual program audiences very diffi- tiers and maybe 3D tiers. Acquiring HD in the home
cult. If all older programs are available constantly, requires subscribers to rent one HD set-top box per
then the strategy for selection clearly devolves on television set, and it requires a subscriber to pay a
choosing new programs to produce, and airing monthly fee for HD service. Currently, major cable
them repeatedly to capture maximal viewership operators average $50 to $60 in monthly revenue
before releasing them into any VOD pool. At pres- from each subscribing household, and a customer’s
ent, program rights for streaming videos (what VOD bill may easily exceed $150. MVPDs usually bundle
uses) are negotiated along with the right to air an television content with phone and internet services in
entire channel of series or movies on an MVPD. “deals” with varying time limits so comparing across
Still another expense comes from the rising cost of companies becomes tricky.
utility pole attachments. Utility pole attachment rates Altogether, cable holds flat at about two-thirds
are regulated by the FCC for both cable and telecom of multichannel households, and DBS serves almost
services (including wired and wireless services), which one-third, and telco just less than a tenth. But
pay a pole rental fee of $7 per foot per year. Cities and MVPDs that provide superfast internet service are
utilities that own the telephone poles that both cable less concerned about cord-cutters than DBS because
and telecos attach to are hungry for revenue and thus most cord cutters will be their internet subscribers
are raising the rates for such attachments. This is one anyway, and because content services on the internet
more pressure toward wirelessness. are fast becoming pay services. As a result, cablecos
and telcos will get their dollar share either way.
New enhanced services linked to the web are
1. Revenues expected to be the “killer applications” of the next
In general, MVPDs have two revenue streams: sub- decade. Just as Google offers overlay of maps with
scriptions and advertising. Cable ops and telcos other displays, so Autonomy and its competitors
make money by selling both subscriptions and offer video insertion over real-life scenes. The first
national and local advertising, whereas satellite “wower” was a demonstration of moving images in
 CHAPTER 3 Multichannel Television Strategies 111

a newspaper as one turns pages (as seen in Harry more homes—whether terrestrial or satellite—it has
Potter movies!). Soon, a cell phone passed across considerable leverage with program suppliers in nego-
store windows in a mall will overlay images of special tiating monthly fees. As the largest operator of all,
sales or other information for prospective shoppers. Comcast has enormous clout.
Estimates are that MVPDs collectively spend more
Advertising On the positive side for cable opera- than $35 billion on programming license fees each year,
tors, high programming costs can be offset in the case with approximately 75 percent of these payments going
of the most popular cable networks because the local to advertising-supported cable networks. The fees per
operator can sell up to two minutes of spot time per cable network vary from nothing to as little as a nickel
hour (local avails) on the most popular channels. per subscriber per month to about $6 per subscriber per
(This advertising is in addition to the national advertis- month (see 8.11). ESPN, the most popular and most
ing the cable content network sells.) Local advertising profitable of all channels, costs an average of nearly
became a more viable source of revenue as an outcome $6 per subscriber per month and requires operators to
of increased clustering of cable systems. In addition, also carry ESPN2, ESPN Classic and ESPNEWS. For
cable systems owned by different companies can join MVPDs, ESPN is an absolute must-have. In contrast,
to create large virtual geographic regions for the distri- such smaller audience services as truTV (formerly
bution of advertising messages. As with broadcasting, called Court TV) charge in the neighborhood of $.35
there is greater interest in purchasing ads on the most per sub per month (which is still $35,000 a month in a
highly-rated (USA, TNT, Discovery) and tightly tar- midsized market with 100,000 subs). The fees paid to
geted (ESPN, MTV) cable networks. In contrast, satel- cable networks become a sizable monthly outlay for a
lite operators presently lack the ability to sell local system that carries 50 or more advertiser-supported
advertising, but as spot beaming capabilities and networks to 10,000 or 20,000 subscribers, as the fol-
other required technologies improve, the potential for lowing equation shows:
DBS carriage of regional advertising increases.
$:10  50 services  10;000 subs ¼ $50;000
Offering spots for local sale is a major bargaining
point for cable content networks when renegotiating Thus $50,000 is the whopping monthly cost for just
carriage contracts with local cable systems. For the 50 networks in a tiny franchise area.
most part, these spots are deducted from program Just imagine what Comcast must pay each
time rather than network advertising time, so they month for 300 content channels for 24 million subs!
cost the content network little. There is, of course, a Even AT&T’s U-verse has over 100 channels to pay
practical limit to how much a program can be short- for, times its subscriber list of almost 3.5 million.
ened to allow for advertising. Moreover, advertising Moreover, network/distributor contracts sometimes
spots that cannot be sold (such as spots in less popu- specify even larger per-subscriber fees if the network
lar programs or in lightly viewed time periods) offer is placed on an upper tier—under the assumption that
little advantage to a local cable system. fewer people will subscribe to an upper tier or pack-
age of channels. Inclusion on both regular digital and
2. Expenses HD tiers is advantageous to content networks (and
Carriage Fees Cost is directly affected by whether broadcast stations), so normally, MVPDs don’t pay
the cable content network is advertiser-supported any extra fees for duplicating the same content. The
(most cable networks) or subscriber-supported (pre- fees are for any carriage at all (see 3.11). Such over-
mium channels), whether the MVPD owns at least head costs underlie the battle over retransmission
part of the network, and which additional incentives rights that is currently being fought between the own-
the network offers the operator. The cable industry ers of over-the-air television stations and MVPDs.
has consolidated very rapidly, partly because getting
larger gives definite advantages in negotiation for Compulsory Copyright In addition to network
lower per-subscriber prices for program networks. If fees, all cable and satellite systems pay copyright
an MVPD controls a subscriber base of 10 million or royalty fees to the Licensing Division of the U.S.
112 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

3.11 Retrans Battles

P rogrammers and cable system operators have always

had a symbiotic but tense relationship. Each needs the
other, but negotiations between the two over the price paid
effectively declared that if people wanted local TV signals,
they could buy antennas.
Ultimately, the two sides settled on a model that gave
by (cable) distributors to program content suppliers has broadcasters extra channel capacity, in lieu of cash, to start
bred interesting and sometimes even headline-inducing new services, a reward that eventually turned out to be
clashes. In the 1980s, the flash-point involved popular nearly valueless in the digital era. As those retransmission
basic channels. Cable operators beat back a proposed consent contracts came up for their regular three-year
price hike for MTV in 1984 by launching a short-lived renewals in the late-1990s and into the 2000s, however,
competitor, the Cable Music Channel. TCI, the nation’s broadcasters became increasingly bold in their demands
leading cable company in the 1980s, used a similar ploy for payment. In what may have been a watershed show-
to dampen a planned rate increase by ESPN. While fights down in late 2004, a smaller broadcasting chain, Nexstar
over cable programming services, especially the expensive Broadcasting Group, pulled its stations off of cable systems
ESPN family of channels, continued into the 2000s, the in four markets. Nexstar wanted direct cash payment for its
focus has largely shifted to payment for local broadcast channels. The cable operators said no. The blackout lasted
signals. 10 months and cost Nexstar millions. Two of the larger
Broadcasters and the broadcasting networks historically cable operators involved in the dispute, Cox and Cable
have sought compensation for cable’s use of their over- One, eventually settled, not for cash but for guaranteed
the-air programming. The Copyright Act of 1976 required advertising purchases on the Nexstar stations. Some smal-
cable distributors to pay a royalty for the use of distant ler cable operators, according to Nexstar, did finally agree
broadcast signals (but not for local signals), and this pro- to pay a modest retransmission fee.
vided some broadcasters and program producers, for the Perhaps emboldened by Nexstar’s move, in 2006 CBS
first time, with a modest income stream from cable. It wasn’t president and CEO Leslie Moonves predicted his network
until the Cable Act of 1992, however, that broadcasters would begin hammering out carriage fee agreements with
were given the legal power to withhold their local signals if cable operators over the coming years. Hearing this threat,
cable didn’t pay. The traditionally pugnacious cable in 2007 Time Warner Cable and the parent of ABC’s
operators refused direct compensation in the first round of stations (Disney Corp.) negotiated a high-profile distribu-
negotiations following the ’92 Act. Cable executives tor/supplier settlement. It provided a compensation

Copyright Office based on the number of distant sig- compulsory copyright fees in excess of $100 million
nal over-the-air television stations they carry. DBS from DBS distributors and of more than $200 million
providers pay approximately 30 cents per subscriber from cable companies. Payment of these fees allows
per month per station to carry distant signals. (But cable systems and DBS to carry such superstations as
remember that not all DBS subscribers necessarily WGN, KTLA, WPIX, WWOR and others.
choose to receive the distant signals being carried). These funds are returned, proportionately in
The formula for cableops and telcos is very theory, to copyright holders such as the holders of
involved. The basic approach to this requires cable- rights for sporting events, music, movies, domestic
ops to pay 1.064 percent of each system’s gross and foreign television programs and so on, though
receipts for the first distant signal carried. For the there is some debate about whether sports rights
second, third, and fourth distant signal they pay holders get enough or too much from the royalty
0.701 percent of gross receipts and for the fifth and pool. From the operator’s perspective, they are an
beyond, they pay 0.330 percent of gross receipts. On additional expense. Copyright holders would like
annual basis, the U.S. Copyright Office collects to eliminate the compulsory license for carriage of
 CHAPTER 3 Multichannel Television Strategies 113

package that covered Disney’s ABC-owned stations and its generated significant news media interest because it meant
must-have cable channels (ESPN, ESPN 2 and the Disney that Cablevision’s New York area subscribers were
Channel). The contract also guaranteed Time Warner’s deprived of FOX coverage of the start of the 2010 World
subsequent carriage of HD versions of the popular Disney Series. (Horrors!) The timing of the dispute was no coinci-
properties. While details of such agreements are typically dence, of course. The standoff lasted 14 days before mil-
confidential, the package’s terms were such that Time lions of angry baseball fans forced a resolution just in time for
Warner could maintain it had not paid direct fees to carry Game 3 of the series. Terms, again, were not disclosed, but
the ABC stations. their nature could be divined from a Cablevision statement
That fiction eroded swiftly, however. Cable operators that declared, “Cablevision has agreed to pay Fox an unfair
were, quietly, beginning to pay broadcasters for their local price for multiple channels of its programming including
signals. In 2010, retransmission talks between Disney and many in which our customers have little or no interest.”
Cablevision focused specifically on carriage fees for Dis- The price war between cable and the broadcast industry
ney’s ABC stations. When discussions bogged down, Dis- is likely to continue and perhaps escalate. In contrast to the
ney pulled WABC-TV off of Cablevision’s New York area 1980s, cable operators now feel like the underdogs in the
systems early on the day of ABC’s scheduled coverage of battle and have asked the government to intervene. The
the Academy Awards. It was a short-lived blackout, with FCC, in 2011–2012, was reviewing the rules. Meanwhile
carriage reinstated about 14 minutes into the awards some cable operators took their cases directly to customers,
show. Arbitration led to settlement, with trade press reports informing them of the prices they now pay for off-air signals.
suggesting that Disney received between 25 and 50 cents Charter Communications and Suddenlink Communications
per subscriber per month. reportedly include the new broadcast retransmission cost on
Later in 2010, Cablevision engaged News Corp. in a subscribers’ itemized bills. Charter lists the cost under “taxes
similar, but much more acrimonious, dispute. In October, the and fees” as a “broadcast TV surcharge.” (Of course, this is
two companies came to loggerheads over carriage of a like the way cable operators tell subscribers how much of
suite of channels that included the Fox Business channel, Nat their bills get paid to their municipalities.)
Geo Wild, and the FOX broadcasting stations. Cablevision
balked at the price asked by News Corp, and FOX pulled its Patrick Parsons, Ph.D.
The Pennsylvania State University
signals from the Cablevision systems. The blackout

distant TV signals. However, so far, Congress has any local system or DBS service can be calculated for
agreed with the MVPD industry that continuation a year, or for any length of time, by dividing the num-
of the compulsory licensing system is in the public ber of annual disconnections by the average annual
interest. number of total subscribers; all systems keep careful
track of their churn rates.
Audience Churn: Another big problem is audi-
Disconnects in
ence churn, or turnover. Subscribers who disconnect,
a time period
even if they are replaced, cost the system in hookup  100 ¼ % chum
Average number of total
time, administrative record changes, equipment loss
subscribers in that period
and duplicated marketing effort. Annual churn rates
are typically around 30 to 36 percent for basic cable Not all cancellations can be prevented, of course,
and 50 to 80 percent for premium services and digital because people move, children grow up and leave
cable. For DBS providers, typical overall annual ser- home, and local economic recessions cause unem-
vice churn is around 18 percent. The churn rate for ployment and cutbacks on services. College towns
114 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

normally have lots of cable cancellations at the end established that nowadays the multichannel audi-
of spring semester and lots of new connections in ence differs not at all from the over-the-air-only
the fall, but minimizing avoidable audience churn audience or even the online audience, but in particu-
is one of the primary responsibilities that a ser- lar markets, subscribers to a system may differ dra-
vice’s programming and marketing executives matically from national norms. One cable system,
share. for example, may have more middle-aged, upscale,
Turnover on premium channels occurs more urban subscribers with higher-than-average incomes
frequently than with the basic service. Instituting and deep broadband penetration, while another may
hefty charges for disconnecting single channels has have many more large families of mixed-age mem-
reduced the practice of substitution, in which sub- bers, and fewer broadband subscribers. The upscale
scribers casually drop one premium channel to try households might want documentaries, sporting
another. Nonetheless, several premium channels events and HD, while the large families might want
such as American Movie Classics, Galavisión and G- and PG-rated movies and kids programs.
Disney were forced to move from premium to basic Foreign-language channels are highly desired in
services, and the challenges faced by other premium major cities, but less so in most small towns outside
services have led to mergers and even occasional the Southwest.
combined marketing efforts by such direct competi- Program services have to be chosen so that
tors as HBO and Showtime. every subscriber has several channels that are espe-
Given the easy availability of movies online and cially appealing (see 3.12). In a big change from the
the increased ability of copyright holders to market past, the method today is to bring hundreds of tiered
movies directly to consumers, premium cable ser- digital and HD channels to homes at 10 or 12 dif-
vices will need to continuously reinvent themselves ferent price levels, accompanied by premium movies
to remain economically viable in the future. HBO and pricey sports packages at the very high end (and
Go, which allows existing HBO subscribers to access 3D where available).
and watch HBO content on mobile video devices
(smart phones and tablets), represents one such
attempt at reinvention. Nonetheless, unfavorable Scheduling Strategies
economics may eventually end stand-alone pay
channels. But powerful companies survive by Up to this point, this chapter has been concerned
morphing into new entities. with the technical, legal, economic and marketing
factors that impact the selection strategies of cable
and satellite programmers—in other words, how
Marketing Considerations and why cable and satellite operators pick some ser-
After technical, legal and economic considerations vices to carry rather than others. In addition, opera-
have been evaluated, the multichannel programmer tors have scheduling, evaluation and promotional
still has to weigh several marketing factors in concerns.
deciding whether to carry a particular network Currently, cableops, satcos and telcos negotiate
and how to position and promote it. Cable with a program supplier, such as a cable network or
and telco programmers seek to attract and hold a television station, to carry its programs on a sepa-
both the local audience and the local advertiser; rate channel. For many years, much negotiation
satellite programmers must seek both national involved which channel number a station would
advertisers and audiences. To achieve these goals, get, but the 1992 Cable Act required that over-
both must maximize new subscriptions and mini- the-air stations have numbers corresponding to their
mize disconnections. over-the-air channel numbers (called channel match-
The nature of the local audience determines ing) or be placed on a mutually agreed-upon chan-
what has particular appeal. National research has nel. The law never applied to DBS and never applied
 CHAPTER 3 Multichannel Television Strategies 115

3.12 The Phenomenon of Lift

S ome services of particular appeal are considered to

have lift in that they will attract subscriptions to higher
tiers or premium services. The major sports channels create
MVPD even though they very rarely generate any increase
in subscribers.
With the goal of gaining lift, one year HBO intensely
lift on virtually all MVPD systems, and HD regional sports promoted its hit series The Sopranos but found that its
channels draw fans to an even higher tier. Game channels expensive marketing effort only temporarily doubled its
have this impact for households with children aged 10 to subscribers, and that after a month, most new subs had
15 years. Lift generally diminishes as systems add more canceled the service. A further strategy, adopted by the
and more services, however, which has led to discounting entire industry, has been to locate adult programming only
and bundling of services that mix high and lesser appeal on premium or pay-per-view tiers, which makes good eco-
channels in upper-tier packages. Cultural channels are nomic and political sense because people who are willing
often marketed more for their balancing effect than for any to pay extra for adult fare can get it, while households that
lift they create, and similarly, public-affairs channels, clas- don’t want adult programming to be visible need not be
sified advertising listings, and community access services aware of it. Having adult fare, however, definitely provides
are carried because they create a positive image for the lift.

to cable networks because they have no legally and moved to mixed entertainment and information
assigned numbers. tiers with something for most people and situations in
Moreover, the law never envisioned HD’s rapid each of several gradually expanding tiers (for higher
proliferation, so some strange temporary placements and higher prices), until a subscriber got everything.
of stations occurred, but because it’s sensible (and to However, as part of the shift to higher and
avoid court cases or new Congressional action), higher channel capacities (the great increase in the
over-the-air stations are getting channel matched as number of channels), Comcast has introduced a logi-
HD expands. For example, Comcast used 1000s as cal numbering structure in many of its systems,
HD channel numbers, so the local broadcast Chan- within its mixed tiers, that varies between content
nel 6 (an ABC affiliate) on Channel 6 in basic service grouping and appeal groups. For example, broad-
(which happened to be placed on 908 for a few cast stations hold the 1000s; news and weather
years) now appears on 1006. Similarly, Channel 8 channels appear in the 1100s; channels aimed at
(a CBS affiliate) appears as 8 at the basic level (inex- women are numbered in the 1300s; those for chil-
plicably at 912 in early HD) is now 1008 in HD. It dren in the 1500s; sports in the 1600s; movies in
seems likely that the 900 numbers will fade away as the 1800s; and the 1200s are “all others,” meaning
HD becomes widespread. entertainment. This system means that adjacent
Cable systems continue to experiment with con- channels will have similar content appeals, probably
tent clustering schemes—placing cable networks on because children, news, and sports viewers tend to
virtual tiers according to their content or appeals (see persist as users of the up/down arrows on remotes.
3.13). For example, channels can be grouped accord- Interestingly, 3D channels are merely assigned
ing to whether they are (1) all narrowly alike in content-related numbers like other HD, although
content—such as sports channels, movie channels, premium HD movies (1900s), pay-per-view (1700s),
or audio channels; (2) all alike in their appeal to a non-HD sports packages (500s) continue to stand
particular target demographic group—such as for apart and can usually be added separately if a sub-
children or Spanish-speaking viewers; or (3) typed scriber wants them. Clearly, Comcast shares the
broadly by content as in all entertainment or all view that all subscribers will eventually become HD
news. For a time, most MVPDs tossed uniformity subs.
116 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

U-verse consists of about 100 channels, all HD, highlighted (via interconnection with Facebook,
and they are grouped much like Comcast’s, into all Twitter, and the like).
children’s, all news and information, all premium At some point in the all-high-definition future,
(movies), all sports, and the catchall of “variety.” operators are expected to transition totally to menu-
Other cablecos, satcos and telcos utilize similar or topic-driven systems. Menu systems make chan-
schemes to assign networks to their systems. nel numbers (and therefore lineup concepts) nearly
Wired and wireless systems have long employed irrelevant. Just as all channels coming through a
three kinds of virtual lineups in their interactive VCR used to be converted to Channel 3 on the TV
electronic guides: Listings by day and time, the set, so in the future digital television sets might have
alphabetic listing of service names, and thematic only a single “channel” and receive all input from a
clustering. Time listing is useful for finding what’s converter (built into television sets), leading to the
on now or soon; alphabetic listing makes the search disappearance of the very idea of channels. Nonethe-
for a particular channel or program quick; clustering less, it is hard to conceive of a time when all set
suits channel-by-channel selection within the group- owners will want to subscribe to all services for all
ing. None especially suits grazing. There are just too sets. For the purposes of pricing, some subdivisions
many channels. will be needed.
One strategy that facilitates jumping is incorpo- Eventually, viewers are expected to have indi-
ration of social media into the program selection vidual web search agents capable of “knowing”
process. For example, a brief on-screen message our individual likes and dislikes. The size and distri-
might say “Others who selected this program also bution of channel arrays then become irrelevant
watched…” Alternatively, the names of the channels because search agents can jump around at lightning
or programs that “friends” are watching might be speed. Clustering would remain only as an aspect of

3.13 Uniform Lineups

E ven within a single Nielsen DMA (see Chapter 5),

having the most popular advertising-supported ser-
vices on the same channel numbers on all cable systems
Angeles, however, did not match the one adopted in
New York.
Moreover, technical considerations limit the realization of
makes selling advertising easier. Standardization within a such plans in many markets that have long-established sys-
market is called a common channel lineup to distinguish it tems. MVPDs are in varying stages of technical expansion
from the ideal of consistent positions for services from mar- into virtual channels (assigned numbers for users that have
ket to market across the country (called a universal chan- nothing to do with actual distribution frequencies). And users
nel lineup). Nationwide standardization of channel differ on their needs. Those who utilize “appointment view-
positions has the particular advantage of making national ing” and want to go straight to a particular show are unlikely
on-air promotion more effective. to care about logical channel arrangements, and people
The goal of any kind of uniform channel lineup—local who use onscreen guides find channel numbers irrelevant—
or national even for the dozen most popular services—is a although standardization among menus and search systems
long way from realization. The Los Angeles DMA was the is another as yet unrealized goal. Annoyingly, how it all
first major market in which several cable operators agreed works differs from house to house and differs from hotel to
on a common channel array (in analog), and in the late hotel. But for those like children who use the remote’s arrows,
1980s newly constructed systems (new-builds) in Philadel- content adjacency is ideal. Uniformity makes sense for some
phia and New York adopted uniform analog channel viewers but is especially useful for effective promotion by
configurations. Those patterns seem to be surviving into the networks and stations and, even more important, for lower-
digital and then HD eras. The pattern adopted in Los ing the cost of advertising.
 CHAPTER 3 Multichannel Television Strategies 117

guide listings, providing a way to scan options market (for all the dozens of networks) often exceed
onscreen, should a viewer actually care to look those for the highest-rated station.
with his or her own eyes. Advertisers had little interest in the small num-
bers of per-channel viewers (which are even smaller
when the DBS and telco audiences are removed)
Evaluation Strategies until the cable industry came up with four strategies
for increasing the number of people reached simul-
Multichannel services have two evaluation concerns: taneously and for making them more salable to
evaluation of audience size and measurement of pro- national or regional advertisers.
gram popularity. These result in very different prac- The first strategy has to do with geographic cov-
tices, and some are unique to cable because wireless erage in portions of a state. Because the geographic
and satellite systems do not carry local advertising. area covered by an individual cable franchise is far
smaller than the coverage areas of a single broadcast
station, the cable industry now links franchises over
Audience Size a wide area (like the center of a state) by microwave
Evaluation of MVPD audiences has been a long-time or cable to create large interconnects. Advertising
problem. The overriding difficulty is that the audience interconnects are arrangements for the simultaneous
shares for cable network channels cannot be exactly showing of commercials on selected channels. Of
compared with over-the-air audience shares. Although course, each operator must purchase expensive
nowadays multichannel distributors collectively reach insertion equipment for each channel that will have
about 90 percent of the homes reached by broadcast local advertising added. (The ads usually cover up
television, each individual channel attracts only a promotional spots sent by the networks, and how
portion of the people watching via cable, wireless, many and which ones can be covered by local
telephone or DBS (and not all cable networks appear spots are specified in cable network contracts with
on all or even most services). local cable operators.) Interconnects generally occur
Usually, cable network ratings range from 1 to 4 in or near large markets, however, leaving thou-
percent of total TV households in prime time rather sands of cable systems with unsalable (too small
than the 7 to 8 percent that the top local broadcast and undefined) audiences. Moreover, satellite ser-
affiliate achieves. Looked at nationally, a top network vices cannot be part of local interconnects. Their
TV show, such as American Idol or an NCIS season subscribers add to the national ratings but not to
premiere might get a rating of 12 or 13, while a top audiences for local or regional advertising.
hit on cable rates in the 4s and 5s (although NFL A related strategy is zoning, which refers to sub-
games often reach 8s and 9s on cable). During the dividing an interconnect into tiny geographic areas
height of interest in huge news events like the Egyp- to deliver geographically targeted advertising, which
tian and Libyan uprisings and Japan’s earthquake and permits even small local businesses to purchase low-
tsunami in 2011, CNN’s and Fox News’s ratings cost ads that reach only their neighborhoods. A dry
reached very high levels (such as 12s and 14s). Spo- cleaner, for example, hardly wants to pay to reach
radic season-opening or ending episodes of cable dra- the other side of town where the competition
mas (such as The Closer) rise into the teens. The only operates—but might find two or three zones on its
cable networks to do consistently better is ESPN, and side of town ideal for reaching potential customers.
it fails to reach the level of top local affiliates most of A third strategy is roadblocking—scheduling
the time. the same ad on all cable channels at the same time
However, without disasters or extraordinary so that the advertiser’s message blankets the time
events, these and other popular cable networks usu- period. This can be done nationally by buying the
ally attract fewer than 2 percent of viewers individ- same minutes of time on all major cable networks,
ually. Nonetheless, the collective cable ratings in a or handled locally in one market by inserting the
118 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

same ad simultaneously on all channels in an inter- newspapers to attract new subscribers. However,
connect. Then, no matter where a remote user looks because money was tight as a result of huge capital
on the lineup, the same commercial spot seems to be expenditures and because cableops faced no multi-
playing. (Some big advertisers buy all the broadcast channel competition, most cable companies’ market-
networks also, thus airing a single ad virtually every- ing efforts were minimal at best for more than a
where on television in the whole country at the same decade. After the turn of the century, increased com-
time.) petition from satcos and telcos, coupled with the
A fourth strategy has been to develop criteria profits to be made from upgrades to internet and
other than ratings for wooing advertisers. Sales voice services, drove an explosion in competitive
executives for the cable networks generally empha- promotion.
size the homogeneity of viewers of a particular chan- Early on, competition from satellite services
nel, meaning their demographic (age, gender) and raised the bar for cable, and then telcos joined
psychographic (lifestyle, income) similarities. View- the battle for subscribers. To capture them from
ers of MTV, for example, are alike in age and inter- conventional cable, DBS and telco services designed
ests; weekday viewers of Lifetime are mostly women; clever marketing tools that carefully targeted
viewers of the HGTV share a common interest in specific groups of potential subscribers. No longer
homes, furniture and gardens. The clustering of sim- was one ad good enough to reach everybody. As
ilar channels on digital services also makes it possi- thousands of its subscribers left cable for satellite
ble for an advertiser to roadblock a group of service and later for telco service, the cable industry
channels with homogeneous viewers. woke up and began spending the money to make
more effective advertising tools. Mailers and TV
and online ads touting the advantages of signing
Repetition and Ratings up for FiOS or U-verse or xfinity can’t be avoided
On the programming side, program repetition is these days.
another strategy used to increase audience size. Another way to bolster (or retain) subscriptions
Sales executives for cable television report how is to promote exceptional program content and
many people saw a program in all its airings, rather unusual program channels. When MVPD program-
than how many saw it on, say, Tuesday night at 9 mers are deciding which networks to carry, they
P.M., the usual way that broadcast ratings used to consider how much promotional support a particu-
be calculated (though they are wising up as their lar content network provides. On-air promotion as
shows are viewed on laptops and tablets). For well as print advertising and merchandising has
cable, the size of the cumulative audience is often three advantages: It’s valuable for boosting ratings
more salable than the audience for a single time for new programs, reducing subscriber churn, and
period. Reporting cumulative audience size makes creating positive images in the minds of subscribers
programs seem more popular and more visible, and advertisers. National networks can supply
thus better environments for advertising messages. professional-quality consumer marketing and sales
materials, including on-air spots, information kits,
direct mailers, bill stuffers, program guides and
Promotion Strategies other materials that local systems lack the resources
to create. In other words, some fees paid to national
Effective promotion of MVPD systems took a back- cable program suppliers are, in effect, returned in the
seat to technical problems for several decades. Once form of advertising avails, co-op advertising funds
America was close to fully wired, cable systems and prepaid ads in publications such as People mag-
began to pay more attention to marketing their ser- azine that attract audiences to cable network pro-
vices. Cableops used such traditional advertising gramming (and thus to upgrade to more tiers of
tools as flyers on doorknobs and ads in local service).
 CHAPTER 3 Multichannel Television Strategies 119

Nowadays, cable, telco and DBS operators affairs. When produced and controlled by the cable
make use of both online promotion and on-air operator or a contractor, such channels are called
video insertions to get their messages across. Major local-origination (LO) channels, although the news
content suppliers also maintain elaborate websites channels tend to cover such wide areas that they are
about key programs, another factor in subscriber often referred to as regional cable. When produced
retention. While use of print advertising in maga- and controlled by a local not-for-profit group, such
zines and newspapers has declined, cable operators channels are called community access. Local and
employ interconnects to run self-promotion on a regional cable-only channels have the long-term ben-
variety of channels. They use spots that might other- efit of differentiating cable from competing wireless
wise have been sold, foregoing that revenue, to tout and DBS services and, in some cases, the short-term
what the subscriber misses by not having HD ser- benefit of generating advertising revenue.
vice, what’s available on VOD and premium HD
channels, and how much more X service offers
than Y or Z. Entertainment Channels
In the long run, having large numbers of sub- Channels with original entertainment content pro-
scribers who subscribe to high levels of service can duced (or purchased) by cable operators themselves
be expected to bring in more revenue than the cost are universally commercial and intended to supple-
of the promotional spots and print ads to lure them ment a system’s profits. The programming is
to upgrade. Even more important is that such pro- selected, scheduled and evaluated for its suitability
motional spending has become critical to maintain- for carrying advertising messages. Religious broad-
ing market share in the increasingly competitive casters (really, cablecasters) operate about one-third
multichannel video marketplace. of local cable channels, and they typically mix syn-
dicated programs with local and nationally distrib-
uted religious programming, including gospel music,
Local Origination on Cable discussions of gospels, sermons and religiously ori-
ented talk, some of which are merely slightly dis-
At the local level, cable programming means several guised sales messages. In addition, a few foreign-
very different things, with no equivalent on the part language cable channels have a full spectrum of
of satcos and telecos. On one hand, local cable refers news, entertainment and talk in one non-English
to the programming activities of the 7,400 or so language. Many of these channels have dropped
managers of cable systems or their MSOs. They their over-the-air channels in favor of becoming
may produce their own local/regional channels of digital-only splinter networks with national
information or entertainment, such as an all-day distribution.
newscast or a high-school sports channel. On the The remaining local-origination channels
other hand, broadcasters also make use of some around the country tend to operate as regional
cable-only channels to replay or multiplex addi- news channels or are programmed like independent
tional channels of programming. Finally, local television stations. When entertainment oriented,
cable also refers to the programming activities of they can carry nationally syndicated series or
several thousand not-for-profit community access movies—very old ones because the programs are
groups or centers. Theirs is the most local of all licensed cheaply as a result of the relatively small
cable programming and has flourished in some cities cable audiences (compared with the audiences of
for nearly four decades, although the internet is rap- broadcast stations or even cable networks). Such
idly altering this kind of local cable programming. programs may be chosen and scheduled locally but,
Local cable channels consist primarily of enter- like syndicated programs on broadcast stations, are
tainment mixed with infomercials, classified adver- not very local. Toledo, Ohio, for example, has a
tising channels, sports, and news and community popular LO channel called Toledo 5 or WTO5
120 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

3.14 Toledo’s Local-Origination Channel

B ecause Toledo has only five local broadcast stations,

TV5 was able to become the WB affiliate (now CW)
for Toledo and to license a great deal of “good” unsold
benefit of a listing at the top of the newspaper’s grid, right
under the local broadcast stations, instead of burial in the
Ws where TV Guide places it (and similar channels).
syndication. Now called Toledo 5 or WTO5, this local- The “station” has its own website (www.wt05toledo.
origination channel carries off-network reruns, such as Two com) and operates with a great deal more funding than the
and a Half Men, The New Adventures of Old Christine, usual local-origination channel. The combination of having
Family Guy, The Cosby Show, and Friends and first run a national affiliation, only a few local broadcast stations in
syndicated programs such as The Wendy Williams Show, the market, supportive ownership by the local newspaper
The Tyra Show, Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns and George and carriage on Buckeye, Time Warner Cable and Com-
Lopez. cast cable systems in Northwest Ohio and Southeast
Because the local newspaper (The Toledo Blade) owns Michigan places Toledo 5/WTO5 in the forefront of suc-
the local cable company (Buckeye Cablevision) that owns cessful local-origination channels that compete directly with
Toledo 5/WTO5, the channel receives the enormous broadcast stations.

that is remarkable for its off network and first run cable channels and are increasingly favoring the
syndicated series (see 3.14). web over cable.
On other LO channels, high school and minor
league sports are especially effective for attracting
audiences of considerable appeal to local advertisers. Local-Origination News Programming
Local talk programs also provide an ideal environ- News is a powerful environment for advertising
ment for both local and national infomercials. messages and thus popular with many commercial
Major national companies such as Sears, Verizon, entities that want to reach news consumers and
Ford, General Motors and Procter & Gamble supply make money. Having hyperlocal services helps sys-
the bulk of direct-sell infomercials to cable systems, tems attract and retain subscribers and keeps them
and these are supplemented by shorter infomercials in the good graces of local franchising authorities
from nearby car dealers restaurants, pharmacies, that grant them their licenses.
home builders and the like. Hyperlocal infomercials One strategy has been to replay broadcast news-
may be produced in the cable system’s facilities (for casts on cable channels. Pittsburgh Cable News
a fee). Channel (PCNC), for example, began in 1994 as a
Classified advertising channels, often produced retransmission consent channel. (Federal law
by local newspapers, have been another somewhat requires local television stations to give permission
successful area for local cable, especially when oper- to cable systems for carriage of their signals and
ated in conjunction with a daily paper. Digital inser- allows them to negotiate a fee or other compensa-
tion equipment permits the quick updating of listings tion from cable operators in exchange for rebroad-
and the use of photographs (and some video), mak- casting their signal.) Many stations exacted cable
ing local real estate, car, and other classified ads as channels of their own in lieu of monetary payment.
well as Yellow Pages viable as auxiliary revenue Most of these are solely rebroadcast channels,
streams for cable. Because the internet provides but a joint effort of WPXI-TV (Channel 11) and
much the same opportunity for reaching out to view- cable operator Tele-Communications, Inc. (now
ers, however, religious broadcasters, retail compa- Comcast) created the Pittsburgh Cable News Channel
nies and newspapers are generally operating that now carries live WPXI newscasts at 7 A.M. and
websites with the same content they put on local 7 P.M. and multiple repeats of WPXI’s latest newscast
 CHAPTER 3 Multichannel Television Strategies 121

along with local talk and information shows (www. can spend hours on breaking events and enough
wpxi.com/pcnc). The pricing of ads on PCNC is com- time on stories about health, sports and entertain-
parable to that of local ad inserts on CNN and Head- ment events to avoid the taint of sensationalism.
line News, and cable systems carrying the channel Cable news producers’ success with audiences
receive two minutes of ad time per hour. All other and owners comes from an intense focus on local
advertising revenue is split between WPXI and interests and, especially in times of stress, lots of
Comcast. ongoing weather and traffic reports. The details
Modeled on CNN and its repeating counterpart, emphasizing the problems important to neighbor-
Headline News, a number of cable-only local and hood residents and businesses appeal to viewers
regional cable news channels (see 3.15) have been and advertisers, and the very low cost of such
formed, some of which attract considerable industry reportage appeals to cable operators.
attention. Although they require significant capital In line with keeping expenses minimal, these
investments (in some cases, many millions of dollars) regional/local channels take advantage of the newest
in equipment, crew, reporters and studios to get going robotic cameras and other automation, which may
and have high daily operating costs, their revenue result in some odd pictures at times but reduces (com-
potential is usually much greater than for entertain- pared with broadcast newsrooms) the technical staff
ment channels because they attract more regular necessary for them to function. The reporters tend to
viewing. What the services share is their focus on be young and inexperienced, are often interns or
smaller geographic areas from the “region” down to employees working for nonunion salaries, and carry
the neighborhood. Traffic reports are often street by their own handheld video cameras with portable
street, weather reports describe in detail what is video recorders, eliminating still other staff costs. By
important in small geographic areas, and “news” using portable tripods, reporters can even tape them-
moves down to the level of parades, store openings, selves at the scene of events and in interviews. As one
and official city activities. This kind of information reporter for New York 1 News put it, “I do a story
also transfers very effectively to online services every day. I dream it up. I set it up. I produce it.
integrally connected with these cable channels. I report it, and I even edit it. I get to do everything.”2
Local and regional cable-only news services dif- The backpack video journalist who functions as cor-
fer from ratings-driven broadcast stations. The latter respondent, reporter, camera operator and producer
normally divide their newscasts into half-hour seg- has become the model for inexpensive news gathering.
ments, devoting airtime to sensational crimes, fires Although financial support must initially come
and accidents, and also include nonlocal stories if from a parent corporation with deep pockets and
they are likely to hold audience interest. On broad- patience, major national advertisers have become
cast stations, local events get only a few minutes at increasingly interested in cable-only news and its
most, and events likely to be of interest to only a few online counterparts. Local and regional cable news
viewers are scrapped. channels can attract advertising from businesses too
In contrast, hyperlocal cable-only news chan- small to be able to pay broadcast station rates. Rates
nels that operate live for several hours daily— on New England Cable News are about $500 for a
increasingly 24 hours as they become established 30-second spot, compared with the $3,000 or so on
and profitable—can focus on neighborhood events a Boston network affiliate. Although such cable
on the scene and at length if they might be of interest channels typically average less than a 1 rating for 24
to a few viewers. Most model themselves on CNN hours, local disasters drive up ratings dramatically. For
rather than the broadcast network newscasts and example, New York 1 News had ratings of about 6 for
carry hours of live programming, although New its live coverage of a winter snowstorm.
York 1 News has been very successful using a half- Local and regional cable news channels also have
hour news wheel (see 3.15). With the luxury of more highly interactive internet sites to further enhance
time to dwell on events, regional and local networks their viewers’/users’ ability to selectively choose
122 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

3.15 Regional Cable News Services

T he first and best known of the regional all-news ven-

tures on cable continues to be News 12 Networks,
which includes seven regional cable news channels in the
use of comprehensively trained journalists—who report,
videotape, and edit their own stories—and broadcasts that
are structured in half-hour programming wheels has become
New York area. Launched in 1986 by Cablevision as a global model for inexpensive news coverage. In addition
News 12 Long Island, News 12 Networks is a division of to advertising, it attracts revenue by charging for consulting
Rainbow Media, the programming arm of Cablevision about low-budget news.
Systems Corp. News 12 Networks offers 24-hour local Northwest Cable News (NWCN), now owned by
news service in Long Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Belo Corporation, came on the scene in 1995 when KING
Westchester, the Bronx, Hudson Valley, and Brooklyn Broadcasting (that is, KING-TV in Seattle, KREM-TV in
(see www.news12.com). News 12 Networks reach Spokane, KGW-TV in Portland, and KTVB-TV in Boise) used
3.8 million cable households in the New York its retransmission consent leverage to gain shelf space on
tristate area. cable systems in Washington, Oregon and Idaho to
Each service supplies news about the local region to establish a 24-hour regional cable news channel. NWCN
residents, beginning each morning with a radio-style mix of provides news programming, which is targeted to the
news, weather and hyperlocal traffic reports (for example,
geographic area it covers. As a result, NWCN achieves
live from key points on the Long Island Expressway on
higher ratings than CNN Headline News, and it is avail-
News 12 Long Island). Then the service continues at a
able to a approximately 2.9 million viewers (see www.
slower pace throughout the day with reports on local com-
nwcn.com).
munity events, live interviews, local news updates, and
The Texas Cable News (TXCN) was established in
reprises of national and international news. Stories include
1999 as Belo’s fourth regional cable news effort. Although
everything from school parades to unsolved murders to
some regional news channels choose to cover a metro area
reports on issues like garbage dumping and pollution. With
or even a limited part of a metro area, TXCN followed the
a staff of 150, facilities rivaling those of nearby broadcast
design of NWCN by opting for coverage of vast regions
stations, and an annual budget of more than $10 million,
News 12 Long Island, the flagship service, attracts enough (that is, the entire state of Texas) that include multiple metro
advertising revenue to make a profit. Interestingly, its high- markets. In 2000, Texas Cable News established
est viewing comes in prime time. TXCN.com as its online presence. TXCN has a staff of 30
Time Warner Cable established New York 1 News (reduced from 75 in 2005) devoted to administration,
(NY1) in 1992 as a 24-hour news channel. NY1 and its 50 operations and sales. It has no reporters of its own. Its
full-time news reporters and anchors serve New York City’s newscasts depend entirely on contributions from its televi-
five boroughs from an all-digital (and almost tapeless) facility. sion and newspaper partners, The Dallas Morning News
NY1 also provides NY1 Noticias, a 24-hour Spanish- (owned by A.H. Belo Corp) and WFAA-TV8 in Dallas,
language news channel launched in 2003, NY1 Rail and KHOU-TV in Houston, KENS-TV in San Antonio, KVUE-TV in
Road, a 24-hour cable news channel focused on the vehic- Austin, and the company’s Washington, DC, news bureau
ular traffic and mass transit conditions in New York’s five (all owned by Belo Corp). TXCN is available to cable
buroughs and a corresponding website, www.ny1.com, to subscribers on 13 Texas cable systems, 10 of which are
complete its thorough approach to news coverage. NY1’s owned by Time Warner Cable (see www.txcn.com).

among news stories and to have news on demand. As establishing a successful media convergence strategy
a result, the same news information appears simulta- for local and regional cable news channels. In the
neously on a cable channel and online. This serves to long term, regional/local cable distribution may take
broaden the audience and is a key factor in over the role that local broadcast stations have
 CHAPTER 3 Multichannel Television Strategies 123

In Washington, DC, NewsChannel 8 (NC8), owned by channel that serves 1.8 million Chicago area cable
Allbritton Communications, was founded in 1991. NC8 households. CLTV shares content and staff with WGN-TV
is a 24-hour news channel available to approximately and the Chicago Tribune. Both the newspaper and CLTV
1.1 million Washington, DC, metro-area cable subscribers. are specifically oriented toward the suburban Chicago
It uses a fiber-optic delivery system to deliver targeted local audience. One goal of the cable channel is to promote the
news (on a nightly basis with separate anchors and produ- value and expertise of the newspaper reporters, which
cers) and advertising (on a 24-hour basis) to suburban should, in turn, improve newspaper circulation (see
Maryland, Northern Virginia and the District of Columbia. www.cltv.com).
NC8 operates three local news bureaus from which it origi- Central Florida News 13 (CFN 13) is Orlando’s only
nates live coverage (see www.tbd.com/tv). 24-hour local news channel serving the central Florida
The Comcast Network (formerly CN8) employs more region. Started in 1997 and originally owned by Orlando
than 400 people, and is a 24-hour regional cable news, Sentinel Communications (that is, the Tribune Company)
talk, sports, and entertainment network owned and operated and Time Warner Communications, Bright House Net-
by Comcast. The Comcast Network was launched as CN8 works (formerly called Advance/Newhouse Communica-
launched in 1996 and is available to millions of cable homes tions) now owns CFN 13. CFN 13 is affiliated with CNN
in its Mid-Atlantic service area (Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and provides local and regional news, weather, traffic,
Washington, DC, Maryland, Virginia and Delaware). Its and sports programming (see www.cfn13.com).
programming is primarily locally produced regional news, The Dispatch Broadcast Group (which includes WBNS-
entertainment and sports (high school, college and profes- TV, WBNS-AM/FM, and The Columbus Dispatch in
sional), with 90 hours per week of original programming Columbus, Ohio) launched Ohio News Network (ONN)
including some live, interactive and on demand program- in 1996, becoming the first state-wide 24-hour cable news
ming (see www.csnphilly.com/pages/comcastnetwork and channel in the country. ONN can be seen in more than
www.csnwashington.com/pages/comcastnetworkshow). 1.8 million Ohio cable households in such cities as Cleve-
NBCUniversal owns New England Cable News land, Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton and Toledo. ONN
(NECN) is a 24-hour regional cable news network, which specializes in providing highly localized news, weather,
was launched in 1992 by Hearst and Comcast. NECN and sports along with a regionalized approach to state-
provides news, weather, entertainment, and sports to wide news coverage. It utilizes partnerships with a number
3.7 million homes in a large number of New England com- of over-the-air television stations (including WBNS in
munities. It has won many awards, including a George Foster Columbus, Youngstown, WEWS in Cleveland, WHIO in
Peabody Award, an Alfred I. duPont/Columbia University Dayton, WKRC in Cincinnaiti, WTOL in Toledo, etc. to
Broadcast Journalism Award, and a National Edward R. rebroadcast local news programs and to share ONN stor-
Murrow Award. In addition to its standard programming, ies with these stations (see www.onntv.com). For further
NECN also regularly produces documentaries focused information on local and regional cable news channels,
on issues of importance to New Englanders (see www. visit www.newschannels.org, the website of the Asso-
necn.com). ciation of Regional News Channels, and http://en.
Begun in 1993, Tribune Company owned Chicago- wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:24-hour_television_news_
land Television (CLTV)is a 24-hour regional cable news channels_in_the_United_States.

traditionally played because cable does not use scarce responsible for the demise of some of the regional/
airwaves (although the broadcasters are likely to step local cable news channels that have shut down over
in as owners and producers of content). Wired cable the past decade. For example, Orange County News-
distribution, in turn, may soon be supplanted by channel ended in 2002; the Florida News Channel
wireless web services, which may be at least partially failed in 2003; News 24 Houston died in 2004, as
124 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

well as News 9 San Antonio in 2004; Southern Ari- and, with the drop in price and increased sophistica-
zona News Network ended in 2010; and Local News tion of video equipment, fewer members of the public
on Cable or LNC5 died in 2010. are seeking the video training that access centers can
provide, and their training equipment has largely
become obsolete. Thus, the centers focus increasingly
Community Access on Cable on digitizing their facilities to aid in the convergence
of video and computer input and output.
In dramatic contrast to commercial cable, the access A few access programs have moved up to wider
channels operated by community groups are non- distribution, and the flamboyant Bobby Flay, host of
commercial and driven by educational, artistic and several shows on The Food Network, got his start on
public service goals. They tend to operate on the access television. The best of public access television
neighborhood and city level, rarely reaching outside get Philo Awards (the name comes from television
county boundaries. Federal law permits local and inventor Philo T. Farnsworth), and the worst are
state franchising authorities to require cable systems played at the Found Footage Festival for comic effect.
to provide channel space and sometimes financial In the early 1990s, the hilarious “Wayne’s World”
support for community access services. spoofs about access television as part of Saturday
Although by law these services divide into three Night Live helped raise awareness of public access
kinds—public, educational and government (PEG) television on the national level, for better or worse!
channels—in practice, they usually operate out of
community access centers. Such centers are noncom-
mercial and local not just in practice but also in active Changing Usage
philosophy, and they provide alternative program- The more than 1,000 access centers in America come
ming that would never be viable on for-profit stations in a bewildering variety of organizational setups,
or local-origination cable channels. The mainstays of and many are finding common bonds with farseeing
access content have been community-produced public libraries. As the repositories of printed books
videos, video art, municipal meetings and hearings, and periodicals move into DVDs, CDs and computer
and educational productions. Like commercial com- storage of ideas, their noncommercial, anticensor-
panies, they are finding the internet increasingly effec- ship, free-speech and open-access goals come to
tive for reaching their audiences, and they face the merge into those of community access television
same problem of having to fund the shift from analog centers.
to digital including HD. Many access centers, including one of the oldest
Traditionally, access has meant two things to in America—Bloomington’s Community Access
local-access centers: (1) access by community mem- Television Service (CATS)—have located themselves
bers to the means of television production through within a community public library and receive finan-
training classes, arrangements for loans of TV cam- cial support from the city, county, library (a taxing
eras, and the sharing of editing equipment; and authority in Indiana) and cable operator. This par-
(2) access by community members to an audience ticular center operates five PEG channels: a city gov-
through the cablecasting of locally produced pro- ernment channel, a county government one (mostly
grams. The underlying principles guiding the staffs meetings and some interviews); an educational chan-
of access centers are the ideas of free speech for every- nel called The Library Channel; a traditional public
one, the egalitarian use of the media, the fostering and access channel where community members supply
sharing of artistic expression, the accessibility of all the content; and a SCOLA channel (news from
people to affordable education and instruction, and other countries in their native languages).
open and participatory government decision making. In many other communities, once-separate local
The internet is proving an even more effective arts centers and local television centers have come
vehicle for achieving these goals than cable, however, together to become community media centers and
 CHAPTER 3 Multichannel Television Strategies 125

are evolving into community communications cen- channels that unfold programs over time. Live car-
ters. They can involve institutional networks, local riage of public meetings of municipal government,
libraries, health centers and schools, connecting local school districts, environmental protection com-
them to each other, to community agencies, and to mittees, councils, planning approval commissions,
the internet, all of which have become central to and live carriage of other ad hoc meetings on com-
their future survival. It is not the particular technol- munity issues continue to be carried on cable system
ogy (television, books or computers) that ultimately local-access channels. However, the increased pene-
matters but serving the mission in the community— tration and quality of high speed internet service has
the mission of public access to the means of greatly increased the amount of online video stream-
communication. ing of public meetings of all types.
Many of the community members who were
once clamoring to gain local-access time to televise
their home videos or local performances, however, Nonlocal Programming
can now exhibit continuously on personal websites, Although it was once thought that all access channels
bypassing one of the motivators for public cable would carry only locally produced programs, some
access. One striking aspect of the internet has been regional and national sources are now available to
the rapid shift of art video and low-budget movies supplement what can be made locally. In addition
from cable access to the web. Video artists now fill to public broadcasting, noncommercial services
multiple websites with original film shorts, and the such as SCOLA provide unedited segments of broad-
internet provides places for the videos of birthday cast news from other countries in their original lan-
parties and church fairs as well as the more serious guages. Especially popular in university towns and
animation and dramatic films that once character- cities with large foreign-born populations, SCOLA
ized local public access cable. offers, over the course of a week, news, weather
Educators, another group that formerly sought and cultural information from such varied sources
large numbers of cable access channels, have also as France, Spain, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Italy,
turned increasingly to websites to provide interaction Korea, Greece, China, Croatia, Slovenia, Lithuania,
with students and parents. Homework instructions Latvia, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Moldova, the
can go online; email allows personal messages from Ukraine, the Philippines and other countries.
teachers to students or parents; and the cost of such The oldest distributor of access programming
sites is far less than for effective cable production. has been the Deep Dish TV Network, available to
Religious groups that also clamored for more time on community access centers via satellite and now the
local-access channels now, on the internet, have more internet. (The name Deep Dish refers to parabolic
freedom to program as they wish. Nonetheless, receivers as well as apple and pizza pie!) A not-
church groups that wish to reach older, downscale for-profit program distributor, it is supported by
constituents who tend to avoid computers still seek donations and grants, as are Free Speech TV and
a significant portion of time on access television, cre- Democracy Now! Independent and community pro-
ating problems for some managers as they see other ducers create the highly diverse programs and
kinds of traditional access fare fading in quantity. largely political documentaries or analyses these sat-
In many well-wired communities, local govern- ellite services circulate on such topics as housing, the
ments are also finding websites effective for some of environment, civil liberties, racism, sexism, AIDS,
the kinds of information they produce. Long lists of the Middle East and Central America.
community events, community service agencies and Deep Dish identifies itself as “the first national
government office phone numbers suit menu-driven grassroots satellite network” and quotes author
websites better than television channels. Users can Studs Terkel: “The idea of a democracy in this coun-
access the websites at their convenience and select try is based on an informed citizenry, an intelligent
only the material of particular interest, unlike cable citizenry—and you can’t be intelligent without being
126 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

informed.”3 These services appear unscrambled on U.S. homes), advertisers will need to develop new
commercial satellite transponders; the programs are strategies for getting their products out and mes-
carried by 200 or so cable systems, some public tele- sages heard. Product placement within television
vision, and radio stations (including NPR), and on programs is one such strategy, and such marketing
the internet, and come directly to backyard dishes tricks as discounts, coupons and other kinds of fee
(HSD). reductions for watching commercial messages have
also surfaced. In addition, some advertiser sup-
ported programmers have begun to require that
What’s Sneaking Up fast-forward DVR functionality be disabled as a
condition for providing programs on demand.
On-demand programming coupled with delivery of How far this will go and how the public will adapt is
TV Everywhere represents the leading-edge of ser- unknown.
vices for MVPDs. It has long been considered the Cable, telco and satellite distributors moved
cable industry’s “holy grail.” However, only rapidly into the HD service business and look
recently has on-demand’s cost fallen sufficiently to ahead to 3D. In the short run, as HD set penetration
move it into commercial market rollout. Likewise, continues to increase (over 60 percent of U.S. homes
recent advances in wireless (4G/3G/Wi-Fi, tablets have at least one HD set), upper tier HD service
and smart phones) have made TV Everywhere both offerings from MVPDs can be expected to generate
economically and technologically possible. More significant revenue. However, once the transition to
than half of MVPD subscribers have access to on- digital is complete, separate non-HD service tiers are
demand video programming and the rapid increase likely to fade away, and all television will be HD
in wireless access devices and penetration of user (unless it’s 3D or holography or something new we
interfaces between wireless and wire line networks haven’t yet heard of).
is promising to make TV Everywhere a reality. Although cable was long the clear market leader
Existing challenges for VOD include: figuring in the area of high-speed internet service, telcos are
out a way to get subscribers used to purchasing on a catching up where FiOS and U-verse are available to
per-program rather than on a per-channel or per- consumers. The question now is how much longer
package basis, negotiating low enough rights fees Verizon and AT&T will continue to supply the
with Hollywood to make VOD profitable, and con- internet and wire line telephone service components
tinuing to negotiate an earlier window for releasing of DBS’s triple play packages. Cable telephony ser-
movies to increase VOD value proposition for con- vice has been growing rapidly thanks to the wide
sumers (see Chapter 9). TV Everywhere challenges availability of VoIP (Voice of Internet Protocol) tele-
include investing the capital needed to provide con- phone service offerings by cableops. Today, cable
sumers with the required technology so that subscri- has approximately 25 million VoIP telephone sub-
bers can consume video content when (anytime), scribers. Of course, telcos have responded with
where (in the home or away from home), and how appealing packages of television, internet and voice
(on a TV, tablet, smart phone or laptop) they want telephone to counteract cable’s move into telephony.
to receive it. In addition to the technical challenges, Now that AT&T and Verizon have made the major
MVPD distributors and programmers will also need capital investment required to build competitive
to overcome the intellectual property rights associ- broadband networks (FiOS and U-verse) to compete
ated with TV Everywhere. with cable in significant parts of their coverage
The advertising industry’s concern about DVRs areas, it will be very interesting to watch as things
has led to elaborate tracking of viewer patterns to develop.
learn how common commercial skipping continues On the reception end, consumers await wide-
to be and what factors minimize it. As DVRs prolif- spread distribution of truly intelligent converters
erate (now approaching 50 percent penetration in incorporated into new television sets and computers,
 CHAPTER 3 Multichannel Television Strategies 127

and user interfaces that provide seamless connectivity equivalent of the semisentient computers in science
between wireless and wire line devices. Consumers fiction. Agents will eventually mutate into avatars
also await improvements in interactive program guides (virtual selves) with virtual bodies that can interact
and search approaches to allow them to personalize with other avatars on the internet, far beyond the
program viewing and searching. As the number of cartoon representations that exist today.
channels and programs proliferate, consumers need As broadband speeds become faster and faster
more efficient methods of identifying content (i.e., and screens on handheld devices become bigger and
entertainment programs, news stories, etc.) they brighter and keyboards become virtual, watching
would like to consume. Great advances are on the video content on tablets, smart phones and laptops
immediate horizon in this area as MVPDs and other will continue to improve as will user interfaces
distributors develop much simpler and more intuitive between wireless and wire line distribution devices.
ways for consumers to identify programs to watch. Nonetheless, history will repeat itself: Mobile media
This includes incorporating such social media as Face- will supplement—not supplant—traditional media.
book and online connections like Amazon.com to get Consumers will still want large TV screens in their
like-minded consumers to “share” what they like and homes (and public places) and desktop computers in
don’t like as part of the search process. their workplaces. However, 4G and Wi-Fi will have
Sometime further in the future, it is envisioned a dramatic impact on consumers, and the world will
that mass guides will evolve into personal search be a different place when most people can access the
engines that utilize virtual agents that can be pro- internet—for video, audio or text—whenever they
grammed by the user or that can learn on their want to and wherever they are.
own to make selections for individual users, from
the huge sea of available entertainment, news and
commercial content. An agent programmed for
Notes
each individual will notify him or her about specific 1. Kenneth Van Meter, president of Bell Atlantic Video
video content, blogs, vlogs and RSS postings based Services’ interactive multimedia platform division, speak-
on previously expressed preferences or current ing before Kagan Services’ Interactive Multimedia Forum,
wants and desires. The process of reprogramming 18 August 1994, New York.
an agent (by voice or perhaps merely by what is fre- 2. Seligmann, J, Covering the neighborhood. Newsweek,
quently chosen or requested) will eventually become 13 December 1993, p. 6.
transparent to users, and over time, increasingly 3. From the brochure cover for Deep Dish TV Network in
sophisticated agent programs may become the New York, 2000.
 4
CHAPTER

Online Television Strategies

Douglas A. Ferguson

Chapter Outline
The New Programs Geography
Competition Economics
Wi-Fi’s Role
Strategic Considerations
Evolution, Not Revolution
Daypart Compatibility
Web Program Producers Habit Formation
Movies Plus Audience Flow
Series Plus Conservation of Program
Upstarts (Big and Small Ones) Resources
Original Content Suppliers Breadth of Appeal
Professional Web Videos
Specific Approaches
Ubiquity
Selecting Content
Enhanced Viewing Scheduling Content
Social Networks Promoting Content
Other TV Apps
Online Measurement
Online Program Guides
What’s Coming Fast
Video Games and Virtual
Worlds Notes
A Conceptual Framework

128
 CHAPTER 4 Online Television Strategies 129

W hen you watch YouTube or Netflix, hap-

pily, you needn’t follow a pre-structured
schedule of programs, and you needn’t watch on the
largest available screen to see what’s going on. Any
At the same time, promotional information
associated with regular television programs (called
enhancement) appears on websites supplied by any
and all broadcast and cable networks, every Holly-
handy screen will do. When you go online to watch wood studio, most stations, most music producers
a clip or show you missed on TV, you’ll probably find and other key groups in the entertainment industry.
links on the screen to other shows and clips that you Everyone wants you to watch what they provided.
might like. Just like in traditional television, the com- At the same time, those self-contained computer/
panies that supply online content have strategies to phone options called apps (for applications, in case
keep you coming back for more (and staying longer you’ve been trapped in a cave) provide program
to watch the ads or pay a subscription). Online televi- guides, live chat and other interactive functions
sion strategies address the growing number of that “enhance” the viewing experience. As you
unstructured program options available on various know from experience as well as the news, social
screens viewed by the media audience. This chapter media apps allow viewers in different locations
explores those online programming strategies, for watch television together as if they were in the
web programs, social media and video games. same room, commenting on content and receiving
enhanced information.
The third principal category of online media
The New Programs consists of interactive games. Certainly, its game
function is one of the internet’s unique aspects, and
In a programming book, one expects to learn what people can play solitaire or puzzles by themselves or
online “programs” are, but their definition con- interact with others at distant locations (sometimes
tinues to be fuzzy and evolving. As in all media, with guns!) in elaborate video games. Notably, most
entertainment and information are the major con- video games involve entertainment and storytelling,
tent types, but in the online world, they come in just like traditional television, but with this added
innumerable permutations, so it’s more useful to dis- dimension of interactivity. You get to participate in
tinguish among web programs, enhancing informa- the action, sometimes along with friends and stran-
tion and interactive games as the key kinds of online gers (until you get virtually killed, of course, or all
program content. your crops die).
Just as in conventional television and radio, most Although the internet certainly contains moun-
online entertainment content is storytelling, and tell- tains of “information,” much of it is either related to
ing stories—real or fictional, in video or in games—is retail sales and other businesses or consists of refer-
the primary task of what are collectively called web ence material (current and archived data) or per-
programs. Thus, on the internet, the term includes sonal/political content (such as individual websites
short and long video programs akin to television and chat on a wealth of topics), and is thus outside
series, specials, documentaries, theatrical and made- the parameters of this book. This chapter focuses on
for-TV movies, web-only newscasts and hosted online content that is similar or at least related to
entertainment/talk shows. Web programs fall into what appears on television.
two distinct categories. First are the repurposed
showings of traditional television programs, such as
reruns of The Daily Show or NCIS via Netflix or Competition
Hulu and NBC Nightly News on MSNBC.com. The Of the three types of online content, it is web pro-
second type consists of original content produced spe- grams that offer the most direct competition to tra-
cifically for online distribution, such as clips on You- ditional media (although electronic games pretty
Tube or Revver. By 2012, Americans were streaming much wiped out the board game industry, at least
over 15 billion videos per month (see 4.1). for those old enough to read). But the online
130 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

4.1 Streaming and Capping

S treaming is the digital distribution of audio or video in

near-real time, the closest thing to conventional over-
the-air or cable/satellite television programs. Streaming
people were hogging the bandwidth. So internet providers
quietly introduced plans to cap, or limit, the amount of
information that could be downloaded in a billing period,
differs from broadcasting because the viewer receives a usually 250 gigabytes. The situation was analogous to
single transmission not intended to be seen at the same banning really big eaters from the unlimited buffet line.
time that other viewers watch. Just like with a television set, Because downloading was never a huge activity,
anyone with a computer and a connection to the internet except for a few, the introduction of data caps generated
can receive streamed pictures and sound, and the faster very little controversy. But streaming is a different matter.
the connection, the better those pictures are. The number of Like downloading, streaming exhausts huge amounts of
web users who are willing to watch streamed video grows digital bandwidth. Unlike downloading a movie late at
as connection speeds increase. Competition between night, however, streaming takes place during peak hours.
cable modems and DSL to get you as a customer, like the While wireline providers like cable and telcos can expand
competition between cable and satellite, has stabilized their capacity to meet the demand, wireless was hitting the
(but not yet driven down) the cost of broadband limits of peak-hour bandwidth as early as 2011. It makes
connections. sense (to some) to either throttle back activity or erect a
The introduction of unlimited data plans for internet and monthly cap. Of course, if you have become accustomed
cell phone providers was a huge selling point when com- to an unlimited data plan on your cell phone, you would
panies were first building a base of wired and wireless see it differently. Suddenly the buffet line has become a
subscribers. But as more people began downloading more menu of a la carte items, or you can only go through the
and more video programming, it became clear that a few line once, perhaps with a slightly smaller tray.

availability of streamed TV shows and movies Thus, online or on tablets, if they want to, view-
certainly caused the greatest disruption to “the ers can watch repurposed content from regular tele-
way things have been done.” You can see this in vision channels (via Netflix and Hulu Plus, for
the name that the television industry gave to example). They can also watch made-for-web con-
streaming videos: over-the-top (OTT) services. tent from program producers who don’t use tradi-
Pricewaterhouse-Cooper (PwC) forecasts 9 million tional distribution channels (producers of YouTube
OTT viewers by 2015.1 PwC also forecasts that the clips, for example), creating industry competition
money consumers will pay for online video subscrip- between traditional and online television in these
tions (along with what distributors will pay to air two categories. However, for viewers who “cut the
the programs) will rise to $99 billion by mid- cord” from cable and satellite providers, web pro-
decade. Moreover, and perhaps even more disrup- grams are all in the same category (see 4.3).
tive to current economics, parts of the internet are
now being distributed directly to portable devices
(cell phones and tablets)—the so-called third screens Wi-Fi’s Role
(TV sets and computer monitors are the first and How many toys do you have? Are they separate or
second screens). Viewers can go online at their linked? In the last decade, an explosion of home net-
offices or fire up their tablets at the beach to watch working has occurred in which household electron-
television, and sometimes they opt to watch conven- ics devices, such as computers, TV sets, stereos,
tional program channels unconventionally (see 4.2). phones and video games, are interconnected around
Clearly, the typical settings for enjoying video enter- the entire house without the need for wiring. Oper-
tainment have now moved well beyond the home. ating on the Wi-Fi standard allows users to transmit
 CHAPTER 4 Online Television Strategies 131

4.2 TV Anywhere and Everywhere

T hanks to online video, nowadays you can watch tra-

ditional TV almost anywhere. One way is to purchase
a Slingbox. Hook your home cable or satellite to the
pay $4.99 for a comparable service (but FilmOn does
offer a very brief trial service for free).
Handheld audio and video players also supplement
Slingbox, and then tune in all of your channels with a media content received by cell phones. Apple’s iPod Touch
broadband connection from any remote location. Copy- and iPad are the most common of the portable media
right isn’t a problem because you are already paying your players, and they are capable of storing (or streaming)
multichannel provider for the right to watch. You are merely hours of video, which can be displayed on a small (iPod
extending the reach of the cable coming into your home. Touch) or larger (iPad) screen. Unlike most cell phones,
With a Slingbox, you can extend that reach nearly around these devices can connect to Wi-Fi transmitters in the home
the world. or in some public spaces. Despite concerns that most
Cable operators’ response to Slingbox was to come up people would not choose to watch a small screen, media
with their own devices and “TV Everywhere” offerings. analysts have observed that viewers seem willing to adapt
Thanks to tablets like the iPad and apps like that for Com- to the largest or smallest screen that suits their situation at a
cast’s Xfinity, subscribers can watch television virtually any- particular moment. In other words, if 3.5-inch screens are
where. Over-the-top service is sometimes described by the all people have when riding on subways, then they’ll use
“four anys”: Viewers can watch anything, anywhere, any- them until they get home to their beloved 42-inch HD
time, on any device. A viewer connected to the web can display.
watch on their second and third screens (desktop computers Of course, most viewers still prefer their video to appear
and mobile devices) what they pay to watch for on their first on their home television receivers, and the bigger the bet-
screen (television set). ter. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 was the first device to offer PC-
Even without adding equipment, you can still watch to-TV downloads, and other companies (Nintendo Wii and
regular channels (besides clips on websites) with services Sony Playstation) soon followed. Even without additional
like FilmOn or ivi TV). Subscribers to these services get hardware, media companies have begun to anticipate the
access to hundreds of worldwide TV and radio channels viewers’ desire to watch online video on TV sets. Several
through their computers. Add a device such as Apple TV, manufacturers now offer HDTVs that have their own wire-
and you can even transmit the video programs to your less connections, thus allowing viewers to bring internet
television set. (Does that feel like going around in a circle?) video to their main TV sets (meaning that no computer
FilmOn is a subscription service, charging $10 per month needs to be in the same room as the TV set). A fifth of all
to receive live programming, while subscribers to ivi TV only new sets shipped in 2010 had such built-in connectivity.

streams of data (from computer keyboards, graphic television set, a device that has enjoyed a privileged
cameras, photo printers and home video cameras) location in the home for the past 60 years but where
within a small geographic radius via radio waves. computers do not normally reside. The “smart”
The central unit is typically a desktop computer home imagined decades ago by futurists is finally
with immense storage capacity that acts as a server beginning to emerge, and this includes new video
for the rest of the home. The computer links to any and online abilities for those ubiquitous cell phones.
number of cable boxes, alarm systems, stereo audio But using Wi-Fi in homes has proved more techni-
systems, video game consoles, video displays and cally problematic than envisioned because older
who knows what that hasn’t been invented yet. equipment balks, and so it has rolled out slowly in
Typically, Wi-Fi internet content comes to por- homes.
table laptops anywhere in the house or yard. Also it Outside the home, connecting to the web is a
can bring internet video to the main (biggest) simple matter of visiting a store or restaurant with
132 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

4.3 Cord Cutters

T he term cord cutters applies to former cable/satellite

subscribers who have “cut the cord” to save money by
getting their movies and videos from Netflix, YouTube and
other programmers are counting on the relative conve-
nience of cable and satellite technology to save their busi-
nesses. Most homes are already wired to traditional
Hulu Plus. Still, traditional television has a big advantage sources, and current subscribers easily understand how to
over video streaming: It can deliver HDTV-quality pictures, select programs from a cornucopia of options. Streaming
while video streaming via the internet remains compara- video sometimes requires new devices and works best with
tively limited in picture quality. home Wi-Fi networks. Meanwhile, major cable operators
As you can imagine, the prospect of losing monthly such as Comcast maximize their "TV everywhere and any-
cable subscribers to streaming video has worried some where" options and promote a general shift to HD to stem
traditional suppliers and distributors of television shows. But the tide of competition from streaming competitors.

a free Wi-Fi zone. Travelers expect their hotel rooms Web Program Providers
to offer Wi-Fi networks; libraries and schools typi-
cally feature Wi-Fi capabilities. Some cities have It won’t come as a surprise that repurposed content on
public Wi-Fi, and many federal legislators consider the web primarily takes the form of television shows
free public access a right rather than a privilege, like and movies. As of 2012, the major providers of repur-
public drinking fountains and restrooms. In addi- posed shows were Netflix, Hulu Plus, Apple iTunes and
tion, you can buy a monthly “Wi-Fi Anywhere” ser- Amazon Instant Video. A second category of web con-
vice so you aren’t limited to public connections and tent is original programming, for which YouTube and
can link in wherever signals reach. its close competitors are best known. Recent off-
network and off-cable repurposed programs are some-
Evolution, Not Revolution times free and thus supported by ads, as on Hulu, but
the major online providers rely heavily on paid sub-
A good guess is that consumer habits will evolve
scriptions. Original made-for-online content, on the
slowly as younger viewers grow older and older
other hand, is almost always free and supported by
viewers learn new tricks. In many households, the
advertising. Pretty much, you get what you pay for.
price difference between full-cable service and web
programs, however, may influence a cost-based
switching decision, somewhat akin to the way cell Movies Plus
phones convinced some households to cancel their Netflix evolved from a distribution channel for
landline phone service (while many younger people rented DVDs through the mail to the largest supplier
now never consider landlines at all). The broadcast of program-length streaming videos. It streams
networks and their allied production studios will professionally-produced content live over the inter-
also benefit from streaming video, because net- net rather than downloaded as a single file. Monthly
works can spread their risk among additional dis- subscribers with a broadband connection can watch
tribution windows when they can repurpose Netflix through their computers, game consoles,
programs to subscription services. The fly in the smartphones, iPad-like tablets or web-enabled televi-
honey is who gets the money. A merging of inter- sion receivers. The company still rents out movies,
ests will occur IF, and it’s a big if, and when equi- but in 2011 it began competing with the major tele-
table splits of rights and royalties can be agreed to vision networks, producing original video content as
by dozens of parties. Economics will always be the well as continuing to stream older shows and
driving force. movies.
 CHAPTER 4 Online Television Strategies 133

Netflix was the first major supplier of Hulu Plus evolved as a subscription website that
professionally-produced content. For $7.99 (plus provided the same content as Hulu (with fewer com-
an additional $7.99 if you also want the option of mercials) but expanded its menu to include entire
DVD delivery to your mailbox), you can watch an seasons of popular programs shown on regular tele-
online library of popular television shows and vision, sometimes offering multiple seasons of espe-
Hollywood movies. Its subscriber lists had grown cially hot series. For example, Hulu Plus has all the
to over 25 million by 2011, two-thirds of whom Saturday Night Live programs dating back to 1975,
used the streaming-only option (before the price hundreds of hours’ worth. As with Netflix, Hulu
increase from $9.99 for both options to $15.98). Plus also streams theatrical movie releases from
Netflix online apparently made a sizable dent in selected studios such as Miramax Films. The cost
the sale of DVDs, which declined a whopping per month is $7.99, the same as Netflix. Hulu Plus
20 percent between 2010 and 2011. focuses on well-known television series, but also fea-
tures some original made-for-web content (especially
during the summer months when regular network
Series Plus television is on hiatus). As of 2011, Hulu Plus had
Hulu was originally designed as a free website to 875,000 subscribers.
stream content produced by regular television net- Apple iTunes is another source of videos, typi-
works, plus a few original series. While CBS remains cally downloaded rather than streamed. Although
a holdout, NBC, ABC, FOX and many large produ- iTunes is best known for 99-cent music downloads,
cers like Viacom participate in streaming recently- Apple sells individual video programs for $1.99, and
shown programs on Hulu with few commercial because of its instantly recognized name, grabbed a
interruptions. (CBS.com and CWTV.com provide steady group of customers. Customers using iCloud
network shows for online viewing of CBS and the as virtual (online) storage for their music can also
CW networks, respectively.) store videos, but the sheer size of video files may
The catch is that each video is preceded by a soon require a streaming solution instead of down-
pre-roll, which is a commercial that must be played loading, especially if portable devices are tied to off-
(not on FF) before the selected clip begins to roll. line storage (“the cloud”). The number of users is
Interestingly, 1 in 6 viewers abandon viewing a 50 million, although many download music instead
video clip during a pre-roll, but many viewers have of videos. The library of titles is estimated as 3,000
begun showing greater acceptance of the tactic. television shows and 2,500 movies.
After the pre-roll, viewers have the option of watch- Powerhouse Amazon Instant Video offers
ing the remaining commercials sprinkled throughout movies and TV shows for $1.99, similar to Netflix
the program, as is the practice on broadcast televi- and iTunes. Its special deal is that members of Ama-
sion, or see all the advertising at once in one very zon Prime (a subscription service offering free two-
long commercial break. Initially, the number of com- day shipping for books and merchandise) receive
mercials within programs was a fraction of those unlimited, commercial-free, instant streaming of
carried by over-the-air stations, which attracted 5,000 movies and TV shows at no additional cost.
many viewers to Hulu, but as advertisers got more Amazon Prime runs just $79 per year, which is less
comfortable with online video advertising, the com- expensive than paying $7.99 to Netflix or Hulu Plus
mercial breaks became longer and longer. for 12 months. Despite its later start, experts predict
As this chapter goes to press, Hulu is for sale. that Amazon will eventually surpass giant Netflix,
Netflix was not a bidder, but other interested com- despite the latter service having become the largest
panies include Google, Yahoo, Amazon.com, Micro- single source of internet traffic in North America by
soft and DirecTV. Hulu has no subscribers, per se, May 2011.2 And it might not take Amazon very
but it reaches over 30 million unique visitors each long to do that, but no subscriber count is presently
month. available.
134 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

Facebook, Google+ and other social media offer original videos, but the crop of competitors is so
videos, too, but their presence on comScore’s ratings young that predictions are hard to make (see 4.5).
lists is secondary to their primary mission of getting Even YouTube (best known for free user-generated
users to chat (and play games). Facebook is being content) now offers an online rental service for a
used by Hulu to engage viewers by letting them small number of Hollywood films.
post Facebook messages to friends while watching A service that caters to cell phone users,
from the Hulu website. For example, a viewer on MobiTV, offers its ten million subscribers more
Hulu can make a comment during a video that than 25 channels of streamed live television that
appears on Facebook noting the exact running time show up as large as the phone screen. These include
within the show that the post was written. Facebook programs from the broadcast networks and such
has 600 million unique monthly visitors worldwide, cable nets such MSNBC, CNBC, Discovery and the
although Hulu is not available in every country. Learning Channel, along with originals from several
web-only networks. For $9.99 per month (with no
extra charge for cellular airtime), MobiTV offers its
Upstarts (Big and Small Ones) service via all major cell carriers. Not to be outdone,
Another mega-giant has joined the game: Wal-Mart Sprint TV and Verizon Wireless’ VCAST both offer
started its own online video service called Vudu their own mobile TV and music plans. Tablet-size
to compete with Netflix, but it uses the pay- portable devices like the iPad are making mobile
per-download model. Vudu charges $1.99 per viewing even more popular. What is clear is that
episode for network shows, also putting it into lots of companies can see big dollar signs in the
competition with iTunes. Some of the series pres- download and streaming video business.
ently offered by Vudu include Glee, Modern Family,
Weeds and Bones. Vudu did 750,000 movie transac-
tions in the last quarter of 2010, well behind Apple Original Content Suppliers
iTunes but even with Amazon. Overshadowing most of the online world is the mar-
On the smaller side, it’s not clear what other ser- vel of YouTube. Now a subsidiary of Google, it has
vices might try to capture viewers of specific genres, in been by far the most popular streaming site. Tens of
effect, stealing them from Netflix and Hulu Plus. millions of users upload and share videos among
Crackle is an upstart provider of television shows (it groups of people or openly for everyone online.
has a handful of Seinfeld episodes) and somewhat- Most of its content is user-generated content (UGC)
recent movies, and touts its free slate of programs, along with some copyrighted materials uploaded by
but it’s too soon to know if Crackle will be able to users (see 4.4). It is usually accessed via computers,
gain sufficient advertising support to compete. but some material is available for television screens
Crackle has about 3 million unique monthly users. and some smart phones. About 500 million unique
Instead of a grab bag of programs, some web visitors worldwide watch YouTube each month.
programmers choose a particular genre, such as YouTube soon proliferated into dozens of You-
humor, and focus on accumulating programs in Tube channels (similar to TV channels) and has
that genre. For example, you might have tried The become web-based video-on-demand: what people
CollegeHumor Network or Funnyordie, which carry want and when they want it, in almost real time.
original videos made especially for online viewing. People upload movie clips, TV clips and music
AOL Media Network (which delivers a variety of videos, as well as amateur videos and video blogging
online videos to AOL subscribers, reaching 42 mil- and watch without needing to pay for any of it or
lion users each month), Vevo (which specializes in even register (except for “mature” material so as to
online music videos, reaching 60 million unique show they are old enough). As of 2011, YouTube
monthly users), and Megavideo (which imitates reported that it was serving more than three billion
YouTube) are other minor contenders offering videos a day, a staggering amount. Interestingly,
 CHAPTER 4 Online Television Strategies 135

4.4 The YouTube Phenomenon

I n 2007 Viacom started an uproar by demanding that

more than 100,000 video clips, originally produced by
MTV, Comedy Central or Nickelodeon, be removed from
channel, and Time Warner touts YouTube as a great outlet
for its music videos. The big entertainment companies
don’t hate YouTube; they just would like to control it. This
the YouTube site. The same month the BBC demanded that is very lucrative action. Indeed, most of the material they
100,000 clips from its own shows be removed. In both demanded be removed is back on—just with official
cases, YouTube leapt to comply. Meanwhile, the Japanese sanction.
Society for Rights of Authors, Composers, and Publishers YouTube is without doubt one of the great success
demanded that thousands of its producers’ videos be stories of the web. It has exhibited immense flexibility by
removed, and NBC and CBS both filed complaints about adding new channels, special groupings of videos, and
their material appearing. Amusingly, Iran banned the site even special categories (such as for comedians and
as “culturally undermining.” The U.S. government also got amateur producers). The NHL even agreed to provide
in the act when it objected to rebuttals of the “public ser- brief highlights of hockey games to the online service. In
vice” announcements they were uploading. After discover- fact, many YouTube producers and entertainers have
ing fight and gang attack videos on YouTube, ITV in the UK developed their own followings, becoming stars in their
claimed it was encouraging violence and bullying. own right with their works featured on late-night
Of course, these attack videos have since become broadcast television shows. Although critics once
big hits on news services, which shake their collective claimed that YouTube would find it impossibly expensive
heads in disgust even as they run the cuts for the hun- to maintain the required bandwidth and storage capac-
dredth time. Given such complaints, you might think that ity, they have suddenly grown quiet. The public has
the existing media would keep its distance from this web welcomed the ability to participate in this one area of
upstart. You might also assume YouTube was on the video freedom, and revenue from advertisers provides
verge of failure. You would be entirely wrong in both sufficient support.
cases. While there are certainly many competitors who would
YouTube was founded in 2005 by three former PayPal like to see it fail, it was probably already too late after its
employees using $3.5 million dollars in venture funding. In first two years of operation. The public embraced this new
2006, YouTube was named Time magazine’s Invention of outlet with amazing speed. Even as Brazilian model
the Year and sold to Google for $1.65 billion. World- Daniela Cicarelli was demanding YouTube be shut down
wide, the public, to whom the service is free, consumes until all copies of an unauthorized video (of her having sex
more than 2 billion videos a day. Members of the public with her boyfriend on a Spanish beach) be removed, the
can upload whatever they want so long as it meets the video had already spread through hundreds of other web-
15-minute time limit (although there are special categories sites. While YouTube makes no provision for downloading,
without time constraints, but which require high-quality, the needed software can be found in a few minutes of
original production). surfing the web.
By making it free, YouTube succeeded in avoiding the As Sean McManus, president of CBS News and
problems that had plagued Napster. While it hasn’t ruled Sports, noted: “Our inclination now is, the more exposure
on the web as such, the Supreme Court has traditionally we get from clips … the better it is for CBS News and the
said members of the public can do whatever they want CBS television network; so in retrospect we probably
with materials sent into their homes or which they have should have embraced the exposure, and embraced the
purchased, so long as no money changes hands. You- attention it was bringing CBS, instead of being parochial
Tube gets its revenue from super-imposed ads and from an and saying ‘let’s pull it down’.”3
innovation: Commercial customers can also upload
videos, but for a price. Even as Viacom was demanding William J. Adams, Ph.D.
removal, it was buying in. NBC negotiated its own Kansas State University
136 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

about three-quarters of the material comes from out- (known for long-form videos), Flickr (known for
side the United States, as does much of the viewing. photos but stores videos, too), Viddler (for brand-
But even more overwhelming is the fact that ing), yfrog (for Twitter), to mention a few. The
150 million people view some of those videos every resources of Google make it difficult for anyone to
month. compete directly with YouTube for sheer size and
Reaching into the once-sacrosanct sports world, dominance in the arena of original content, but the
to mixed horror and delight, YouTube has also same was said of MySpace before its popularity was
begun to free streaming of live cricket matches and eclipsed by Facebook.
then NBA and NHL games. Currently, it is sup- Regardless where it appears, user-generated
ported by advertising, but YouTube may develop a content is unique, and it competes for the attention
pay-per-month subscription service as Hulu did with of audiences who might otherwise watch other
Hulu Plus. Currently, YouTube lets members “sub- forms of television. At its most basic, users sit at
scribe for free” to one another’s channels. their keyboards and talk or perform for their web-
Dailymotion is a French-owned competitor to enabled cameras. In an effort to entertain or inform
YouTube, with 93 million unique monthly visitors. viewers, they might also shoot digital video in other
It is the world’s second largest video site. Dailymo- places and later upload it to sites like YouTube. A
tion is more likely to include mature-themed videos, more elaborate effort is called a mashup, defined as
but otherwise is quite similar to YouTube. a new video edited out of other videos from multiple
Blip.tv is also similar to YouTube, but emphasizes (too often copyrighted) sources. To date, many
web program series rather than standalone videos. video mashups have been parodies, sometimes
Sometimes referred to as a “Hulu for original web accompanied by elaborate music mashups. Occa-
series,” Blip.tv provides more tools for creating and sionally, as a gimmick, a network and an advertiser
promoting content than YouTube, and offers a way will encourage ordinary users to create content for
for small-scale providers to make money from each distribution on mainstream channels, such as the
viewing (sharing a portion of the revenue with homemade Doritos commercials that appear in
Blip.tv, of course). Blip.tv has begun to shift its focus each year’s Super Bowl telecast.
toward helping 32 million monthly visitors locate the
most interesting and professional-produced content
among its 50,000 video series. Some of its independent Professional Web Videos
producers invest over $1 million in the series they pro- Beyond user-generated video and viral communica-
duce, although that figure pales in comparison to the tion, an explosion of professionally produced con-
$1 million per episode of many broadcast series. tent appears daily on an equally impressive number
Vimeo is more artistic than YouTube and posi- of broadband video channels. YouTube itself has
tions itself as a “respectful community of creative peo- begun to attract professional producers after its
ple who are passionate about sharing the videos they acquisition of Next New Networks, by launching
make.” Like YouTube, it is free to use, but the 3 mil- YouTube Next. As mentioned, blip.tv and Vimeo
lion people who upload their content are encouraged also offer vast amounts of video from professional
to buy a premium service (Vimeo Plus) for $59.95 per independent producers, who exist somewhere
year, which entitles them to no intrusive “banner” between the two extremes of commercial producers
advertising, ten times the storage, faster uploads and and silly amateurs.
other privileges. About 20 million unique monthly The wide availability and frequent viewing of
visitors view its videos. By intent, Vimeo contrasts short online videos has led to the phrase clip cul-
markedly with the sometimes tawdry or amateuristic ture, which refers to the presumption that viewers
tendencies of many YouTube videos. have acquired shorter attention spans. If a person is
YouTube has some other minor competitors: only interested in the highlights or the most impor-
Justin.tv (popular with viewers age 13 to 18, Veoh tant moment, then clips on the internet easily meet
 CHAPTER 4 Online Television Strategies 137

that demand. Internet technology has led to a rise Ubiquity

in a kind of promotion that goes beyond word-
Regardless of how videos are generated by users (or
of-mouth advertising. Viewers who forward to
what website distributes them), they have become
other users interesting videos or segments of infor-
ubiquitous. One reason is the ease with which they
mation about programs or sites are indulging in a
can be shared. Videos can be uploaded to a site such
form of active publicity called viral communication.
as YouTube, where an embedded code can be
Viral video refers to images or programs that often
inserted into a Facebook wall, a news aggregator, a
get shared this way—for example, when the latest hit
blog, a personal webpage, a Twitter tweet or even
on YouTube is forwarded to thousands of “friends”.
old-fashioned email. The ease with which computer
If a video becomes sufficiently popular, websites
users can click a button to play a show would have
like mashable.com declare the clip a meme (referring
seemed a miracle just a few years ago. For viewers
to internet-spread ideas that attract intense notori-
battling boredom, it is easier to find something
ety). For example, fooling someone into watching a
entertaining on the web than on regular television.
video that purports to be interesting but is really
Even watching regular television is an invitation to
1980s singer Rick Astley performing a music video
see YouTube videos, as the manufacturers of big-screen
became so popular at one time that it was labeled
receivers integrate the web into their screens. A remote
the “rickrolling” meme. Top-trending topics on
control with a YouTube jump-button is likely to attract
Twitter are also candidates for becoming internet
an audience for popular videos on almost any topic,
memes.
even clips from 50-year-old television shows. Viewers
Local stations have also gotten into the act by
with older receivers can still watch YouTube through a
streaming live content during their newscasts. Live-
TiVo DVR, Apple TV box or Roku box. Roku sells for
stream is a tool for anyone wanting to launch a web
as little as $59.99 and delivers Netflix, Hulu Plus and
television channel for free. Some broadcast stations
Amazon Instant Video to any TV set in a web-
(e.g., WSPA in Spartanburg, SC) use Livestream dur-
connected household with Wi-Fi internet.
ing live newscasts to show behind-the-scenes mate-
The chart in 4.5 provides a snapshot of video
rial during breaks. Other stations use Livestream to
online in May 2011. It lists ten online video suppliers
upload news clips.

4.5 Reports on Online Video Use*

Source Unique Viewers Viewing Sessions Minutes per Viewer

YouTube and other Google sites 147,158,000 2,173,422,000 311.2

VEVO 60,369,000 360,205,000 105.1
Yahoo! Sites 55,482,000 272,255,000 39.1
Facebook.com 48,189,000 176,076,000 19.3
Viacom Digital 46,535,000 241,026,000 74.2
Microsoft Sites 46,502,000 251,799,000 42.8
AOL, Inc. 42,271,000 246,592,000 45.7
Turner Digital 35,185,000 126,760,000 36.3
NBC Universal 30,622,000 67,251,000 21.1
Hulu 28,543,000 195,897,000 217.8
TOTAL FOR ALL SOURCES 176,337,000 5,662,369,000 951.3
*comScore Video Metrix
138 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

and the time viewers spend on each of them. The read about and interact with their favorites, but as
chart also shows how many viewers used video in you know, they can discuss and compare and inter-
that month, how many sessions were streamed to act with “friends” and strangers.
them, and the average time they watched at least Facebook is, of course, the largest such social
for one month; this data changes fast. network, with something like 600 million active
users worldwide. It accounts for nearly 10 percent
of all referred video streams, second only to Google,
Enhanced Viewing which accounts for more than half. Owned primarily
by Mark Zuckerberg, along with other partners (but
Enhancements come in many types, and new ones planning to go public soon), Facebook makes its
are invented almost daily. Anything that expands revenue largely from banner ads provided by Micro-
or prolongs or enriches the regular television view- soft and from Facebook credits (used to purchase
ing experience is called an enhancement. First, there items in games and other virtual applications). Like
are references and links to websites. In addition to websites, Facebook groups have been created by sta-
links in program webcasts, virtually all TV stations tions, channels and viewers to enhance viewing
have streaming versions of their newscasts featured experiences among friends, family and acquain-
prominently on their web pages. Even the big guys tances, and in effect, solidify and expand fans’ rela-
(NBC, FOX) have created synchronized interactive tionship to specific programs (thus making them
links between their evening news broadcast and var- excellent vehicles for advertising). To create or access
ious websites. Moreover, nearly every sports event Facebook pages, users must be 13 years old (suppos-
has an enhanced online viewing feature, with a edly) and register, although many younger children
logo in the screen’s corner to remind viewers that just lie. More than 40 percent of Americans have
they can access game statistics or enter contests Facebook pages, and about 140 million Americans
online. Even syndicated game shows offer play- access the social network monthly.
at-home online enhancements. Experimenting in 2011, Warner Brothers joined
Another kind of enhancement consists of backs- with Facebook to invite members to download the
tories and side stories and interviews that expand on movie The Dark Knight (for 30 Facebook Credits,
what appears on regular television. This kind of or $3). Mature media companies are eager to protect
enrichment both lengthens and deepens the fans’ their core business by following their users onto the
experience of a program and its stars, or so the internet in order to stay close to their current and
makers hope. While some of this material appears potential customers. Expect many more such joint
in magazines, most of it now resides online on station efforts.
and program websites. But viewers can also use social The second-largest such social site,
media to connect with other viewers without help MySpace.com, encourages its users to post videos
from stations or channels. And the clear-winner (vlogs, which are video versions of blogs) that can be
among online enhancements formats is social net- watched for information and entertainment value.
working via online communities in which participants But MySpace.com was sold in 2011 for $30 million,
engage in computer-mediated communication. a fraction of the $580 million that Rupert Murdoch’s
News Corporation paid for MySpace.com in 2006,
so the future of this social site has dimmed consider-
Social Networks ably. One exception may be musicians, who prefer
Social networks provide an extraordinary kind of MySpace over Facebook for posting videos and
program enhancement. Sometimes accompanied by audio files.
widgets (downloadable software programs that fea- Another widely-known enhancement is Twitter,
ture media content), these sites provide the opportu- a hip form of social media that allows users to fol-
nity to interact, much like games. Not only can fans low people (most of whom they don’t know
 CHAPTER 4 Online Television Strategies 139

personally, unlike Facebook friends). To “follow” is and apps have begun to link viewers by letting them
to agree to have someone’s tweets (posted messages) create social media profiles in which they can com-
included into your own personalized Twitter stream ment on television programs.
(analogous to a Facebook wall), so you only see
comments you want to read, from those people
you follow. People follow tweets in attempts to Other TV Apps
learn information, watch trends, monitor breaking One of the simplest of these apps is called tv Chatter,
news or engage in conversations with strangers which retrieves comments about programs directly
who share an interest. Not everyone who loves Twit- from Twitter. A similar app is yap.TV, which uses
ter bothers to tweet, although many users choose to a program schedule grid of programs currently
share. If users of Twitter “overshare” details in their showing that then leads to an unedited Twitter
messages, their followers can choose to unfollow stream of comments based upon the selected pro-
them. Following and unfollowing on Twitter is gram. The difference between the two apps is that
much more casual and tentative than friending and the latter lets subscribers create their own “yaps”
unfriending on Facebook. to compete with the “tweets” on Twitter. Yaps are
Twitter has actually changed the way many public or can be contained in a “private party”
people watch television in a big way—especially dur- group chat area.
ing special events like the Super Bowl or the Acad- NBC Live is the most elaborate app, offering
emy Awards. A person who is watching alone can three benefits for viewers. First, it provides a way
feel connected by reading (and sometimes contribut- to watch streaming versions of the most popular
ing to) a stream of tweets (Twitter messages of 140 shows on NBC. Second, it encourages viewers to
characters or fewer, also known as micro-blogs) log in (either on the web or iPad) to interact with
about the program. Watching “with” others alters additional content (trivia, polls, cast commentary
the viewing experience by giving it more importance and fun facts about the show being viewed). Third,
and making it more pleasant and interesting, and NBC Live offers a hosted social media forum, where
salience generally affects memory (an aspect that viewers engage other fans of a particular program
has not been lost on advertisers or programmers). (and occasionally insiders from that show). NBC
Using tweets, broadcast stations and national Live is clearly a promotional tactic to attract and
networks are able to entice followers with informa- maintain viewers to NBC programs.
tion about the normal televised content. Creating a Miso and Tunerfish are “check in” sites, where
buzz about a live event and creating a stream of viewers tell what they are watching right now, simi-
human interest is no less riveting for some viewers lar to how they might share their present location
than the links social media created among rioting on geo-location sites and apps like Foursquare,
Cairo citizens during the 2011 uprising against Pres- Gowalla, Facebook Places and Google Latitude.
ident Mubarak. Miso provides badges as a reward for checking-in,
Many more people belong to Facebook than an idea borrowed from Foursquare. Subscribers to
Twitter, but tweeting to strangers about television Miso can also “follow” television shows, similar to
is easier when your friends don’t happen to share the way Twitter users follow other people. Tunerfish
your taste in programming. The focus of tweeting is a phone app started by Comcast (who has very
is thus on the program or channel rather than friend- deep pockets) that is much like Twitter in the way
ship. Bridging this divide is the introduction of social it provides trending topics and a stream of users
media tools to share what you are watching with answering the question “What are you watching
any online community. It is too soon to know if now?” Users can choose either “everyone” or “my
viewers will really want to share what they are friends” for finding out what others are watching.
watching in the same way they seem to enjoy sharing Philo and Starling are phone apps similar to Miso,
what they are doing or thinking, but several websites but neither worked on the iPad we tested.
140 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

GetGlue is an app that focuses on media enter- in “one size fits all” fashion (per market), web-based
tainment. Its creator calls it a window into the “taste television puts the user much more in control of the
graph” of entertainment. GetGlue organizes itself flow of information. Web-based television typically
around a user’s answer to “I am currently …” with provides on screen access to very detailed websites
the choices watching a show, listening to music, like www.imdb.com, a searchable compendium of
reading a book, watching a movie, playing a game, information on television and movies. Of course,
thinking about a topic, chatting about a celebrity, there’s always Wikipedia, but focused apps are
and drinking wine. Users check-in to various usually more up-to-date on current programs and
media, receiving virtual stickers (which can be movies.
redeemed for actual stickers). Viewers can see a These enhancement apps are a tool for pro-
comment stream and assign ratings (of the thumb grammers (and fans) to make viewing more enjoy-
up or down variety), with or without comments. able. The future of such specialized social media is
Does that appeal to you? Stickers, really? unclear, but the proliferation of cell phones and
IntoNow (owned by Yahoo, another elephant in Wi-Fi tablets makes apps a tempting distraction for
the room) is a phone app for television viewers and television viewers. Viewers are more likely to watch
provides a “popular” button for finding out what programs live than on a DVR when comments to
others are watching (and commenting upon or friends or followers are concurrent with viewing.
assigning a rating to the content). Like the Tunerfish Live viewing (and commenting) also leads to less
app, IntoNow lets users see what friends or “every- skipping of commercials. On the other hand, tablet
one” is watching. and phone apps can serve as handy time-filler when
Television Without Pity (TWOP) is a website advertising messages appear in live shows.
and cell phone app that encourages viewers to com-
ment upon or create synopses of popular programs.
tvChaser is an app that functions as an alphabetical Video Games and Virtual Worlds
search engine for television programs, providing
much shorter synopses than those found on Video gaming is the third major type of online pro-
TWOP. Which of these will still be around by gramming. How old would you guess most video
2015 is anyone’s guess. Place your bets! game players are? What often comes first to mind
are teenage boys wielding joy sticks in Worlds of
War and the like or families jumping around playing
Online Program Guides Wii. But contrary to stereotypes about video game
In the 1990s the venerable TV Guide magazine created players, more than half the people playing online
an online web service. Along with such companies as games are aged between 30 and 59, and they play
www.zap2it.com, such guides supply detailed tracking everything from mahjong to Sudoku, word games
of half-hour by half-hour broadcast and multichannel and solitaire. Moreover, such games appeal to men
offerings for all the larger U.S. markets. In addition to and women almost equally, and they increasingly
websites like theirs, there are dozens of apps for televi- play them at home on their laptops while watching
sion that furnish program guides. Zap2It has released regular television.
an app called What’s On that takes the place of news- Zynga has successfully launched such wildly-
paper or the paper magazine form of TV Guide listings. popular Facebook games as CityVille, FarmVille
It also includes times and locations for movies in local and Mafia Wars that rely on a player’s friends, fam-
theaters. Not to be outdone, TV Guide came up with its ily and acquaintances to attain rewards in the games
own app for the iPhone and iPad, with local listings (see 4.6). Facebook also acquired another iconic
plus news about television. computer game, Civ World, adding to its luster as
Unlike printed program guides and their online the center for adult gaming. Facebook estimates
counterparts, which are designed by the publishers nearly 300 million members play social games,
 CHAPTER 4 Online Television Strategies 141

4.6 Zynga

S ince 2007, Zynga has been enormously successful at

creating lifestyle games to which a broad segment of
users (typically people not ordinarily attracted to video
sale of virtual goods that players desire to advance in the
game. Zynga’s games follow the so-called freemium
model, a combination of free and premium playing.
games) often become addicted. Known as "the Google of The more players play, the deeper they get into the
games" to some observers, Zynga has built its fame on games. Taking a day off, for example, hurts a player’s
popular games like FarmVille, CityVille and FrontierVille. points. It’s not unusual for ordinary people who would
Although each game has stand-alone browser-based ver- never play video games to get drawn into the game,
sions, most players participate with their friends via Face- somewhat like an addiction. So a FarmVille player might
book. By June 2011, Zynga had 270 million monthly get up early before going to work because their corn crop
active users. CityVille has 20 million daily players. must be harvested before it withers. Manual harvesting
Most of the games rely on social media friends to takes longer than using a tractor, so the player feels the
assemble a community of game players who help each need to acquire farm machinery. Then, to operate the trac-
other achieve ordinary goals, like harvesting crops or tor, the players choose to either convert game points to buy
feeding animals or constructing buildings. The objects in gasoline or pay real money online (Zynga hopes) for game
these games are virtual goods that convert to points or vir- coins to purchase fuel. Playing the game is more mindful
tual money, with which players can purchase virtual items. than passively watching television, although people often
Success in these games depends on effort, but players can engage in both activities simultaneously.
also buy virtual goods from Zynga to advance further CityVille is Zynga’s most popular game, offering players
toward game rewards or sometimes avoid penalties. For the opportunity to build a virtual city, acquire energy points,
example, virtual farmers can resurrect crops that died by and advance through experience levels. Zynga claims 61
paying roughly $2 in real cash to Zynga, which sells game million monthly users of CityVille. Players (often friends on
"coins" (or Facebook Credits) in $10 or $20 bundles. Real- Facebook) visit one another’s cities and perform work in a
world poker tournament players recognized this tactic as a reciprocal fashion. Friends can give gifts to other friends
"re-buy" that allows a bankrupt player a second chance to who play, just as they did in FarmVille. Thus, social media
play on. It is probably no coincidence that Zynga’s very first acquaintances who may have nothing to say to their friends
social media game was Zynga Poker. each day can still share some kind of message to help the
Thanks to enchanting graphics and time-based partici- other in the game (e.g., "Mary has sent you a Zoning Per-
pation, Zynga captures players’ attention with virtual mit" or "Can you send me an I-beam?"). Beyond the indi-
activities that are fun to play with their friends at no cost— vidual accomplishments rewarded in the game, players
but then offers those same players additional benefits for a make friendly connections with people they know. If cities
price. Zynga profits not from the free games but through the and credits can be virtual, why not build virtual friendships?

buying virtual goods like food and fuel to advance of the two versions and advertising opportunities
in the game. Slightly over half of all Facebook in both media. Jeopardy, for example, exists in
users log in specifically to play social games daily syndicated television, online in several forms
because of the real-time rules that foster addiction to and in a box as a board game.
playing. Then there are the heavy game players. They log
Traditional media networks have tried to pro- in on ordinary web-connected computers to play
mote their offline programs during online gaming massively multiplayer online games (MMOG) with
but have not met with much success thus far. What hundreds or thousands of online friends and stran-
works better is to develop a television game show gers. Youngsters (no less addicted than those parents
with an online game counterpart that is itself a pro- who play CityVille) play online games like Runescape
motional tool, fostering back-and-forth promotion and the wildly popular World of Warcraft (in several
142 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

versions). Monthly subscriptions are required for games. Thus, the game controllers are easier to use,
most of these games. Time spent playing typically dis- the graphics are better, and connections have less
places time spent viewing television, but teens some- “lag time” (because dedicated chips distribute the
times do both, as do some adults. flow of information). Voice chat is also better imple-
Programmers and users classify the content of mented on game consoles than on computers. Game
online and console games under the following five consoles also have advanced motion controls, such
categories: role-playing (RP), first-person shooter as Kinect for the Xbox 360.
(FPS), real-time strategy (RTS), turn-based strategy Still another online game format consists of
(TBS) and simulations (SIMs). Each game requires virtual worlds. These are computer-based simulated
a downloaded program through which the player environments intended for users to inhabit and inter-
logs onto a network of users (or, in the base act with via avatars. Defined as the web user’s repre-
browser-based games, a “thin client” program oper- sentations of his or her individual self, avatars occur
ates the game). Some examples are described briefly in three forms: three-dimensional models, two-
in 4.7, and you can probably think of more! dimensional icons or text constructs. Very shortly
Even standalone game consoles like Xbox 360 after such sites first appeared, big commercial interests
and Playstation 3 have moved from solo to multi- latched onto the branding and profit opportunities.
player games. With built-in Wi-Fi devices, these con- For younger children, Viacom’s Neopets has been
soles let players enjoy MMOGs like Call of Duty (I, especially successful. Nickelodeon’s Nicktropolis.com
II, III, IV…), Halo, and that all-time parents’ hor- targets children’s desire to play games, watch videos,
ror, Grand Theft Auto in all its permutations. The design personalized 3-D areas, and interact with other
chief advantage of playing games on a game console kids in real time—and also targets parents’ desire for a
is that such devices were designed specifically for “safe” online environment.

4.7 MMOGs

T he most popular MMORPGs (where RPG stands for

role-playing game) are Runescape, Final Fantasy and
Tibia. Players spend hours in a fantasy world where items
persistent world hosted by the company that designs the
content and charges fees.
MMOTBS (turn-based strategy) games are regulated by
are collected and exchanged for tools or power, and bat- the tick on an online clock. Between the ticks, hundreds of
tles are fought. Websites such as http://usfine.com have players share the same field of conquest, where moves are
also sprung up to help players move forward in the game, made asynchronously and then locked in every 30 seconds
for a price. or so, allowing players with slower (or intermittent) internet
MMOFPS games (first-person shooter) require the player connections to simulate synchronous playing. UltraCorps
to become a warrior, and the competitions are shown and Darkwind are trendy examples.
through a first-person field of view. Among the most popular SIMs (simulations) are a category of multiplayer games
games are Combat Arms, AssaultCube and CrossFire. that includes poker, sports, auto racing and alternative
MMOFPS players are usually awarded points for experi- worlds. Gamblers compete for play money (sometimes real,
ence. Nexon is a major supplier of these games, and it when the law allows) at such game sites as Pokerstars and
makes money through monthly subscriptions and merchan- Full Tilt Poker. Sports fans play a variety of games (one
dise sales. example is Baseball Mogul Online) which are similar to
Beyond Protocol and Battleswarm are examples of fantasy league competitions. Kart Racer is an example of
MMORTS (real-time strategy) games, which fall into two an online racing game quite similar to MMORPGs, except
respective categories: sci-fi and fantasy. Players typically that the role-playing is limited to driving very fast. Players of
get to be a king or a general in command of others. Large games like The Sims Online create their own alternate
numbers of players can compete in these games set in a worlds.
 CHAPTER 4 Online Television Strategies 143

Middle-school children are attracted to such content-on-demand world, fewer people spend the
semi-educational sites as Gaiaonline.com on which same time enjoying the same program that other peo-
they use anime-type avatars (cartoons, manga) to ple are watching. Yet, many viewers continue to
interact in real time and earn rewards that “buy” expect that someone else will assemble offerings into
virtual toys. Such sites earn their revenue from the a schedule, or at least a highly simplified menu.
purchases of clothing, hair clips, posters, stickers, Although it is safe to define online program-
games and so on. Such virtual-world models are ming as media content available through a computer
moving into regular classrooms for more direct aca- screen, tablet or speaker that displaces or substan-
demic learning. For the adult population, the most tially supplements the use of noncomputer media
popular virtual world site is SecondLife.com, a content, it is only possible to sketch out some seg-
three-dimensional UGC where participants buy and ments, not boundaries. Indeed, some handheld
trade virtual land and virtual dollars (using more devices allow the screen to be wirelessly shared
spooky avatars). Gaiaonline and SecondLife peaked with a larger screen in a group setting (such as
in popularity about 2009, but both still have large through Apple’s AirPlay). While online content
numbers of users. includes live and taped shows, described previously
as streamed or video content, it can encompass vir-
tual events, including chat rooms and group event
A Conceptual Framework simulations such as those just discussed (Gaia, Sec-
ondLife). Online programming particularly includes
When an innovation comes along that fundamentally but is not limited to web pages that promote pro-
changes the way people view the world, the term dis- gramming delivered over conventional channels,
continuous change is used. At first glance, the use of but does not include, for the purposes of this book,
online technology to distribute radio and television the archived sound bites and video clips found on
programming appears merely an extension of broad- journalism sites, which we set aside.
casting—another way to receive the content—as with Conceptually, online programming compares with
cable and satellite. The key difference, however, has other programming as shown in Table 4.8. While the
been the degree of interactivity between the user and list of differences is not exhaustive, it is nevertheless
the programmer, a factor which created a sea change helpful for framing the relative position of online distri-
from the past. The seemingly infinite number of bution. Although these distinctions may seem periph-
choices is another important difference: By 2012, eral to how programming is strategically scheduled,
there were more than 800 million internet hosts these conceptual differences are crucial for program-
(which are comparable to channels).4 Another mers’ understanding of why new media are fundamen-
change is that the formerly dominant media are tally unlike more traditional media.
now forced to compete with such unconventional The central uniqueness of the online world is its
forms of electronic entertainment as digital photo interactivity. Applications that are interactive
albums, visual encyclopedias, vlogs, virtual worlds account for an ever-growing slice of spending on
and amateur podcasts. the media. In the near term, we expect that cell
Other chapters in this book have been structured phones, tablets, portable media players or some
around strategies for selecting, scheduling and pro- new multichannel television platform will better
moting programs plus evaluating audience response. realize the full potential of new media systems.
The “a la carte” nature of program offerings on the
internet, however, has transformed many of the pro-
grammer’s tasks. Instead of schedules of limited Geography
choices, the online audience has an abundant menu of Because they are distributed by middlemen—the
near-limitless choices. Every listener and every viewer broadcast stations and cable systems—ordinary
can construct his or her own media landscape. In this over-the-air radio and television signals are limited
144 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

4.8 Strengths and Weaknesses of Media Delivery Systems

System Reach Limited by Revenue Streams Bandwidth Interactivity

Broadcast Geography 1. Advertising High One-way

Cable/Satellite Channel capacity 2. Ads, plus subscriptions High Mostly one-way
Online Bandwidth 3. Ads, subs, plus merchandise Medium Two-way

by geography. Back in the mid-twentieth century, shown in Table 4.8 have offsetting benefits and
networks were developed to link together stations drawbacks. The key distinction between broadcast-
and cable systems to create national services. In the ing and multichannel distribution has been the num-
1980s and 1990s, multichannel media (cable and ber of revenue streams: Over-the-air radio and TV
satellite) became collections of networks, limited by stations rely almost entirely on advertising, whereas
shelf space to about 600 digitally compressed chan- cable/satellite services have dual income from adver-
nels (see Chapter 9). tising and subscriptions. Although the broadcast
Online, in contrast, is free of inherent geogra- industry has only a single revenue stream to date
phy and fixed channel capacity, but somewhat lim- (NBC has taken the first baby steps toward a second
ited by the size of the pipe (bandwidth) through stream from cable operators), the “free” element of
which programming must flow. Bundled fiber broadcasting allows nearly complete audience pene-
cables, however, are now replacing old-style coaxial tration: 98 percent of U.S. homes receive broadcast
cable and telephone lines, thereby increasing band- radio and TV stations, meaning nearly all 300 mil-
width. And internet cable modems and DSL have lion Americans can see and hear them.
pushed delivery speeds to 5 megabits per second Thus, broadcast advertising is more efficient for
(mbps), with speeds up to 8 mbps for additional reaching enormous numbers of people than cable or
monthly fees. The theoretical limit of DSL remains internet advertising, which means that broadcasters
10 mbps, but cable is easily three times as much. can charge more for the time in which commercials
Moreover, for larger cities, Comcast developed 50 air. Online programming, however, has a third rev-
mbps speeds and achieved 100 mbps over fiber con- enue stream from merchandising because its technol-
nections, leaving DSL far behind. (Clearly, if you are ogy allows point-and-click purchasing of items
a gamer 100 mbps is to die for!) When internet related to media content. Once, such products and
access comes through such connections, very high- services could be sold only in the commercial breaks
quality video and audio are possible. Nonetheless, within TV shows. Now, companies like Zynga profit
to match HD television quality, distributors must immensely by selling virtual goods (for which there
provide many megabits per second over shared is no manufacturing cost) to people playing online
access lines. It is a rule of science that faster speeds games. And Facebook and YouTube and dozens of
produce better video and audio quality. others look to get into the virtual goods game.
The ability to attract subscribers to internet pro-
gramming has been negatively affected by the “free”
Economics nature of the internet because, at the start, most con-
The very essence of programming strategy is linked tent was reused broadcast material or a sorry sort of
to how revenue flows from consumer to program amateurism (UGC) lacking the production quality
producer, with the distributor (qua programmer) as that viewers were used to. Nowadays, those who
middleman. All three forms of media programming supply high-quality programs made-for-online must
 CHAPTER 4 Online Television Strategies 145

charge (like cable) and compete with those that seem systems, and very little FCC regulation applies to
free because they are advertiser-supported (in partic- online. Moreover, at present, the distinction between
ular, broadcasters—and the pirate services that distribution and content is tenuous. Because there are
share their content with everyone for free). Web very few distributors, content really is king. There are
users have become willing to pay because they see no bricks and mortar as with stations, cables and satel-
the value and convenience of streaming video. lites. Very few barriers exist to consumption immedi-
Convincing advertisers to evolve away from the ately after the creation step, and the size of staff
long-established system of cost-per-thousand and required to maintain a website is much smaller than
gross ratings points has been a challenge for the for broadcast stations or cable operations.
online world. On the positive side, unlike conven- Most crucial to this book about media program-
tional television’s delivery of spot messages to an mers, the job of the online programmer has uniquely
unknown audience, broadband video delivers a tar- become the job of librarian. Mostly, a programmer
geted message to actual users. By 2010, online video keeps track of things—the “things” being UGC
accounted for just 10 percent of all advertising dol- videos submissions, updates to games, subscribers
lars. Yet, the number of people who consume online and members, players, special offers—and maybe
video continues to grow (see 4.5), and that great size advertisers (unless someone else handles them). Selec-
looks appealing to many with something to sell, so tion and evaluation remain valid functions, but the
expect change there. importance of scheduling is greatly diminished
In traditional broadcasting, programs that because everything is potentially available all the
under-deliver (have fewer than the predicted and thus time. Daily promotion tends to be supplanted by
paid-for number of viewers) necessitate the giving up research to find out who to promote to. The key job
of precious airtime in future programs for “make- is helping users find what they want (before their
good” commercials. In the online system, content patience runs out). Whether listeners and viewers pre-
providers cannot so readily hedge potential audience fer to create their own media landscapes or choose
size. As a result, the traditional advertiser-supported among packaged ones remains to be seen, but the
model is slowly transforming into a “pay-per-viewer” online world is not a particularly friendly place to
model for advertisers. However, internet media ana- middlemen … except for the very Big Guys.
lysts and executives correctly predicted that demand In the online world, the focus is on content
for subscription video services would eclipse the pay- aggregators like YouTube and Netflix. The actual
per-use model for consumers because of greater con- content providers—the people who produce short
venience and predictability. By 2011, cord-cutters videos—either opt to place their “shows” on aggre-
had generally traded the option of $10 per premium gator sites or to remain off-portal on independent
channel for lower cost channels hosted by Netflix or websites. However, website programmers must rely
Hulu Plus. HBO and others have begun to shift their on the search engines—such as Google and Bing—in
economic model, to avoid sharing the fate (demise) of order to be located by most users. Programmers
established media giants like Blockbuster. must decide whether to offer their content via
By now it is abundantly clear that audiences prefer major sites or to go it alone, hoping to be found
pre-roll advertising and commercial interruptions to by the search engines. In the days of text-only search
paying for short clips of video. On the other hand, engines, this was a difficult decision, but video
the success of subscription services like Netflix and search has been integrated into all the major search
Hulu Plus suggests that viewers will pay for video sub- engines, making it difficult not to be found. On the
scriptions, especially in the case of movies and games. other hand, the numbers of entries turned up by
Despite broadcast and cable’s continuing impor- Google and others sometimes run into the hundreds
tance, there are some highly positive features to being of thousands, and being buried on such long lists
an online program supplier. No licenses and franchises brings few hits. The solution for players with deep
are required, unlike for broadcast stations and cable pockets has been to purchase placement at the start
146 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

of a related search as a form of advertising. in Chapter 1 might lead to the conclusion that select-
Google.com and others charge advertisers for favor- ing online programs is different from selecting in the
able placement during online searches. old media environment—but there are, however,
For those who have broadband, the choice enough similarities that programmers can make the
between free and subscription internet content par- transition from a time-bound broadcast world to an
allels that of broadcast and cable TV. Nowadays, a la carte online world.
the best content comes at a premium, but
advertiser-supported free content is still pretty
good. Those who decide to pay extra for content— Daypart Compatibility
that is, beyond the considerable monthly expense for The utility of dayparting as a strategic theme was
high-speed access (which has other benefits such as considerably weakened for broadcasters with the
fast email and instant messaging)—can save money advent of themed cable channels in the 1980s
by subscribing to a content provider aggregator that and 1990s (for example, CNN, Game Show Chan-
packages several services. nel, Cartoon Network). However, the true goal of
But an authentication model is popping up that dayparting is to target sizeable groups of people,
provides protection for the existing MVPDs. What it and the use of a time segment is only one means to
means is that real (authentic) subscribers to a cable the goal. Online programmers who select pro-
or satellite service will be favored online users of grams for a given website certainly can match
television programs. Authentication makes hot their content to a compatible audience. For exam-
online content available to cable and satellite sub- ple, ESPN Motion and other sports sites take
scribers but not (or not now) to non-subscribers. advantage of knowing what fans like to see and
Having a vested interest in forestalling cable discon- delivering it to them.
nects because of all the cable networks its parent In the earliest days of streaming video, the dis-
corporation owns, FOX was the first broadcast net- tribution of materials was a novelty, so targeting
work to adopt the practice on Hulu, but others will was minimal. Streaming was done because it was
soon follow suit. Only real (authentic) subscribers to possible, not because there was any market demand.
a cable or satellite service will get to see FOX series For example, downloading programs from main-
immediately on Hulu, whereas non-authentic users stream television took so long they would rarely
will have to wait eight days to see repeats (or warrant most users’ effort because it was easier just
maybe forever, if this protective approach takes to watch TV.
off—and it is expected to, although Google might But despite the fact that teens and college stu-
keep an open system). If the authentication model dents account for a big chunk of the online video
becomes widespread, the chances of people drop- audience, the average age of U.S. viewers is an
ping their MVPD subscriptions become considerably ancient 39 or so. Over and over, data compiled by
lessened. For the avid online user, getting to see epi- such online research companies as Nielsen//NetRat-
sodes many days later isn’t as appealing as seeing ings, comScore and Quantcast show that web surfers
last night’s episodes today. At a minimum, authenti- over 35 years old make up anywhere from half to
cation practices are expected to slow down cord- two-thirds of YouTube’s audience.5 Nowadays, the
cutting. typical online user is no different from the typical
television viewer. Thus, the strategies used by the
cable theme channels will find new homes online,
Strategic Considerations with the key difference being the user’s ability to
select from a list of options (online menu), as in dig-
If program strategists are middlemen, and the inter- ital cable. The programmer, as always, must con-
net has no middle, then what is the role of program struct an online menu that is compatible with the
strategy? Considering the strategic themes outlined desired visitor to the website.
 CHAPTER 4 Online Television Strategies 147

Habit Formation daily visits. Some games, such as Farkle on Facebook,

punish players with fewer bonus awards if they miss a
Freed from time constraints, the web can show any-
single day. Employers complain that employees play
thing, anytime. Programmers must count on first-time
games too much on the job, but such is the addiction
visitors being so impressed with their sites’ contents
to daily play when virtual animals must be virtually fed
they will find it rewarding and may even bookmark it
and virtual crops wither without virtual water.
(save the site’s address). Social bookmarking sites like
Diigo, Delicious and Google Bookmarks facilitate the
sharing of bookmarks with one’s friends. Present Audience Flow
studies of website repertoire already note that users When it comes to the notion of audience flow, most
have a limited number of favorite sites (so much so online sites follow the cable television model for spe-
that the idea of “web surfing” has become outdated cialized theme channels. As stressed in Chapters 1
except as a way to find specialized information). and 2, the main strategy is to invite audience flow
Entrance portals like YouTube and Hulu function in and discourage flow out. On the other hand,
like networks, connecting groups of content (in con- much as multichannel programmers promote other
trast to outlets like local broadcast stations). A main channels, online programmers can cross-promote
screen menu presents different categories of content content by including new offerings (other programs)
(called links) that are sorted by interest area: news, on the same screen page as those containing estab-
sports, weather, travel, shopping, movies and so on. lished programs (or other content). For such branded
Portals do not hold the power they once did because content providers as Cartoon Network and ESPN,
people have become accustomed to searching via cross-promoting among cable channels, online video
Google, Yahoo!, Bing and similar search engines. games and pay-per-view videos is effective. The audi-
The job of habit formation becomes making a ence can be encouraged to watch the scheduled cable
favorable first impression and having the most user- content as usual but is given the option to sample
friendly appearance and content—to the extent that other forms of branded entertainment (or informa-
that users think of certain sites as “the best weather tion) without tuning away from the brand. The inter-
radar site” or “the best online auction site,” an evalua- net and on-demand digital services strive to give loyal
tion that may also appeal to the “programmers” of users alternate ways to remain with a program brand.
search engines and get them top listing. Nonetheless, Because surfing (the online world’s answer to
paid search placement is increasingly the deciding factor. grazing) is less common nowadays than in the begin-
With paid placement, the search engine grants preferen- ning, new services need a developed programming
tial positioning to the client who pays them for the favor. strategy, beyond promotional support, to attract an
Another financial scheme is for the video aggre- audience. The spinoff approach and the tie-in
gators to share revenue with the creators of short approaches used by broadcasters can work well for
videos, especially when short roll-in advertisements online content providers. For example, Angry Birds
precede the videos. In the case of YouTube (the was first developed as a game for mobile phones but
aggregator), Google (the search engine) maintained later was spun off into television programs, both as
the upper hand by acquiring it (YouTube) for an animated show and as a live-action version.
$1.65 billion (which may sound like a lot of
money until one recalls that Yahoo! paid $5.7 bil-
lion for Mark Cuban’s broadcast.com website in the
Conservation of Program Resources
late 1990s during the dot-com heyday). Just as broadcast and cable programmers recycle
Habit formation is carefully considered by the pro- material to optimize its value, online programmers
ducers of interactive games. It is not a coincidence that put as much material onto their online menus as
one website is called www.addictinggames.com; the possible. Unlike time-bound broadcast and cable
best video games encourage long play and reward programmers, the online content providers are not
148 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

forced to rotate or rerun offerings because nearly young, such as Mafia Wars and Warstorm, but older
everything is continuously available. (Some audiences are typically sought for wide appeal games
MMOGs are exceptions because they have exact like FishVille and Café World.
start and stop times for all participants, but others Online content is not immune to being catego-
go on and on until all players lose interest.) rized as broadcasting or narrowcasting, even though
One consideration influences some providers to the term webcasting encompasses both. Like cable
limit the availability of their material: Many pro- programmers, most online programmers have a
grammers believe that perceived scarcity makes con- choice between two tactics: to narrowcast unique
tent appear more valuable to the public. For content (such as sports highlights or games) or to
example, Disney carefully limits accessibility to its broadcast mainstream content (weather, news, com-
old classic films on videocassette and DVD to merce). Eventually, it is likely that subscriptions
make them seem more special when they briefly models will proliferate on the web, and evolve into
become available in stores. If online content becomes some kind of “basic” and “premium” content.
too common or too readily available, the perceived Those who toil in the programming business should
worth of the contents (as compared with premium take heart that, regardless of the technology and dis-
materials) may be diminished. One reason why cable tribution, content remains the most important factor
viewers spend so much of their time watching HBO in influencing users. Whether broad or narrow,
is because they pay extra for it, and the extra use broadcast, cable or online, programs have to have
justifies the cost. The lessons for website program distinctive appeal that meets some consumers’
services seeking subscription fees are to keep content needs and wants.
original and promote the content as “special.”
Just as with a hit TV program, a winning video
gaming franchise can be developed into new versions. Specific Approaches
Call of Duty was an original first-person shooter
game set in WWII that recycled popular concepts Experts know little about what strategies work and
into Call of Duty 2, Call of Duty 3 and Call of do not work in this new medium, just as “experts”
Duty: World at War. The program’s distributor Acti- were ignorant during television’s inception or
vision chose the Vietnam Conflict as the setting for radio’s early days. Many honestly thought radio
Call of Duty: Black Ops (selling $650 million in the would be used for education! In the present day,
first five days on the market) and then the brought the repurposing television and radio content has become
game series into present-day battles with the Modern an automatic process for news directors and station
Warfare Series: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, managers. Many television stations now offer access
Modern Warfare 2 and Modern Warfare 3. Game to their recent news broadcasts via web page. It has
players can buy new games or add-ons to existing become a competitive necessity. Oddly enough, the
games (such as Call of Duty: United Offensive). Acti- most-watched local news videos are produced by
vision also created games for consoles and hand-held newspapers, not broadcast stations. Whether the
games under the Call of Duty brand: Finest Hour, Big strategy of repurposing applies equally well to all
Red One, Roads to Victory, World at War: Final content and all situations is an open question, but
Fronts, Modern Warfare: Mobilized, World at War: we’ll certainly find out as new television seasons
Zombies 1 and 2 and The War Collection. emerge.

Breadth of Appeal Selecting Content

A game like CityVille has a very wide appeal (over Shelly Palmer has described a media world of linear
60 million active monthly players by 2011), attract- (scheduling in real time) and nonlinear (on demand
ing all age groups. Other games by Zynga target the with viewer control) television, where the value of
 CHAPTER 4 Online Television Strategies 149

content is best realized where that content is best Scheduling Content

viewed.6 For linear viewing (plain old broadcast and
So, how do the most popular online sites for TV
cable television), he designates emergent content,
shows list them so you can pick something to watch?
meaning news, sports and live events. For nonlinear
What’s interesting about the answer to this question
viewing (internet TV), he suggests evergreen content,
is that the design, once created, is automatic. The
meaning sitcoms, movies, dramatic hours and docu-
programmer has to decide how to present the
mentaries. The third type of content he calls dispos-
options, but no one has to manually update the sug-
able content, meaning talk shows, service shows
gestions. The computer is programmed to learn the
(whose subjects have been rendered irrelevant
subscriber’s habits and make suggestions accord-
because of technology) and infomercials. Disposable
ingly. Each content aggregator has a different set
content is suited to either linear or nonlinear viewing.
of strategies, so we will take a look at some
Games have the best online growth potential.
examples:
Games, contests, gambling and other kinds of online
competition have become the “next big thing” in Netflix: This service uses six highly-customized cat-
terms of interactive program content. Because they egories, different for each subscriber. Similar to
are free online and the brand names are known to the way Amazon makes book suggestions, Net-
parents, Disney and Toon games have gained enor- flix offers its first category as “Top 10 [sugges-
mous popularity with children as spinoffs, and many tions] for [name of specific user].” The text
others are available for teens and adults. Some reads: “We create this list based on your recent
rental and watching history, ratings, queue
efforts have been made to distribute computer
adds, and taste preference settings. We try to
games for a fee over the internet, a successful strat- present a regularly updated selection of titles
egy for capturing the person who has tried the free chosen specifically for you—older titles that you
version and become hooked. The most popular may have missed and new releases.”
strategy to date, however, is selling virtual goods
The second Netflix category is “TV Shows” and is
to game players, which has made Zynga a $10 bil- based on popular interest. The third category is
lion company. Can I sell you some virtual corn seed by genre, called “Custom category” [based on
or a virtual parking place or maybe a virtual lottery recent selections], then additional genres (e.g.,
ticket? “Children & Family Movies”). The fourth cat-
Running mini-lottery programs online has con- egory is “New Movies to watch instantly” and
siderable (but unrealized) potential for the major followed by the fifth category, “Rate what
media companies because the public is familiar you’ve seen to discover suggestions for you”
with reports of lottery numbers and talk about win- (which is not really a category, but it appears as
ners as elements of television content, and the vari- a fifth choice). The final category is “Local
ous kinds of media could be tied together. However, Favorites for [your city]” which targets sub-
scribers by their location. Above these catego-
the FCC would almost certainly frown on close ties
ries on the Netflix screen is a little menu bar
between any real gambling and media businesses. with the following tabs: Genres (20 choices),
The commission has regulations in place that specify New Arrivals, Starz Play, Instantly to your TV,
that any contesting that is lottery-like can only be and Suggestions For You.
incidental to the main programming service.
Hulu: The free version of Hulu arranges its options
Whether this subsidiary requirement applies to the in three categories—“Recent Episodes,” “Pop-
internet is unknown. It is clear that the unregulated ular Clips” and “Featured Content”—arranged
online world could run lotteries more readily than in columns. Logging off or on does not affect
any other medium could. In the United States, online the options displayed. Near the bottom of
poker sites were shut down in early 2011, while the the screen, Hulu shows three additional
same poker sites operate freely in many other coun- categories—“Popular Shows,” “Popular
tries, making future uncertain. Movies” and “More to Explore.” Hulu Plus
150 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

(the monthly subscription version of Hulu) uses activities—both of which are effort-full, not
a different layout of category options, but with effortless entertainment. As converged media
the same absence of custom suggestions: have arrived, web programming must consider
“Browse TV,” “Most Popular Alphabetical”— users’ personal goals, and target those users
with numerous screens of choices, with check- who want either relatively passive or active
box filters for “Currently on air,” “Captions,” content.
“HD” and choice of TV only, Movies only or Tiering is one scheduling strategy that successfully
both—“Recently Added” and “Coming Soon.” made the transition from the analog to digital
Does all this suggest to you that the assumption TV and then to the online world. It is likely that
that people freely move around and choose consumers will purchase more higher-tiered
whatever they like on the internet is kind of a programming more often than not, just as cable
fiction? There seems to be a lot of guidance here and satellite subscribers purchase premium
from the online services, just as there is in con- multichannel programming (see Chapter 9).
ventional broadcast and cable television. Indeed, much of premium programming from
Other Scheduling Strategies: Cross-referencing is the HBO, Showtime and Encore has moved to
primary strategy for displaying content as a random-access schedules in homes with digital
substitute for “scheduling” it. YouTube, for set-top boxes and DVRs, and such program
example, cross-references its clips so that the services will move smoothly online as new home
viewer sees suggestions related to the video just technologies spread. HBO2Go is a web app that
viewed. If the viewer watches a video featuring delivers HBO content directly to portable
a particular politician, then all other videos media.
featuring the same official will appear as
choices. Sometimes general themes (humor or
news) will trigger a menu of choices. Content Promoting Content
providers have control over these suggestions
and can choose to suggest videos for its paying The practice of online program promotion is still
video clients, which is somewhat akin to a paid very young, but it is already clear that content pro-
search placement. viders need to promote their products and services
As discussed earlier, dayparting is a minor consid- using a mix of mass marketing and an abundance of
eration for online channels because the choices online spot messages (the equivalent of “on- air” in
for users are so plentiful, more like cable and broadcasting and cable) and on-screen invitations
satellite services. Radio and television stations (comparable to print ads). The traditional media’s
normally have one channel, so it makes sense to interest in all things internet also provides many
target the one demographic group most likely to opportunities for publicity (unpaid promotion).
be watching at a particular time of the day or One avenue for the promotion of videos is the
day of the week—by age, gender or lifestyle. viral nature of the internet. Most online video sites
Online programs exist in nearly limitless cyber- encourage viewers to “share this video with a
space—where shelf space is endless and digital
friend” or to “leave a comment” (which creates
media can be ordered without regard to time or
more involvement and increases the chance that an
space. Similarly, flow is not very controllable
for online programmers; users are as likely to ordinary video will rise to the status of viral video).
travel horizontally as vertically, or even jump to Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter are
distant sites, although sites try to keep them- good tools for the web programmer.
selves appealing and guide flow to other spots Wikis are sometimes associated with hit televi-
within the site. sions shows (FOX’s American Idol, CBS’s Survivor).
At the same time, storytelling seems to be an inher- A wiki is a website that allows internet visitors them-
ently linear process, unfolding over time. Efforts selves to easily add, remove or otherwise edit and
to create innovative multiple paths for stories change available content, typically without the
tend to evolve either into games or educational need for registration. In the case of FOX’s Glee,
 CHAPTER 4 Online Television Strategies 151

fans can contribute their own explanations and discussed in Chapter 9. For example, motion pictures
interpretations of the storylines; meanwhile, the epi- will someday be released to video on demand imme-
sode creators get feedback and generate excitement diately following their theatrical runs, assuming that
for future shows. Such collaborative processes allow video rentals become less effective in distributing
mainstream content providers to be more closely movies and that studios are willing to take risks.
connected to the eventual audience. A dedicated Mass marketing ads that once said, “Now on VHS
website further serves to promote the program, and DVD,” now say, “Now available on demand.”
whether the show appears online or on the air. Other pay events carried online will require the same
Moreover, interactive media frequently generate kind of promotion currently used by cable operators
email lists and sophisticated demographic databases and DBS satellite companies. Viewers won’t care
of potential audiences for specific services. Nearly all which way a movie comes to them.
websites that offer such content require the user to
sign up for the service, even when it is free. That
user’s email address then becomes available (most Online Measurement
sites ask permission) for updates. Instead of reaching
merely potential users (as radio does with outdoor As outlined in Chapter 5, Nielsen//NetRatings and
advertising), online services reach actual users, past Media Metrix measure the size of online audiences
and present, with their messages. Present users can using two different methods: online panels and
also be encouraged to provide names of others who server-side audits. Both methods report mostly
might be interested in the site, sometimes with a cumes (total unduplicated audience). Measuring
reward for the referral. In this way, online content total reach is a good tactic when a “channel” has
providers can send messages directly to their sub- not yet attracted a substantial audience. As conver-
scriber base, without postage costs (although it gence of the media takes place over the next dozen
may be spam to many people). years, conventional percentages of the estimated total
The standard online medium of banner ads audience (ratings) and percentages of those actually
reaches small targeted groups of online users, but using any service at a time (shares) will prove useful
getting promotional messages out to a wider audi- tools for measuring the kinds of online programming
ence will draw new users. After all, many people that garner a large core of regular users.
can be persuaded to try out something new at least Like the national/local ratings for broadcast,
once, especially if it is free. Such offers usually have cable and radio, internet audience measurement
a time limit, after which fees kick in. Because com- has proven to be dreadfully difficult and complex
puters track when a given household has used up all process. Companies constantly refine the process
free plays (of a program or a game), the service can and constantly test to find new and more accurate
flood the household with “time to subscribe” mes- ways to measure web audiences; the task is daunt-
sages on multiple channels. In consequence, online ing. Nielsen’s Home Technology Report describes
promotion planners should budget money for paid some major complications that make accurate mea-
advertising in other media. Although some adults surement annoyingly difficult. For example, because
still avoid online content, the traditional media of of the multiple interactions that can be happening on
print, radio and television supply enormous poten- a single PC, information collected at the website
tial audiences for online entertainment and informa- level tells little about how content is actually being
tion. Despite the greater efficiency of online consumed. In some cases, PC users may access a
advertising, the reach of older media is important website and then perform other totally unrelated
for building a base of users. It needs to be combined operations while still keeping the original website
with a targeted online approach. online. Such uses may be widespread and varied
Interactive media of several types can follow the but would be considerably different from the kind
promotional guidelines for the cable networks of use taking place when a visitor goes to a site,
152 PART TWO Frameworks for Media Programming

looks at it and, then closes it. Thus, measurements of when Kodak saw the impending doom of its film busi-
“time-spent-viewing” on many web pages may be ness in the 1990s, it dumped film rolls and got into the
misleading. digital photography business.
Who are the users of website content? There In response to the question—Can streaming
were more than 150 million unique video streamers video sites with entertainment actually make
in the United States in 2011. Moreover, viewing is money?—the answer is yes. Revenue is beginning
quite splintered; only one service (NBC.com) had as to flow in many streams: advertising, sponsorships,
many as 5 million unique visitors. Although less transactions and commerce. The pay-per-view
than 15 percent of adults in the United States model works well, as long as others are no longer
watch video online at once a week, men aged 18 to giving away content. As for advertising, it may work
34—that elusive group that advertisers so desire— best when it is personalized—something called one-
account for nearly half of daily viewers of online to-one marketing, where share of customer is more
video. important than share of market. Privacy is also an
According to The Media Audit, the percentage issue, and the number of potential consumers for
of adults who spend at least an hour a day on the any given distribution platform must be large
internet is significantly greater than the percentage enough to justify the extra marketing effort beyond
of adults who spend an hour a day with the print the usual mass media networks. Bandwidth limita-
edition of a daily newspaper (perhaps because most tions of the past are being eliminated. Faster connec-
newpapers have gotten shorter!). Research has tions and better video compression have made the
shown that about a quarter of adults spend seven online platform a practical way to distribute video
or more hours per week on the internet—as much content. The Blu-Ray DVD standard delivers HDTV
as withTV—and heavy use (however defined) has movies on a single disc, but high-definition images
been growing faster among internet users than are finding their way to the internet at a slower rate.
among users of other media. The percentage of afflu- On the other hand, a handheld tablet needs less res-
ent users is also higher for the internet than for other olution than a giant screen several feet away.
media. For evidence of the arrival of online media, Faced with the announcement of big changes in
one need only look at the success of Netflix, which store for old media in a new media world, some
barely registered in people’s minds in 2009 and was people wonder aloud whether people really want
a dominant force just two years later. to interact with their TV sets. One should consider
that the same question was asked about the personal
computer, which was originally designed for doing
What’s Coming Fast such office work as spreadsheets, word processing
and databases. The answer proved to be yes. Will
The most likely strategy for the major film studios, big
people be just as enamored with interactivity from
broadcasters and the other impacted “old” media, is
their TV as from their computer? The answer, again,
adaption to the new environment, probably by buying
seems to be yes.
in. An adaptive strategy has to be viewed from the
Do people want to watch video over the web on
standpoint of the established media and their “old”
their computers? Yes, if the added control and con-
business models. The old way of packaging shows in
venience are there. People want conveniences that
arranged schedules is most unlikely to vanish
make their lives easier. Way back in 2000, Gary Lie-
completely. Many businesses adapt by changing their
berman, analyst for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter,
business model or product, after spreading into related
made the following pithy predictions about the
areas and testing the waters (or in this case, testing the
future of online that have proven accurate.7
revenues). When the telephone industry saturated its
growth potential by the 1980s, it looked to other 1. Once the tools and applications are in place, the
information entities, like cell and cable. In contrast, revenue potential is huge.
 CHAPTER 4 Online Television Strategies 153

2. Watching [home shopping channel] QVC, if control Americans will use will have a tough job.
you have a “buy” button on your remote, will Will a trackball replace the mouse? Will voice-
be hard to resist. recognition do away with the lap keyboard? Will
3. Set-top boxes will not succeed unless they cost my iPhone or iPad replace the remote entirely? Can
$300 or less. the public afford to pay individually for each show?
Will product placement within sitcoms and dramas
4. Obsolescence will become the same problem for
be enough to pay the stars’ salaries? If the economics
set-top boxes that it is now for computers.
are wrong, the old mass audience ways will last
5. Thin applications will be more successful than much longer. If the new media demassify the audi-
fat ones. ence, however, there will be no turning back. You
6. DVRs are like power windows on your car: will live in interesting times.
Once you have them, you can never go back.
7. The first step will be video-on-demand. Notes
8. The “killer application” will be a surprise, likely
dreamed up in a dorm room. 1. Tom, Lowry, “PwC Predicts Pay TV Boost” Variety,
June 14, 2011. www.variety.com/article/VR1118038523.
9. Interactive TV will land in the middle of the PC
2. Mermigas, Diane, “Send in the Cloud: Amazon
and TV experience: You won’t lean back as Trumps Netflix, Others with Savvy Interactivity,”
much as you once did, but you won’t lean for- 25 February 2011, http://www.mediapost.com/
ward as much as you do with your computer. publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=145717.
10. Brand names will continue to be important. 3. Brian, Montopoli, “ACBS to YouTube: Who Loves
You Baby?,” July 17 2006. www.cbsnews.com/blogs/
11. Compatibility is a must. 2006/07/17/publiceye/entry1809404.shtml.
When nearly all of America is finally online, and 4. Internet Systems Consortium, “ISC Domain Survey:
Number of Internet Hosts,” Redwood City, CA (n.d.).
most have high-speed service, then the ubiquity of www.isc.org/index.pl?/ops/ds/host-count-history.php.
the broadcast world will no longer be so wonderful.
5. Louis, Hau, “Old People Like Web Video!,” Forbes,
TV Everywhere will have arrived, if you pay to get November 14 2006. www.forbes.com/2006/ 11/14/
it. Unless you watch or read a lot of science fiction, it youtube-video-demographics-tech-media-cx_lh_1113web
might be hard to imagine that consumers might video.html.
download their favorite shows while channel- 6. Shelly, Palmer. Television Disrupted. Boston: Focal
surfing through thousands of channels or letting a Press, 2006, pp. 77–79.
DVR robot download programs for them while 7. Ken, Kerschbaumer, “For Lieberman, It’s All About
they are away, but such changes seem likely in the Perspective,” Broadcasting & Cable, July 10 2000,
pp. 52–56.
coming years. Whoever designs the kind of remote
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PART

3
Understanding
Key Processes
Part Three Outline
Chapter 5
Program and Audience Research and Ratings 157
Chapter 6
Syndication for Stations, Cable and Online 206

155
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 5
CHAPTER

Program and Audience

Research and Ratings
Douglas A. Ferguson, Timothy P. Meyer, and Susan Tyler Eastman

Chapter Outline
Decision-Making Television Market Reports
for Programmers and Other Programming Aids
The Advent of People Meters Daypart Audiences
The Threat from DVRs Time Period Averages
Program Audiences
Program Testing Syndicated Program Reports
Concept, Pilot, and Episode Testing Computerized Services
Promotion Testing
Radio Reports
Qualitative Audience Research Metro Audience Trends
Focus Groups Demographic Breakouts
Music Research Time-Spent-Listening
Television Quotient Data (TvQs) Turnover

Ratings Services Cable Ratings

Television Services Premium Services
Radio Services Cable Penetration Measures
Online Radio
Online Video Online Research Services
Video Games Web Tracking Services
Social Media Online Ratings Terminology
Specialized Audiences Matching

Ratings Terminology and Ratings Limitations

Measurement Computations Future Challenges
Survey Areas
Ratings/Shares/HUTs Notes
PUTs/PURs
AQH/Cume
Reach and Frequency Analysis

157
158 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

H ow could those idiots cancel that show? It

was my favorite. Why do they always get
rid of the good stuff and keep all the junk?” Sound
familiar? It should. Most people have, at one time or
(to date, internet companies have used only the third
type):
1. Qualitative and quantitative measures of the
programs themselves
another, heard the news that a favorite television show
has been canceled. The reason? Usually the one given is 2. Qualitative and quantitative measures of audi-
“low ratings,” a way of saying that not enough people ence preferences and reactions
watched the program. Why are the ratings so impor- 3. Quantitative measures of audience size
tant? Why do so many shows fail? Can’t a network Qualitative research tries to explain why people
executive tell whether a show will succeed in the rat- make specific program choices and what they think
ings? In this chapter we look at ratings and other forms about those programs. Quantitative research, in the
of audience research and explain what they are, how form of ratings and surveys, reports what programs
they are used and misused, and why.1 We will examine (and commercials, presumably) people are listening
the industry’s current program research practices to or watching.2
and qualitative audience measurement techniques and Programmers use qualitative information on
then, because of their special position in industry programs to select and improve programs and to
economics, explain and interpret audience ratings. understand audiences’ reactions to program content;
qualitative audience data help explain people’s reac-
Decision-Making tions to programs. Quantitative audience data gen-
erally provide measures of the size and demographic
for Programmers composition of sets of viewers, listeners or subscri-
bers. Of all findings, however, ratings are the major
Media programmers (and all others in the
form of program evaluation, and they have the most
advertising-supported media) are interested in one
influence on the other concerns of this book—pro-
goal: reaching the largest possible salable audience.
gram selection and scheduling—in the United States
Programmers define audiences differently depending
and, indeed, on the television industry worldwide
on particular circumstances, but regardless of defini-
(see 5.1).
tion, determining audience size is paramount. The
Newer on-demand delivery systems have taken
separations between program creation and presenta-
most of the guesswork out of estimating audience
tion and reception by the audience mean that pro-
size, although viewer reactions still require measure-
grammers must always guess who will be there and
ment. Cable systems can collect viewer information
how many there will be; then estimate how predict-
using the converter boxes that deliver the channels.
able and accurate those guesses are.
Mobile devices can track what and how much is
Because networks, stations and other content
viewed by whom, assuming you are not watching a
providers sell commercial time at dollar rates based
program on a borrowed iPad. Broadcasters are
on predicted audiences, it is no surprise that pro-
largely in need of audience estimates based on sur-
gram and audience research is critical for the finan-
vey research with the aid of metered devices.
cial health of the broadcast television, radio, cable,
mobile and online industries. Program and audience
research, usually involving ratings, guides the pro- The Advent of People Meters
cess of selecting and scheduling programs to attract In the late 1980s, a sweeping change occurred in the
the desired audience and provide feedback on pro- national television ratings—the shift by ratings com-
gramming decisions. panies from measuring people’s viewing using dia-
The broadcast and cable industries use many ries and simple passive meters to measuring
research approaches to evaluate programs and audi- viewing using people meters, a much more elabo-
ences, most of which fall into one of three groupings rate, interactive measurement process. People meters
 CHAPTER 5 Program and Audience Research and Ratings 159

5.1 Ratings Research Is Everywhere

D r. Wally Langschmidt was the founder of ratings

research in South Africa. He was the colleague of
such American and European luminaries of early media
and broadcast program planners to evaluate the use of
all media.
One big difference from the American system is that
research as Arthur C. Nielsen, Alfred Politz and George funding of market research in South Africa comes from a
Gallop. Dr. Langschmidt helped create the South African 1 percent levy on each advertisement carried on radio, TV,
Advertising Research Foundation (SAARF). It promotes print, outdoor advertising, and cinema that is paid by the
and monitors the use in South Africa of up-to-date stan- marketers. SAARF is run by a series of industry committees,
dards in such audience measurement tools as people and although the actual research is presently commissioned
meters, diaries, and personal interviews. Dr. Langsch- to Nielsen Media Research, SAARF’s importance to the reli-
midt’s most outstanding contribution, however, was to ability of South Africa’s media research is widely recog-
pioneer the concept of a single data source for all nized, and its contract has been renewed every five years.
media—called the All Media and Products Survey Daan van Vuuren, Ph.D.
(AMPS)—used today by both media and advertisers in Former Director of Audience Research
South Africa. The AMPS survey gives the whole country a SABC, South Africa
common trading currency that is used by both advertisers Reprinted by kind permission of Linda van Vuuren.

consist of a computer and a handheld electronic began measuring viewing on web-enabled television
device with which individuals signal when they are receivers.
viewing. The “black box” computer is located near
the television set, registering (from the handheld
Set-Top Box Measurement
device) each viewer’s presence and all channel selec- A set-top box (STB) measures television viewing by
tions. When first installed, background demographic connecting a counter to the (hated) digital cable box
information (age and sex) on every viewer in the already installed in most homes. This method is
household gets stored in the device’s memory to be expected to become more popular, if not liked, espe-
matched with the viewing information. As audiences cially with small markets where diary-based ratings
develop more mobile habits, viewer information will from Nielsen show wide differences from Rentrak’s
be more user-specific with data stored such portable STB ratings. Even local people meters and passive
viewing devices as iPhones and iPads. meters have been shown to produce measurements
that diverge from STB ratings, thus supporting a
A/P Meters future shift to STB (but the good news for consu-
In 2005 Nielsen introduced further refinements to its mers is that set-top boxes will soon be buried in
measurement devices, counting program viewing up TV sets as they are in DVRs).
to seven days after the original time of showing, to TiVo uses its own DVR box to offer STB mea-
accommodate time-shifting with video recorders. surement and sells the information on replaying
These active/passive (A/P) people meters measure commercials to advertisers. Programmers can glean
audiences with greater accuracy and less reliance useful information about how people pause and
on viewer participation by reading codes embedded rewatch television shows and advertisers can assess
into the programming—rather than by simply the popularity of commercial messages by how often
detecting the channel to which a set is tuned, as is they are skipped (or played a second or third time).
done by the old metering system. At first, these TiVo users probably don’t, however, constitute a
meters measured only national audiences (a particu- representative sample, but the service measures
lar sample), but they soon moved into the larger amount of time watching broadcast, watching
markets for local measurement. In 2011 Nielsen cable, either in recorded mode or live and then on
160 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

broadband, streaming versus downloads, podcasts distributors and that between advertisers and program
and user generated content, so the service generates distributors. Over 40 percent of homes had DVRs in
some useful data for the industry (even if it makes 2012, but penetration was expected to increase to
consumers wary). nearly all digital households by 2015. All satellite ser-
Actually the term set-top box is becoming a mis- vice subscribers get a DVR, and cable subscribers have
nomer, as fewer people have television receivers that the option of having either simple or high-end DVRs
even resemble a box. Such a device connected to flat- with high-definition service, and all of their benefits.
screen receiver is sometimes called a digital converter Traditionally, the A/P meters counted only the
box, although the terms set-top box and STB are still number of minutes spent viewing a program within
widely used. a few seconds of transmission (now eight seconds to
allow for DVR lag), the definition of “live” viewing.
The valuable overnight ratings, for example, include
The Threat from DVRs only “live” viewing. But Nielsen produces other
An ongoing consideration in the television and adver- important data sets, such as “live plus same day,”
tising industries centers on the adoption of DVRs, such which measures viewing within 24 hours (to include
as TiVo and various digital converters provided by DVR recording and playback), and “live plus seven,”
cable and satellite operators. The DVR is a device which measures programs recorded and watched
that functions like a personal computer in that pro- within a week. In 2007 Nielsen introduced C3 ratings
grams are digitally stored on the machine’s hard which measures average commercial minute ratings
drive. Like computer files, programs can be kept in with three days of DVR playback. The system is a
storage or deleted once storage capacity is reached, compromise between networks (who want credit for
and on some DVRs, programs can be burned to DVR playback) and advertisers (who only want to
disks and saved as DVDs. Although home video pay for viewers who are watching their commercials).
recording of various kinds has been available for Thus, producers, syndicators and advertisers negoti-
many decades, widespread use of DVRs affects two ate with broadcast and cable networks about which
relationships: that between producers and program set of numbers to accept as the standard.

5.2 Tracking Bloggers

N ot all ratings services track television or radio and not

all come from Nielsen or Arbitron. Technorati, a blog
tracking service, tracks about 55 million blogs worldwide,
BuzzMetrics track blogs about specific client products and
services in the U.S. NM Incite (a Nielsen McKinsey com-
pany) collects social media information that builds on
in several languages (English, Korean, French, German, BuzzMetrics. NM Incite helps clients take advantage of the
Italian, Chinese and others), to measure who is talking power of social media.
about which companies and what they are saying. Unlike Nowadays anyone can track topics because the Twitter
ratings, this kind of surveying tracks both the buzz that aids stream of microblog messages (tweets) is indexed “live” by
new products and the negative write-ups that often doom search engines like Google. A programmer can follow
new products. Such a service benefits marketers of pro- comments made during or after a program by searching the
ducts by monitoring online chatter that can supplement or show title or a hashtag (e.g., #dwts for Dancing with the
contradict traditional advertising. In the same way, Ameri- Stars). In addition, Twitter publishes the most-recent “top
can media marketers play close attention to bloggers who trending” topics on its home page. Even the walls of Face-
discuss television programs, and many large companies book are revealed through the youropenbook.org website.
have their own specialists (like commentators) who create Some observers believe the program ratings for a primetime
daily blogs on a variety of topics, some of which are their show can be estimated by the amount of background chatter
own products and services. Brandimetrics and Nielsen generated on social media sites (see also Chapter 4).
 CHAPTER 5 Program and Audience Research and Ratings 161

Another concern is that DVRs may upset the usually tested to gauge their effectiveness and ability
delicate balance that permits the television industry to communicate a program’s most attractive features.
to pay for producing and distributing programs. All
DVRs have the ability to skip over commercials
while playing back a recording. If more and more Concept, Pilot, and Episode Testing
viewers watch more and more television but skip Concept testing involves asking audiences whether
the commercials, the financial infrastructure of the they like the ideas for proposed programs. Producers
television industry becomes seriously threatened. generally conduct this type of test before a program
Advertisers rely on television networks and stations has been offered to a broadcast or cable network.
to deliver audiences for the programs in which their Pilot testing occurs when a network is considering
commercials appear, and advertising revenue pays the purchase of a new series, and audiences are
most of the bill. If the viewing audience for commer- asked to react to the pilot episode. This process is
cials shrinks because of DVR use, then ad revenues described in detail in Chapter 4 (network prime-
will shrink correspondingly. At some point, revenues time programming). Episode testing occurs when a
might be insufficient to pay for program production series is under way. Plot lines, the relative visibility
and delivery. This would require a shift to an alter- of minor and major characters, the appeal of the
native way to pay for television programs—perhaps settings and so on can be tested to gauge audience
a pay-per-program system—that would make televi- preferences.
sion a much less affordable commodity. ASI Entertainment, based in Los Angeles, is one
Even if DVRs eventually change the economics of of the best-known companies conducting program
television, audience measurement will still be needed. tests (and tests of commercials). Traditionally, ASI
Recent research from Nielsen on TV commercial researchers invite people into a testing theater to
viewing by DVR users has softened many advertisers’ watch a television program, a film or a commercial,
concerns about skipping commercials, at least as long asking them to rate it by pushing “positive” and
as fewer than half of all homes have DVRs. “negative” buttons that are attached to their seats.
One response to the threat of DVRs has been to Generally the participants are paid, often in prod-
expand product placement in programs. Now ucts rather than cash, for taking part in the test.
research firms measure the value of product place- Computers monitor individual responses, producing
ments (in daytime and reality shows) and sponsor- a graph of the viewer’s “votes” over time. These
ships and look at the opinions of bloggers as a way data are correlated with demographic and other
to gauge improvements in products and marketing information (psychographics) obtained via question-
(see 5.2). As product placement invades television naires from each participant (see 5.3).
programming, a trend that began many years ago Theater-style testing also takes place at the
in motion pictures, the line between program mea- Television City research center at the MGM Grand
surement and advertising measurement begins to in Las Vegas, an ideal location for assuming a
blur. This chapter, however, focuses on program nationally-diverse group of vacationers. Visitors are
and audience measurement because they are crucial recruited to watch pilots and participate in surveys
to current programming processes and strategies. and focus groups. Five minutes before the screening
begins, viewers are led into one of four studios to
watch the most recent programs from CBS, MTV,
Program Testing Nickelodeon and other Viacom networks (this
television-holdings giant manages the research
The enormous expense of producing television pro- center). A survey following the program lasts about
grams necessitates testing them before and during 15 minutes; such incentives as T-shirts, caps, pins,
the actual production of a show. In addition, promo- key chains and computer software are used to get
tional announcements that advertise programs are participants to fill it out.
162 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

5.3 ASI Theater Testing

A SI research has been criticized for its unrepresentative

audience samples, yet it remains a major contributor
to network and movie studio program testing in America.
(factors independent of the show’s content have more
influence on ratings), but very few of those that test nega-
tively at ASI later succeed.
ASI provides valuable data because its audiences are Frequently, prime-time series that have slipped in the
consistent from one time to the next. It has established ratings are tested with live audiences to determine which
norms from all its previous testing of programs, films and aspects of the program, if any, can be manipulated to
commercials against which new findings are weighed. improve the popularity of the series. The testing instruments
Given the many programs evaluated during past decades range from simple levers and buttons, such as those used in
and the fact that few programs are really “new” in any ASI theaters, to more controversial methods, such as skin
significant way, comparing how well a new show tests to conductance meters measuring respiration and perspira-
how others like it have tested in the past produces useful tion. Programmers seek aids in understanding the weak-
information. The results are especially noteworthy when a nesses and strengths of a series that is performing below
program produces a negative or low evaluation because expectations. Sometimes the research suggests a change of
the average ASI participant evaluates programs positively. characters or setting that revitalizes a program. (If research
Of course, not all programs that test positively turn out to be results are no help, the cynical programmer usually suggests
even modestly successful when put on a network schedule adding a dog or a child.)

Concept and pilot testing stress general plot As more people watch video online, theater and
lines and main characters, seeking to discover if cable testing may eventually be replaced, although
they are understood and appeal to a variety of peo- both are still going strong.
ple. Ongoing program testing focuses on more subtle
evaluations of the voices, manners, style and interac-
tions of all characters. In fact, different actors and Promotion Testing
plot lines are sometimes used for separate screenings Competition for audiences requires that most pro-
to find out which cast and plot audiences prefer. grammers continually produce effective promotional
Postproduction research can discover a poor pro- materials. Promotional spots advertise particular
gram opening or an audience’s difficulty in under- episodes of a series, special shows, movies, news-
standing the main theme of an episode. casts or unique aspects of a station’s or service’s pro-
Unfortunately, the theater environment can’t gramming (images and identities).3 These promos
reflect at-home viewing conditions and is thus a less can be tested before they are aired to find out
than ideal research method. It does, however, supply whether they communicated what was intended.
detailed data that can be matched to screen actions, Much of the promotional testing being done
adding fodder for programming decisions. In many uses online audience samples. Strategic Media
test markets where insertion equipment is available, Research (SMR), a research and marketing company
researchers send alternate versions of pilot programs that has specialized in radio, began testing TV pro-
(and commercials) to different cable homes and mos online at the turn of the century. Clients include
interview the viewers on their reactions. This necessi- MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, Country Music Tele-
tates producing alternate versions of a program, vision and Spike. Some testing firms used to conduct
however—a huge expense not lightly undertaken. tests in shopping centers, intercepting people at ran-
A popular method for program testing is using dom to invite them to view promos in return for
streaming video over the internet to reach test audi- cash or merchandise. Promo evaluation, especially
ences. Online data collection simplifies the research for radio, sometimes includes group and theater test-
process and reduces the chance for error in the data. ing that emphasizes such measures as memorability,
 CHAPTER 5 Program and Audience Research and Ratings 163

credibility and persuasibility. After demographic materials, personalities, and station or system image.
data are gathered, other questions are asked and Using focus groups is one such research method.
associated with participants’ opinions. Promo-copy Radio stations also use call-out research to test their
testing has become a standard practice in the programming, and network television and major-
industry. market stations make use of television quotient data
As multichannel and mobile television entered (TvQs). Qualitative audience research is the most
the on-demand era, promotion testing increased in common phrase used in the industry to refer to all
importance and became even more critical and of these research techniques. (See 5.4 about the begin-
more widely used. Menu-driven program selection nings of qualitative research in the radio days.)
(video-on-demand, or VOD) is more influenced by
on-air promos and guide channels than by schedule-
driven program selection, so media companies real- Focus Groups
ize that promos need to be effective. One method of gathering information from a group
of people is to conduct small group testing. A focus
group is a set of 10 or 12 people involved in a con-
Qualitative Audience Research trolled discussion. A moderator leads a conversation
on a predetermined topic, such as a music format or
In addition to program testing, which applies mostly television newscast, and structures the discussion
to television programs and movies, stations use qual- with a set of questions. Predetermined criteria
itative research to get audience reactions to program guide the recruitment of individuals for participation

5.4 Herta Herzog and Qualitative Radio Research*

H erta Herzog is perhaps best known for her pioneer-

ing “gratifications” research on 1940s radio serial
listeners: “What do we really know about daytime serial
to her, analyzing them to learn what kinds of social and
personal characteristics listeners derived simply from voice
and diction. Later, Herzog developed the “depth interview,”
listeners?” This study, as well as several of her earlier pro- which involved open-ended questions and probes. She used
jects, marked Herzog as a key developer of personal this technique in her gratifications research about radio seri-
interviews as an approach to learning about radio audi- als and quiz shows. The day after the 1938 War of the
ences. Her method was the forerunner of much of today’s Worlds broadcast, she used this method to find out why so
qualitative research into television and the internet. many listeners were frightened. These early interviews were
As a graduate student in Austria, Herzog trained with summarized in a memo to Frank Stanton and became the
Karl Bühler, an experimental psychologist who made several basis for the interview schedule for the larger well-known
contributions to the psychology of thinking. Bühler argued study, “The Invasion from Mars.”
that there were three sources of knowledge about human Just as television was peeking over the horizon, Herzog
psychology: observation of human behavior, observation of
left academia in 1943 to join the McCann-Erickson
the products of human culture and human introspection. By
advertising agency, where she applied her techniques to
asking the proper questions, then, introspection could be
motivation research. She stuck to the qualitative aspects of
obtained from ordinary people. Herzog’s dissertation
radio programs and commercials and developed ideas that
research was an early application of these ideas. She had
others later applied to other media.
six speakers, each different in sex, age, physical type and
occupation, read the same passage over the radio on sub- *Women in Communication: A Biographical Sourcebook, edited
sequent days of the same week. Then, Herzog distributed by Nancy Signorielli. Copyright 1996. Reproduced with
questionnaires in popular stores that shoppers mailed back permission of ABC-CLIO INC. via Copyright Clearance Center.
164 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

in focus groups. For example, station management number of different focus groups are conducted, the
may want people who listen to country music or sample size will not allow for valid generalizations
women aged 25 to 34. Finding people who fit the to thousands, let alone millions, of people.
predetermined criteria (screening) can be costly, Another major drawback is the selection process.
however, and specifying more qualifications results Focus group participants are not selected using a sta-
in a greater turndown rate, increasing the price for tistically valid random sampling process, by any
screening. Assembling a typical focus group gener- stretch of the imagination. To generalize from a sam-
ally costs between $4,500 and $5,000, including ple to the larger population from which the sample
the fee paid to each participant ($50 is the standard was drawn, random sampling procedures absolutely
fee, although it is sometimes as high as $150 for must be used. In a random sampling process, every
individuals difficult to recruit, such as physicians person in the population has an equal chance of being
and other professionals). selected. A random sampling process greatly increases
Focus group research is especially useful for eli- the chances of the sample’s responses representing
citing reactions to visual material and gaining insight the population from which the sample is drawn.
into subtle responses to televised characters and indi- Even then, there is always a slim chance that the
viduals. These small group discussions can be used to random sample may be nonrepresentative.
develop precise questions for later field surveys of a In addition to not being randomly selected,
large sample of people. For example, researchers focus group participants differ from the general pub-
commonly use focus groups to evaluate whether a lic by their willingness to spend the necessary time
station has enough news programming, whether and to provide the types of information of interest.
music is too soft or loud, how people react to the Researchers can never be sure if those who partici-
newscasters, whether personalities are perceived as pate differ in really important ways from those con-
interesting or friendly and so on. The particular tacted who declined participation. (Would you do it
advantage of focus groups is that videotapes, newspa- if stopped in a mall? Usually takes a couple of hours,
per ads and recordings can be evaluated in the same and the “reward” is often store coupons.)
session, providing immediate feedback while avoid- Other serious limitations that prevent generaliz-
ing confusion in recall after a lapse of time. ing to the larger population include participant
Approximately 200,000 media-related focus responses that are elicited under highly artificial con-
groups are conducted each year. The latest trend is ditions. Normal viewing or listening behavior takes
to use internet-based videoconferencing for focus place in the household setting or at work (or in vehi-
group observers to save travel costs and allow cles in the case of radio), not in the company of nine
more people to observe the groups during the ses- or ten complete strangers whom the participant has
sion. This technique is sometimes used to test new never seen before and will never see again. These
promos and programs. The biggest pitfall of high- conditions also increase the likelihood of groupthink
tech focus groups is that many nonverbal behaviors or contagion of ideas. This means that one person’s
are lost in the mediated setting. Videoconferencing response shapes the subsequent responses of other
technology, while continuing to improve, presents group members and would not likely have occurred
limited information from participating individuals. if each individual were interviewed separately.
In a face-to-face focus group, cameras can record Sometimes a domineering and authoritative individ-
each participant and the moderator during the entire ual may intimidate other participants or pressure
focus group, enabling researchers or clients to study them to go along with a given expressed view, even
group member reactions while another person is if it is not what the others really think.
speaking. There are many important reasons why The specific questions asked, how they are
the data and results obtained from focus groups worded, the order in which they are asked, and how
can’t be generalized to a larger audience. An obvious they are presented verbally to participants also influ-
limitation is the small size of the group. Even when a ence the quantity and quality of responses. Questions
 CHAPTER 5 Program and Audience Research and Ratings 165

may elicit responses that would never have occurred research indicates listeners’ musical tastes at a given
spontaneously to participants outside the focus group moment. If stations perform call-out research fre-
setting. Finally, the quality of the moderator directly quently (and some use it every day), a track record
influences the focus group outcomes. Skilled modera- for each song develops, and based on it the music pro-
tors can make all group members feel comfortable grammer can decide whether to leave the song in the
and believe that their responses are equally valued, station’s rotation or drop it. When tied to the same
especially if participants disagree with what someone songs for some time, it indicates song popularity but
else has said. does not tell the programmer how often a particular
Focus groups have enormous diagnostic value song should be played. That remains the program-
for programmers. “Why” questions are particularly mer’s decision.
well suited to focus groups, as well as any questions Another popular method of testing music is
that require explanations that go beyond basic “yes auditorium research. Programmers invite 75 to 150
or no” answers. And, just as group contagion can people to a location where they jointly listen to and
invalidate some responses, the group setting can suc- rate a variety of songs. Instead of rating just 15 or
cessfully elicit responses that an individual may not 20 hooks, as in telephone research, auditorium tests
have recalled when required to provide answers in involve 200 to 400 hooks. Like call-out research, the
traditional survey or individual interview settings; method tells which songs are liked and disliked at
such responses may be elicited especially when mem- the moment but not how often they should be
bers feel similar to other participants. Focus groups aired (see Chapter 11 on Music Programming).
can also provide an effective means of developing Music testing is expensive. Call-out research
appropriate questions to ask a larger random sample requires an investment in employees to make the
of audience members in future research that uses selections and maybe the calls—as well as invest-
scientifically valid sampling procedures, so they’re ment in computer time to analyze the results. Audi-
useful for learning what we need to learn. torium tests involve recruiting costs and “co-op”
money for participants (usually $20 to $35). Those
stations lacking facilities and personnel for music
Music Research testing can hire commercial firms specializing in
Radio programmers want to know their audiences’ such work. See www.musictec.com/method.html.
opinions of different songs and different types of
music. They need to know which songs are well
liked and which ones no longer have audience Television Quotient Data (TvQs)
approval (which songs are “burned out”). Call-out Many programmers use Marketing Evaluation, Inc.’s
research has been one popular, although controver- proprietary television quotient data (TvQs) to supple-
sial, method for discovering what listeners think ment Nielsen ratings. While Nielsen provides infor-
about music selection. mation on how many people watched a program,
Programmers conduct call-out research by select- TvQs measure the popularity/appeal (likeability)
ing 5- to 15-second “hooks” from well-established and familiarity of TV programs and performers
songs and playing them for respondents over the tele- (from TV, movies, sports and other celebrity venues).
phone. A hook is a brief segment or musical phrase TvQ data have been collected since 1963, relying on a
that captures the song’s essence, frequently its theme panel of household members that since 1980 has
or title. Using computers to place the calls, play the included over 50,000 total households. Eight differ-
music and record responses automatically, program- ent services are provided: TvQ (programs), Performer
mers are able to ask randomly selected respondents to Q, Product Q, Kids Product Q, Cartoon Q, Cable Q,
rate 15 or 20 song hooks on a predetermined scale. Sports Q and Dead Q (performers from the past—
Often a scale of 1 to 10 is used, where 1 represents don’t you love it?!). Of these, TvQ and Performer Q
“don’t like” and 10 represents “like a lot.” Call-out are the best-known measurements.
166 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

Networks and programmers use the various measurement to gauge the success of their decisions.
TvQ services to identify actors who have “star” As competition among networks and stations
potential, given the assessment of both recognition increased, ratings became the most important
and likeability that the scores provide. Some decision-making data in commercial broadcasting.
research companies use various Q scores to project Broadcast revenues, programs, stations and individ-
the eventual success (or lack thereof) of a network ual careers depend on audience ratings. In the busi-
series in syndication. Unlike ratings, these models ness of broadcasting, high ratings normally result in
factor in how people feel or felt about a program, profits (and continuing careers). Broadcasting also
not how many watched it. Like the Nielsen ratings, has public service obligations and other aspirations
Q scores are numerical, but they are labeled “quali- and commitments, but on the purely economic side,
tative” because they assess how much performers a network or station will eliminate a program that
and shows are liked. Nielsen ratings are objective receives low “numbers” if other, more viable options
measures of viewing, while Q scores are subjective are available.
measures of the appeal and familiarity of performers Cable/satellite rating cannot be compared
and programs. directly to broadcast ratings because the potential
audience viewing subscription channels is about
92 percent that of the commercial broadcast net-
Ratings Services works (61 percent are cable and 31 percent satel-
lite/other). Moreover, scheduling is different: Many
Ratings exert powerful influences on programming of cable’s programs are scheduled in rotating and
decisions by syndicators and station representatives repeating patterns rather than one-time-only pat-
(as illustrated in Chapter 6), by commercial network terns—although this is changing because broadcas-
and station television programmers (as discussed in ters now repeat their shows (you’ve noticed!), and
Chapters 2, 7 and 8) and by noncommercial televi- cable has lots more original fare (you’ve noticed all
sion programmers (as covered in Chapter 10). Radio those hours of cooking, racing, picking, digging, sell-
programmers also use ratings information to evalu- ing and on and on). Further, in addition to using
ate their market positions, choose formats and con- standard ratings numbers, cable programmers ana-
vince advertisers to buy time (see Chapters 11 and lyze ratings to determine audience reach—how
12). And ratings are used in cable/satellite/telco dis- many people over a period of time viewed a repeated
tribution and online in specialized ways (see Chap- program or channel—much as public television pro-
ters 3, 4 and 9). In fact, all programmers use ratings grammers use ratings.
in program decision making, but how to use them Articulating the power of audience ratings may
isn’t self-evident. Consequently, the rest of this chap- sound crass to those who consider broadcasting an
ter looks at the ways programmers interpret ratings art form—or passé to those who are immersed in the
data. internet—but in reality ratings continue to be the most
Using audience ratings is not restricted to pro- important measure of commercial success. The efforts
gramming applications. In fact, ratings were origi- of most people involved in commercial broadcasting
nally intended only to provide information for focus on achieving the highest possible numbers. Tar-
advertisers curious about audience size, and their geting more precisely defined audiences—such as
value to advertisers continues to drive the ratings women aged 25 to 54—is an alternate approach for
industry. Even today, unsponsored programs, television networks and stations that cannot immedi-
including presidential addresses and political pro- ately achieve a number-one position in the adults 18þ
grams, are not rated by Nielsen exactly because category.
they do not carry advertising. In 2011, however, Nielsen finally began to
Once the statistical reliability of ratings data rethink its decades-long interest in audience demo-
became accepted, programmers began using audience graphics, as broadcasters looked for a better way
 CHAPTER 5 Program and Audience Research and Ratings 167

to measure the effectiveness of advertising. Nielsen that incorporate data that include TV viewership,
Catalina, a partnership with a loyalty-marketing company sales and other business data to estimate
firm, offered a new model for measuring TV (guess) how much commercial time should be pur-
audiences based on viewer-purchaser behavior. chased and at what price not only on broadcast TV
Whether this new system will eventually replace but on other media channels. Good luck with that.
demographics-based ratings remains to be seen. In Reaching the target market and staying within
the meantime, it is necessary to understand that the allotted budget remain paramount in the minds
many advertisers want demographic data so they of advertisers. What happens to those in the target
can match their prospective customers to their com- market if they are in fact “reached” by the adverti-
mercial messages (whether those customers want to sers’ messages remains an elusive area of audience
be matched is another question). research. Regardless, no single model, no matter
Alternatives to standard TV ratings emerge how complex, can be used for just any product or
from time to time over the years, all proclaiming service category or brand within the category. Differ-
their inherent advantages over Nielsen data. The lat- ent purchase cycles demand different objectives and
est challenger is Optimedia US (owned by Publicis tactics. New products or brands demand different
Groupe SA), whose “Content Power Ratings” (iron- ways of proceeding by comparison to well-
ically abbreviated CPR) not only count TV viewers established product/service categories or brands. No
but also add in social media mentions on Facebook, matter how great the advertiser’s message is, it’s obvi-
Twitter and the like. Reporter Emily Steel provided ously wasted if it doesn’t find its way to target market
some interesting comparisons of Nielsen program consumers. The enormous difficulties of accurate
rankings and those from the CPR,4 showing that audience/consumer measurement loom over many
South Park which is carried by Comedy Central, interrelated industries. (Lots of jobs here someday.)
for example ranks #211 in the Nielsen rankings Like broadcasters, advertising-supported cable
but is ranked #4 in the CPR. Glee (FOX) was #2 networks also need ratings information to convince
in the CPR but only #55 in Nielsen; The Office advertising agencies to purchase time. Premium
had a #6 CPR rank and was #105 on Nielsen. cable services such as HBO use their national ratings
Other top programs were not nearly as far apart, to convince local cable systems that their programs
such as Grey’s Anatomy with an 11 CPR rank and are watched and important for promoting the local
a 28 from Nielsen. system. Video game producers and online and tele-
Evaluating social media’s role in stimulating phone services have their own versions of measuring
viewing of particular shows is an emerging research audiences to show that their content is viewed.
phenomenon, and it obviously has some consider- Understanding the basics of the all-powerful num-
able significance for those TV programs that appeal bers is essential in all of these businesses.
to viewers who are regular social network users. High ratings, demonstrating television’s wide-
Publicis Starcom Worldwide and Network Insights spread household penetration, also carry clout with
now measure the “positive buzz” on sites like Face- Congress. Legislators generally use television to get
book and Twitter to assess its influence on new elected and reelected, and politicians pay attention to
shows. For example, based on buzz, researchers pre- their local broadcasters and the five largest national
dicted before the 2011–2012 season that FOX networks because they reach such enormous numbers
would have the most hits, followed by NBC, and of people. Increasingly, the major cable operators and
were they right or wrong? most popular social media influence politicians
Which programs deliver the ideal reach and because of their ability to reach certain types of audi-
frequency of viewing by their target markets at the ences (especially upper socioeconomic levels).
best possible price (aka, the biggest bang for the The growth of social media comes at the older
buck) is what advertisers want to know. Universal media’s expense, but primarily for time spent look-
McCann continues to refine its statistical models ing at a screen. That time could just as easily be used
168 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

for social networking, user-generated programs stations—annually in November, February, May

(such as YouTube) or traditional network shows and July—producing the vital local television reports
delivered directly to mobile devices. Companies like (see 5.5). These market-by-market reports allow sta-
Radian6 and others have already begun to measure tions to compare themselves with the other stations
some kinds of social media (see 5.2). Measuring the in their market. A separate ratings report (electronic
use of mobile devices in relation to social media and as well as printed in a book) is published for each of
traditional media adds other layers of complexity to the 210 markets in the country for each ratings
the following discussion of ratings. period. These data are based on local people meters
in the largest markets, a mix of diaries and local
meters in the middle-sized markets, and diaries
Television Services only in the smaller markets. The 25 metered markets
The most important distinction in television ratings operate on a sample of 400 to 600 homes that only
is between national and local (also called market) partially duplicate the national people meter sample.
ratings. Nielsen Media Research is presently the Today’s ratings software can track hundreds of
sole company in the United States producing nation- channels—broadcast or cable, terrestrial or satellite,
ally syndicated network audience measurements PC or TV-delivered—and scan every channel every
(although some of its clients are not too thrilled three seconds to report the tuning status of every TV
with the monopoly it has on data collection). Except set in the sample households. The data can be down-
for Arbitron’s ARB-TV measurement of out-of- loaded by conventional telephone or cell phone,
home television viewing, Nielsen is also the only reported the following morning as the overnights,
company in the United States producing local station and later compiled into the national people-meter
ratings for television (also leading to some criticism database.5
about methods and pricing). A ratings period consists of four sequential
Other research firms collect and analyze televi- weeks of data, reported week by week and aver-
sion audience measurements of specialized types for aged for the month. In addition to the four major
only a portion of the country. Nielsen covers the nationwide television sweeps, large-market stations
entire country continuously for network ratings, purchase ratings for as many as three more ratings
using a separate sample of 12,000 households with periods (October, January and March). Midsized
people meters. and smaller television markets perhaps purchase
The largest broadcast networks and the top 50 one ratings book beyond the four sweeps. The sta-
cable networks contract with Nielsen for this ratings tions in a market contract individually with Nielsen
service. Nielsen Media Research, hereafter called for a ratings book, paying the cost of data collec-
“Nielsen” for the sake of simplicity, is a subsidiary tion, analysis, and reporting. In the very largest
of The Nielsen Company. Nielsen Business Media markets, stations pay as much as $1.5 million a
publishes SRDS, the leading advertising database, year for ratings; in very small markets, however,
and owns Scarborough Research and Billboard Pub- the price may be as low as $10,000 annually. It is
lications. Only a third of the parent Nielsen Com- important to understand that stations pay for rat-
pany’s corporate efforts are directed at measuring ings in their market, and the quality could be better
what consumers watch, with the larger portion if stations could afford to pay more (advertisers,
focused on what consumers buy. The division called agencies and reps cover little of the cost). For exam-
Nielsen Online measures the use of social media and ple, samples could be larger and more representa-
newer forms of mediated communication. tive, diaries could be more carefully double-
checked, more call-backs could be made, and data
Sweeps analysis could be more reliable, but each of these
Nielsen conducts four nationwide measurements steps would substantially increase the cost of rat-
of audiences (the sweeps) for all local television ings to the stations.
 CHAPTER 5 Program and Audience Research and Ratings 169

5.5 Nielsen Media Research

N ielsen gathers and interprets data on a wide range of

consumer products and services as well as on televi-
sion and the internet (but no radio). Nielsen’s network
networks and system operators, and an online computer
service for customized analysis of reach, frequency and
audience flow.
audience estimates are reported in the Nielsen
Product Tracking: Nielsen also offers a tracking service
National TV Ratings (often abbreviated NTI for the
called the Nielsen Scantrack. This national panel consists
division that collects the data), twice-a-year summary
of about 30,000 households who use handheld bar-code
books, and in the abbreviated weekly booklets called
scanners to record all purchases, including prices, and
The Pocketpiece Report (see Chapter 2 for a sample
whether each item was on sale. This information is then
pocketpiece page). Besides the network-by-network rat-
correlated with television viewing data derived from people
ings, pocketpieces (named for their size, designed to
meters, as well as from magazine and newspaper data.
fit in a vest pocket in a suit coat) include the collective
Each household transmits all its media data (TV and print)
ratings for national public networks, basic cable net-
weekly over phone lines to Nielsen’s center for data anal-
works and premium cable networks, giving network
programmers a handy tool for comparing the perfor- ysis. This service has enormous benefits for corporate brand
mance of the networks and their competitors. DVD managers and advertising agency media buyers (though it
viewing is now fully incorporated into these reports. may be a pain to the participants).
National viewing data are also reported in the other Computers: The measurement of television audiences now
forms described in Chapter 6, often combined with includes computer users as programs appear on the inter-
product purchase and usage data. net. Nielsen//NetRatings is a service designed to provide
high-quality information about the internet in a special
Overnights: Nielsen also collects nightly ratings called
pocketpiece and other formats.
overnights in the top metered markets, publishing this infor-
mation every morning for the benefit of network executives Spot Tracking: Nielsen has another service called Monitor-
and purchasing stations. Overnights, because of the smal- Plus, which uses computer recognition technology to iden-
ler samples used and the big-city nature of the viewers, are tify all commercials airing in the top 50 major markets. The
only indicators of what the network ratings probably will be NSI data is combined with the commercial data to provide
when the six-month NTIs are issued. But as more and more a minute-by-minute gross rating point measurement for each
major markets are added to the overnight sample, the TV spot overall; the information is also broken out by brand
match between the overnight sample and the total sample category and by how it compares to competitors’ spots.
comes much closer. About 70 percent of U.S. TV homes Monitor-Plus enables buyers and sellers to track advertising
are in the overnight sample. activity across 15 specific categories of media, including
Local Books: Nielsen’s other widely known task is the television, radio and print.
measurement of local market television viewing. These This Nielsen service rates television commercials, mea-
measurement reports are known as the Nielsen Station suring the viewing of commercial spots—not programs—
Index (NSI) and are published in Viewers in Profile for each using its minute-by-minute ratings. The commercials are
market. Called the “ratings books,” they are purchased by averaged across entire programs because per-spot data is
most television stations and advertising agencies. Nielsen too unreliable. This will be useful to advertisers because
household samples are drawn from the most recent national industry experts have long estimated that commercial rat-
census, and the ratings are not weighted (adjusted to fit ings are about 5 to 10 percent lower than program ratings.
national or local population percentages). NSI prepares That percentage can now be refined over time and even-
county-by-county reports on television viewing, various tually refined for different kinds of commercials in different
reports for commercial time buyers, several reports for cable program environments.
170 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

Diaries themselves continue to attract contro- in specific sets of circumstances and point out spe-
versy in the 154 markets where they are still used cific weaknesses (see 5.6).
as an economically feasible alternative to meters. In
2010, the Media Rating Council (MRC) withdrew
National Ratings
its accreditation to the diary service known as Niel- Network viewing estimates come from a nation-
sen NSI. Officials at Nielsen expected the problem to wide people-meter sample of 20,000 households
be resolved, but the brouhaha served as a reminder with and without cable. To be included in Nielsen
that choosing a sample is complicated. In this case, it reports, at least 3 percent of viewer meters (or
was determined by the MRC that Nielsen was using diaries in local reports) must record viewing of a
a flawed address-based system to replace an inferior cable service. This means that only the top 30 or
random-dialing phone-based system (abandoned so cable networks figure in most ratings calcula-
because 30 percent of homes use cell phones instead tions. Multiple-set households are counted only
of landline phones). once in total television households (TVHH), thus
Normally, station programmers purchase only making the sum of the audiences to several pro-
the books for their own market, but programmers grams telecast simultaneously often bigger than
dealing with groups of stations may purchase all the number of households said to be viewing at
210 local market reports for the entire country or a one time (HUT) because one household may
subset of books for markets where they have sta- tune to more than one program. Indeed, the aver-
tions or cable systems. They can use these books to age household has more sets than people. As of
cross-compare the performance of programs in dif- 2012, one ratings point represented the viewing
ferent markets, at different times of day, with differ- of 116,000,000 television households (usually
ent lead-in shows and so on. Other chapters in this abbreviated 116.0 mill.), and each household
book contain discussions about how ratings are used represented 2.6 people.6

5.6 The People-Meter Furor

M uch questioning has long characterized attitudes

toward rating services, but until 2004, most of this
debate stayed well within the media industry. At the start of
accurately measured. Attempts to quell suspicions were
marked with numerous delays, and congressional investiga-
tions and audits were threatened, despite the issue being
that year, Nielsen Media Research announced plans to largely perceptual rather than substantive.
introduce local people meters in New York City and Los To improve its image and forestall legal action, The
Angeles, replacing set-top meters and paper diaries and Nielsen Company had to lobby Congress, make big
providing previously unavailable demographic details charity donations and undertake sponsorship of community
about local viewers. events for minorities in several cities. (Insiders chuckled to
But when preliminary testing showed a huge drop-off in think of Nielsen Media Research handing out pens, T-shirts
total viewing, especially among minority audiences, Nielsen and balloons in fair booths! This company doesn’t sell
faced loud charges of racial and ethnic bias in the press. anything to the public! Its high-priced products are sold only
Much of the criticism came from a campaign spearheaded to other media companies.)
by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation and a coalition of By the end of the year, the issue seemed resolved after
black and Hispanic community leaders. In addition, produ- outgoing NAACP President and CEO Kweisi Mfune
cers of programs targeted to minority populations became announced support for Nielsen’s use of people meters in
worried that the new system would underrepresent minority local TV markets. But the issue could be resurrected at any
viewing. On the other hand, many experts claimed that time. Ratings are less than perfect to start with, and the
minorities had been oversampled for decades, which led to services have a lousy history of accurately measuring
an apparent drop in viewing when they were more minority viewing.
 CHAPTER 5 Program and Audience Research and Ratings 171

Radio Services Arbitron’s Portable People Meter (PPM) is used

in the 48 largest radio markets, with daily samples
Only one company, Arbitron, provides quantitative
ranging from 510 (Memphis) to 3,882 (New York
local and national radio ratings. The consolidation
City). A PPM is the size of a cell phone or pager, and
of radio ownership in the late 1990s effectively
it records all daily electronic listening for several
drove out the need for competing services. Nielsen
months. (Have you ever seen one?) Monthly rating
measures radio in 11 other countries, but not the
reports for the top ten U.S. markets are the goal, but
United States, where it unsuccessfully experimented
so far the technology has had problems and more
with a competing service between 2008 and 2010.
problems. Reports for the first 33 markets were
Strategic Media Research converted its old Accurat-
released by 2009 and the remaining 17 by 2010.
ings measurement (successor to Birch Ratings, if
Discouraged by the slow pace of the PPM
you’ve ever heard of that) into Accutrack, one of sev-
releases, several of the biggest radio companies jointly
eral similar services that qualitatively measure radio
funded a competing company, Media Audit, that uses
listening, but doesn’t do quantitative measurements.
smart phones as the measurement system. By 2012,
You may (or not) be surprised to learn that Arbi-
Media Audit had measured over 80 radio markets.
tron measures radio audience sizes using paper diaries,
supplemented by the internet for those who prefer Nationwide Radio
responding online—but most of its ratings still come
Radio’s All Dimension Audience Research (RADAR
from paper scribbles. Arbitron’s Radio Market Report
108), owned by Arbitron, reports on the performance
tracks both in-home and out-of-home listening (in
of the national radio services. RADAR reports cover
cars, offices and other places) for local radio stations
the size and demographics composition of 50 radio
in all of the 299 radio markets.7 The data come from
networks operated by American Urban Radio
weekly diaries mailed to a sample of households in
Networks, Citadel Media Networks, Crystal Media
each market. Each person 12 years or older gets a
Networks, Dial Global Media, Premiere Radio
separate diary to fill out for one week, usually running
Networks, United Stations Radio Networks and
from Thursday to Wednesday when it is to be mailed
Westwood One Radio Networks. RADAR reports
back to Arbitron. New random samples participate
are based on analyses of 48 weeks of continuous
each week, and each participant sending back a usable
measurement using 395,000 members of Arbitron’s
diary currently gets $3. The size of the sample depends
diary and PPM databases. Arbitron also uses Media-
on the history of response in the market and how
guide’s broadcast monitoring technology to verify
much data collection the stations are willing to pay
whether the radio commercials that were scheduled
for (larger samples cost more money).
to be aired on affiliated stations of RADAR-rated net-
works were broadcast as indicated on the network
Data collection commercial clearance reports. RADAR ratings are
Arbitron collects ratings for 48 weeks each year in the only nationwide radio network ratings, and are
the larger markets and for as few as 16 weeks in the reported for the top 10, 25 and 50 markets.
smaller markets. This system is called continuous
radio measurement, although it skips three weeks
around Christmas/New Year’s and one week in Online Radio
late spring. Arbitron also offers county-by-county Since 2004, comScore has provided broadcast-type
reports of radio listening for about 42 customized ratings for the online radio industry. It passively
survey areas and annual ratings for internet radio. and continuously captures the online radio behavior
It also provides Arbitron Information on Demand across the country of nearly 250,000 U.S. listeners.
(AID), an online computer service for radio diary ComScore reports weekly cumes, quarter-hour rat-
research. Recent radio ratings from Arbitron are ings and most demographics in the 15 standard
available at www.radioandrecords.com. broadcast dayparts for AOL Radio, Clear Channel
172 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

Online Music, ESPN Radio, Live 365 and Yahoo demographics and dayparts to inform the sale of
Music Launch-out. Measurement is important to advertising. GamePlay Metrics reports tell who is
these big radio webcasters because it legitimizes a playing what game, the type of console used (applies
program service that reaches far beyond the usual to Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, so far), the genre
geographic limits for a radio station and supplies of the game, and what other media the players con-
advertisers with the data they need to make sume. The weekly data comes from the same 10,000
informed decisions about media buys. households used to provide television ratings.
The next generation of game consoles is likely
to include special signals related to advertising in
Online Video games that Nielsen can track, and such measure-
In 2010, comScore updated its measurement of ments will be extended to wireless (phone and
online video with the introduction of Video Metrix PDA) receivers as fast as the technology can be
2.0, which added the capability of distinguishing developed. Selling advertising within games and con-
between program content and the advertising within soles is part of a national media trend to place ads
the shows. Video Metrix provides the television everywhere and closely measure media usage. Indus-
industry’s only comprehensive measurement of the try profits are needed to fund the enormous cost of
video marketplace, with the ability to track video developing subsequent generations of consoles, and
advertising, top television programs, viral videos later, wireless equipment and content.
and syndicated traffic. The comScore service also
classifies video-viewing activity by TV dayparts.
The largest primetime networks showed viewing to Social Media
their respective video sites (as shown in 5.7). Social networking sites (SNSs) like Facebook and Twit-
ter attract huge masses of viewers for their screen-based
entertainment and information (in case you hadn’t
Video Games noticed!). At last count, Facebook had over 700 million
Until advertising began appearing in video games, user members worldwide, and Twitter had 200 million
measurement was not a priority, even though video users (but these numbers swell in the night). At this
game playing was clearly replacing some traditional writing, the difficult problem of measuring their audi-
media behaviors (especially among the 18 to 34 male ences is unsettled and evolving rapidly, but many com-
demographic). But by 2005, the video game industry panies are tackling solutions. Such companies as
was raking in more billions of dollars annually than Attensity, Radian6, Statsit, Sysomos and Vocus retrieve
the movie industry, a fact that made the advertising text-based indicators of customer satisfaction (and dis-
industry take note. Looking ahead in 2004, Nielsen satisfaction), but they barely skim the surface of the
expanded its definition of viewing to include “screen- information that might be collected, and the data they
based” advertising in order to include games, cell collect is in no way the equivalent of ratings.
phones, wireless and other portable media, and began
testing ways to measure viewing by game users.
Console-based video game systems account for Specialized Audiences
15 percent of teenage males’ daily use of media dur- Programmers and advertisers constantly pressure the
ing prime time. One recently altered factor was the rating services for more information about aspects
move of “television prime time for young males” of the increasingly fragmented media audience. On
into the late-night time period, leaving 8 to 11 P.M. the television side, the larger audience shares cap-
for games. Nielsen has developed GamePlay Metrics tured by cable create demand for an even more pre-
as a way of mining people-meter data collected on cise understanding of audience viewing habits. Thus,
television and internet use, adding the passive collec- in local market reports, the ratings companies break
tion of game titles, and matching all the data to demographic information into smaller units (such as
 CHAPTER 5 Program and Audience Research and Ratings 173

5.7 Sample Online Video Ratings

Top Shows on ABC.com by Unique Video Viewers June 2010

Wipeout 1,155
The Bachlorette 1,047
True Beauty 702
Jimmy Kimmel Live 682
General Hospital 571
Lost 279
Supernanny 229
Happy Town 229
All My Children 218 Unique Visitors (000)

Grey’s Anatomy 214

Top Shows on CBS.com by Unique Video Viewers June 2010

The Young and the Restless 551

Late Show with David Letterman 524
NCIS 354
The Bold and the Beautiful 179
CSI: Miami 156
Big Brother 153
Flashpoint 140
How I Met Your Mother 137
NCIS: Los Angeles 136
Unique Visitors (000)
Two and a Half Men 129

Top Shows on NBC.com by Unique Video Viewers June 2010

America’s Got Talent 502

Saturday Night Live (SNL) 463
The Office 274
Friday Night Lights 240
Days of Our Lives 229
Last Comic Standing 120
The Biggest Loser 108
Chuck 84
The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 74
Unique Visitors (000)
Minute To Win It 63

Reprinted by permission of ComScore.

174 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

10-year jumps for radio) and more useful categories NSI Area
for different groups of advertisers. In addition to the
The NSI Area includes all counties measured in a rat-
classic adults 18 to 49, 25 to 54 and the like, both
ings survey, including counties outside the DMA
women 18 to 34 and women 25 to 49 are now
when substantial viewing of stations inside the DMA
included, for example, as well as similar subgroups
occurs in them—viewership is usually the result of
of men, children and teens.
carriage by cable systems. Rarely used by commercial
In addition to local and national ratings reports,
television programmers (because DMAs are more use-
Nielsen and Arbitron offer various customized reports
ful), NSI Area figures show a station’s total estimated
covering narrower views of the audience (for example,
reach or circulation. As indicated earlier, reach tells
males aged 18 to 34, Hispanic women aged 25 to 54
how many people have viewed or listened to a station
or college students) and specialized programming, such
in the past, and it therefore suggests how many could
as Nielsen’s analyses of syndicated program ratings,
view or listen in the future. In cable, reach tells how
which are particularly useful to stations making pro-
many households subscribe to basic cable service.
gram purchases. Chapters 6 and 8 make a special
Reach is an important measure for radio, public tele-
point of the importance of syndicated program
vision, cable and online websites. Another name for
reports, which are illustrated later in this chapter.
reach is cumulative audience, or cume.

Ratings Terminology DMA

Each county in the United States is assigned to only
and Measurement Computations one DMA. Generally, a DMA centers on a single
city, such as Charleston, Denver or New York, but in
Nielsen collects television audience estimates by
some cases two or even three cities are linked in
randomly selecting viewers from the 210 U.S. broad-
hyphenated markets, as in the Florence/Myrtle Beach
cast television markets. The number of markets varies
and Springfield/Decatur/Champaign markets. All sta-
slightly from year to year and has grown along with
tions in these multiple markets reach most viewers,
population increases. Nielsen calls the markets Desig-
making the cities one television viewing market.
nated Market Areas (DMAs). These areas are roughly
Nielsen ranks each DMA according to the estimated
equivalent to Areas of Dominant Influence (ADIs) as
number of television households within its counties.
determined by Arbitron for measuring radio markets.
As of 2012, the top five DMAs in rank order were
Many more radio markets exist, however, to account
New York (with over 7 million TV households), Los
for listening in low-population-density areas. Nielsen
Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and Dallas/Ft. Worth.
collapses these very small markets with the nearest
big city television audiences.
Metro Areas
The third geographical area, the Metro Survey Area
Survey Areas (MSA) in radio and Metro Rating Area (MRA) or
For each market, Nielsen collects ratings data from simply “Metro” in television, is the smallest of the
more than just the DMA, as shown in 5.8. The smal- three survey areas and is the one most frequently
lest measurement unit is the Metro Area, the next used for radio programming. The Metro includes
largest is the local DMA, and the largest unit (part only a small number of counties closest to the
shown) is the Nielsen Survey Index Area (NSI Area). home city of the DMA, but often consists of only a
The NSI Area includes the DMA and the Metro single, gigantic county in some parts of the United
Area but also encompasses counties outside the States, especially in the West.
DMA where viewing can be attributed to a station Because competing big-city radio signals gen-
in the DMA. These three geographical areas are erally blanket the Metro, urban radio programmers
described more fully in the following sections. use it to determine the success or failure of
 CHAPTER 5 Program and Audience Research and Ratings 175

5.8 Diagram of a Television Market Survey Area

CHEROKEE
GR YORK
E SPARTAN-
PICKENS EN
VIL BURG
OCONEE M
L
AR
E
UNION CHESTER LB
LANCASTER CHESTERFIELD OR
O
ANDERSON
LAURENS
GR FAIRFIELD KERSHAW DILLON
DARLING-
EE NEWBERRY T0N
NW
ABBEVILLE OO MARION
D LEE
Columbia FLORENCE
M SALUDA
cC
OR RICHLAND
M LEXINGTON SUMTER HORRY
IC
K EDGE-
FIELD
CALHOUN
CLARENDON WILLIAMS-
AIKEN BURG
GEORGE-
TOWN
ORANGEBURG

BARNWELL DO
BAMBERG RC BERKELEY
HE
ST
ALLEN- ER
DALE
COLLETON
HAMPTON
CHARLESTON

JASPER
BEAUFORT

programming decisions. (Coverage patterns in out- To use any of these ratings services for program-
lying areas may vary too widely to compare.) The ming decisions, programmers must understand how
Metro represents the majority of urban radio lis- the estimates are produced. Using ratings without
teners, the bulk of office and store listening and a this knowledge is like trying to play chess without
large part of in-car listening. Altogether, more than learning the rules. Pieces can be moved, but winning
280 Metro areas are measured by Arbitron for the game is unlikely. Memorize the saying, “Audi-
radio listening. Radio stations on the fringe of the ences count, but only in the way they are counted.”
Metro area are more likely to refer to Total Survey Print it on your wall and make signs all over your
Area (TSA), which is comparable to NSI area mea- home, and figure out what it means. We try to tell
sures. But television programmers rarely use Metro you in the following subsections which provide an
ratings because no demographic breakouts are overview of the basics of audience computations, but
available. telling isn’t understanding. That’s up to you.
176 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

Ratings/Shares/HUTs The combined ratings of all stations or net-

works during a particular daypart provide an esti-
A rating is an estimate of the percentage of the total
mate of the number of households using television
number of people or households in a population
(HUTs), persons using television (PUTs), or persons
tuned to a specific station or network during a spe-
using radio (PURs). HUTs, PUTs and PURs are used
cific time period (daypart) such as morning drive-
to compute the shares for each station or network.
time or prime access (7 to 8 P.M. eastern/Pacific
Dayparts are more meaningful for radio audiences,
time). A share is an estimate of the percentage of
which are less likely to time-shift their media
people or households that are actually using radio
consumption.
or television and are tuned to a specific station or
To illustrate these concepts, let’s assume there
network during a specific daypart. The sum of all
are only four network television options in the
program shares equals 100 percent, but the sum of
United States (like in olden days) and that Nielsen’s
all ratings equals the percentage of total viewers (one
metered households (12,000 in reality, but
must include nonviewers to get 100 percent). Rat-
rounded to 10,000 to keep this example easy)
ings depend on a count of all receivers; shares on a
indicate the following hypothetical data for prime
count of all users. Shares are always bigger percen-
time:
tages than ratings for the same program or station
because some people who could watch television (or Household
listen to radio) are not watching (they are sleeping or Network Viewing
playing games or actually working).
ABC 1,904
Ratings are always a percentage estimate of an
CBS 1,928
entire population, whether the population refers to
all households in the country or all people aged 25 NBC 1,976
to 54 or all adults 12þ or all women aged 18 to 49. FOX 1,222
Populations can be anything you say they are. None 2,970
A share is always a percentage of those households Total 10,000
or people in that population using the particular The HUT level is .703 or 70.3 percent (7,030/
medium at a specific time. To restate, shares always 10,000), calculated by adding the households watch-
appear larger than ratings because they are based on ing television and dividing by the total number of
a smaller sample of people. Fewer people use televi- households with television (1,904 þ 1,928 þ 1,976
sion (or radio or cable or the internet) than could use þ 1,222 divided by 10,000 equals .703). The answer
it if all were at home, awake and choosing television is changed from a decimal to a percentage by multi-
above other activities. Both estimates are percen- plying by 100. A HUT of 70.3 means an estimated
tages of an entire group, although the percent sign 70 percent of all households had a television set
is often omitted. on at the time of the measurement. The individual
Sales staffs use ratings to set advertising rates. ratings and shares for the four networks can now be
Programmers generally use shares in decisions calculated.
about programs because shares show how well a
program does against its competition. Shares elimi- Households Watching a Network
RATING ¼
nate all the people who are not watching TV and Households with Receivers
show how many of those watching TV are tuned
Households Watching a Network
to a program or station. Programmers at broadcast SHARE ¼
Households Watching TV
networks and stations as well as cable services typi-
cally refer to their shares of an actual audience, not To calculate a rating, the number of households
their percentage (ratings) of potential households, watching a network is divided by the total number
although newspaper articles often report ratings (or of households that have receivers. To calculate
mix up the two kinds of data). shares, the number of households watching ABC,
 CHAPTER 5 Program and Audience Research and Ratings 177

for example, is divided by the total number of household population. Approximately 8 percent of
households watching television. the total diaries were tuned to WCSC from 12
Network Ratings Share noon to 3 P.M.
If we assume that 8 percent of the diaries reflects 8
1,904
ABC 1,904 ¼ :190 or 19% ¼ :271 or 27:1% percent of the total households (always an iffy call but
10,000 7,030
done constantly), the number of homes watching
1,928 1,928 WCSC can then be calculated. An estimated 266,400
CBS ¼ :193 or 19:3% ¼ :274 or 27:4%
10,000 7,030 television households in the Charleston DMA (this
1,976 1,976 information is supplied on another page) yields 21,312
NBC ¼ :198 or 19:8% ¼ :281 or 28:1%
10,000 7,030 homes for WCSC (.08  266,400 ¼ 21,312). The
1,222 1,222 share for WCSC was computed by using the HUT (see
FOX ¼ :122 or 12:2% ¼ :174 or 17:4% the H/P/T totals), which was 24 (percent). Twenty-four
10,000 7,030
percent of 266,400 yields 63,936 HH, and when that
The individual ratings for all the stations in a figure is divided into WCSC’s 21,312 HH, a share of
market during a given daypart should approxi- 34 results. (Actually, the calculation is 33, but because
mately equal the HUT. Network programmers pri- the reported ratings are rounded to the nearest whole
marily use rating and share estimates to compare number, the math does not always work with whole
program audiences, but often they also are interested numbers. Either the 8 rating is actually slightly larger
in the specific number of persons in the audience. than 8 and rounded down, or the HUT rating is slightly
Ratings can be used to project to any particular pop- lower than 24 and rounded up.)
ulation. For example, the data for the four networks Further evidence of Nielsen’s rounding can be
listed produced these estimates for the entire United seen in the 12 noon to 4:00 P.M. time period on the
States (having a total population of about 116 mil- same page. In that time period of the Nielsen report,
lion households): you will see that WCBD and WCIV both have “2”
Population ratings, but each station’s share is different. We can
Network Rating  Population ¼ HH Estimate compute more accurate ratings by manipulating the
basic formula, usually written as
ABC .190  116 million ¼ 22,040,000
CBS .193  116 million ¼ 22,388,000 Rating
 100 ¼ SHARE
NBC .194  116 million ¼ 22,504,000 HUT
FOX .122  116 million ¼ 14,152,000 The calculated value is multiplied by 100 to create
.699 (or 69.9%) ¼ 81,084,000 whole numbers instead of decimals for shares and
ratings. If we transpose to
The number 22,040,000 represents the 211 million
people estimated to be watching ABC (at this specific Share  HUT
RATING ¼
time). These calculations can be verified by multiplying 100
the HUT, 69.9, by the total number of households: we can rate more accurately:
.699  112 million ¼ 78,288,000, the total for the four 7  30
networks. WCBD Rating ¼ 2:1
100
Using part of a page from a Charleston (SC)
8  30
Nielsen book (see 5.9), we can see how ratings and WCIV Rating ¼ 2:4
shares were computed for the local television sta- 100
tions WCBD, WCIV and WCSC. To calculate the Keep in mind that all ratings and shares are per-
rating and share for WCSC, in this morning/midday centages and must include decimal points for all
example, Nielsen first analyzed diaries from a sam- calculations, although to make their reports easy to
ple of households (HH) in the Charleston DMA. It read, ratings companies do not print the decimals
then projected the sample returns to the DMA (see 5.10).
178 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

5.9 Daypart Ratings Page

Reprinted by permisson of Nielson Media Research.

 CHAPTER 5 Program and Audience Research and Ratings 179

that they supply individual-person data as well as

5.10 A Visual Aid for Remembering household data for the advertising industry.
the Formula

T
AQH/Cume
he basic relationship among the three variables Programmers use two very important computations
(rating, share, HUT) is easy to understand but
in calculating ratings: average quarter-hour (AQH)
sometimes difficult to remember. Here is a visual aid:
audiences and cumulative audience (cume) esti-
R mates. Program audiences are typically measured in
S H 15-minute intervals, hence “quarter-hour audience.”
(Putting the R “on top” is easy to remember because Meters can, in fact, measure one-minute audiences
ratings are most important to the station or channel for (or even one-second audiences in comedy research,
advertising purposes.) Here’s how to calculate: If you for example), but a person or household is counted
want R (ratings), cover the R with your finger. The result is in a quarter hour if the television was turned on for
S (share) multiplied by H (HUT). If you want share, cover a minimum of five minutes during the measurement
the S with your finger. The result is R divided by H. Like- period.
wise, cover the H to calculate HUT: The result is R Although radio and television diaries also mea-
divided by S. (The number you get must be adjusted to sure audience size in 15-minute intervals, TV pro-
provide a meaningful answer: If you multiplied, then grammers use these data in much larger units—by
divide the result by 100; if you divided, multiply the result whole program or daypart. Quarter hours are the
by 100.) You may not get the exact result shown by particular concern of those who try to count fickle
Nielsen because the reported figures are rounded. radio listeners. (Both time units may be too broad
for accurately measuring channel jumpers and gra-
zers and radio button pushers!)
One final point concerning the 12 noon to Cumulative audience measures are appropriate
3 P.M. example is that the HUT/PUT/TOTAL line is for small audiences that would not show up in rating/
24, but if we add all the stations, the total rating is share measures. Cume measurements indicate the num-
actually 16. The uncounted rating points mean that ber of different people tuned in during a 15-minute
8 percent of the households in the DMA were view- (or longer) time period. Cume figures are always larger
ing cable channels for which no one channel than AQH figures, which are averaged.
received a 1 rating. Individual shares for all the sta- The basic difference between AQH and cume is
tions should equal 100 percent when totaled, even if that in the average quarter-hour calculation, persons
the tiny shares for cable viewing are unreportable. can be counted more than once in a total daypart.
For instance, a person could tune to a station for five
minutes, switch stations or tune out, and then tune
PUTs/PURs back in to the original station during a later quarter
Ratings and shares for television generally represent hour. This viewer would be counted twice in an
households but occasionally refer to specific demo- AQH calculation but not in an exclusive cume cal-
graphic groups such as women aged 18 to 49. Radio culation because it counts only the number of differ-
ratings always represent individuals or persons, and ent persons listening. Cume is considered to be the
therefore, the term persons using radio (PUR) is reach of a station because it tells you how many
used. Persons using television (PUT) is appropriate different persons were in the audience during a
when calculations of individual viewers are made. time period or daypart. It also reflects the growth
Sales staffs and time buyers tend to be more inter- or decay of an audience over time.
ested in these calculations than programmers are, Public television and basic cable audiences are
and one of the big advantages of people meters is often too small for accurate measurement within one
180 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

quarter hour, but cumulative ratings over a longer provides a quick summary of the ratings and shares
period of time may reflect more substantial audi- for all stations during that daypart. The page from a
ences. Cumes can also be calculated for a single pro- Nielsen book in 5.9, presented earlier, shows the
gram over several airings, a common pattern in crucial 3 P.M. to 5 P.M. period in the Charleston mar-
public television and cable measurements, permit- ket toward the bottom.
ting programmers to estimate the total number of Nielsen divides the viewers into 26 demographic
people who watched a program. Commercial broad- (age and sex) classifications for both the DMA and
casting with its special interest in the number of peo- the NSI station totals. For just one station, 754 rat-
ple watching one commercial spot generally uses ings cells are required in order to fill out all 26 Niel-
AQH ratings. sen people categories and 37 daypart categories for
station totals alone. A single ratings book page con-
tains an immense amount of data. Most program-
Reach and Frequency Analysis mers use computers to analyze the data.
Salespeople most often use the concepts of reach and A look at 5.9, presented in the previous section,
frequency. As we said earlier, reach refers to circula- shows that WCSC was the strongest television station
tion or potential exposure—or the net size of the in the market in the afternoon daypart, with a 7 rat-
audience that actually gets the signal (gross would ing/30 share in the DMA and 7/32 in the Metro. It
be all the people living in the country). Frequency was very strong with both W 18–49 and W 18–34
refers to the number of times a person was exposed (the usual shorthand used in ratings analyses). No
to a particular advertising message (or program). A doubt this station was delighted because these demo-
high frequency means exposure to a message several graphics are very easy to sell to advertisers.
times and indicates the “holding power” of a sta- Programmers normally compare the current
tion, network, or program. Programmers usually numbers to previous performances. Tracking a day-
schedule several interesting programs in succession, part shows how the station or program is doing over
trying to create audience flow and achieve a high time. It is also important for selecting syndicated
frequency for advertisers among successive pro- programs (see Chapters 6 and 8). Rarely will pro-
grams appealing to the same viewers. gram decisions be based on only one book unless
the numbers are very low and very credible, and
no hope for improvement is in sight.

Television Market Reports

and Other Programming Aids Time Period Averages
Television programmers are interested not only in
Market reports (or “books”) are divided into sec- broad dayparts but in quarter-hour or half-hour seg-
tions to allow programmers, salespeople and adver- ments within them. This information, found in the
tisers to examine an audience from many Time Period Averages section of ratings books, is
perspectives for a particular local DMA. In televi- useful for determining a program’s strength against
sion, the major sections are: Daypart Audiences, the competition for a specific quarter hour or half
Time Period Averages and Program Averages. hour. Managers of affiliates look here, for example,
to see how their local newscast stacks up against its
competitors. The Time Period Averages section also
Daypart Audiences has an overview of access time and early fringe com-
The Daypart Audiences section divides viewing into petition and shows lead-in and lead-out effects. Pro-
37 dayparts, a highly useful format for analyzing a grammers use these data to analyze performance in
station’s overall performance in specific time blocks. time segments. (Salespeople use these data to deter-
For instance, Monday through Friday noon to 6 P.M. mine spot ratings.)
 CHAPTER 5 Program and Audience Research and Ratings 181

Averages for the whole week, Monday through in analyzing competitive performance. Finally, Pro-
Friday, are included in the Time Period Averages gram Averages information isolates the “pure pro-
section along with most prime-time network pro- gram” data. Each section answers different
gramming because it varies from night to night. questions, and television programmers use every sec-
These figures show performance during a daypart tion as their questions shift.
or time period when all days are averaged together, Because mountains of plain ratings data are
crucial data when a programmer is looking at nearly too much to deal with, Nielsen also issues
stripped programming in early fringe and prime- reports on specific demographic groups or types of
time access. programs or station market sizes in easy-to-use for-
mats, on which stations, reps and ad agencies rely
heavily. They also depend on other companies to
Program Audiences reanalyze Nielsen’s ratings data and to supplement
The last (but not least) major section of a television the data with other research. Of all these additional
ratings book, the one television programmers most services, programmers find analyses of syndicated
often use, is the Program Audiences section. Rather television programs the most valuable.
than lumping a program into a daypart, this section
breaks each daypart and program into 30-minute
segments (and some 15-minute ones) to isolate indi- Syndicated Program Reports
vidual programs on different days of the sweep Affiliates and independents rely on off-network and
weeks. The Program Audiences section is considered first-run syndicated programming to fill parts of
the “pure programming” section because each pro- their broadcast days. Because syndicated programs
gram is analyzed individually here. It shows the titles are expensive, however, station decision makers
of the shows and any scheduling variations from want to know about a program’s past performance.
night to night. This allows programmers to examine Will a program perform well in their market? Will
ratings for their local news, say, night by night—and its ratings justify its cost? Reps and program consul-
to eliminate the odd night when a sporting event, for tants especially want this information because they
example, cuts into the news time. advise station programmers. Projecting or estimat-
Look at the Program Audiences data for ing ratings success for a first-run product is an
Charleston at 6 P.M. in 5.11. The numbers are the involved process that finally comes down to an edu-
DMA rating/share and Metro rating/share for all cated guess. The potentials of off-network programs
weekdays (AV5—average for Monday through Fri- are somewhat easier to evaluate, but even here no
day). Notice that in DMA measurements, WCSC hard-and-fast rules exist. Lead-in programs, local
dominates the competition with a 25 share for its competition and audience fads always influence rat-
local newscast. The local news shows on WCBD ings. Even the most successful network program
and WCIV have a 15 share and an 11 share, respec- may fail in syndication or perform below its network
tively. The FOX affiliate WTAT came in fourth with numbers at a given time or in a given market.
a 7 share for Judge Judy. This section permits anal- In making decisions about syndicated programs,
ysis of individual programs without interference Nielsen’s Report on Syndicated Programs is helpful.
from ratings for adjacent programs. (The major television rep firms also provide similar
In summary, the sections of a television book analyses in less bulky and unwieldy formats, such as
provide programmers with at least four different the Comtrac report example featured in Chapter 6.)
ways to evaluate station performance. Daypart A page from the Nielsen analysis of The Simpsons is
Audience data show broad time periods without shown in 5.12. At the top-left corner of the page,
regard to specific programs. Time Period Averages you will find the number of markets telecasting the
listings provide programming data by quarter program, the distributor and other data such as the
hours and half hours on a daily basis and are useful program type and the number of episodes available.
182 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

5.11 Program Audience Ratings Page

Reprinted by permisson of Nielson Media Research.

 CHAPTER 5 Program and Audience Research and Ratings 183

5.12 Syndicated Program Report Page on the Simpsons

Reprinted by permisson of Nielson Media Research.

184 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

The second section provides overall ratings and characteristics; they chart the performance of that
share data by market rank and by daypart. It shows program to determine its best daypart, its strengths
the number of stations carrying The Simpsons in and weaknesses against specific competing pro-
both early fringe (138 DMA markets) and in prime grams, and its demographic appeal. The Report on
access (39 DMA markets), presumably to appeal to Syndicated Programs enables programmers to esti-
young viewers in the late afternoon time period. The mate the likely performance of a syndicated program
Simpsons averaged a 4 rating and 7 share in both and to schedule it effectively in their lineup. If a pro-
dayparts, higher than for any other daypart. This gram proves unsuitable (demographically or in
section shows which dayparts and market sizes a terms of ratings projections), the analysis is helpful
program has played most effectively in, quite useful in targeting another program to meet a station’s pro-
information for programmers. Demographic data by gramming needs.
daypart fill out the rest of this section. The Report on Syndicated Programs is limited
The third section of the page shows a market to program data about syndicated programs already
breakout of specific stations carrying The Simpsons on the air. Quite often stations must decide whether
in syndication. The first market, alphabetically, that to purchase a program before it is released in syndi-
carried the program was Abilene-Sweetwater, where cation (or even produced). This is particularly the
The Simpsons ran at 5:30 P.M. central time on case with first-run syndicated programs (never on a
KXVA, a FOX affiliate on Channel 15, and it had network) and popular off-network programs (often
a 3 DMA rating and a 6 DMA (Monday through purchased before any station has tried them out).
Friday) share. In that market, The Simpsons got (The subject of purchasing futures on programs is
lower ratings than the three nightly network news- covered in Chapter 6.) In the case of off-network
casts but was a close fourth place to the NBC programming, national and local data from a pro-
Nightly News (4/9). The Simpsons held most of its gram’s network performance can be projected to the
lead-in, That 70s Show, which had a 3 rating and a local market, though as you can imagine, many mar-
7 share. Programmers use this information to pur- kets differ substantially from the national market.
chase or renew the show and to schedule it during Purchasing first-run syndicated programs is much
a daypart with a lead-in that will make it maximally riskier, though, because they lack both network
successful. and station track records.
This third section of the page also provides data
on the total number of persons viewing a program in
key demographic groups. In Albuquerque-Santa Fe, Computerized Services
for example, The Simpsons was viewed at 5:00 P.M. All operations, including programming, are rou-
by 11,000 women aged 18 to 49 (representing 55 tinely computerized at broadcast stations and cable
viewers per 100 homes using television), a substan- services of all sizes. Television ratings and syndi-
tial increase over the lead-in. Nielsen’s report does cated program reports come on disks or online,
not show the demographic breakdown for compet- and are more commonly accessed on computers
ing stations. The programmer can, however, turn to than in paper “books,” though the old name sticks.
the page for Jeopardy (not shown here) and see Local station programmers use computer software
fewer women aged 18 to 49. Because Jeopardy also to schedule shows; print daily, weekly and annual
has many more women 18þ than The Simpsons, the program logs; and keep track of competitors’ pro-
programmer can deduce that Jeopardy skews gram purchases in the same way that reps track pur-
toward older women who may not fit the adverti- chases for many markets.
sers’ target. A ratings book represents only a fraction of the
Before purchasing a syndicated program, data available from Nielsen. The books exclude
station programmers typically choose markets that county of residence, ZIP code, specific viewing and
are similar to their own in size and regional listening patterns and each individual diarist’s
 CHAPTER 5 Program and Audience Research and Ratings 185

reported age (in ratings books, age is presented only program availabilities (syndicated programs not yet
as group data, for example, women 18 to 34). But under contract in their markets) and their own sta-
then there are the raw diaries. A diary also tells what tion’s program inventory, including contract details,
the diarist was watching at 5:45 P.M. before he or she plays and amortization schedules. Only the largest
began watching the 6 P.M. news. Nielsen stores this stations and rep programmers, however, have the
raw diary information on a secure website that sta- resources to track all this crucial programming
tions can examine online. The information allows information and keep timely records. It can be a
programmers to analyze nonstandard dayparts, spe- mess at small stations.
cific groups of ZIP codes, nonstandard demo- A great deal of information about program perfor-
graphics, county-by-county viewing and audience mance comes from third-party processors that sell
flow patterns. In addition, sales staffs use the term- research reports on national and syndicated television
inals to compute audience reach and frequency. If a programs, using purchased Nielsen data. These services
programmer wants still more information on are based on the premise that raw information is less
selected programs on a market-by-market basis, usable than processed information. For example, the
Nielsen offers its ProFile Ranking Report (part of Nielsen overnight ratings are analyzed by WRAP, a
the Galaxy software), which provides detailed Windows ratings-analysis program from Audience
comparisons. Analysis, Inc. (AAI). Third-party processors like
The management of any station, network or WRAP compete with Nielsen’s two services (ProFile
cable service that subscribes to Nielsen (or Arbitron and Navigator) and with another major service, Gal-
for radio) can personally review the real viewer or axy, which offers additional analysis. Nielsen also offers
listener diaries, an important service for popular a software package (N-Power) that provides access to
music radio stations. The main reason for inspecting household and individual-level viewing for television,
the raw diaries is to search for unexpected entries and TAPSCAN is a third-party processor of Arbitron
such as how listeners or viewers recorded the sta- radio ratings. Station program directors can create
tion’s or service’s name or call letters (or slogan or rankings (called rankers) of all radio stations in a mar-
air personalities). Sometimes diarists name things ket based on daypart or demographic criteria. For
differently than stations expect them to. A station example, stations could be ranked on exclusive cume,
can remedy incorrect attributions in subsequent rat- which is a measure of listeners who listened only to a
ings periods by submitting a limited number of dif- certain radio station and no other. Some other third-
ferent “nicknames” to Arbitron (or by changing a party processors are described in 5.13.
slogan if it is easily confused with a competitor’s).
Before computerized systems became available, first-
hand diary reviews (usually performed by specialist Radio Reports
companies located near the diary warehouses) were
standard procedure after each ratings book was Audiences for the 14,000 radio stations in the
published (these guys and gals are now out of United States are more fragmented than broadcast
work). Computer tape now permits the information television audiences (although the spread of cable
to be examined anywhere if the appropriate soft- and satellite dishes is altering that condition for tele-
ware is purchased. vision). The largest radio markets such as Los
On the national level, television programs are Angeles have more than 80 stations, dividing the
introduced, launched, bought and withdrawn con- audience into tiny slivers per station. In general,
stantly. Keeping tabs on the daily changes in the pro- radio stations compare their share of the audience
gram market involves constant record keeping based and their cumulative audience to that of other sta-
on information from the trade press and reports tions with similar formats in the same market. The
from reps and distributors. One crucial set of jobs most popular stations use shares, and the least pop-
for local programmers is keeping track of local ular use cumulative audiences, although formats
186 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

5.13 Third-Party Analyses of Ratings

S carborough Research provides a syndicated research

service to newspapers, television stations, radio sta-
tions, cable systems, internet companies, advertisers and
and Media Analysis, which collates media reach informa-
tion into Cumulative (more than one spot or insertion minus
duplication) or Ranker (average) reports, or into graph
agencies. Scarborough is a joint venture of Arbitron and mode (visually combining elements from either report).
VNU Marketing Information. Scarborough provides syndi- Media Audit is a near competitor to the kinds of studies
cated studies to print and electronic media, new media done by Scarborough, except that the former is accredited
companies, sports teams and leagues, agencies, adverti- by the Media Ratings Council. Media Audit bills itself as a
sers and yellow pages. Categories include consumer multimedia, qualitative audience survey covering about
shopping patterns, demographics, media usage and life- 450 target items for each rated media’s audience. These
style activities for local markets. Scarborough surveys more qualitative data points cover things such as socioeconomic
than 180,000 adults 181 using a two-phase methodol- characteristics, lifestyles, business decision makers, product
ogy. Phase I is the telephone interview, and Phase II is a purchasing plans, retail shopping habits, travel history,
self-administered questionnaire and television diary. A total supermarket shopping, stores shopped, products pur-
of 75 leading U.S. markets are measured. Every market chased, fast-food restaurants eaten in, soft drink consump-
has two six-month field periods each product year, elimi- tion, brands purchased, health insurance coverage, leisure
nating any seasonal bias in the data and allowing users to activities, banks used, credit cards used, and other selected
account for new store openings and media changes. consumer characteristics important to local media and
One of Scarborough’s premier products is called PRIME advertisers.
NExT, composed of four separate reports: Profile, which Wimmer Research is also well known for its expertise in
compiles lifestyles and habits of a specific audience group; custom-designed telephone perceptual studies. These
Crosstab, which classifies several audience groups at once include music testing, interactive software, focus groups,
for comparisons; Schedule Analysis, which combines vari- micro/macro-market studies, the Persuasion Process semi-
ous proposed schedules of media and cost for analysis; nar and optical scanning data collection services.

that lend themselves to tuning in and out (such as typically just ten years (for example, 25–34). Most
all-news stations) use cumulative audience ratings classification groups end in “4” for radio (24, 34,
even when they are popular. The top 100 radio mar- 44, 54 and so on); the groups used for television
kets correspond closely to television DMAs, but (18–49, 25–54 and so on) are broader, reflecting
some areas in the West and South have radio but the more heterogeneous nature of television audi-
no television, so we remind you that the total num- ences and thus television advertising sales.
ber of radio markets (299) is thus greater than the
210 television DMAs.
Ratings books for radio are organized differ- Metro Audience Trends
ently from those for television. An Arbitron radio The Metro Audience Trends section reports a sta-
ratings book contains Share Trends, followed by tion’s Metro shares for five ratings books—the cur-
Demographic Breakouts, Daypart Averages, Cume rent survey and the previous four surveys—covering a
Estimates, Hour-by-Hour Estimates and a few smal- period of about one year. These data show a station’s
ler sections. The age and sex categories used in radio share pattern (its “trend”) over time for four separate
differ from those used for television because radio demographic groups: 12þ, 18–34, 25–54 and 35–64.
stations target their programming to more precisely A hypothetical example for the demographic category
defined demographic groups. Thus, age ranges for of Total Persons 12þ is shown in 5.14. A program-
radio are smaller than those used in television: mer can get a quick overview of all stations’
 CHAPTER 5 Program and Audience Research and Ratings 187

5.14 Metro Audience Trends Page

Arbitron Ratings Co., used with permission.

performance in the market from the Metro Audience for several 10-year age groups broken out by gender
Trends section. (and Men 181 and Women 181), with Persons 12þ
Consider as an example the Monday to Sunday and Teens 12 to 17 listed separately, are presented in
6 A.M. to midnight section in 5.14. It shows that from 5.14. In 5.15, Metro AQH population estimates are
spring 2004 to spring 2005, WCCC clearly led the detailed for the three different places people hear
market and continued to have climbing shares and radio (At Home, In-Car and Other) for drivetime
cume ratings (cumulative audience) in the last book. and three other time periods. These data are
WBBB was the number-two station and had an reported separately for Persons 12þ, Men 18þ and
upwardly trending cume. WDDD was at the bottom Women 18þ (5.13 shows only Men 18þ). These
of the market with flat ratings. WAAA’s 12þ share Specific Audience and Listening Locations data
declined from 3.3 to 2.6, but the drop is less than a help programmers see which dayparts draw which
full ratings point, and the station’s cumulative rating audience subgroups and where listeners most use
remained at 10 percent of the market (near the bot- the station. In combination with other information
tom of the hypothetical market). Up-and-down data provided in an Arbitron book, they suggest how
tell a program director that the music probably needs different programming (or additional promotion)
some fine-tuning in the Monday to Sunday 6 A.M. to can improve audience composition (and therefore
midnight slot. WAAA’s programmer needs to exam- salability).
ine additional pages in the book, however, before Arbitron also reports an hour-by-hour analysis
making any major decisions. that includes ten demographic groups by AQH for
the Metro area. A programmer can track a station’s
performance hour-by-hour from 5 A.M. to 1 A.M. to
Demographic Breakouts isolate particularly strong or weak hours during the
Pages from Arbitron’s Specific Audience (see 5.15) broadcast day. Other sections of the Arbitron radio
and Listening Locations (see 5.16) sections illustrate book include Exclusive Audience and Cume Dupli-
different ways to display ratings and share data serv- cation, both of which help radio programmers
ing different purposes. Metro and TSA AQH ratings understand how listeners use radio.
188 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

5.15 Specific Audience Page

Arbitron Ratings Co., used with permission.

5.16 Listening Locations Page

Arbitron Ratings Co., used with permission.

Arbitron radio data also come on diskette or the market accounts for 50 different characteristics of
online in a format called Arbitrend, which reflects a song when selecting its position and rotation!
the continuously measured markets and contains
demographics. Programmers for music radio stations Time-Spent-Listening
can also purchase (or write) software to accomplish Programmers are rarely content with the bare facts
most of the tedious work involved in developing a reported by Arbitron (or Nielsen in the case of tele-
station’s music playlist. (See Chapter 11 on creating vision), so they use all these various ratings to make
music wheels.) One widely used software program on many different computations. For example, radio
 CHAPTER 5 Program and Audience Research and Ratings 189

programmers generally want to know how long power.” Television stations expect more turnover
their audience listens to their station. Time- than radio stations and go after greater reach. Turn-
spent-listening (TSL) is computed by multiplying over is calculated for public broadcasting and cable
the number of quarter hours in a daypart times the as well as for commercial radio and television.
rating and dividing by the cumulative audience. Tracking the amount of turnover on a graph over
To illustrate, assume we have the Los Angeles time provides a quick clue to changes in audience
Radio Market Report and want to compute the listening or viewing patterns for an individual sta-
18þ TSL for KABC-AM. We can pull the AQH tion or service.
and cume from the book to produce the TSL. The
TSL for adults 18þ for this station, Monday to Sun-
day, 6 A.M. to midnight, is calculated using the fol- Cable Ratings
lowing formula:
Nielsen reports cable network ratings data sepa-
AQH in Time Period  AQH Audience rate from broadcast network data for the larger
TSL ¼
Cume Audience basic and premium cable services (in addition to
AQH in Time Period ¼ 504 cumulative totals for all basic and pay networks
within the Pocketpiece and NSI Reports). More
AQH Audience ¼ 872 ð00Þ
than 90 percent of Nielsen’s 10,000 people-meter
Cume Audience ¼ 9,875 ð00Þ sample are cable or satellite subscribers, and
504  872 Nielsen issues its Cable National Audience Demo-
TSL ¼ ¼ 39:9 graphics Report covering the national audiences
9,875
for the largest services drawn from people-meter
*There are 504 quarter hours from 6 A.M. to midnight, data.
Mon.–Sun.
In general, the introduction of people meters
**Zeros indicate that these numbers are in thousands,
has benefited cable services far more than most
for example, 872 means 87,200.
broadcast stations or their networks. In those 50
Therefore, the programmer concludes that the or so local markets measured with paper diaries,
average length of listening to KABC for an adult viewers tend to fill in diaries at the week’s end, los-
18þ is 39.9 quarter hours during a given week, ing track of where VCR or DVD recordings came
6 A.M. to midnight. A high TSL indicates that people from and forgetting the names of the many cable
(who listen) are listening for long periods of time, networks, so the more familiar-sounding networks
not that a lot of listening goes on. TSL refers only tend to get undeserved diary entries and conse-
to the amount of listening by those who do listen. quently high ratings. Digital service adds a hundred
Television programmers also calculate time-spent- or more to the usual list, only exacerbating this
viewing using the same formula. problem. People meters, however, record the exact
channel viewed, the length of viewing (which is
Turnover also recorded by traditional passive meters), and
Turnover indexes the rate at which an audience the composition of the audience. Many smaller
changes, or turns over, during a time period. Turn- local markets, however, continue to be measured
over is calculated by dividing the cumulative audi- with diaries or diaries plus passive meters.
ence by a quarter-hour rating: On the local market level, individual cable net-
works are included in Nielsen’s Cable Activity
Cume Households or Persons
Turnover ¼ Report when they achieve a 3 percent share of audi-
AQH Households or Persons
ence (and pay the cost of data analysis and report-
A low turnover rate indicates a loyal audience, ing). Nielsen measures cable service audiences along
and high turnover means a station lacks “holding with broadcast station audiences in the all-market
190 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

sweeps (using diaries or meters or both). Cable line- difficulty meeting the minimum viewing level, even
ups differ from franchise to franchise within one when they are regularly watched by the cable sub-
market, however, and accurate tracking of channel scribers able to receive them.
attributions (“I watched Channel 3”) has been diffi- Although each large cable system operator and
cult. For example, the Washington, D.C., area has network purchases cable ratings from Nielsen, they
about 30 cable franchises plus ATT’s FiOS and are also interested in research that identifies their
DISH and DirecTV, which place the dozens of most likely customers. Now a subsidiary of Nielsen,
cable networks (and some broadcast TV stations) Claritas offers detailed demographic and behavioral
on widely differing channel numbers. information in annual reports. Nielsen’s PRIZM
Moreover, digital cable lineups can locate the (Potential Rating in Zipped Markets) report combines
same channel in two or three places (say, 24 and ZIP code information with Nielsen data, information
316 and 1627, with no apparent numbering logic). from local governments, magazine subscription lists,
In consequence, ratings for the smaller services have automobile registrations, and other data sources.
not been stable even within a single market, let alone Such geodemographic information creates groups of
nationally (see Chapter 9 on the dream of uniform population segments by lifestyle.
channel lineups). Even though the Nielsen metered Arbitron competes with Nielsen on the cable
markets (covering more than 60 percent of all U.S. front, using two techniques: Set-Top Solutions
viewing) may eventually migrate to Active/Passive (STS) and the PPM mentioned earlier. STS collects
people meters (A/P) or portable people meters viewer information directly from the cable converter
(PPM) that read codes embedded in the programs box or DVR. The portable meters collect informa-
by the producers, there will always be less reliable tion from a pager-sized device carried by the viewer.
diary measurements in the smaller markets. Arbitron also offers three services to cable operators
To qualify for inclusion in the standard televi- and networks: Scarborough, RetailDirect and Retail-
sion sweep reports, a cable service must reach Direct Lite. These services provide qualitative media
20 percent of net weekly circulation. In other and market consumer behavior information, but not
words, 20 percent of the market’s television house- ratings.
holds must view it for at least five minutes during
the survey week. In the first year of reporting (in
the dinosaur age of 1982), only HBO, WTBS-TV Premium Services
(the former Superstation, now the TBS cable net- Pay-movie services have special measurement pro-
work), Showtime and ESPN qualified. Two decades blems, of course (change any tech and “problems”
later, however, nearly all of the top 20 cable net- rise up). Movies, the largest element in their pro-
works qualified in most markets, including (order gramming, appear in repeating and rotating patterns
varies somewhat from year to year) Discovery, to attract large cumulative audiences for each fea-
ESPN, CNN, USA Network, TNT, Lifetime, the ture. This contrasts with the broadcast television
Weather Channel, ESPN2, Nickelodeon, Spike TV, pattern of scheduling a movie or series episode
A&E, TBS, the Learning Channel, CNN Headline only once in prime time (typically) and seeking the
News, MTV, Home & Garden Television (HGTV), largest possible audience for that one showing.
C-SPAN, ABC Family Channel, the History Channel In digital households, subscribers may have six
and Cartoon Network, each of which reaches over channels of HBO, six channels of Starz, eight chan-
90 million subscribers (see Chapter 9). Galavisión nels of Encore, seven channels of various ESPNs,
qualifies where Hispanic viewers make up much of plus additional multichannel versions of the same
the population, and other cable services such as networks in high definition. Even TNT appears in
WGN and WWOR easily qualify in some regions three places: analog, digital and HD; thus, counting
of the country. Cable networks appearing on only and matching viewing from system to system
some of a market’s systems, however, have more has nearly insurmountable difficulties. In addition,
 CHAPTER 5 Program and Audience Research and Ratings 191

six channels of ESPN Sports Pay-Per-View in digital Cable Penetration Measures

and the same six again in HD appear on one cable
Using figures supplied by Nielsen and the industry
system. And there are several on-demand channels
itself, the industry regularly updates cable statistics,
on which older programs and events can be pulled
reporting how many households have access to
up, for a fee. (These kinds of pay channels are mea-
cable at the present time; such households are called
sured by their buy rates, not household ratings.)
homes passed (HP). As of 2012, more than 99 per-
Indeed, viewers shift the times they watch pay
cent of U.S. households were passed by cable wires;
cable so much more than they do broadcast television
that is, people in virtually all homes and apartments
(by recording movies at home) that it becomes prob-
could subscribe to cable if they wanted to. Cable pen-
lematic to use the same measurement criteria. (See
etration is the percentage of television households
Chapters 3 and 9 on program evaluation and audi-
actually subscribing to basic cable service (shown as
ence measurement.) Moreover, the total number of
household penetration in 5.17), which has held
pay households is relatively small for all services
steady at about 61 percent. Actually, the total pene-
except HBO, although nearly half of all television
tration by the cable networks had neared 91 percent
households take one or more pay services, in addition
by 2012, thanks to other multichannel distributors
to digital service. And the large number of basic and
and the conversion to all-digital television.
pay-cable television networks subdivide the ratings
Another important figure to the industry is pay
into slivers much as radio stations do in major mar-
as a percentage of basic cable subscribers because
kets. Premium-channel cable programmers use the
those are the homes actually signing up. NCTA
ratings information available to them to judge indi-
no longer reports premium subscribers, but a good
vidual program popularity and channel popularity,
estimate is three-quarters of basic cable subscribers
but as yet pay networks rarely win specific time per-
take one or more pay channels. It is estimated that,
iods in competition with broadcasters. Frequently,
in addition to 70 million subscribers to cable systems,
however, the cumulative audiences for all showings
about 36 million households subscribe to DirecTV,
of a top-notch movie on HBO equal the size of a
DISH or other kinds of services, such as wireless
television network’s audience. Although pay-cable
cable, home satellite dishes in their yards or telephone
movies usually draw small audiences, original pro-
companies. Giants like AT&T’s FiOS provide the
gramming like Game of Thrones attracts critical
same cable networks to private homes and offices,
acclaim, Emmy awards and stronger viewing levels.
but their penetration is, so far, a tiny percentage.
Nielsen publishes a quarterly Cross-Platform
Like radio, cable, satellite and telephone services
Video Report and a comprehensive Video Recorder
are also concerned with audience turnover. In
Usage Study, which can help pay-cable program-
cable, churn is the ratio of disconnecting subscribers
mers make sense of reported viewing. The Nielsen
to newly connecting cable subscribers (the number
Homevideo Index, as contrasted with the Nielsen
of disconnects divided by the number of new
Station Index, provides many additional specialized
reports for cable programmers.
Rentrak specializes in measuring video-on-
demand, which is becoming more important as 5.17 2011 Cable Summary Report*
portable video devices (such as iPads and tablets)
Total Subscribers 70,296,000
reach greater acceptance with viewers. Mobile OnDe-
(based on 60.6% of 116 million
mand is Rentrak’s answer to measuring cellphone TV homes)
viewing and other portable use of media. Nielsen Homes Passed 128,500,000
still struggles expanding its home-based measurement Total Cable Systems 7,426
to portable devices, but competition from Rentrak
Household Penetration 60.6%
and comScore will likely result in new products to
keep Nielsen competitive in the future. *www.ncta.com (Statistics), estimated, 2011.
192 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

connects). The problems associated with a high rate adult, on average, and creeping up toward the 31.5
of churn are described in Chapter 9. hours spent watching television weekly.8 The meth-
Because the audiences for many advertiser- ods and terminology used for measurement of online
supported networks are too small (at any one time) to computer use are quite different from those used for
show in Nielsen ratings books, a number of smaller broadcast and multichannel measurement.
basic cable networks estimate their audiences on the
basis of customized research that adjusts the size of the
universe of homes to match cable penetration in the mar- Web Tracking Services
kets the cable network already reaches. Many cable net- Nielsen//NetRatings publishes regular reports that
works reach only a portion of cable households, and of include five sections: Audience Summary, Audience
course, the audience for any one channel at any one time Profile, Daily/Hourly Traffic, Average Usage and
can be minute. Direct comparisons of such customized AOL Audience Report. Audience Summary reports
cable ratings to ordinary ratings can lead to confusion give a comprehensive profile of the entire web audi-
because nonsubscribers are not counted. Especially for ence, including the unique audience (average number
narrowly targeted cable services, advertisers want of different people who visit a site on each day during
detailed demographic breakouts, which necessitate the course of the month), page views, audience demo-
expensive customized cable research at the local level. graphics, frequency and time-spent information.
Audience Profile shows demographics for the total
U.S. internet population. This report shows audience
Online Research Services composition, number of sessions per period, average
time spent per session and average pages viewed per
Because of interrelationships among internet web- session. Daily/Hourly Traffic breaks down the Audi-
sites and the traditional media of cable, satellite, tele- ence Profile data by specific day and hour. Average
phone and broadcasting, it is not surprising that Usage includes statistics on the number of sessions,
Nielsen rapidly developed a system for measuring pages viewed, pages visited per session, time spent per
internet audiences. Nielsen//NetRatings is one of session and duration of the viewing of a page. AOL
two major competitors in this field, the other being Audience Report shows average time spent and audi-
Media Metrix, the web’s oldest rating service. Both ence demographics for use within the AOL service.
use samples of home and at-work web surfers to The Nielsen//NetRatings audience-tracking soft-
monitor and estimate usage patterns. ware has several advantages over other approaches
Although cable, satellite and telephone delivery because of its accuracy. The software “sits in the
of television have certainly had a huge impact on datastream” and provides an unobstructed log of
audience behaviors, this impact pales in comparison all web activity. This unique technique for tracking
to the profound and sweeping effects of the internet users automatically measures the viewing and click-
on television, as well as lots of other things, and it is ing of ad banners (bannertrack), e-commerce activity
still in the early stages of its development. How and (commercetrack), page views cached (that is, stored)
why people use the web, what they use it for, and by the browser program (cachetrack) and page load-
how these things affect other traditional or “old” ing times. The tracking is unobtrusive to users in
media are yet evolving, but some trends can be order to limit bias and requires the absolute mini-
gauged with fairly high accuracy (although others mum in company intervention once installed. Soft-
remain highly speculative). The situation for web ware updates are also wholly automatic.
audiences is extremely dynamic, almost volatile in Nielsen has also begun to measure web-enabled
many respects. Chapter 4 discusses in detail what television sets. Viewers who use such receivers to
online ratings show about audience behavior. One browse websites and stream web programs will be
example is the measurement of time-spent-online measured alongside their more traditional program
(TSO), which by 2010 was 18 hours a week per choices. Nielsen also adapts its STB devices to collect
 CHAPTER 5 Program and Audience Research and Ratings 193

viewing data for homes connected to FiOS, which is and the seemingly arbitrary nature of some decisions
AT&T’s answer to broadband distribution of web- that must be made to have a workable measurement
based programs. system for online usage (see 5.18).
The other leading web tracking service, com- Rentrak also offers measurement of web pro-
Score’s Media Metrix, produces a variety of reports gram viewing through its Internet TV Essentials
from the continuous monitoring of internet audience product. This service gauges how, what, where and
behavior. The comScore company surveys 120,000 why online television viewing takes place. Rentrak
internet users recruited though random-digit dialing. attempts to measure the shelf life of video content
Media Metrix also offers in-depth tracking of online to help clients optimize their libraries of web pro-
transactions, at-work usage and activity on all web grams. Two types of viewing are considered: live-
networks. The detailed description of the Metrix streaming and per-transaction downloads, for either
process illustrates the complexity of the problems purchased content or rental showings.

5.18 The Media Metrix Method

U sing its own patented metering methodology, Media

Metrix continuously captures actual usage data from
randomly recruited users, getting representative samples of
user identification screen again to ensure that a change in
user is captured. If at any time the user changes, it is a
simple matter of clicking the meter’s icon to recall the user
tens of thousands of people in homes and businesses identification screen. The meter applies viewing credit to
around the world (but excluding college labs, cyber cafes, only one application or program at a time. If, for example,
airports, hotel business centers, public libraries and K–12 the user is using a word-processing application while his or
schools where there are certainly lots of computers …). The her browser is in the background downloading web
Metrix is a software application that works with one’s PC pages, the word-processing application receives viewing
operating system to passively track all user activity in real credit—not the browser.
time—click by click, page by page and minute by minute, Whenever a page from the web is displayed in a
measuring only those users who visit the internet at least browser, the meter records the full URL. The Media Metrix
one day per month. Meter records the name and details of each file coming into
The unduplicated audience (cume or reach) is calcu- the PC over a network connection. The meter also records
lated by adding all at-home users to all at-work users and information about each graphic file, banner ad, sound file
then subtracting all users who use both locations. Only the (wav, mid, mp3), streaming media and so on. The meter
base-page universal resource locator (URL), or page also can record additional detail on demand, such as
address, is counted, even if other files and items are asso- specific activity within applications.
ciated with it. Once or twice per year, a certain percentage of
By recording whatever keyboard or mouse activity is respondents are asked to complete qualitative questionnaires
taking place, Media Metrix keeps track of each time the to more fully describe their lifestyles beyond the key demo-
computer is turned on or off, when the machine is on, and graphic data. Household-level demographics are updated
whether a user is actively using the machine. Sixty seconds annually by asking a representative from the household to
after keyboard or mouse activity ceases, the machine is visit a website and update the profile. Additionally, twice per
declared to be “idle.” Viewing time is not credited when year, a portion of the sample is provided with “scanning”
the machine is in the idle state, but as soon as a user moves software, which scans the PC to record the technical con-
the mouse or presses a key, the meter resumes accumulat- figuration and to log which software programs are installed.
ing viewing credit to the page or application. The weakness of the Media Metrix method is that it favors
When the computer first boots up, the user must select heavy web users and excludes light users (many of whom
his or her name from the list of registered users and press may be fearful of viruses and worms or wary of providing
OK. After 30 minutes of “idle” time, the meter presents its fodder for commercial advertising messages).
194 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

In addition to Nielsen//NetRatings, comScore category among the total number of projected indi-
Media Metrix and Rentrak, other services “audit” viduals using the World Wide Web during a given
server-based information supplied by websites. reporting period); (3) average usage days per user;
I/Pro offers its I/Audit service, and Audit Bureau of (4) average unique pages per user per day and
Circulation (the same ABC that audits newspaper month; and (5) average minutes spent per person
and magazine circulation) provides a service called per page, per day and per month. As explained in
the ABC Interactive Web Site Activity Audit Report. 5.18, Media Metrix’s measure of unique pages
All these measurement systems have strengths and counts the number of different URLs visited by a
weaknesses that favor some sites and some kinds person on a particular day. For example, a user
of usage over others. You’ll be rolling in gold if viewing a stock-price page who hits the refresh but-
you’re the one who comes up with the technology ton repeatedly throughout the day will be counted as
that advertisers like, is fairest to all users and is visiting a single unique page for the day.
most widely adopted. Nielsen//NetRatings has similar terminology,
covering three critical areas: site activity (sites vis-
ited, URLs within a site visited, duration of visits
Online Ratings Terminology and duration and frequency of sessions), advertising
Page views (also known as page impressions) are activity (actual ad banners viewed, advertisers, sites
usually defined as one or more online files presented the ads ran on and ads clicked on), and user profile
to a viewer as a single document as a result of a (age, gender, marital status, education, occupation,
single request received by the server. Visits are income and ethnicity). Of all these measures, pro-
a series of interactions with a site by a visitor— grammers are most interested in unique visitors
without 30 consecutive minutes of inactivity. and reach, because they are most like broadcasting
Companies that focus on advertising measure- and cable audience measurements, and also perhaps
ment, such as ABC Interactive Audits, are concerned site activity as an assessment of content popularity.
with such variables as ad display, ad download, ad
impression, ad impressions ratio, ad request and
click/ad interaction. To date, banners have been Matching
one of the most successful internet advertising meth- Attempts to combine the traditional media content of
ods, but for programmers, it is important to under- print or TV and related internet sites first occurred
stand that advertising banners are not separate from when NBC collaborated with Digital-Convergence.com
the “program” content; they are somewhat like hav- to allow viewers to link their personal computers with
ing a changing billboard in a live sporting event. television programming and advertising during NBC’s
Online, there is no flow, no break, and no need to 2000 Olympics, its national election coverage and its
zip or zap, although plenty of ad messages encour- fall 2000 network television season. Advertisers could
age the user to click away. The key measurement in then track consumers interested in their products and
e-commerce is the click-through, defined as the tailor online information accordingly. The system
result of clicking on an advertisement that links to enabled advertisers to communicate directly with these
the advertiser’s website or another page within the potential customers and not waste resources on those
website (exclusive of nonqualifying activity and consumers for whom the brand is either irrelevant or
internal users). not the preferred one. Whether the potential customers
As you would guess, different web tracking thought it was such a good idea is an open question.
services use slightly different terminology. Media All television networks continue to look for
Metrix estimates a site’s (1) unique visitors (the ways to “involve” the television and web audiences.
number of different people visiting the property in a TruTV argues that cost per involvement (CPI) is a
30-day period); (2) reach (percentage of projected key measure of return on investment for advertisers
individuals who visited a designated website or who fund programming. Originally, truTV (back
 CHAPTER 5 Program and Audience Research and Ratings 195

when it was Court TV) introduced its “lean for- participants—those buying and selling programs,
ward” campaign, noting that viewing TV while con- those selling and buying time—refer to the same
nected to the internet was different than the old sets of numbers (Nielsen reports in TV, Arbitron
“lean back” model of passive viewing. Now, the in radio), and they have done so for decades. The
channel uses custom analysis of Nielsen data to “numbers” for any single market usually show a
assess the “stickiness” of its website for program consistent pattern that makes sense in general to
viewers. It did, however, stop short of measuring those who know local history (such as changes in
the direct effects of product sales because, like power, formats and ownership). Although broad-
most other advertiser-supported channels, truTV casters and the ratings companies know that the
felt it could not be accountable for the creativity of “numbers” are imperfect, they remain the industry
the advertising message. standard. In practice the numbers are perceived as
More recently, the issue has become click fraud, or “facts,” not estimates, like it or not.
concern for the accuracy of click counts. To the indus- Occasionally a gross error will require a ratings
try’s dismay, two quite different kinds of fraud have company to reissue a book, but for the most part,
been detected. In one case, a group of people flood a small statistical inequities are simply overlooked. To
site with clicks in order to earn money (hosts of search eliminate as much error as possible and refine meth-
ads make money according to how many people access ods suited to the newer media, the major ratings
the ad, and an extra-large number of clicks earns more companies use advisory boards that suggest how to
money—enough to pay off conspirators). In the other improve the ratings estimates. Because a change in
case, companies with display ads normally pay to stay ratings methodology always means additional costs
up on the site only until they attract a certain number of passed on to broadcasters, the rate of improvement
clicks, and then excess clicks can knock the ad off early will continue to be conservative now that the shift to
(an advantage to a competitor). people meters has been accomplished.
Beyond this purposeful deception, measurement The major limitations of broadcast and cable
definition is an issue. For example, is a person two ratings are briefly summarized as follows. Until use
unique visitors or one if he/she accesses the same site of the internet as an advertising medium grows con-
from home and work on the same day? Eventually, siderably, the problem of limited use overwhelms all
the Media Rating Council is expected to establish other methodological considerations, and adverti-
uniform definitions for valid, invalid and fraudulent sers are the ones who pay for ratings research. But
clicks, as well as standards for auditing tracking it won’t be long. Advertising on Facebook, in partic-
numbers (as soon as a million companies can agree ular, has had a monumental effect on advertisers’
on them). perspectives. All those hundreds of thousands and
millions of eyeballs…Nonetheless, the following
seven practical and theoretical problems limit the
validity, reliability, significance and generalizability
Ratings Limitations of broadcast and cable ratings data.
Although many broadcast, cable and web program- 1. Sample Size
mers are aware of the limitations of ratings and Although each ratings company attempts to reach a
user counts, in practice these limitations are sample that represents the population distribution
rarely considered. This does not result from igno- geographically (by age, sex, income and so on), a
rance or carelessness so much as from the pressure shortfall occasionally occurs in a market. Such
to do daily business using some yardstick. Pro- shortfalls are in fact routine in radio market ratings
grammers, program syndicators, sales staffs, sta- and also occur, although less frequently, in television
tion reps and advertising agencies all deal with the market ratings. In these instances, certain demo-
same numbers. In any one broadcast market, all graphic groups have to be weighted to adjust for
196 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

the lack of people in the sample (such as too few use the 20 responses and compound the error by
men between 25 and 49). assigning a weight of 5 to each of the 20 responses
Weighting by large amounts makes the estimates (to calculate the number of respondents in this age
less reliable. The amount of unreliability is related to group as a proportional part of the total sample).
the (unknown) differences in responses between those Although weighting is a scientifically acceptable and
who did respond in the sample and those who did not perfectly valid procedure, it assumes that those
cooperate or bother to comply with all of the proce- responses being weighted closely represent those
dures. An expected return rate of 100 diaries from responses that are missing (see 5.19 for more on sam-
teenagers, for example, with an actual return rate of pling errors). In our hypothetical example, the
20, should create strong skepticism about how repre- responses of too few individuals represent too many
sentative the 20 responders are. The 80 who did not other people/households.
respond would undoubtedly represent this segment of Sample size is the one limitation that comes to
the audience better and more accurately, but because most people’s minds when they hear about how rat-
their media usage is not known, the ratings services ings are compiled. The typical “person on the street”

5.19 Standard Error

T he concept of standard error is not a ratings limitation

but rather part of a mathematical model whose use
reduces some of the problems associated with rating pro-
error associated with this rating is computed as
follows:
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
20ð100  20Þ
cedures. In practice, however, very few people using SE ¼
1; 200
audience ratings ever take standard error into consider- sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
ation. The “numbers” are seen as factual; sampling errors 20ð80Þ
¼
and other errors or weaknesses in research methodology 1; 200
are not considered in any way. pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
¼ 1:33
In essence, using the standard error model compensates
¼ 1:15
for the fact that ratings are produced from a sample of
people, not a complete count of an entire population. A rating of 20 therefore has a standard error of plus or
Whenever researchers project sample findings into the minus 1.15 points—meaning that the actual rating could
general population from which that sample was drawn, be anywhere from a low of 18.85 to a high of 21.15.
some error necessarily occurs. A standard error figure Another difficulty in calculating error is determining
establishes the range around a given estimate within which how confident we want to be of the results. It is possible to
the actual number probably falls. The range suggests how be very confident (with a 95 percent probability of being
high or how low the actual number may be. The formula for right) or somewhat confident (with only a 65 percent
standard error is probability of being right). Nielsen ratings are generally
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi calculated to the lesser standard. Most social science
pð100  pÞ
SE ¼ research uses the higher standard. Nielsen includes stan-
n
dard error formulas in all their ratings books for those
where SE ¼ Standard error wishing to calculate error in specific ratings and shares,
p ¼ audience estimate expressed as a ratio but undeniably, printing the range for each rating/share
would make ratings books unusable. Nonetheless, the
n ¼ sample size
range is the most accurate version of each rating or share,
For example, suppose that a random sample of given its database, which may itself introduce a great
1,200 people produces a rating of 20. The standard deal more error.
 CHAPTER 5 Program and Audience Research and Ratings 197

response is “How can a few thousand people be used people, the loss of 44 million more out-of-house
to measure what millions of people watch or listen (OOH) viewers is very much affecting program rat-
to?” They are mistaken; the sample sizes used by the ings, and that other OOH viewers need to be added.
ratings companies are not the major problem. The TV programs and some radio formats that
representativeness of those selected for the sample is. appeal to narrow demographic segments are widely
known to go uncounted in calculating the ratings.
2. Lack of Representation Estimates for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon indicate
The major ratings companies long refused to sample that as much as one-fifth of the actual audience used
from group living quarters such as college dormito- to go uncounted by Nielsen’s ratings largely because
ries, bars, hotels, motels, hospitals, nursing homes, of the exclusion of the types of locations where
military barracks and so on. The problem with mea- many people watched the program (college dorms
suring such viewing is that the number of individuals and bars). The same was true (and may still be to
who are viewing varies, sometimes greatly, making it some extent) of Fallon’s predecessor, Late Night
nearly impossible to determine how many diaries with Conan O’Brien, and its competitor, The Late
or people-meter buttons need to be provided. The Show with David Letterman.
Nielsen people-meter ratings also fail to measure Also, cable sports services such as ESPN,
the number of people viewing in offices, workplaces, watched in nearly every bar in the country, suffer
and country clubs—or who are watching battery- from the omission of group audiences. At least 59 per-
operated TV sets on beaches and at sporting events cent of ESPN’s 5.4 million adult viewers watch out-
(there are more than 10 million portable TV sets in side the home each week. The wide popularity of
the United States, to say nothing of watching via sports bars in recent years (with multiple TV screens
computers, tablets or iPhones). and patrons switching among different channels of
In the latest Total-TV Audience Monitor ESPN) adds substantially to the inaccuracy of sam-
(T-TAM), a national survey, Nielsen Media ples used to measure sports viewing. Group viewing
Research estimated that about 44 million adults of soap operas is another unmeasured phenomenon.
(and 32 percent of adults aged 18 to 49) watched
television in out-of-home locations each week. As a 3. Ethnic Representation
result, Nielsen finally began including college stu- Data for ethnic groups are among the most hotly de-
dents living away from home in its ratings because bated aspects of broadcast and cable audience esti-
the survey showed that college apartments and resi- mates. Ratings companies have long grappled with
dence halls were among the most common out- the difficulty of getting randomly selected minority
of-home locations for TV viewing. Nonetheless, households to cooperate with the ratings company
only students whose families already participate in by filling out a diary or having a meter installed. Com-
Nielsen’s surveys can be included—so they do not panies have offered higher honoraria for participating
represent new, independent families—but at least in order to gain a representative sample of both His-
dorm, fraternity, sorority and off-campus apartment panics/Latinos and African-Americans. Nonetheless,
viewing now can influence ratings. many minorities understandably remain apathetic to
The rest of out-of-home viewing, however, only the needs of ratings companies, despite financial
appears in special reports, not the weekly ratings. incentives.
Nielsen argues that such viewing accounts for only Critics argue that those minorities who agree to
a small percentage of total national television view- go along with prescribed procedures are much more
ing and is therefore not worth pursuing (that is, is like white sample participants and are atypical of the
not cost-effective for broadcasters to pay to mea- ethnic group they are intended to represent. Thus, a
sure). Critics argue that, given that the number of participating black family may not be like the vast
TV households in America is 116.2 million, with majority of black families in a given viewing area.
2.56 bodies per household, totally 297.2 million Ethnic populations are undoubtedly undercounted,
198 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

and those who are counted are often unrepresentative of Spanish-language networks were folded into
of their ethnic groups. Because no standard of “truth” national people-meter ratings just like other television
exists by which to compare samples to an entire ethnic viewers. For markets with a significant Hispanic pop-
group, ratings companies and advertising agencies ulation, Nielsen has phased out it separate local rat-
inevitably use the numbers in front of them to make ings report for those homes (HSI) in favor of the NSI
decisions. report.
Nielsen does identify African-American and His- In other countries, the enormous complexity of
panic audiences in its local market rating reports, but the racial and economic situation goes far beyond
the information in some markets is limited to penetra- what U.S. ratings companies must deal with (see
tion, counting their presence in the same table as mul- 5.20 on what is measured in South Africa). Every-
tiset, cable and DVD homes. At the national level, where, advertisers and media programmers need to
however, Nielsen’s monthly reports have an added 20 know what languages their viewers or listeners prefer
African-American demographic categories. In addi- and what electronic capabilities their households
tion, primarily to serve Univision and Telemundo, have. In many developing countries, especially rural
Nielsen started its Nielsen Hispanic Television Index areas, viewing and even listening often takes place in
(NHTI) in 1992, but more recently, Hispanic viewers large groups, which alters the relationship between a

5.20 Going Beyond Race

O nce freed from apartheid, South Africa’s volatile history of racial division and tension led its broadcasters and mar-
keters to seek out ways to avoid categorizing people primarily by race in research. A Living Standards Measure
(LSM) was developed that clustered people into ten distinctive segments on the basis of degree of urbanization, owner-
ship of cars and major appliances, languages spoken, and access to basic services (water, electricity, telephones,
media). Because LMS is a multivariate segmentation tool constructed from 29 variables, it is a far stronger differentiator
than any single demographic variable. The full list includes such variables as the following:

Electricity Flush toilet in house or plot

Electric stove or hot plate Microwave oven
Water in home or on plot Hot running water
Traditional hut Built-in kitchen sink
Washing machine Tumble dryer
Refrigerator/freezer Deep freezer
Dishwasher No domestic worker
Sewing machine Vacuum cleaner or floor polisher
TV set VCR in household
Home telephone No cell phone in household
Pay/satellite channels Stereo or music center
PC in home Fewer than two radio sets in home
One or more sedan cars Home security service
Home in Gauteng/Western Cape Home in nonurban area outside Gauteng/Western Cape

The LSM is widely used in both programming and advertising to define target markets. It is also used in customized for-
mats in other parts of Africa, and efforts have begun to use LSM as a global marketing tool.

Daan van Vuuren

former Director of Audience Research
SABC, South Africa
Reprinted by kind permission of Linda van Vuuren.
 CHAPTER 5 Program and Audience Research and Ratings 199

program and its audience from a programming per- first tasks was to list the TV channels regularly
spective and certainly makes counting viewers or lis- watched for each of the TV sets in the household.
teners even more problematic. Since the author routinely “watches” more than 50
channels on a regular basis, sampling program
4. Cooperation offerings at various times of day or night, this
All ratings companies use accurate and statistically was, at the very least an arduous task. The author
correct sampling procedures: People/households are felt like tearing pages out of the Time-Warner
selected at random to represent (within a small Channel Guide print publication and stapling
margin of error) the population from which they them to the diary with the words “good luck” writ-
were drawn. For representativeness to occur in ten on them. Moreover, the week selected for com-
practice, however, the people/households originally pleting the diary was a totally atypical one in terms
selected must cooperate when the ratings company of outside commitments and events that would
invites their participation. In the past, when Nielsen result in a completely unfair representation of a
used the passive TV-set meters (before people normal weekday/weekend viewing period. Suffice
meters were developed), cooperation was not an to say, the diary was not filled out and returned
overwhelming problem. Since the late 1980s, coop- last year, despite follow-up reminders.
eration rates for allowing the installation of the Not to be outdone, the Nielsen folks called
more complicated people-meter technology by Niel- again this past April, never leaving a message.
sen have steadily declined to alarmingly low levels. Thinking that was the end of it, the author was
Studies have reported refusal rates of one-half to then surprised to receive a diary and instructions
two-thirds for people-meter installations among for participation this year. Nothing had changed
those contacted in original random samples. in terms of the process becoming more user friendly
Refusal rates were highest among ethnic minorities or more in line with how most people watch televi-
and younger adult males. sion. Again the diary was not returned, despite the
The same studies also reported sharp declines usual follow-up reminders.
in the area of diary cooperation. Nielsen diary Based on the author’s personal experience, it
response rates for the November sweeps went seems appropriate to ask how reliable the local mar-
from about 43 percent in the early 1990s to around ket ratings were and will be, given poor cooperation
28 percent by 2000. Arbitron diary response rates rates to begin with and coupled with such a major
went from 40 percent in 1995 to 35 percent by piece of work to complete what was asked. The Niel-
1999. Again, participation differs among key sen folks would of course say that these were not
demographic and lifestyle groups. Ratings for chil- usual circumstances, but coupled with other coopera-
dren and teens are hugely problematic. Moreover, tion problems, the limitations of such procedures in a
long-term cooperation from all viewers continues highly technological age seem obvious.
to be a problem. Using a diary requires partici- Another problem in gaining cooperation that has
pants’ willingness to train themselves to fill it out emerged in the last five years centers on having access
as they view or listen and to learn how to fill it out to a representative sample to participate in the ratings
correctly. People meters require pushing buttons (national or local market level). More and more
every 15 minutes as onscreen reminders interrupt households have no landline telephones (“cord cut-
viewing. They also require the householder to ters”) and are not accessible through various house-
assign spare buttons to casual guests. hold listing that could be used for the sample. Of
Nielsen’s reliance on diaries continues in non- those households with landline phones, many have
metered markets across the U.S. One of the authors caller ID and won’t answer unfamiliar calls and/or
of this chapter was selected to participate in the have put their landline phones on do-not-call lists,
local market ratings one year ago and, again, this which would make them unavailable to Nielsen.
past year. Upon receipt of the diary and complete Another way of collecting data, the telephone
instructions, the author discovered that one of the coincidental method—usually assumed to be the
200 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

most reliable method—has its defects, too. A device at the TV set. In all systems, the sole crite-
2004 study conducted by Ball State University indi- rion for being a viewer is being in the room.
cated that phone surveys are “largely useless” for Viewers can very easily be reading magazines,
determining media behavior. The three-part study talking, thinking, playing a game—in short, pay-
combined phone surveys, diaries and observation ing little or no attention to the picture or sound—
with vastly different results: On average, people but are still counted as viewers.
reported through phone surveys that they watched Conversely, a viewer might be in a nearby room
only 121 minutes of television per day. At the same doing a menial task and listening intently to a pro-
time, diarists logged 278 minutes, and researchers gram’s sound. This person is normally not counted
observed individuals actually watching 319 minutes. as a viewer. Being there may or may not constitute
Other results showed that phone survey responders “viewing.” More crucial, watching the same content
said they spent only 29 minutes online per day, but via computer screen is not included as viewing. What
diarists said they logged on for 57 minutes each day, the ratings services measure, therefore, are potential
while observations recorded people going online for viewers—with the option of letting traditional televi-
78 minutes a day. sion (or radio) receivers occupy their attention. To
Whenever cooperation rates are low, for what- date, no commercial techniques measure viewing as
ever reason, the participating sample probably differs a function of the attention paid to what is on or to
from those who declined. Those who cooperate typi- the way that content is used. And viewing or listening
cally demonstrate a highly favorable view of the via the new reception media appears only in special
medium and generally use it more often than those studies, not regular ratings.
who refuse to cooperate. Refusals may indicate a Among radio audiences, the parallel problem is
lack of interest in the medium or, at the least, too no uniform definition (or no definition at all) of what
light a use to warrant learning a fairly complicated it means to “listen” to radio. When in someone else’s
but infrequently applied process. It is easy to visualize car on the way to school or work while this person
a single person or a young, childless couple who says has the radio on, should the passenger be counted as
to the ratings company, “No thanks, I’m (we’re) a “listener” to station WXXX? How about offices
almost never home. I (we) hardly ever watch TV at where a radio station plays in the background while
all.” Thus, those who view more or use the medium people work? Are they “listening”? Is the music or
more are probably overrepresented in the sample, information what each person would have chosen
resulting in correspondingly inflated viewing esti- had they been able to select the station? Moreover,
mates and unrealistic measures of the total television what does “listening” mean? If a person is paying
audience’s preferences. Of all the limitations on rat- attention to other things and has the radio on for
ings, cooperation remains one of the two most signif- background noise or a kind of companionship,
icant and persistent problems. should that person “count” as a listener?
As for what it means to “visit” a website, the
5. Definition of Viewing/Listening/Visiting absence of universally agreed-upon definitions poses
And here’s a head-scratcher: No one seems to be inherent interpretation problems when trying to
even remotely certain of precisely what it means to understand what the numbers mean or represent. In
“view” television or “listen” to radio. It sounds so this instance, the problem centers on defining what it
simple on the surface, but consider this: For those means to “use” a website, a parallel to what it means
using people meters to be counted as “viewers,” to “view” television. To be counted as a site visitor,
household members must activate the people- does one merely have to access the site to be counted
meter computer with the handheld device only or, perhaps more importantly, should that person
while in the room where the television set is on. count the same as someone who, while at the site,
At regular intervals, viewers are reminded of the goes to other options or pages that are components
need to “log in” by pointing their handheld of the site? Other questions that need to be answered
 CHAPTER 5 Program and Audience Research and Ratings 201

include “What exactly does someone look at when at numbers from computer tapes or online services.
the site?” “For how long does the user look at a par- There is no “book” on which a warning can
ticular item or the site generally?” “Why were none appear. The problem of hyping has grown in recent
of the options accessed?” “Why were one or more years, with some local newscasts promoting huge
options accessed?” As difficult as it is to come up cash giveaways during sweeps. Many industry
with a valid definition of what constitutes “viewing” experts predict year-round measurement for televi-
television, it seems easy by comparison to defining sion that abolishes sweeps periods will eventually
what goes on with a user while he or she is at a web- solve the hyping problem.
site. The contemplate the strange things people do
with smart phones … 7. Device Limitations
Both television and radio ratings are plagued by Not everyone has faith in the reliability of people
the industry’s unwillingness to provide a standard- meters. After 30 years of depending on one ratings
ized, widely agreed-upon definition of viewing and system, Nielsen’s abrupt change in 1987 from
listening, and now the problem is extended to the passive meters and diary-based national television
online world. So long as the advertising industry ratings to people meters created an uproar. The
remained satisfied with the ratings numbers generated shift happened all in one year, and, with so
for TV and radio, there was little reason for concern. much at stake, many in the industry felt unpre-
As Nielsen moved to people meters, however, and as pared. One objection to people meters centers on
media choices proliferated rapidly through cable and what happens when the handheld devices are not
satellite-delivered media services to the internet and correctly operated. When mistakes are made, as is
mobile handheld media, the reported numbers for inevitable, viewing is invalidated and not counted
conventional media showed progressive shrinkage. in the ratings. Given the high likelihood that peo-
Advertisers began to ask what was going on, and ple will have occasional mechanical difficulties
the broadcast and cable industries began to scramble and that children and teens will “fool around”
for explanations. Broadcasting and cable have contin- with the meter, much legitimate viewing may be
ued to point the finger of blame toward the ratings lost. Nielsen argues the necessity of omitting fig-
services, questioning their methods and the validity of ures where the device was misused, claiming that
the numbers they report. Lost in all the ongoing mea- such inclusions would produce unrealistic figures.
surement arguments is the crux of the problem—no Nielsen further claims that in a national sample of
one knows what the ratings services are supposed to 12,000 households, occasional omissions have
be measuring in the first place. This debate has no only a negligible impact on ratings. Not everyone
satisfactory means of resolution until basic definitions agrees, however.
are standardized. Another people-meter problem occurs with
sample composition. The difficulties previously
6. Station Tampering discussed concerning who chooses to become
A continuing problem for ratings is that sometimes part of the sample and who refuses are worsened,
stations attempt to influence the outcome of not resolved, by people meters. Nielsen’s own
the ratings by running contests during the measure- studies show that people-meter cooperators differ
ment period. Arbitron and Nielsen place warnings from noncooperators in that the former are youn-
on the cover of their ratings books advising users of ger, more urban and have smaller families (they
stations’ questionable ethics. Of course, there is a may also differ in other unreported ways). Older
gray area: Was the promotional activity (called people and those living in rural areas are under-
hyping or hypoing) really a normal contest or one represented in the people-meter sample, in part
designed to boost (hypo) the ratings? because of many people’s reluctance to learn to
Warning labels are especially ineffective for the use “another new technology.” It is, however, rec-
advertising industry when the agencies get their ognized that Nielsen’s previous national sample
202 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

overrepresented older viewers and that the post- various kinds of portable people meters for many
1987 sample composition more accurately repre- years, including a pager-sized PPM. (It has to be car-
sents the country’s overall population. ried around or worn on the belt or wrist.) Until the
A third limitation centers on a new form of technology of such ratings devices improves and is
resistance to allowing Nielsen to install the demonstrated as effective and appealing to audience
people-meter hardware. Installing the older pas- participants in test samples, the problems inherent
sive meter involved little or no hassle for partici- with the present system remain and pose major obsta-
pants. People meters, however, require a cles for interpreting what audiences are actually lis-
substantial amount of wiring and hole drilling. tening to or watching.
For many people, allowing workers into their Whether a ratings system uses people meters,
homes to do such work is an intolerable intrusion. infrared sensors recording the presence of viewers in
And, of course, if households allowing the instal- a room, diaries, household meters, portable devices
lation do so in part because they are eager to be or some yet-to-be-developed variation on these meth-
part of the television sample, they do not repre- ods, ratings remain estimates of audience preferences,
sent the overall population and probably produce always subject to a certain undetermined margin of
inflated viewing estimates and distortions in pro- error (this margin may be quite small or very large;
gram preferences. it is not known with any certainty). Previously, the
A fourth and final device-related limitation media industry’s temporary solution was to examine
occurs because people meters transform generally more than one set of numbers, but maturation of the
passive viewers into active viewers. Every time a industry has resulted in fewer independent sources of
participant enters the television room or leaves, information about audiences (see 5.21, which dis-
the handheld device must be activated. Such cusses overreliance on Nielsen).
behavior involves more conscious decisions to Moreover, considering numbers from multiple
view, and about what to view and when to stop sources and multiple methods is a stopgap while
viewing, than does usual television behavior. awaiting a more valid measuring system. When all
Research shows that most viewing gets done the numbers from different sources agree, certainly
with little self-awareness on the viewer’s part. confidence in their accuracy rises. When there are
Now, viewers with people meters must actively variations, programmers and advertisers are left in
record their behavior, and the results are probably the uncomfortable quandary of deciding which num-
atypical viewing. Nielsen maintains that people- bers to trust and which numbers to use. Some televi-
meter users rapidly become accustomed to them, sion programs and radio formats will not receive a
and “normal” viewing habits soon return, similar completely fair rating regardless of which system is
to the way viewers become accustomed to using used—or even if a combination of measures is used.
remote controls. Children’s and very light adult viewing will probably
Nonetheless, the many problems with sample, always remain uncertain.
hardware, and the unnatural state of “active” view-
ing resulting from using handheld controls have
prompted Nielsen to forge ahead with passive people
meters. These are electronic devices equipped with Future Challenges
infrared sensors that identify people present in the
room and record that information along with the As the broadcast/cable and online/interactive
tuned program. While these passive people meters worlds collide, we all expect big changes in the
may overcome the “activity” criticism, testing shows years to come. Traditional measurement services
that many people feel that the camera needed to will certainly have to improve in order to measure
record a person’s presence in the room has spied on smaller and smaller audiences with even greater
them. Nielsen and Arbitron have also been testing accuracy. Google is set to challenge Nielsen with a
 CHAPTER 5 Program and Audience Research and Ratings 203

5.21 The Trap of Overreliance on Nielsen

O ne serious manifestation of the broadcast and cable

companies’ continued reliance on Nielsen data as
their major if not sole source of audience viewing data
games, surfing the web, writing blogs and downloading
and listening to music, as well as passively viewing DVDs
and other prerecorded materials. Nielsen fiercely defended
occurred in the fall of 2003 and remains a matter of con- its numbers and methodologies, providing detailed expla-
siderable controversy with huge consequences for adverti- nations that supported four conclusions.
sers and media distributors alike. As the ratings numbers
1. Men aged 18 to 34 watched prime-time television
came in for the first month of the fall network prime-time
with about the same frequency as in previous seasons,
season, sharp, statistically significant declines in young
but they viewed for shorter periods of time; there are
adult males appeared. Among males aged 18 to 34,
more days in which men in the key age group did not
Nielsen reported declines as high as 12 percent; among
watch television at all.
males aged 18 to 24, the drop was 20 percent. For many
advertisers who specifically buy programs that the network 2. Newly added sample members showed less decline in
guarantees will have certain percentages of males in these viewing than those continuing in the sample.
age groups, this drastic reduction represented potential 3. A combination of incentives and “coaching” of sample
losses of millions of dollars in sales (and losses of millions in participants was successful in overcoming the fatigue
anticipated advertising revenue for the guaranteeing of button-pushing.
networks).
4. Playing video games and watching DVDs did increase
Network executives were quick to respond that Niel-
for men aged 18 to 24 years, but somewhat at the
sen’s sample was not representative of the total population
expense of DCR use.
of males aged 18 to 34 and that Nielsen’s measurement
methodology was responsible for the reported declines. It is clear that Nielsen numbers remain limited in their
Advertisers, by contrast, argued that such declines reflected accuracy. While once the various parties were willing to
a lack of interest on the part of young males in many net- overlook inaccuracies and agreed to accept ratings num-
work programs. Others pointed to the many activity choices bers as a common currency required for “doing business,”
that appeal more to young males than watching network the rise of competing media such as the internet and the
television in prime time. Such choices include playing video threat of DVRs has generated a widespread challenge to
games (for example, PlayStation II or Xbox) or computer traditional measurement practices.

media ratings system that links home computers At some time in not-so-far future, this type of
wirelessly to television sets (and those ubiquitous real-time data collection could supplant Nielsen’s
boxes and DVRs). You can expect that electronic people-meter ratings system, regardless of who
feedback on usage will be built into television sets, owns and sells the data. Fortunately or not, technol-
game players, smart phones, tablets and who ogy to embed a “signature” into all forms of media
knows what. This feedback will give advertisers content has been established, so the concept is out
near real-time and much more accurate measure- there. Devices that track audience behavior are
ment of media activity in general and commercial likely to solve the counting problem—if only the
viewing in particular—whether you want it or not. issue of what is to be counted can be decided (with
The electronics that supply this information will be sufficient agreement among the parties concerned).
invisibly built into all your toys. So far, Nielsen is If DVRs make the practice of skipping commer-
intent on acquiring smaller companies that use new cials widespread, the future of advertising support
devices that measure media activity and then fold- for programming is also in question, leaving the like-
ing the information into its existing, specialized lihood of a pay-per-use system (on demand). Audi-
reports. ence measurement is largely for the benefit of
204 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

advertisers. If the audience pays for individual pro- buzz? What does it cost to continue active participa-
grams or channels, will the ratings really matter? tion by the network in social networking? Will
Restaurants don’t live or die by the little response advertisers be willing to look beyond the cold num-
cards people fill out at the end of the meal! The bers of ratings (overall and in key demographic
price of the meals, the number of patrons and the areas) and be willing to pay more for the same num-
potential return visits measure success. In a similar bers for a series that has ample evidence of an appar-
way, networks may become retailers of their wares, ently energized and active audience? A survey in
just as book publishers and motion picture studios 2011 found that 40% of U.S. Internet users in the
are. In the meantime, branded products with the U.S. are fans or followers on Facebook and/or Twit-
name of major companies proliferate in television ter of at least one network TV show or network.10
programs. Everyone is looking ahead. But, as CBS’s Schweitzer concluded: “It’s really hard
Social media like Facebook and Twitter have to point to one specific thing, like Tweet Week, that
been widely credited with energizing audiences for affects ratings. From the amount of tweeting that
films, products/services and television programs/ there was, the responses we got and the thousands
series. One objective is to engage viewers, turning of new fans, we know that it [a show] was success-
them from indifferent, passive viewers into active, ful. But in terms of ratings, we’ll never know.”
enthusiastic viewers who make specific programs a Until there is a reliable means of measuring
must-see on a weekly basis. Social media are also social network traffic’s tie-in to the size of the audi-
used to maintain interest in a series while it is on ence (via ratings or other such measurement), net-
hiatus and especially as a new season approaches. works will have to rely on persuasion to convince
Heightened anticipation is key to building interest advertisers to pay more for those programs that
and carrying it over to the start of a new season. are particularly effective in generating social net-
Cable channels like TNT, USA and AMC are exam- work buzz. The biggest social media themselves
ples of cable nets that put a lot of effort into trying could enhance their prominence among radio and
to fuel buzz for their series. Part of engagement is to TV stations and TV networks by producing some
get viewers talking (via the Internet social network reliable indices of impact on audience size or higher
sites) among themselves, sharing their thoughts on levels of proactive consumer behavior for the adver-
favorite characters, episodes, relationships, etc. tised products and services. Calculating how many
In an interview, CBS Marketing Group Presi- consumers use social network coupons or enhanced
dent George Schweitzer pointed out that “Technol- bar codes for specific products or services advertised
ogy is an enabler. It’s enabling us to engage our on certain programs is one likely way of adding
viewers in the conversation—a two-way conversa- some more-or-less-solid numbers to the argument,
tion where it used to be just one way.”9 He went but so far, privacy concerns seem to override such
on to provide examples where CBS series’ stars are attempts.
often active on Twitter with regular tweets, interact- Actual consumption, of course, speaks directly
ing with viewers where all Twitter followers can to advertisers’ concerns. It is clear that social media
read the exchanges and participate themselves. He are a growing source of online communication with
also added that social media enable CBS TV shows incredible potential to alter the ways of doing busi-
to fuel word-of-mouth that is presumed to help build ness, but it is equally clear that much work—
and maintain the series’ audience. research, testing, public relations—needs to be
The rub comes when searching for a connection accomplished by all parties with a vested interest in
between those programs that are successful in profiting from these new ways.
exploiting social media and generating conversations The latest challenge to the broadcast and cable
among many thousands of followers and the corre- industries comes from Nielsen’s plan to introduce
sponding rating. Do those series with lots of social regular “commercial ratings” in addition to the
buzz show ratings increases over those with less usual program ratings. When specific commercials
 CHAPTER 5 Program and Audience Research and Ratings 205

have numerical audience estimates attached to them, 3. For more on this topic, see Eastman, Susan Tyler, Fer-
advertisers will be able to evaluate the program con- guson, Douglas A., and Klein, Robert A. (eds.), Media
Promotion and Marketing, 5th ed., Boston, MA: Focal
texts in which their commercial appear, and this
Press, 2006.
information may have major consequences for pro-
4. Emily Steel, “New Tools for Picking Hits,” The Wall St
grammers. It may influence the selection as well as Journal, May 23, 2011, p. B4.
scheduling of shows if the evidence is clear that some
5. The number of households varies annually, and the
types are better suited for gaining audience attention number of people varies according to census reports.
to commercials, as is already believed. And how the These estimates are from Nielsen Media Research.
media operate and are to be paid for are clearly not 6. More information about Nielsen is available on You-
the only important questions relating to evolving Tube by using “Nielsen Ratings 101” as a search term.
forms of television, radio and information consump- The short videos are produced by Nielsen to reach poten-
tion that the public and government need to address. tial panel members and clients. Each topic has its own
video that breaks the research process into separate areas:
Other chapters in this book raise plenty of concerns introduction, designing the sample, recruitment, panel
about the media future. maintenance, and the future.
7. There are more radio markets (299) than television
markets (210) because in big stretches of the southern and
Notes western United States there are places where no television
reaches. In such places radio is useful and important. And
stations and advertisers want those people counted.
1. The word ratings had a clear meaning for much of the
8. Result comes from a meta-analysis (of multiple mea-
history of broadcasting until the introduction of content
surements) by eMarketer. http://emarketer.com/blog/
ratings in the late 1990s. Content ratings serve as labels to
index.php/time-spent-watching-tv-tops-internet/.
adults who supervise children’s viewing. As the motion
picture industry did in the late 1960s, the television 9. Interview published in the online source eMarketer
industry bowed to government pressure and began putting (June 13, 2011 www.emarketer.com). http://www.
program content ratings on shows in the late 1990s. This emarketer.tv/Article.aspx?R=1008429.
chapter deals with ratings in the traditional sense of audi- 10. Results released in the spring of 2011 from a survey
ence measurement, not content labeling. by The Wall St. Journal and Harris Poll (press release,
2. Quantitative data come from audience diaries, meters March 30, 2011). Wayne Friedman, “Social Media
on television receivers, and occasionally from one-time Increases Popularity For TV Viewer Comments,” Media
telephone measurements (called telephone coincidentals) Daily News, http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?
during or immediately following a specific program. fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=147734.
 6
CHAPTER

Syndication for Stations,

Cable, and Online
John von Soosten and Douglas A. Ferguson

Chapter Outline
The Syndication Chain Payment
The Producer and Production Cash and Amortization
Company Amortization Schedules
The Syndicator Barter and Cash-Plus-Barter
The National Sales Rep
Cable and Syndication
Program Acquisition
Scheduling Strategies
Online Syndication
Deal Points The International
Syndicator/Rep Rules Marketplace
Ratings Consultation The Traditional Pattern
Key Questions The Emerging Pattern
Research Data What Lies Ahead for
National Reports
Syndication
Local Market Reports
Specialized Program Analysis Notes
The Decision Process
Determining Need
Analyzing Selection Options

Revenue Potentials
Negotiation
Bidding

206
 CHAPTER 6 Syndication for Stations, Cable, and Online 207

W hat you see on your hometown television

stations usually comes from somewhere
else, even though the local station gets the big billing!
The programs can be network, advertiser supplied,
and international syndication. The topic of radio
syndication is discussed in Chapters 11 and 12 and
noncommercial syndication in Chapter 10. The most
common arrangements and methods of buying and
local or syndicated. This chapter deals with the fourth evaluating syndicated programs are described in this
type, syndicated programs, which are mostly reruns of chapter, but new permutations keep appearing. It is
TV series, specials and movies generally sold to indi- best to remember the old adage, “Just when you
vidual stations or station groups for exclusive show- thought you’d seen it all…”
ing in a single market.1 These programs come from
the distributor to the stations via satellite or Fire-
Wire.2 The local television station licenses a syndi- The Syndication Chain
cated program from a syndicator, a national
company that also licenses the same program to The syndication chain reaches from the producer
other stations in other markets but generally not to through various intermediaries to the station, and
others in the same market, unless a second station is it begins with the program itself. By “program,”
owned by the same group owner. we usually mean all the episodes of a series, any-
Have you run across listings for two different where from a handful to a hundred or more. Pro-
episodes of one show on different channels at differ- grams for syndication arise in one of four ways.
ent times in your guide channel? Under the FCC’s
1. If the program was originally created exclu-
cross-ownership rules, programs are frequently
sively for syndication and has not previously aired
licensed to a group owner for airing on either of the
in any other venue (such as a network), it is said to
co-owned stations in the same market. It is not
be first-run; it is a program created for first-run
uncommon for the same program to air on both sta-
syndication. Ellen, Entertainment Tonight and
tions, typically in different time slots, sometimes one
Judge Judy are easily-recognized examples of syn-
right after another so you can watch double epi-
dicated first-run programs. (Most new first run
sodes. Just to keep you sharp, an alternative is that
efforts are flops.) Foreign programs produced for
a given program may air for a period of months or
airing in other countries and later placed into
even years on one station in a market and then be
domestic U.S. syndication are usually considered
moved to the other co-owned station in that same
first-run because they have not previously been seen
market…and all run again.
in this country. (The rare program made for syn-
Nationally, any “used television program”
dication that later gets sold to a cable or broadcast
probably will not air simultaneously in the same
network—to the great joy of the producer—is
time period in all markets and maybe not necessarily
called off-syndication.)
even on the same day or in the same daypart. The
show probably will not air in every one of the 210 2. Programs that were originally created for one
U.S. markets, and it probably will not air solely on of the broadcast networks and are subsequently
affiliates of any single network. Hence, the program sold in syndication are called off-network. Previ-
is said to be syndicated. ously aired episodes of Family Guy, CSI: Miami,
Although many programs may be licensed to Everybody Loves Raymond and The Simpsons
national cable networks (which often precludes are examples of off-network programs you’ve
sale to local television stations) or online services probably seen.
like Netflix or Hulu, the term syndication typically 3. Shows that were created for the national cable
applies to broadcasting. Although this chapter networks were traditionally included in the off-
focuses on broadcast television, most of the prin- network category. But as the number of such pro-
ciples and considerations discussed here apply grams put into syndication increased, a separate off-
equally to cable syndication, online syndication cable designation developed. Generally, these are
208 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

shows that go from one cable network to another 39 weeks of original programs (195 shows) and
(not to co-owned broadcast networks). 13 weeks of repeats (65 of the original 195
4. The fourth category consists of feature films, shows), getting the station through every one of
including theatricals (made originally for exhibition the 260 weekdays for an entire year. If the pro-
in movie theaters) and made-for-TV, made- gram is successful, the contract may be renewed
for-cable or movie-of-the-week (MOW) films. for a year or two, usually at a higher price. And
MOWs may be off-network, off-cable or first-run fresh episodes of first-run shows are produced
in syndication. for each subsequent season. Look in 6.1 for exam-
ples of the four types of syndicated programs,
You’ve surely noticed that while most network and in 6.2 for syndicated shows categorized by
shows air once a week, syndicated shows are program genre.
stripped across the week. Remember that there are The person who is responsible for delivering the
(usually) 52 weeks with 365 days in a year (you program on time and on or under budget is called the
learned this in elementary school), and television showrunner. He or she is directly accountable for con-
never goes dark (you learned this in middle school). tacts with the production company and syndicator
If you (being now a grown-up station programmer who financed the program. Moreover, if a program
or syndicator) subtract 52 weekends, you have is not delivering satisfactory ratings, the showrunner
261 daily slots each year to fill with various is responsible for “fixing” or improving it.
stripped programs. Maybe there are a handful of The syndication chain involves both direct parti-
holidays with special programs (Christmas) and cipants—one or more producers and financial back-
local sporting events (Indy 500) and local political ers, a distributor and the buyer (a broadcast television
debates (every other year), leaving you with about station, cable network, or foreign network)—and
250 days to fill. If you buy a syndicated sitcom indirect participants, such as the programmers at
and run each episode twice, you need exactly the national station representative firms. All must
125 episodes to fill a half hour daily for the whole
year… and 125 of the next show, and 125 of
many others… TV eats up programs. Keeps pro- 6.1
grammers busy.
Types of Syndicated Programs

O
Off-network shows are sold for several of
years with a fixed number of runs per episode. It ff-Network: Friends, Seinfeld, Everybody Loves
takes a long time—at one episode per week—on a Raymond, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, The
network to build up enough episodes for syndica- Parkers, King of Queens. (Note that—just to confuse
tion. For example, five years of Two and a Half viewers—off-network shows may run simultaneously
Men generated about 110 episodes that then with new episodes on the broadcast network and with
might be sold for three or five years for five to ten reruns or multiplexed episodes on cable networks and
airings of each episode. Of course, because they are in off-network syndication.)
reruns of reruns, off-network shows don’t get First-Run: Dr. Oz, Ellen, Dr. Phil, Rachael Ray, Jerry
network-level ratings when syndicated to stations Springer, Entertainment Tonight, Jeopardy!, Wheel of
(and if streaming rights to the same show have Fortune, Judge Judy.
been sold to NetFlix or Hulu, then its value to sta-
Off-Cable: Nip/Tuck (from FX to Logo), Stargate SG1.
tions sinks a bit further).
In contrast, first-run programs are generally Feature Films: Nearly any movie title once it leaves the
sold in syndication for one or two years at a time movie theaters except recent movies still playing on pay-
with a predetermined number of weeks of original per-view, pay cable or a broadcast network before they
programs (most of them) and repeat programs go into syndication.
(fewer). For example, a 52-week deal might include
 CHAPTER 6 Syndication for Stations, Cable, and Online 209

6.2 Eight Common Syndicated Genres

• Situation comedy. Most sitcoms are off-network (for category also includes the weekend editions of the
example, Friends, Family Guy, Seinfeld, Everybody same programs: ET Weekend, for example.
Loves Raymond, The Simpsons), although in the distant • Reality. This category is a catchall comprised mostly of
past some were created for first-run syndication—for first-run half hours (although the occasional first-run hour
example, some episodes of Mama’s Family and all creeps in) and includes health shows (The Doctors, Dr.
episodes of Small Wonder. Oz), court shows (The People’s Court, Judge Judy,
• Drama. These may be off-network (Criminal Minds, Judge Joe Brown, Divorce Court), comedy shows (Man
Monk, Ugly Betty, CSI), off-cable (Sex and the City, Up Stand Up), music shows (videos, dance music), and
Stargate SG1), or first-run (Star Trek: Voyager) and comedy-based shows (America’s Dumbest Criminals).
may include action-adventure/sci-fi shows (24, Alias) • Games. These half-hour, first-run shows include “pure”
and dramatic shows (Dawson’s Creek, The X-Files). game shows (Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune) and celebrity-
Although these shows were nearly all one hour long, driven, humor-based shows where the entertainment value
a rare few are half-hour shows. is often more important than the game itself (Family Feud).
• Talk. Generally these are first-run, one-hour shows. • Weekly. This category includes virtually all the afore-
They include Dr. Oz, Dr. Phil, Maury, The Jerry mentioned program types, but the shows are first-run
Springer Show and others. and designed for broadcast once or twice a week,
• Magazine. Most commonly half-hour, first-run pro- generally on Saturdays or Sundays (Dog the Bounty
grams, these include Entertainment Tonight (ET), Hunter, Man Up Stand Up). Thanks to competition from
Access Hollywood, TMZ on TV and Extra. This cable networks, many stations run filler or infomercials.

6.3 Children’s Genre

F or years, children’s programming was dominated by

syndicated programs from a variety of companies; then
production shifted to the networks. In recent years, syndi-
Litton) and are aired by stations seeking to fulfill FCC-
mandated educational/instructional programming on
weekends, often in early-morning time periods.
cation of children’s programming has virtually ceased to Along with public television, cable networks, especially
exist. Kids’ CW consists mainly of sitcoms and youth dra- Cartoon Network, Disney Channel and Nickelodeon, are
mas that originally aired on CW/WB. Fox Kids has been the major forces for reaching kid viewers nowadays.
rebranded as 4KidsTV and is children-oriented program- Whether provided by the networks or acquired through
ming on Saturday mornings on FOX stations. The children’s syndication, children’s programs fall into several basic cat-
syndication business today is virtually nonexistent. The few egories: animation (SpongeBob SquarePants, Fairly Odd
syndicated kids programs that are available come from Parents), live action (iCarly, Big Time Rush), and theatrical
DIC Entertainment and independent producers (such as cartoons (Bugs Bunny, Tom and Jerry).

talk in a mutually understood language. Although The Producer and

several systems for classifying programs exist, syndi- Production Company
cators and programmers commonly use eight easily
recognized genre categories (see 6.2). Children’s pro- Many people think of producers as cigar-smoking,
grams used to be another major category of syndica- fast-talking, jewelry-bedecked guys “taking meet-
tion, but no longer (see 6.3). ings” by the pool. A few may fit this description,
210 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

but most would not stand out in a crowd. Actually, in syndication. Network carriage is important for
the producer—or showrunner—is the person who giving a program high visibility, but syndication is
coordinates the diverse elements that constitute a where the profits lie.
television program. In some production companies,
this person is called the executive producer; in others
he or she is the line producer. Showrunners (or exec- The Syndicator
utive producers) oversee on-air talent, directors, wri- Although some syndicators produce programs and
ters, technical crew, line producers, production others merely handle programs produced by other
managers, production assistants and researchers. companies, all syndicators (also called distributors)
They “run the show” as the on-the-set boss and supply programming to local stations on a market-
often come from a writer background. Showrunners by-market basis throughout the nation. Unlike ABC,
often deal with talent agents, personal managers, CBS, FOX, NBC, CW, ION, MNTV, TeleFutura,
union officials, the press and lawyers. They are Telemundo and Univision, syndicators do not have
answerable for everything: the program concept, a single “affiliate” in any particular market. How-
the program content, the tone or mood of the pro- ever, just to make things complicated, the parent
gram—in other words, the overall production. companies of ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC and Univision
A production company finances and produces also operate syndication companies as separate enti-
television programs, hiring the showrunner and the ties and generally forge strong relationships with
staff and possibly proposing program ideas or affiliates of the parent corporation if possible. None-
financing the producers who bring in the ideas. theless, syndicators can and often do sell their pro-
Based on a pilot, maybe, or merely a written presen- gramming to any and all stations in a market.
tation, the production company sells programs Depending on the kind of programs offered by
directly to broadcast or cable networks or, alterna- the syndicator, certain stations in a market may be
tively, strikes a deal with a syndication company to more frequent customers than other stations. For
distribute (syndicate) its programs to individual tele- example, some affiliates build programming blocks
vision stations. Often the production company is the around game shows, others around talk shows.
syndicator itself and distributes the programs it has Although the syndicator may have more than one
created. customer in a market, only one station is licensed
The decision to begin production of a new pro- to carry any particular program at a time. Thus,
gram depends on (a) whether a broadcast or cable one station may license such first-run syndicated
network is interested in the idea and advances devel- programs as Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil from King World
opment funds (see Chapters 4 and 9) or (b) whether (owned by Viacom/CBS); a second station in the
the program is suitable for domestic and foreign syn- same market may license Inside Edition and Bob
dication. U.S. cable and sales to foreign television Vila’s Home Again, also from King World, and a
networks are a crucial aftermarket for off-network third station in the same market may simultaneously
programs and theatrical movies.3 license syndicated reruns of Everybody Loves Ray-
For many years, hour-long dramatic shows had mond and CSI, again from King World. And it’s
only modest syndication potential even after net- very likely that King World’s Wheel of Fortune
work airing, but such cable channels as TNT, USA, and Jeopardy! have been airing on one of these sta-
A&E and Spike have shifted to off-network dramas tions for decades.
for early evening and prime-time weeknights (for Each station will have the exclusive right in its
example, Law & Order, CSI, Without a Trace), local market to all episodes of the series it bought
raising the prices for long runs of such hour-long during the term of the license. And because it means
series. Comedy has always been a gold mine, more money, the syndicator King World may try to
although most programmers insist that sitcoms upgrade the time period of one or more of these
must have young adult and youth appeal to succeed shows from a lesser-rated to a higher-rated time slot
 CHAPTER 6 Syndication for Stations, Cable, and Online 211

(even though the show may compete against another Distribution. All the other very large syndicators are
King World program on another station in the mar- divisions of the Hollywood studios.
ket). Syndicators also try to upgrade a show from a Syndicators “sell” (license for a fee, hence
weaker station to a stronger station. For the syndica- license fee) the telecast rights to a program to a
tor, such upgrades usually result in more income local station for a certain term and for a set number
from higher license fees, as well as higher rates for of plays. The syndicator or the producer of the pro-
barter spots because of higher ratings. So station pro- gram continues to own the rights to the show. Syn-
grammers must look to their own self-interest and be dicators get a commission for distribution, and they
a bit wary of syndicators. can increase their revenues by selling national barter
The United States used to have dozens of domes- time (advertising spots) within the programs they
tic syndication companies, but the number has handle. At the end of the license term, the broadcast
declined in recent years after many mergers. There rights revert to the syndicator, who may now license
are also scores of other syndicators worldwide. All the program all over again to any station in the mar-
major domestic program syndicators and their hottest ket, including the station that ran the program in the
properties in the mid-2010s are listed in 6.4. Off- first cycle or any of its competitors. This occasion-
network hits such as Seinfeld, Family Guy and Every- ally results in some weird station-hopping by old
body Loves Raymond average as high as $2 to $3 shows.
million per episode in combined syndicated revenue The syndicator’s client is both the group owner
(from all stations). Of the firms in 6.4, six companies and the local television station or the cable network.
command more than three-quarters of the domestic After the FCC relaxed limitations on ownership of
syndication business: CBS Television Distribution, television stations in terms of both the percentage of
Disney-ABC Domestic Television, NBCUniversal the U.S. population covered and the number of sta-
Television, Sony Pictures Television, Twentieth Tele- tions permitted under common ownership in a single
vision and Warner Brothers Domestic Television market, the dynamics of the sales process changed.

6.4 Program Syndicators

Syndicators Programs

Carsey-Werner That ‘70s Show, 3rd Rock from the Sun, The Cosby Show, Roseanne
CBS Television Distribution Dr. Oz, Dr. Phil, Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy!, Judge Judy, ET, Rachael Ray
Disney-ABC Domestic Television My Wife and Kids, According to Jim, Alias, Scrubs, Less Than Perfect, 8 Simple
Rules, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, Disney movies
DLT Entertainment Ltd. Benny Hill, Three’s Company, The Ropers
Hearst Entertainment & Syndication The Bravest, Popular Mechanics for Kids, movies, cartoons
Litton Entertainment Storm Stories, Jack Hanna’s Into the Wild
MGM Domestic Television Cash Cab, Stargate Universe, Stargate Atlantis, movies
NBCUniversal Television Distribution 30 Rock, The Office, Access Hollywood, House, Law & Order, Maury, The Jerry
Springer Show
Sony Pictures Television Seinfeld, The Nanny, Married … with Children, Who’s the Boss?, movies
Trifecta Punk’d, The Hills, Geek Meets Girl, Last Shot with Judge Gunn
Twentieth Television Family Guy, How I Met Your Mother, That 70’s Show, Are You Smarter than a
5th Grader?, Don’t Forget the Lyrics, Divorce Court, Judge Alex, movies
Warner Brothers Domestic Television Ellen, TMZ, The People’s Court, Modern Family, Big Bang Theory, Without a
Distribution Trace, movies
212 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

Increasingly, program purchasing and scheduling advertising time for the station. The rep programmer
decisions moved toward corporate or group man- acts as an ally for and consultant to the station
agement and away from local television stations. about programming buys. In recent years, there has
This is partly the result of the rapidly increasing been much consolidation in the sales representative
costs of acquiring programming (as a percentage of business, leaving just three major rep firms, each of
a station’s operating budget and expense versus rev- which has separate sales organizations/divisions
enue) and also because of the greater negotiating under its corporate ownership. This structure
clout a group programming executive has when bar- enables the firms to represent more than one televi-
gaining on behalf of several television stations—as sion station in the same market, since the “separate”
opposed to the leverage a single station has. sales divisions within the same firm “compete” with
At the group level, there are generally one or one another.
more programming executives. Frequently, upper ■ Clear Channel-owned Katz Media Group has
management is involved in negotiating for program-
Millenium (formerly Seltel and Katz Independent),
ming on a group level, especially because of the con-
Eagle and Continental divisions.
sequences for multiple stations and the huge dollar
amounts involved—often tens of millions for a single ■ Cox-owned TeleRep consists of MMT, TeleRep
buy. These upper-level executives may include the and HRP divisions.
CEO, president, CFO, executive and senior vice pre- ■ Petry Media, owned by Petry, has Petry and Blair
sidents and even owners. A lot of money is involved, divisions.
and a single program buy usually affects several sur-
These companies (and several smaller ones) are
rounding programs as well as advertising revenues.
station representatives, national sales organizations
At the station level, the people most commonly
selling commercial airtime on behalf of local televi-
involved are the general manager, the business man-
sion stations. The media gorillas, ABC, CBS, FOX
ager (financial person) and the program director (also
and NBC O&Os, are self-repped and have their
called program manager, director of programming, or
own major rep divisions. Similarly, Univision sta-
other similar titles). Many important program pur-
tions and a few other large television stations are
chasing or scheduling decisions may be made by cor-
also self-repped. The names of station reps can be
porate management or station owners, bypassing the
seen in trade publication articles, in advertisements,
local general manager and program director alto-
on research materials, in directories and even on
gether. These corporate executives, including the
television station letterheads.
group programming executive, are generally not
Although the station representative is primarily
located in the same city as the station itself, a potential
a sales organization, reps do provide additional ser-
source of friction and poor judgment. In another twist,
vices to client stations including marketing support,
because of consolidation, the same program director
sales research, promotion advice and programming
may program two stations in the same market that
consultation. Generally, the bigger the station, the
are owned and/or operated by the same company.
more help that’s offered, though the need is greater
While in effect these stations compete against each
at smaller stations. Through these support services,
other, the programmer will likely set up complemen-
the reps help client stations improve their perfor-
tary program schedules on the two stations, hoping to
mance in terms of audience delivery, which in turn
maximize viewership on both of them.
leads to increases in advertising rates and, presum-
ably, increased profitability for the station—and the
The National Sales Rep rep, of course. (Although revenues may go up,
The outside party involved in the syndication chain profitability for the station sometimes does not
is the rep programmer, who works for the national because of increased programming and operating
station sales representative firm that sells national costs and other expenses.) Usually, no additional
 CHAPTER 6 Syndication for Stations, Cable, and Online 213

6.5 The National Sales Rep

R eps sell commercial airtime on local client stations to

national spot advertisers. As the advertising agency
represents the advertiser in buying commercial time, the
they can maintain sales forces of hundreds of people, sell-
ing on behalf of dozens of stations. The largest station
representatives have client stations in as many as 200
station rep represents its client station in selling the national markets.
time. Local stations sell commercial time to local merchants The rep receives a negotiable commission from its
and other advertisers within their markets, and all commer- client stations for the commercial time the rep sells. As a
cial stations employ a local sales force for this purpose. In rule of thumb, a 10 percent commission rate is the industry
most cases, it is not economically feasible for a single sta- norm, but because of the competitive nature of the rep
tion to employ a sales force to sell commercial time to business, such considerations as the overall state of the
national advertisers because there are far too many economy and market size may cause the commission rate
advertisers and advertising agencies in too many cities to to vary widely. Stations in larger markets and stations
be covered by a station’s sales force. That’s where the rep owned by large group broadcasters often pay only single-
comes in. Rep firms employ sales people in major cities on digit commission rates to their representative. Conversely,
behalf of local stations to sell to advertisers in those cities. stations in smaller markets generally pay a higher com-
(Several of the dozen or so reps have offices in more than mission rate because the dollar volume is considerably
20 cities.) Because reps sell on behalf of many stations, less than in large markets.

fee is charged for support services; they are included exhaustive ratings information after each rating
in the rep’s sales commission (see 6.5). The major sweep period. Because of their national overview of
rep firms have programming staffs that work with programming and their own experience and that of
programmers at client stations to shape and guide their colleagues, rep programmers can often look at
the stations’ programming schedules. programming decisions from a broad perspective
Rep programmers provide ratings information not available to a local station’s general manager
that may support or call into question information or program director.
that syndicators supply, and they advise client sta-
tions on the programs that will attract the most
viewers in the demographic groups advertisers Program Acquisition
most desire to reach. At the same time, rep program-
mers must consider each station’s programming phi- Syndication is the arena in which most programmers
losophy, the mores of the community, and the expend much of their energies—and with good rea-
quality of each program. (While all stations might son. For most stations, the money spent annually to
like to carry Jeopardy! if they could, not all want acquire syndicated television shows is their single
to carry The Jerry Springer Show.) largest expense. The station that buys a syndicated
One of the rep’s most important functions is to program that turns out to be a dud or the station
regularly disseminate generic national research that overpays for a syndicated show may be in
information and market-specific research to client financial trouble for years to come. And the station
stations. Most reps maintain close contact with all that makes several such mistakes (not uncommon)
the big networks (ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CW and has serious problems.
Univision), enabling them to supply an affiliate with The general manager and the program director
competitive information regarding the other net- get recommendations from their rep on which shows
works. Reps also publish ratings summaries and should be acquired, along with a rationale for the
analyses of new programs, and they provide acquisition and recommendations on the program’s
214 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

placement in the station’s lineup. Although reps Scheduling Strategies

spend most of their time dealing with syndicated
When a television station acquires a program from a
programming and therefore work closely with syn-
syndicator, its managers generally have a pretty good
dicators, agency reps do not work for the syndica-
idea of how they will use the show. Normally, they
tors. Reps work for the stations; rep firms are paid
look not only for a program that meets their needs
commissions by client stations based on advertising
but also for one that fits certain scheduling and
sales.
business-deal criteria. As discussed in Chapter 2,
Both the station program director and the
several scheduling strategies are widely accepted.
rep programmer spend many hours meeting with
syndicators, listening to sales pitches, and watching ■ Stripping. Syndicated series can be scheduled daily
videocassettes or DVDs of sales pitches, research or weekly, and programs that run daily in the same
information, program excerpts or actual pilots. In time period Monday through Friday are said to be
the pitch, the syndicator’s salesperson tries to con- stripped. In the case of off-network programs, 65
vince the programmer of the program’s merits and episodes (three network seasons) are generally
that the program, if scheduled on the station, will considered the absolute minimum for stripping,
improve the station’s ratings. Although the reps do allowing 13 weeks of Monday to Friday stripping
not actually purchase the program, and although the in syndication before a station repeats an episode.
syndicator must still pitch the station programmers As explained earlier, between 100 and 150 epi-
directly, a rep’s positive recommendation to the sta- sodes are considered optimum for stripping,
tion paves the way for the salesperson when he or whereas 200 or more episodes can be a financial
she contacts the station. Most syndicators’ agents and scheduling burden to a station. Of course, first-
maintain close and frequent contact with the station run daily programs are created specifically for
program director and the reps. They inform reps of stripping. Typically, game show and comedy pro-
ratings successes, changes in sales strategy, pur- ducers will generally shoot 195 original episodes
chases of the program by leading stations or station (39 weeks) a year, with 65 episodes (13 weeks)
groups, and any other information they feel may win repeated. However, some first-run strip shows will
support from the rep. Syndicators often try to enlist be produced fresh every day with no repeats (260
the rep’s support for a show in a specific time period episodes over 52 weeks), as in the case of timely
on a specific station the rep represents. magazine shows like Entertainment Tonight.
Syndicators can be good sources of information ■ Audience flow. As a general strategy, program-
about competing stations in a given market because mers try to schedule successive shows in a
they generally deal with all stations in a market and sequence that maximizes the number of viewers
have a good idea of each station’s programming staying tuned to the station from one program to
needs and philosophy. Frequently, syndicators the next. The shows flow from one to the next,
inform reps of programs during their developmental with each building on its predecessor. The lead-in
stages—like trial balloons that serve as a way to and lead-out shows are carefully selected to be
gauge the rep’s reaction prior to beginning a sales compatible with a program in any given time
campaign or shooting a pilot of a program. period. Theoretically, the audience flows with the
Syndicator contacts with reps do not replace shows. Additional audience may flow into the
contact between syndicator and station. Rather, syn- program from other stations and from new view-
dicators take a calculated risk with reps to gain sup- ers just turning on their television sets. Thus,
port for a program. If a rep dislikes the show or does audience flow is a combination of (1) retention of
not feel it suits a station’s needs, the rep’s advice to existing audience from lead-in, (2) channel
the station can damage the salesperson’s efforts.4 switching from other stations and (3) attraction of
Many stations have refused to buy syndicated new tune-in viewers.
shows because their reps did not endorse them.
 CHAPTER 6 Syndication for Stations, Cable, and Online 215

■ Counterprogramming. This tactic refers to sched- indicate potential strong points for audience appeal,
uling programs that are different in type and audi- including gender (for example, sitcoms having high
ence appeal from those carried by the competition at female appeal or sports shows with strong male
the same time. For example, within one market from appeal), age (reality dating shows with young adult
4 to 5 P.M. Monday through Friday, station WAAA appeal or sitcoms that have kid/teen appeal), or
might schedule a talk show, WBBB might carry two ethnic (sitcoms with large minority casts).
court shows, WCCC might carry a magazine show ■ Cast, host, or other participants. Big-name or
and a reality show, WDDD might carry two situa- emerging talent is often a draw. In some cases, an
tion comedies, and station WEEE might also sched- ethnic host or cast may be a selling point. If
ule two sitcoms. And with WDDD and WEEE both additional episodes of a series are planned, notice
carrying situation comedies opposite one another, of long-term contracts with the talent has value.
one station might schedule sitcoms with ethnic ■ Duration. The program may be 30, 60 or 90
appeal against the other station’s general-appeal
minutes long, or another length entirely.
sitcoms, hoping to pick up a disproportionately
large share of minority viewers. Thus, all stations ■ Number of episodes. This point includes original
are counterprogramming each other. In another episodes and repeats. Sometimes a minimum and
example, within one market during prime time at maximum number of episodes are offered.
10 P.M., while the ABC, CBS and NBC affiliates ■ Number of runs. The syndicator indicates the
carry network entertainment programs, the FOX, maximum number of times the station may air
UNI and CW affiliates might schedule news. While (run) each episode. In situations where a single
the ABC, CBS and NBC affiliates air late-evening company owns two stations in the same market, a
news at 11 P.M., the other stations might counter- provision might be negotiated in the contract to
program with situation comedies, reality shows and allow the program to run on either station, but the
other non-news programming. Again, one station total number of runs in aggregate on the two sta-
might schedule programs with strong appeal to tions will generally be the same as if only a single
minority viewers in hopes of picking up additional station were to run the show. In large part this has
viewers in what has become a highly competitive to do with the amount of money paid by the syn-
and increasingly fractionalized marketplace. dicator or production company in residuals to
actors, talent, producers, directors and other cre-
Deal Points ative personnel and the amount paid in music
licensing and other rights payments. Generally,
When the syndicator approaches the station or rep
the greater the number of runs permitted, the
programmer, he or she outlines the terms and con-
higher these payments will be, regardless of the
ditions of the offering. Most deals include the fol-
number of stations carrying the program. These
lowing deal points or terms:
additional payments go right out of the syndica-
■ Title. In the case of programs entering syndication tors and/or the production company’s bottom
after a network run, the syndication title may be line, hence reducing profits. Another factor limit-
slightly different from the network version. ing the number of runs in syndication might
Sometimes the title of a first-run program is include future sale to cable networks, which
changed from the time the program is marketed to affects both the term (length) of the contract and
the time it starts airing, often in an attempt to the number of runs during that period.
entice more people to watch the show. ■ Start and end dates. Programs are sold for specific
■ Description of the program. This includes whether lengths of time, such as six months, one year,
it is first-run or off-network, the story line or three-and-one-half years, five years or seven years.
premise and other pertinent information. While not They may be sold months or years in advance of
an actual deal point, the syndicator may also the start date (called futures).
216 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

■ Commercial format. Each show is sold with a A syndication company’s sales, research and pub-
fixed number of commercial spots. For example, a licity people can often create or enhance a pro-
typical half-hour program might be formatted for gram’s perception in the marketplace. The price
(1) six-and-a-half internal commercial minutes (in goes up for the show everybody is buzzing about,
other words, thirteen 30-second units) in two like Oscar winners.
breaks of two minutes each and one break of two- ■ Payment method. Programs are sold for cash, for
and-a-half minutes within the program plus (2) an barter or for cash-plus-barter.
endbreak (external) following the program, typi- ■ Down payment. In cash or cash-plus-barter deals,
cally of 92 seconds. Some of the commercial time
the syndicator might request a down payment
within the program may be retained by the syn-
(typically 10 to 20 percent) when the contract is
dication company for sale to its own national
signed, which is sometimes several years before
sponsors; this is considered barter time and is part
the station receives the rights to the show.
or all of the license fee.
■ Payout. Cash the station still owes to the syndi-
■ Price. The cash price may be stated as either a per-
cator (after the down payment) must be paid
episode fee (which is one inclusive amount for all
when the program begins to air. Typically, the
runs of a single episode) or as a weekly fee (a fixed
balance is paid in installments over the life of the
amount regardless of the number of times each
contract, similar to mortgage or auto loan
episode is ultimately shown). The price charged
payments.
for a program will generally vary by market size,
with stations in larger markets paying more for a
program than stations in smaller markets would Syndicator/Rep Rules
pay because at any given rating, there are more The relationship between syndicators and reps is
viewers per rating point in larger markets than in generally friendly and mutually dependent. The syn-
smaller ones. Therefore, stations in larger markets dicators need the reps’ support in client markets; the
can charge more for commercial airtime and with reps need to get programming information from the
those higher revenues can pay more for program- syndicators. Yet the relationship must also be
ming than stations in smaller markets can. How- guarded. Because the reps are agents of their client
ever, competition for a certain program in a highly stations, they must maintain their independence
competitive market can result in a higher license from the distributors with an impartiality befitting
fee than in a somewhat larger market that is less the trust placed in them by the stations.
competitive. Reasons for competitive levels can Therefore, certain unwritten rules govern the
include the number of stations in a market (more relationship between syndicator and station rep.
stations means more competition for a show and Reps rarely make blanket program recommenda-
fewer shows to choose from—each show has a tions, and they do not endorse any particular syndi-
better chance of being sold because there are more cator. Although reps often support or oppose a
potential customers), more intense rivalries particular genre or programming trend, they are
between competing stations or corporate owners, generally quick to point out that not every station
and the personalities and abilities of the pro- in every market necessarily can be included in their
grammers and the syndicators. Keep in mind that assessment. Few programs will appeal equally in
highly successful shows like Jeopardy! and Dr. every market, and the stations’ competitive needs
Phil can command significantly higher license fees differ greatly from market to market.
than less popular programs. Often the “buzz fac- Another unwritten rule is that rep programmers
tor” has something to do with program pricing, do not supply syndicators with privileged client-rep
like a car or movie that becomes hot because information. As an extension of the station, the rep
people are talking about it and not necessarily programmer does not want to supply information to
because it’s the best car or movie for the price. syndicators that would help the syndicator negotiate
 CHAPTER 6 Syndication for Stations, Cable, and Online 217

6.6 NATPE Pitching Contests

I f or when you get a job in programming, you are likely

to attend an annual NATPE conference. The sale of
programs to stations is so integral to how programmers do
•

•
the actual network performance versus the show’s
projected performance in syndication.
all the research (from the syndicator, the station rep,
their jobs that you might encounter a “pitch” competition, and her own).
which is centered on the strategic considerations already • the cost of the program (raising the question of
presented. Syndicators attempt to sell (pitch) a program to
whether there is money allocated in the station’s five-
stations or groups of stations. In a hypothetical syndication
year future budget projections for a show at this price
offering of an equally hypothetical off-network program,
level).
the prospective buyer must consider
•
The program buyer must put aside her personal
whether or not the station actually needs the program.
feelings or biases for or against the show (it happens
• the potential danger if the show ended up on a com- to be one of her favorites; in fact, she usually TiVos it
petitor (a virtual likelihood if her station passes on to be sure she doesn’t miss an episode) and make the
purchasing it). decision on as much of a nonemotional business basis
• whether there is another program available that might as possible. However, even the most conscientious
be a better acquisition for her station. programmers can rarely put aside all personal
• the time period when her station would schedule the feelings and overlook either positive or negative buzz
show (and a backup time period if it didn’t perform up in both the television industry and their own personal
to expectations). worlds.

against the station. Privileged information includes one another at the annual conventions of NATPE
prices the station would be prepared to pay for pro- (National Association of Television Program Execu-
grams, prices it already paid for other programs, tives) and NAB (National Association of Broadcas-
other programs the station is considering purchasing, ters), as well as at network affiliate meetings.
its future plans and strategies, contract expiration A good working relationship between the station
dates and any other information that might harm and the rep programmer is important. Consultation is
the station’s negotiating position; however, syndica- not a one-way process; a rep does not presume to be
tors frequently provide such information to the reps. an all-knowing authority dispensing wisdom from a
skyscraper in New York. The consultation a rep pro-
grammer provides is a give-and-take exchange of
Ratings Consultation ideas. Just as the rep has a national perspective,
enabling him or her to draw upon experiences in
Station general managers and program managers other markets, the station programmer generally
talk regularly with their national reps. Rep program- knows his or her market, local viewers’ attitudes
mers and station sales management are also in con- and lifestyles, and the station’s successes and failures
tact, albeit less frequently (and research directors, over the years better than almost anybody else.
but most stations do not even have a research
department). The rep programmer occasionally Key Questions
meets clients, either by visiting the station or when
Station management and rep programmers must
station personnel travel to New York, where all reps
consider some key questions as they work together.
are based, to meet with rep sales management and
with advertising agencies. Most general managers/ ■ How well is the station’s current schedule
program directors and reps endeavor to meet with performing?
218 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

■ Has there been audience growth, slippage or decide whether current programming is still viable or
stagnation since the previous ratings report? Since whether the station should switch to another genre.
the same period a year ago? Two years ago? For example, if a two-hour off-network action-drama
■ What audience demographics are the advertisers block is not working, should the station switch to
and the station and rep’s sales departments seek- sitcoms or talk shows? A change of this magnitude
ing? Is current programming adequately delivering is often quite difficult to accomplish, for the station
those demos? usually has contractual commitments to run current
programming into the future. Also, most viable pro-
■ Are older shows exhibiting signs of age?
grams of other genres are almost certainly already
■ Has the competition made schedule changes that running on other stations in the market. It is usually
have hurt or helped the client station? easier to rearrange the order of the existing shows to
■ Does the client own programs that can be used to see if a different sequence will attract a larger audi-
replace weak programs, or must the client con- ence. It is also far easier to replace a single show than
sider purchasing new programs for weak spots? an entire schedule block.
Although household ratings are an important
Generally, a station seeks audience growth over
indicator of a program’s relative performance, pro-
previous ratings books. Of course, for one or two
grammers are primarily concerned with audience
stations to experience audience growth, other sta-
demographics. Though there are dozens of demo-
tions in the market must lose audience. And compe-
graphic groupings, the most important demos are
tition from cable and online also siphons viewers
women 18 to 34 years old (W18–34), women 18 to
away from over-the-air broadcast television. The
49 (W18–49), women 25 to 54 (W25–54), men 18 to
rep programmer seeks to help the station stem audi-
34 (M18–34), men 18 to 49 (M18–49), men 25 to 54
ence erosion and create growth instead.
(M25–54), teenagers (T12–17) and children (K2–11).
Reps also help station programmers analyze the
Generally, these are the demographic groups most
most recent ratings report. Both parties look for
desired by advertisers and therefore the target audi-
trouble spots. If a program is downtrending (show-
ences of most programs, with W18–49 generally
ing a loss of audience from several previous ratings
regarded as the single most important demo. Ethnic
periods), the programmers may decide to move it to
appeal can be an important consideration, especially
a different, perhaps less competitive time period. Or
in markets with relatively high minority populations.
they may decide to take the show off the air entirely,
Although most programs probably don’t appeal
replacing it with another program. Sometimes a
equally to all of these groups, programmers try to
once-successful but downtrending program can be
schedule shows that reach at least several of these
rested or “put on hiatus,” perhaps three months
demos at times of the day when those people are avail-
minimum to a year maximum, or for a part of the
able to watch television. Even if a program is not num-
year, such as the summer. When the program
ber one or two in household rating and share, a strong
returns to the air from hiatus, it often recaptures
performance in a salable demographic may make the
much of its previous strength and may run success-
program acceptable despite the household rating. For
fully for several more years. (If the station does take
example, the program may be number two or three in
the program off the air, it must still pay the cash
household rating and share but may have very strong
portion of the license fee to the syndicator, and it
appeal to young women, making it number one in the
must run the barter spots in the agreed-upon time
market in W18–34 and W18–49. And strong ethnic
period where the show had run, so this is not an easy
appeal to Hispanics or African-Americans may be an
decision.)
important factor in many markets. These groups have
The programmers may also note that a certain
attractive demographics for many advertisers. Thus, the
daypart is in trouble. A wholesale revision of that
program might be acceptable for the station’s needs
part of the schedule may be in order. They may
despite its lower household ratings performance.
need to rethink a station’s programming strategy to
 CHAPTER 6 Syndication for Stations, Cable, and Online 219

In another example, the program might be the syndicated shows and sell advertising time. The syn-
third-rated show in its time period but may have dicators and reps also have available to them addi-
exhibited significant ratings growth over previous rat- tional Nielsen ratings information not generally
ings books. Therefore, the programmers may decide purchased by stations because of its cost. These Niel-
to leave the program in place because it is uptrending sen studies include both national and local market
rather than downtrending. They may decide instead reports. We repeat some reports already mentioned
to change the lead-in show to try to deliver more in Chapters 2 and 5 because here their relevance to
audience to the target show. They may also decide local and group stations are what matters. Even
to promote the show more to build audience. reports focused on network programs tell local and
A key issue in all these decisions is that pro- group programmers how a possible future buy is
gramming is usually purchased far in advance of its doing now on the nets, and everyone in this business
actual start date. In the autumn of any year, stations plans years ahead (or should).
are already planning for the following September,
even though the current season has barely begun.
National Reports
Successful first-run shows are often renewed for sev-
eral years into the future. Off-network programs are ■ NTI. Nielsen Television Index, based on people
frequently sold two or three years before they meters, provides daily ratings performance on a
become available to stations in syndication. national basis for all network programs, including
Once purchased, the station is committed to household and demographic audience estimates.
paying the agreed-upon license fee to the syndicator The NTI ratings are also available as a weekly
regardless of the program’s subsequent network or pocketpiece.
syndication performance. Not uncommonly, a once- ■ NTI Pocketpiece. The Nielsen Television Index
popular network program will fade in popularity in Pocketpiece Report weekly report provides
the two or three years between its syndication sale national household and persons audience esti-
and its premiere in syndication. Although the station mates for sponsored broadcast network programs.
may be stuck with a program of lesser value than The Pocketpiece provides demos and household
originally perceived, the syndicator does not waive numbers for various dayparts. It is small enough
or offer to drop the license fee. A deal is a deal. to fit into a man’s suit jacket pocket (hence the
Conversely, some network shows increase in popu- name) or a woman’s purse, making it handy on
larity as they continue to run; a station that bought sales calls. The Pocketpiece is also the oldest and
early may pay a smaller license fee than it would if it best known Nielsen report.
had purchased the program a year or two later when ■ Galaxy Explorer. Nielsen’s overnight NTI service
its popularity was greater. Reps and their client sta- provides national household ratings and shares and
tions thoroughly research, analyze and plan acquisi- HUT levels. As a Windows-based system, users can
tions carefully in order to purchase wisely—and then analyze broadcast, cable and syndication audience
they place their bets and cross their fingers. estimates across user-selected demographics and
user-defined dayparts for programs and time
Research Data periods on both a daily and a weekly basis.
As you can imagine, much station/rep consulting time ■ Galaxy Lightning. Galaxy Lightning is a quick
is spent preparing information, researching program way to process standardized reports and to load
performance and formulating programming strategy data onto spreadsheets, which can then be
using ratings information from Nielsen Media manipulated and printed.
Research. Station, syndicator and rep programmers ■ NPOWER. Nielsen’s NPower is a software package
and salespeople regularly use the quarterly ViP rat- that allows individual users to analyze Nielsen data
ings books to make programming decisions, sell and create custom ratings reports on desktops or
220 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

laptops. Subscribers can access a centralized Nielsen superstations and spill-in stations from adjacent
database, which is continually updated by Nielsen. markets. NSI provides metered market overnight
The data includes audience estimates for broadcast, ratings reports in more than 50 major markets
cable, syndication and Hispanic viewing. and diary measurement in all Nielsen DMAs.
■ NAD. Nielsen’s National Audience Demographics ■ ViP. Nielsen’s Viewers in Profile report is the bible of
Report provides comprehensive estimates of view- local television stations, the infamous “book” by
ership across a wide range of audience demo- which stations (and sometimes careers) live and die.
graphic categories. The NTI NAD is published Most commercial TV stations subscribe to this report
monthly in two volumes and provides information because they use it as the basis for the advertising
on national network program viewership. The NSS rates the stations charge. All advertising agencies,
NAD is a monthly book providing similar data for syndication companies, and station reps get this
syndicated programming. CNAD is a quarterly report as well. Using NSI data, the ViP books show
report of cable network viewership. Unlike the viewership over specific four-week periods (the
other NAD reports, CNAD does not provide data “sweeps”) in quarterly reports (November, February,
on individual programs; it provides viewing esti- May, July) in 210 markets and in October, January
mates only for time periods and dayparts. and March in selected large markets. The information
■ HTR. Nielsen’s monthly Household Tracking is broken down for dayparts, programs and individ-
Report tracks program performance by individual ual quarter hours. Ratings and shares are shown for
network within half-hour time periods. households and key demographic groupings based on
age and gender. There is also a very useful section that
■ PTR. Nielsen’s monthly Persons Tracking Report
tabulates viewership as thousands of people rather
tracks program performance in terms of house-
than as rating or share. The data is shown as a four-
hold audiences and viewers per 1,000 viewing
week average and is also broken out for the four
households (VPVH). The PTR includes both reg-
individual weeks and the 28 days of the ratings
ularly scheduled programs and “specials.”
period. Both program averages (showing data for
■ CPT. The Household and Persons Cost Per 1000 only a single program as a single number for the entire
Report is an NTI report that gives advertising length of the show) and time period averages (which
agency media planners and buyers estimates of the may include two or more programs in the same time
efficiency of network audience delivery. period during the four weeks and are broken down
■ HUT. Nielsen’s quarterly Households Using by quarter hours or half hours) are provided.
Television Summary Report provides HUT levels ■ NSS Pocketpiece. Nielsen’s National Syndication
for individual half-hour time periods for individ- Service weekly report provides national audience
ual days and weeks. estimates (in small size) for barter programs dis-
■ NTAR. Nielsen’s quarterly Television Activity tributed by subscribing syndicators or occasional
Report compares the audience levels of all broad- networks, including barter specials, syndicated
cast network affiliates, independent television sta- sporting events and barter movie packages. (This is
tions, PBS stations and individual basic and pay not the same as the network PT pocketpiece. Pro-
cable networks. grammers are expected to have lots of pockets.)
■ ROSP. Nielsen’s Report on Syndicated Programs
Local Market Reports provides a complete record of all syndicated pro-
■ NSI. Since 1954, the Nielsen Station Index has grams. The ROSP aids in the selection, evaluation
been the system used to measure viewership in and comparison of syndicated program performance.
local Designated Market Areas (DMAs), including ■ Network Programs by DMA. Nielsen’s reports
local commercial and public broadcast stations, provide audience information for network pro-
and viewership of some national cable networks, grams by station within each DMA (market).
 CHAPTER 6 Syndication for Stations, Cable, and Online 221

■ DMA TV Trends by Season. This Nielsen report groups and large-market stations, Nielsen offers var-
shows viewing trends throughout the year for all ious internet (Media Metrix), sports, DVD, game-
DMAs. It is produced once a year following the show, local-cable, pay-cable and other studies. If
July ratings period. all this isn’t enough, Nielsen can prepare special
■ TAR. Nielsen’s quarterly DMA Television Activ- research reports exclusively for an individual station
ity Report compares the audience levels of all or tailored for a group of stations such as a rep
broadcast network affiliates, superstations, inde- firm’s client list. (But your station better be in deep
pendent television stations, PBS stations and indi- doo-doo to justify that expense!)
vidual basic and pay-cable networks. This report
is similar to Nielsen’s national NTAR report,
Specialized Program Analysis
except it is for individual local markets and
includes spill-in stations from other markets. Before the advent of personal computers, Nielsen
provided printed reports to stations, syndicators
■ NSI Report on PBS Program Audiences. This
and station reps, often at significant expense. Now
report shows viewership of public television dur-
the station reps themselves provide much customized
ing each of the major ratings sweeps periods
research formerly available only from Nielsen. One
(November, February, May, July).
example of such customized ratings research is the
■ NSI Report on Devotional Program Audiences. Katz Comtrac system, which has become an
This report shows viewership of religious pro- industry-standard research tool because it provides
grams during each of the major ratings sweeps easy-to-use comprehensive overviews of station and
periods (November, February, May, July). program performances (see 6.7). Nielsen originally
■ NHSI. The Nielsen Hispanic Station Index report computed the Comtrac reports on its mainframe
evaluates Spanish-language television viewing in computers and then printed them as books, but
16 local markets that have significant Hispanic since the late 1980s Katz has prepared the reports
populations. in-house for its clients on its own PCs more quickly
■ Galaxy Navigator. Similar to Galaxy Explorer, and at significantly lower cost. Katz now distributes
Nielsen’s Galaxy Navigator provides household the reports to its client television stations on CD-
ratings and shares and HUT levels for the indi- ROMs. The stations can then analyze the data on
vidual local metered (overnight) markets. Using a their own computers, printing only the individual
Windows-based program, Galaxy Navigator reports in which they are interested.
enables the user to manipulate the reported data Katz’s first page for Friends (one of several
to customize reports. pages that cover all markets) tracks the show’s
shares in syndication in a condensed format. It
■ Galaxy ProFile. Galaxy ProFile is a PC-based
shows which stations in which markets purchased
analysis tool that the client can use to manipulate
Friends and when they scheduled it. As you can
Nielsen data for all DMAs. Users can study the
see, it then lists the shares for the time period perfor-
performance of individual programs across any
mance in the three previous ratings books (May
and all markets, including comparisons in user-
2003, November 2003, and February 2004, as well
selected demos and with previous sweeps perfor-
as May 2004 in this example), also telling what kind
mances. Galaxy ProFile also provides time period
of lead-in Friends had and the lead-in’s shares.
analysis, genre analysis (that is, game shows, talk
In some cases Friends was not the program in
shows and so on), program block analysis,
the time period in previous ratings surveys, so the
benchmark analysis and grid analysis.
performance of whatever previous program was in
In addition to this mountain of reports, which the time period is shown. The previous program is
may also be purchased by syndicators, major station indicated by a small letter next to the share number,
 222PART THREE
6.7 Comtrac Sheets for Friends

FRIENDS

Understanding Key Processes

May '03 Nov '03 Feb '04 May '04 May '04 Target May '04 May '04 May '04
Demos : HH = Homes, W1 = W18-49, W2 = W25-54, M3 = M25-54 LI HH LI HH LI HH Hr Leadin HH HH HH %CHG W1 W2 M3 Hr Leadout HH Top Competitor LI HH W1 2nd Competitor LI HH W1
SH SH SH SH SH SH SH RT SH May '03 SH SH SH SH SH SH SH SH SH SH

32 CINCINNATI WXIX F 19 20T 7:30P M-F 11 12 9 10 9 11 FRIENDS 7 4.3 8 -33 17 15 14 VARIOUS 12 WKRC ENT TONIGHT 30 17 15 20 WCPO JEOPARDY 18 14 16
33 MILWAUKEE WVTV W 18 20T 6:00P M-F 4 7 4 7 4 6 KING OF QUEENS 4 2.4 5 -29 11 11 3 EVRYBDY-RAY MF 8 WTMJ 6P REPORT 20 19 11 WISN WISN 12 NEWS 16 15 15
33 MILWAUKEE WVTV W 18 20T 10:30P M-F 6 7 6 7 5 6 EVRYBDY-RAY MF 5 2.4 5 -29 8 8 3 KING-QUEENS B 7 WTMJ TONITE SHW-NBC 22 19 19 WISN ACCESS HOLLYWD 16 11 12
34 COLUMBUS, OH WTTE F 28 20T 6:00P M-F 13 13 12 12 12 12 SIMPSONS B 10 4.9 10 -23 22 18 15 WILL & GRACE 9 WCMH NEWSCH 4 AT 6 16 17 16 WBNS 10-EYWT NWS-6P 17 17 14
34 COLUMBUS, OH WTTE F 28 20T 11:00P M-F 8 8 8 8 10 9 NEWSCENTER-10P 10 4.4 8 0 16 14 6 EVRBDY-RY MF B 9 WCMH NEWSCH 4 AT 11 18 20 24 WBNS 10TV NIGHTBEAT 20 19 15
35 GREENVILLE-SPAR WHNS F 21 20T 6:30P M-F 7 6 6 7 7 7 THAT 70S SHW B 8 3.8 7 17 14 12 14 FRIENDS B 7 WYFF NBC NITELY NWS 16 15 15 WLOS ABC-WORLD NWS 12 13 9
35 GREENVILLE-SPAR WHNS F 21 20T 7:00P M-F 6 7 7 8 7 7 FRIENDS 7 3.8 7 0 14 13 12 SEINFELD 7 WLOS WHEEL-FORTNE 13 15 10 WYFF ENT TONIGHT 30 15 13 12
36 SALT LAKE CITY KJZZ I 14 20T 5:30P M-F 7 8 7 7 5 4 HOME IMPROV MF 5 2.5 6 -25 21 9 8 FRIENDS 6 KSL NBC NITELY NWS 11 16 13 KUTV+ 2 NEWS AT 530P 16 14 16
36 SALT LAKE CITY KJZZ I 14 20T 6:00P M-F 8 11 7 8 4 6 FRIENDS B 6 3.0 6 -45 19 10 6 WILL & GRACE 5 KSL EYWT NWS-6 16 17 16 KSTU+ SIMPSONS 9 13 17
37 SAN ANTONIO KENS C 5 20T 10:30P M-F 18 13 20 13 21 13 EYEWIT NWS-10 20 6.8 12 -8 12 15 10 D LETTRMAN-CBS 10 WOAI TONITE SHW-NBC 18 16 14 KSAT INSIDE EDITION 16 11 9
38 GRAND RAPIDS-KA WOOD N 8 20T 7:30P M-F 5 7 9 9 11 9 INSIDE EDITION 10 3.4 8 14 9 10 8 VARIOUS 14 WWMT JEOPARDY 25 23 15 WXMI EVRYBDY-RAY MF 9 10 14
38 GRAND RAPIDS-KA WXSP U 15 18T 10:00P M-F 2 1 2 2 2 1 a VARIOUS 1 0.4 1 0 1 1 1 KING OF QUEENS 1 WOOD VARIOUS 17 16 20 WWMT VARIOUS 18 16 14
39 WEST PALM BEACH WPEC C 12 20T 7:00P M-F 10 8 11 8 11 8 CBS EVE NWS 11 3.5 6 -25 10 8 8 ENT TONIGHT 30 7 WPTV EXTRA 26 16 17 WPBF WHEEL-FORTNE 8 16 9
39 WEST PALM BEACH WTVX U 34 20T 11:00P M-F 4 3 3 3 3 3 VARIOUS 3 1.7 3 0 5 4 2 JUST SHOOT ME 3 WPTV NWSCHNL5 AT 11 18 19 15 WPEC NEWS12-11.00 18 16 17
40 BIRMINGHAM WTTO+ W 21 20T 5:30P M-F 5 5 b 4 5 5 7 SIMPSONS 6 3.8 7 40 12 9 14 FRIENDS B 8 WBRC FOX6 NEWS-530P 17 15 14 WBMA+ ABC-WORLD NWS 18 14 12
40 BIRMINGHAM WTTO+ W 21 20T 6:00P M-F 5 8 c 5 8 7 8 FRIENDS 7 4.8 8 0 19 14 12 EVRYBDY-RAY MF 8 WBMA+ 33/40 NEWS-6 14 16 12 WBRC FOX 6 NWS AT 6 15 15 15
41 NORFOLK-PORTSMT WTVZ W 33 20T 7:00P M-F 3 5 6 6 5 6 SIMPSONS B 5 3.0 5 0 12 10 9 FRIENDS B 5 WVEC WHEEL-FORTNE 13 14 11 WAVY ENT TONIGHT 30 14 12 15
41 NORFOLK-PORTSMT WTVZ W 33 20T 7:30P M-F 5 6 6 6 6 6 FRIENDS 5 3.2 5 -17 10 9 8 VARIOUS 6 WVEC JEOPARDY 14 14 13 WGNT JUDGE-BROWN B 11 11 11
42 NEW ORLEANS WNOL W 38 20T 9:30P M-F 6 5 5 5 5 5 EVRYBDY-RAY MF 5 3.6 5 0 6 5 3 SIMPSONS 6 WWL VARIOUS 20 21 15 WDSU VARIOUS 14 13 15
42 NEW ORLEANS WGNO A 26 20T 11:00P M-F 4 5 d 8 8 a 5 5 d ABC-NITELINE 5 2.2 4 -20 6 7 5 WILL & GRACE 3 WWL D LETTRMAN-CBS 15 12 10 WDSU TONITE SHW-NBC 10 9 7
43 MEMPHIS WHBQ F 13 20T 10:30P M-F 8 11 7 10 8 10 KING OF HILL R 8 5.6 9 -18 13 13 9 THAT 70S SHOW 11 WMC TONITE SHW-NBC 20 13 11 WREG D LETTRMAN-CBS 18 13 10
44 BUFFALO WIVB C 4 20T 7:30P M-F 14 10 15 9 15 9 INSIDE EDITION 14 4.6 8 -20 12 12 11 VARIOUS 15 WKBW JEOPARDY 17 18 14 WGRZ ENT TONIGHT 30 8 13 15
44 BUFFALO WNLO U 23 20T 11:00P M-F 2 1 2 2 2 2 ACCESS HOLLYWD 2 1.0 2 100 2 2 1 COPS 2 WIVB NW4 BUFFALO 11 20 21 18 WGRZ CH2 NWS NTSIDE 19 19 18
45 OKLAHOMA CITY KOCB W 34 20T 6:00P M-F 5 8 6 8 3 7 ON AIR-RYAN 3 3.9 7 -12 17 11 12 FRIENDS B 7 KFOR NWSCHANNEL 4-6 18 19 18 KWTV NWS 9-6 13 16 13
45 OKLAHOMA CITY KOCB W 34 20T 6:30P M-F 8 8 8 9 7 8 FRIENDS 7 4.3 7 -12 15 11 9 VARIOUS 9 KOCO WHEEL-FORTNE 15 19 13 KFOR NWSCH4-630 19 16 14
46 GREENSBORO-H.PO WTWB W 20 20T 6:00P M-F 3 4 e 4 4 5 5 THAT 70S SHOW 5 2.8 5 25 11 9 9 FRIENDS B 6 WFMY WFMY NEWS 2-6 15 17 13 WGHP FOX8 NWS-6.00P 14 16 14
46 GREENSBORO-H.PO WTWB W 20 20T 6:30P M-F 4 5 f 4 5 5 6 FRIENDS 5 3.0 6 20 13 11 10 EVRBDY-RY MF B 6 WFMY CBS EVE NWS 17 19 13 WXII NBC NITELY NWS 15 14 15
47 HARRISBURG-LNCS WHTM A 27 19T 7:30P M-F 8 6 7 5 6 4 HOLLYWD SQUARS 7 2.3 5 -17 4 4 4 VARIOUS 6 WHP JEOPARDY 19 19 12 WPMT EVRYBDY-RAY MF 8 11 18
48 PROVIDENCE-NEW WLNE A 6 20T 7:30P M-F 4 4 g 4 3 4 3 ENT TONIGHT 30 3 1.8 3 -25 4 5 2 VARIOUS 4 WPRI JEOPARDY 15 15 12 WJAR ACCESS HOLLYWD 12 10 16
48 PROVIDENCE-NEW WLWC U 28 20T 11:30P M-F 3 2 h 2 3 f 2 3 WILL & GRACE 2 0.7 2 0 6 5 3 DREW CAREY 2 WJAR TONITE SHW-NBC 24 19 31 WPRI D LETTRMAN-CBS 14 11 11
49 ALBUQUERQUE-SAN KASA F 2 20T 6:00P M-F 5 7 3 4 3 4 DHARMA-GREG 4 2.4 4 -43 8 8 7 FRIENDS B 4 KOAT+ ACTN 7 NWS-6 14 13 12 KOB EYEWTNS NW-600 10 12 15
49 ALBUQUERQUE-SAN KASA F 2 20T 6:30P M-F 7 8 4 5 4 4 FRIENDS 4 2.5 4 -50 8 7 8 VARIOUS 8 KRQE+ WHEEL-FORTNE 12 12 9 KOAT+ ENT TONIGHT 30 13 11 15
50 LOUISVILLE WDRB F 41 20T 11:00P M-F 11 10 8 8 9 8 FOX NEWS AT 10 10 4.5 8 -20 16 14 7 SEINFELD 10 WLKY NEWS CH32 11PM 22 19 19 WAVE WAVE NWS-11P 14 16 14
50 LOUISVILLE WDRB F 41 20T 12:00M M-F 10 8 i 8 7 j 10 9 j SEINFELD 10 3.7 9 13 18 13 12 FRASIER 9 WLKY D LETTRMAN-CBS 14 13 14 WAVE TONITE SHW-NBC 11 10 16
51 LAS VEGAS KVVU F 5 19T 6:30P M-F 8 8 8 8 9 9 THAT 70S SHW R 7 4.4 8 0 15 10 8 FRIENDS B 9 KVBC JEOPARDY 13 15 9 KLAS EYEWT NWS-630 12 11 9
51 LAS VEGAS KVVU F 5 20T 7:00P M-F 8 10 8 10 9 10 FRIENDS 7 5.4 9 -10 14 11 10 EVRYBDY-RAY MF 8 KVBC WHEEL-FORTNE 15 13 8 KLAS ENT TONIGHT 30 11 12 10
52 JACKSONVILLE, B WJWB W 17 20T 6:00P M-F 5 5 c 7 5 5 5 HUGHLEYS B 3 2.2 4 -20 7 7 4 JUST SHOOT ME 3 WJXT EYEWTNS NWS@6 16 17 15 WTLV FIRST CST NW@6 13 14 12
52 JACKSONVILLE, B WJWB W 17 20T 7:00P M-F 5 6 5 6 5 6 JUST SHOOT ME 3 3.0 5 -17 9 8 7 WILL & GRACE 4 WTLV WHEEL-FORTNE 15 14 14 WJXT ENT TONIGHT 30 12 11 16
53 WILKES BARRE-SC WSWB+W 38 20T 7:00P M-F 1 2 k 1 2 f 2 2 WILL & GRACE B 2 0.9 2 0 4 3 3 SIMPSONS 2 WBRE WHEEL-FORTNE 12 21 11 WNEP INSIDE EDITION 36 16 15
53 WILKES BARRE-SC WOLF F 56 20T 10:30P M-F 8 4 l 8 4 6 4 FOX56 NWS-10PM 10 2.6 5 25 8 6 6 BECKER 2 WYOU VARIOUS 15 17 15 WBRE VARIOUS 14 15 17
54 AUSTIN KNVA W 54 20T 6:00P M-F 8 10 7 8 6 7 WILL & GRACE 4 2.9 6 -40 15 13 4 FRIENDS B 6 KXAN+ NEWS 36-6 13 14 8 KVUE 24 NEWS AT 6 16 13 11
54 AUSTIN KNVA W 54 20T 6:30P M-F 10 9 f 8 7 f 7 5 f FRIENDS 6 3.3 6 -33 13 12 6 VARIOUS 5 KXAN+ WHEEL-FORTNE 14 14 8 KVUE ENT TONIGHT 30 13 11 15
55 ALBANY-SCHENECT WNYT N 13 19T 12:30P M-F 12 10 17 12 15 12 NWSCH13-NOON 11 1.6 8 -20 15 16 7 DAYS-OUR LIVES 16 WRGB YOUNG&RESTLESS 29 31 32 WTEN+ JEOPARDY 16 11 3
55 ALBANY-SCHENECT WNYT N 13 20T 7:30P M-F 13 10 15 11 15 10 ENT TONIGHT 30 13 4.3 9 -10 16 16 2 VARIOUS 14 WTEN+ JEOPARDY 21 25 18 WRGB KING OF QUEENS 11 10 11
56 LITTLE ROCK-PIN KLRT F 16 20T 6:00P M-F 2 4 4 6 4 5 KING OF HILL 4 2.6 5 25 10 7 5 SEINFELD 6 KATV CH 7 NWS-6 27 28 18 KTHV KTHV NEWS 6P 14 15 14
56 LITTLE ROCK-PIN KLRT F 16 20T 10:00P M-F 2 2 2 2 3 3 FOX16 NWS AT 9 3 1.9 4 100 5 3 2 THAT 70S SHOW 4 KATV CH7 NWS-NGHTSD 12 24 19 KTHV KTHV NEWS 10P 19 23 24
57 FRESNO-VISALIA KMPH+ F 26 20T 7:00P M-F 13 14 12 11 17 13 EVRBDY-RY MF B 14 5.5 11 -21 14 10 9 FRASIER 7 KFSN JEOPARDY 15 15 5 KFRE MASH 2 4 3
57 FRESNO-VISALIA KMPH+ F 26 20T 11:00P M-F 16 10 c 17 5m 14 6 10 OCLK NWS 14 2.9 12 20 19 17 10 SEINFELD 10 KSEE KSEE 24-NWS-11 17 17 12 KFSN ACTION NWS 11 11 16 13
58 RICHMOND-PETERS WWBT N 12 20T 7:30P M-F 18 14 18 13 19 13 ENT TONIGHT 30 18 7.4 12 -14 17 17 14 VARIOUS 14 WRIC JEOPARDY 12 12 9 WTVR MILLIONAIRE 9 9 7
59 DAYTON WDTN A 2 20T 7:00P M-F 10 9 10 9 8 9 ABC-WORLD NWS 7 3.4 7 -22 9 10 8 JEOPARDY 11 WHIO WHEEL-FORTNE 25 25 20 WRGT SIMPSONS 6 7 13
60 TULSA KWBT W 19 20T 6:00P M-F 5 5 6 7 5 5 THAT 70S SHW B 5 2.4 4 -20 14 10 4 FRIENDS B 5 KOTV NEWS-6 23 19 21 KTUL NWS CH 8 AT 6 15 19 19
60 TULSA KWBT W 19 20T 6:30P M-F 5 6 7 6 5 4 FRIENDS 4 2.7 5 -17 13 10 6 VARIOUS 4 KTUL WHEEL-FORTNE 19 21 18 KOTV ENT TONIGHT 30 19 15 20
61 KNOXVILLE WBXX W 20 20T 7:30P M-F 7 8 8 9 8 9 THAT 70S SHOW 5 3.6 6 -25 14 10 10 VARIOUS 7 WBIR JEOPARDY 23 20 19 WATE MILLIONAIRE 14 13 10
a: VARIOUS i: CHEERS
b: HOME IMPROVMNT j: FRASIER
c: FRIENDS k: THAT 70S SHOW
d: EVRYBDY-RAY MF l: FRIENDS B
e: THAT 70S SHW B m: SEINFELD
f: WILL & GRACE n: KING-QUEENS B
g: ENT TONIGHT 30 o: KING OF HILL
h: DREW CAREY

COMTRAC Syndicated Program Schedules, May 2004. Used by permission.

 CHAPTER 6 Syndication for Stations, Cable, and Online 223

and the title is in the footnote at the bottom of the need. Sometimes this task is easy. The need may be
page. For example, in San Francisco the small letter quite obvious. For example, a first-run program that
b indicates Cheers ran in the three previous time many stations carry may fail to attract a large
periods; in Los Angeles, Friends was the February enough national audience and be canceled by its syn-
2004 program because there is no small letter next dicator. It needs to be replaced on all the stations
to the number. carrying it. In another example, despite increased
Next the Comtrac report shows Friends’ current promotion and a strong lead-in, a particular pro-
lead-in and shares in each market, and then Friends’ gram on a given station continues to downtrend in
own shares and ratings under the heading May ’04 several successive books and from its year-ago per-
Target (including some abbreviated demographics), formance in the time period. It needs to be replaced.
and its lead-out. Finally, the Katz Comtrac page At other times the need may be less obvious. A
shows Friends’ two main competing programs in show may perform reasonably well but show no
each market and their audience shares. audience growth and finish second or third in the
time period. Should it be replaced? Will a replace-
ment show perform as well, better or not as well?
The Decision Process When a syndicator is pitching a station, he or
she tries to identify or create a need for the station
When the syndicator visits the station, he or she to buy the particular program being offered.
makes a pitch to either the general manager or the Although the syndicator’s assessment that an exist-
program manager or both. This occurs, we hope, ing program should be replaced may be correct, he
after the rep has consulted with the station and pro- or she is looking at it strictly from the perspective of
vided research support combined with experience selling a program in the market. The syndicator’s
and judgment—resulting in the rep’s recommenda- need to sell a particular show may not be the same
tion regarding the program the syndicator is selling. as the station’s degree of need (if any) to replace an
The station and the rep then analyze (via email) the existing program. And the syndicator doesn’t have
terms of the deal and how they might use the pro- to find money in an operating budget to pay for
gram, if at all. the program, even if it fails to perform up to expec-
Each programming decision is different from tations. (When people buy new cars or televisions or
any other. Each show is different; each deal is differ- hair dryers, they come with warranties. If they don’t
ent. Markets and competitive situations differ; cor- work properly, the consumers have recourse to the
porate philosophies and needs not only differ but manufacturer.) Television programs don’t come
may also change over time. The personalities and with warranties; the station assumes all the risk,
opinions of the syndicator, station general manager, even if the show fails.
program director and rep programmer all enter into The station and rep programmers approach the
the decision. Although innumerable permutations determination of need by first looking at the perfor-
and combinations exist, the basics of the decision- mance of the existing schedule and identifying trou-
making process involve an assessment of need and ble spots, including individual programs and entire
an analysis of selection options. dayparts. For example, three out of the four pro-
grams from 4 to 6 P.M. may be performing quite
well, but one may be a weak link and therefore a
Determining Need candidate for replacement. In another situation, the
Perhaps the most important part of making any pro- entire 4 to 6 P.M. schedule might be performing
gramming decision is establishing whether a pro- poorly and need to be replaced, perhaps including
gram is needed and determining whether the a switch from one program type to another, such
program in question is the best choice to meet that as from talk shows to reality and magazine shows.
224 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

Analyzing Selection Options time period. Then, too, potential replacement shows
available from syndicators may be perceived as no
Once a need to replace a program has been estab-
improvement over existing programming, or they
lished, a replacement must be selected. Programmers
might be too expensive. Often, increasing promotion
have six basic options at this point. Think baseball,
can help the show “grow.” Finally, the programmers
for the alternatives are analogous in both television
may decide to leave the schedule intact because it
and baseball.
may take time for viewers to “find” the show and
■ Do nothing at all. If a station or a baseball team is form a viewing habit. The rep may research the per-
trailing, it’s sometimes best to leave the lineup formance of the program in other markets to see
unchanged, hoping for an improved performance whether the program is exhibiting growth. Some-
or a mistake by the competition. Sometimes times the only choice is to do nothing at all.
there’s no alternative because the bench strength is
either depleted or no better than the current
players, so no stronger players or programs can be
2. Swap Shows
substituted. The second alternative is to change the batting
■ Change the batting (or programming) lineup. order. Generally, the station and rep programmers
Swap the lead-off hitter with the cleanup batter, or look first at the station’s entire program schedule
swap a morning program with an afternoon show, to see whether the solution might be as simple as
or reverse the order of the two access shows. swapping time periods for two or more shows
(There are many more examples.) already on the air. Often a program originally pur-
chased for one time period can improve an entirely
■ Go to the bench for a pinch hitter or go to the different time period when moved.
inventory of programs “on the shelf” (already In most cases, syndicators are delighted when a
owned by the station but not currently on the station moves a show from a time period with a
schedule) for a replacement show. lower HUT level to one with higher HUTs. A higher
■ Hire a new player or buy a new show. HUT level means a higher rating, even if share stays
■ Send the player to the minors or switch stations, the same or drops slightly. For syndicators selling
but only if a company owns two stations in the barter time in a program, higher ratings in individ-
same market. ual markets contribute to a higher national rating,
■ Do not renew the player’s contract when it which translates into higher rates charged by the
expires, and do not renew the program contract. syndicator to the barter advertiser.
This is no immediate remedy, but at least the sta- For a station, however, such a move may also
tion is no longer on the hook when the current mean paying higher license fees to the syndicator.
contract expires. In the case of first-run programs, syndicators often
make tier or step deals with stations. At the time the
Let’s look at each option in greater detail. deal is made, stations and syndicators agree on
price levels for different dayparts, with higher
1. Do Nothing prices for dayparts that have higher HUT/PUT
Although a time period may be in trouble, some- levels and thus more potential viewers available.
times nothing can be done to improve the situation. One price is agreed upon for morning time periods,
The station may not own any suitable replacement a higher price for early fringe, and perhaps a still
shows. Other shows already on the air might be higher price for access. Four-tier agreements, which
swapped, but the station and rep programmers may also include late night, are not uncommon.
might feel that such a swap would hurt another day- Moving a program from one daypart to another
part (perhaps a more important daypart) or that the triggers a change in license fee. It is to the station’s
other program might not be competitive in the target advantage to negotiate a step deal to avoid a
 CHAPTER 6 Syndication for Stations, Cable, and Online 225

potentially expensive program playing in a low- existing products and at the same time remain com-
revenue time period. petitive. It’s not always necessary to spend more
Step deals are relatively rare for off-network money to buy a new program. Sometimes the station
programs, which generally have a single license fee already owns the solution to a problem. A simple
level priced by the syndicator that is based on the swap of programs already on the air may not be
revenue potential of the daypart in which it is pre- the best answer. A station with strong bench
sumed the program will play. Thus, when a station strength may have enough programs “in the dug-
buys an off-network sitcom or hour-long action- out” to replace a failing show in a competitive man-
adventure show for access or early fringe, the price ner. Corporate accountants like this sort of solution
the station pays remains the same over the life of the because it does not add to a station’s expenses, and
contract. If the show is a ratings failure in access or it uses existing products that must be paid for
early fringe and must be moved to a less lucrative whether or not they air.
morning or late-night time period, the station’s The station and rep programmers look at the
financial obligation to the syndicator remains strengths and weaknesses of the shows on the
unchanged. Thus, a station can find itself with a shelf, which generally have aired before. They must
very expensive “morning program,” a daypart of ask some questions at this point. How well did these
significantly lower revenue potential than early shows work? Have they rested long enough to
fringe or access (meaning that the program may return at their previous performance level, and if
cost the station far more than the time period can not, is their reduced level still superior to the current
generate in advertising income). program’s performance? Are the shows dated? Will
If the station buys an expensive off-network show they look “old”? Are the potential replacement
that later is downgraded to a time period with lower shows suitable for the time period? Are they compat-
HUT levels, the station may experience some discom- ible with the other programs in the daypart? Are
fort in its bottom line (low profitability or a loss), but they competitive? Are they cost-effective? Do they
the consequences are generally not disastrous. If, how- appeal to the available demographic?
ever, the station buys several expensive shows that do
not perform and must be moved to time periods with
lower advertising rates, the economic impact can be
4. Buy New Shows
quite serious. Because of the relatively long license If the first three solutions have been examined and
terms of off-network shows (typically three to four rejected, the programmers at the station and the rep
years), a station may not recover for years when sev- generally consider purchasing a program. Because
eral such “mistakes” are made. an added expense is involved whenever a purchase
Depending on the program and how the contract is made, the programmers must determine whether a
is structured regarding stripping or weekend runs, it new program will be superior to an existing show,
may be possible to move a Monday to Friday pro- and if so, whether it will be strong enough to offset
gram from a weekday schedule to the weekend. Gen- the additional cost.
erally this is not possible with first-run strip programs Although expense is a consideration in any pro-
(such as talk or court shows), which are designed for gramming decision, programmers as well as corpo-
a five-day run, but the strategy may be possible with rate and station management should always keep in
some off-network shows, particularly older sitcoms mind one very important factor: They must keep the
that are purchased on a per-episode basis. station competitive. Remember, their job is to
deliver the largest mass audience with the strongest
demographics. Although they must always keep an
3. Substitute Shows eye on the bottom line and therefore program in a
The third alternative is to go to the bench for a pinch cost-effective manner, a false economy will result
hitter. Programmers have a responsibility to manage from trying to avoid expense if the result would be
226 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

to lose even more revenue. If ratings decline, eventu- right to meet or beat any offers from competing sta-
ally revenue will also decline. tions, the syndicator may elect to sell the show to a
Instead, programmers must balance expense different station for its next cycle anyway, because
against returns, determining the ratings potential the other station is stronger, can offer a better time
and projected revenue when deciding whether a period, is willing to pay more money, or offers to
new purchase is practical and, if so, how much the pick up additional programming from the syndica-
station can afford. The rep’s research can help proj- tor if it takes the program in question. Sometimes,
ect the future performance of a program, whether it stations will warehouse (store unused) programs to
is already on a station’s schedule or will be a future prevent competitors from getting them.
acquisition. Anticipated performance plays a large
role in determining the purchase price.
Revenue Potentials
5. Switch Stations Based on a program’s ratings and the sales depart-
When two stations in the same market are com- ment’s estimate of cost per point (the number of dol-
monly owned, the contracts may have been negoti- lars advertising agencies or advertisers are willing to
ated to allow some programs to run on either pay for each rating point the station delivers), pro-
station. Sometimes a program can take on a new grammers can determine the amount of money the
life and appear fresher when switched from one sta- station can pay for a show. It works like this: A rating
tion to another. Sometimes a program will become a point equals 1 percent of the television households in
better fit in the “other” station’s lineup because of a market. If there are 500,000 television households
other program acquisitions or changes made to in market A, a rating point represents 5,000 house-
either or both stations. And sometimes it’s just pru- holds (HH). A show that receives a 15 rating in mar-
dent to put a weakening program on the weaker of ket A would deliver 75,000 households (5,000 HH
the two commonly owned stations to reduce the neg- per rating point
15 rating points ¼ 75,000
ative impact on the stronger station’s performance. HH). Let’s say that market B has 250,000 house-
While in baseball the team might send a struggling holds. By a similar calculation, a 15 rating in market
player to its farm club, in television this works only B would represent 37,500 households. Likewise, a 15
in a situation where two stations in the same market rating in market C with only 100,000 households
are commonly owned, and the show can be put would represent just 15,000 households viewing the
into the schedule of the other, presumably weaker program. This simple arithmetic illustrates the point
station. made earlier in the “Deal Points” section that pro-
grams generally are sold at a higher price in larger
markets than in smaller ones. Thus, even at the
6. Don’t Renew same rating, the larger the market, the larger the
Most companies own only one station in a market, number of viewers. Conversely, the smaller the mar-
and therefore, when a program is performing ket, the fewer the viewers. And the amount of reve-
poorly, that station is stuck with it. Unlike baseball, nue a station can expect varies accordingly by market
where a player can be literally traded to another size, as does the license fee for the program.
team run by a different owner, this is generally not Advertising agencies pay a certain amount for
possible in television during the term of the program each thousand households, called cost per thousand
contract. At contract renewal time, the current sta- (CPM). Let’s say the agency assigns a $5 CPM. A
tion may, in effect, turn a program into a “free 15 rating in market A would be valued at $375 for a
agent” by not renewing it; the syndicator can then 30-second commercial ($5 CPM
5,000 HH per
try to sell it to another station in the market. More- rating point  1,000 ¼ $25 per point, then
a 15
over, unless the incumbent station has a contractual rating ¼ $375).
 CHAPTER 6 Syndication for Stations, Cable, and Online 227

Let’s say the station is considering a half-hour, percent depending on inflation and local market
off-network sitcom cut for six local commercial min- economy. Using figures supplied by sales, program-
utes and sold with six available runs over four years. mers use this formula to project the net net revenue
(While the program may actually be cut for 6:30, potential of the program over the life of the show. In
including a 30-second barter spot, the general man- this calculation, they also revise the rate based on
ager and program director at the station and the rep the show’s ratings delivery. A program that pro-
are concerned only with the six minutes that are duces a 15 rating in its first run might be moved
available for sale to the station and rep.) The six by its fifth and sixth runs (because it can be expected
commercial minutes in each episode translate to to weaken as it is repeated) to a time period with
twelve 30-second spots per day. Revenue potential lower HUT levels, such as late night, and may gen-
is calculated by multiplying the projected rate per erate only a 5 rating. Therefore, although CPMs are
spot at the anticipated rating by the number of com- increasing, the lower rating will bring down the spot
mercials to give a gross revenue potential. The gross rate, lowering the revenue potential for the program
is now netted down (reduced) to allow for commis- in that run.
sions paid by the station to salespeople, reps and Let’s look at a simplified example of the com-
advertising agencies. At a 15 percent commission plete calculation. We’ll assume the program is avail-
rate, the station nets 85 percent of the gross. The able two years from now. There will be 130 episodes
net is now netted down again to a projected sellout of six runs each (780 total runs) over four years. The
rate (the number of spots actually sold over the station plans to trigger the episodes as soon as the
course of a year is generally less than the number contract starts, running five episodes a week for
available). Most stations use a conservative 80 per- three years, with no hiatus, until all 780 runs are
cent sellout rate for planning purposes; if they actu- exhausted. Coincidentally, this will take exactly
ally sell more than 80 percent of the available time, three years (5 days/week
52 weeks ¼ 260 days
that’s all to the good, and to the bottom line. This per year ÷ 780 total runs ¼ 3 years).
final revenue figure is called the net net. The calcula- The various calculations of the revenue poten-
tion per episode would look like this: tial for each individual episode are shown in 6.8.
The percentage rate increases are estimated by
$ 375 rate per 30-second commercial sales. This year and next year are the two years

12 30-second commercials between the time the station buys the show and the
$4,500 gross per day time it goes on the air. Years 1, 2 and 3 are the years
in which all runs will be taken. The years are not

.85 net revenue level
necessarily calendar years; generally they begin in
(after 15% commission)
September with the start of the new season or the
$3,825 net per day program’s availability date.

.80 sellout rate Now that we’ve figured the revenue potential per
$3,060 net net per day run of each episode as shown in 6.8, it’s easy, based on
projected usage, to compute the total revenue poten-
The $3,060 is the daily income the station can tial for each episode over the life of the contract.
expect to generate during the current year for each But we’re not quite done. Now let’s figure how
run of the program. much the station can pay per episode. Stations
To compute what the show would generate assign percentage ranges in three areas: program
when it goes on the air, the station and rep sales purchase cost, operating expense and profit. Pro-
managers inform programmers of the potential rate gram purchase cost may run as low as 20 to 30 per-
for all future years the show will be available. A cent of total revenue for an affiliate, which gets most
typical increase in cost per point from year to year of its programming from the network, to as high as
might run from as low as 3 percent to as high as 12 50 percent for an independent, which must purchase
228 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

$5,358.83. Because nobody figures so closely (that

6.8 is, to the exact dollar), a range of $5,000 to $5,500
Run 1, Year 1 $3,439.44 per episode would be a reasonable working figure.
Multiplying these figures by 130 available episodes
Run 2, Year 1 $3,439.44
would establish a total investment of $650,000 to
Run 3, Year 2 $1,945.34
$715,000 for the program. The station would cer-
Run 4, Year 2 $1,945.34 tainly try to negotiate a lower cost for the show
Run 5, Year 3 $1,313.76 but might be willing to go higher, even considerably
Run 6, Year 3 $1,313.76 higher, depending on how badly the station needed
Total net net revenue per episode $13,397.08 the program or if it perceived that the show was
important to the station’s image (to viewers and
advertisers) and to its competitive position.
or create all of its programming. Let’s use a median Unfortunately for the station, syndicators per-
figure of 40 percent for our example in 6.9. form the same calculations. They generally quote a
With a total revenue projection of $13,397.08 purchase price significantly higher than the station
per episode, the station using a 40 percent program wishes to pay. In our example, knowing that the
cost figure would estimate the price per episode at station could expect to make as much as $20,000

6.9 Calculation of Revenue per Episode

$5.00 current CPM Year 1: Runs 1 & 2 of each episode in access at 15 rating.

1.05 (5% increase estimate)
$5.25 CPM next year

1.07 (7% increase estimate) Year 2: Runs 3 & 4 of each episode in early fringe at 8 rating.
$5.62 CPM Year 1 of show

1.06 (6% increase estimate) Year 3: Runs 5 & 6 of each episode late night at 5 rating.
$5.96 CPM Year 2 of show

1.08 (8% increase estimate)
$6.44 CPM Year 3 of show

Year1 Year 2 Year 3

$5.62 CPM $8.96 CPM $6.44 CPM

5000 households
5000 households
5000 households
1000 1000 1000
$28.10 Cost per point $29.80 Cost per point $32.20 Cost per point

15 rating
8 rating
5 rating
$421.50 rate $238.40 rate $161.00 rate

12 Commercials
12 Commercials
12 Commercials
$5,058.00 Gross $2,860.80 Gross $1,932.00 Gross

.85 net revenue
.85 net revenue
.85 net revenue
$4,299.30 Net $2,431.68 Net $1,642.20 Net

.80 sellout
.80 sellout
.80 sellout
$3,439.44 Net Net per run $1,945.34 Net Net per run $1,313.76 Net Net per run
 CHAPTER 6 Syndication for Stations, Cable, and Online 229

in the access-time period if all six runs of each epi- another program. The syndicator may lower the asking
sode ran in access, but not knowing that the station price or may increase the number of runs and years (if
might plan to take some runs in early fringe and late possible). The station may raise the down payment, and
night, the syndicator might ask $10,000 to $15,000 the syndicator may allow the station to pay out over
per episode. The station might want to pay $3,000 more time. Negotiation is basic horse trading.
to $4,000 but expect to pay $5,000 to $6,000 per
episode and go as high as $7,500 if it really needed
the show. Bidding
Obviously, the two parties have to reach a mid- Some syndicators of hit off-network programs have
dle ground or the show will either be sold to another sold their programs by confidential bid to the highest
station in the market or go unsold to any station. bidder in the market rather than through negotiation.
And now the fun begins—negotiation. Here is how bids work. The syndicator opens half a
dozen or so markets in a week. Each station receives
Negotiation a complete pitch, including research data, terms and
conditions. Financial terms are omitted during the
Syndicators sell most programs to stations through
pitch. After several days, when all stations have
good old-fashioned negotiation. Generally, the syn-
been pitched, the syndicator faxes all stations simul-
dication company “opens a market” by pitching the
taneously, revealing the syndicator’s lowest accept-
program to all stations in the market. The pitch will
able price and certain other financial details.
be the same to every station in the terms and condi-
Stations are given a few days, perhaps 72 or 96
tions of the deal (episodes, runs, years, availability
hours, to bid on the program. Bids from each station
date, price, barter split, payment terms) but may dif-
in the same market are due simultaneously so that no
fer subjectively depending on the stations’ perceived
station has a time advantage over another. The syn-
needs, strengths, weaknesses and programming phi-
dicator analyzes the bid price, the amount of down
losophy. The syndicator will try to determine or cre-
payment offered, and other financial terms to deter-
ate a need at each station with the hope that several
mine the highest bidder. The highest bidder wins the
will make an offer. In this ideal situation, the syndi-
program, pure and relatively simple.
cator will be able to select which station receives the
The rep programmer usually becomes involved
show based on the following considerations:
in advising client stations during the bidding pro-
■ Highest purchase price offered (if cash or cash- cess. Syndicators notify the reps of the markets com-
plus-barter) ing up for bid, and the reps immediately notify their
■ Size of down payment respective client stations. The reps provide their
usual research analyses of the program’s perfor-
■ Length of payout
mance, coupled with their subjective views of how
■ Ability to make payments well the show will play in syndication and in the
■ Best time period (particularly important to the client’s lineup. While the reps advise the stations
syndicator for shows containing barter time) whether or not to bid, it is ultimately the station’s
■ Strength of station decision (with corporate approval) whether or not to
bid and how much to offer. The reps frequently
■ Most compatible adjacent programming
project the rating and help clients determine the
Often the syndicator receives no offers initially but amount of the bid if a bid is to be made.
may have one or two stations as possible prospects. Perhaps most important, the reps track reserve
Negotiations may continue for weeks or even months, prices (asking prices) and reported or estimated sell-
with syndicator and station each making concessions. ing prices in other markets. The rep programmer
The station may consider paying a higher price than informs the client of these pricing trends to help the
originally planned or may agree to also purchase station determine a bidding price based on previously
230 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

paid prices in similar markets. The rep also informs payment is generally made at the time the contract is
the client of down-payment percentages and payout signed, followed by installment payments over a set
terms in other markets, which serve as a guide to period of time. The down payment is generally a
successful bidding. comparatively small portion of the total contract
Bidding is a fairly simple, clear-cut procedure amount, perhaps 10 or 15 percent. The remaining
for syndicator and station alike. There is no messy, payments are triggered when the station begins
drawn-out negotiation. The syndicator makes only using the program, or at a mutually agreed-upon
one trip to the market, not repeat visits over many date, either of which may be a month or two or
weeks or months. The sale can be accomplished several years after the contract is signed. If the con-
quickly if there is a bidder at an acceptable price. tract is for a relatively short amount of time or a low
Competition between stations is established, often purchase price, the payments will be made over a
turning into a frenzied escalation of prices by sta- short period of time. A one-year deal may have 12
tions reaching ever deeper into their piggy banks to equal monthly payments, and a six-month deal may
be sure they acquire the must-have program. And be paid in only two or three installments; however, a
the syndicator generally achieves prices far in excess five-year contract may be paid out over three years
of the amounts that might be realized through nego- in 36 equal monthly payments, beginning when the
tiation. But bidding works only for the must-have contract is triggered. No payments would be due in
shows that are truly megahits. An atmosphere of years four or five of the contract.
anticipation has to preexist, and stations must have When stations buy programs for cash, whether
a strong desire to own the program. negotiated or bid, they pay out the cash to the syn-
Stations generally dislike bidding. It often forces dicator on an agreed-upon schedule, but they allo-
them to pay more than they normally would. In a cate the cost of the program against their operating
negotiation, station management usually gets a feel budget via an amortization schedule. Amortization
for the degree of competing interest and the syndica- is an accounting principle wherein the total cost of
tor’s minimum selling price. In a bidding war, stations the program is allocated as an operating budget
get little sense of the competition for the show. A sta- expense on a regular (monthly) basis over all or a
tion may be the only bidder, in which case it bids portion of the term of the license. Thus, stations con-
against itself. It may also bid substantially more than trol and apportion operating expenses to maintain a
any other bidder, a waste of money. In this situation, profit margin. Amortization does not affect the syn-
each station works in the dark, which can be unset- dicator or the amount paid to the syndicator
tling. However, stations realize that if they want to be (payout).
in the ball game for a bid show, the syndicator not Depending on the intended method of airing the
only owns the bat and ball but also makes the rules. program, amortization may be taken at regular
weekly or monthly intervals or as the runs are actu-
ally used. In the case of programs intended to be
Payment played week in, week out without hiatus (such as
most first-run and some off-network shows), amor-
Payment for programming takes one of three basic tization is taken every week or month without
forms: cash, barter or cash-plus-barter. Payout exception. This allows a station to predict its ongo-
arrangements vary and are usually negotiated. ing program costs, but it does not allow the station
to avoid those costs should it remove the program
from its schedule.
Cash and Amortization Alternatively, for most off-network shows and
Cash license fees are paid as money (rather than in feature films, the show or movie is expensed (amor-
airtime, as with barter). In most cases, cash deals are tized) as runs are taken of the individual episodes or
like house mortgages or auto loans. An initial down titles. The amount amortized each week or month
 CHAPTER 6 Syndication for Stations, Cable, and Online 231

will vary depending on the number of runs used. If a a higher percentage of total cost than is the second
station must reduce operating expenses, it can do so run, and the second run may be expensed higher
by resting (placing on hiatus) a program or running than the third run, and so forth. A typical
less expensive movie titles. Conversely, in a period of declining-value amortization schedule for five runs
strong revenues, a station can play off (run) more of a program might look like this:
expensive shows or movies. In this manner, a station
First run 40 percent
can control its operating costs to a degree. If, how-
Second run 30 percent
ever, a station does not play off all the episodes
before the end of the contract, it may find itself Third run 20 percent
with unamortized dollars that have to be expensed. Fourth run 10 percent
Thus, amortization can be a double-edged sword, Fifth run 00 percent
and the programming executive has to be a bit of If we compared the same program under straight-
an accountant as well as a creative programmer. line and declining-value amortization systems, oper-
ating expenses would be as follows:
Amortization Schedules Straight-line Declining-value
Amortization schedules differ from station to station, First run $2,000 (20%) $4,000 (40%)
depending on corporate policy. Some stations use dif- Second run ,,,,2,000 (20%) ,,,,3,000 (30%)
ferent schedules for different program types or
Third run ,,,,2,000 (20%) ,,,,2,000 (20%)
planned usages. The two most widely used amortiza-
Fourth run ,,,,2,000 (20%) ,,,,1,000 (10%)
tion schedules are straight-line and declining-value.
Fifth run ,,,,2,000 (20%) $ 2,0000 (0%)
Straight-line amortization places an equal value
Total $10,000 per $10,000 per
on each run of each episode. If a program cost a
station $10,000 per episode for five runs of each episode episode
episode, straight-line amortization would be com- In both schemes, the total amortized amount
puted by dividing the five runs into the $10,000 over the five runs is the full per-episode cost of the
cost per episode, yielding an amortized cost per program. In the straight-line method, the station
run of $2,000 (20 percent of the purchase price, in expenses each run (or “charges” itself) equally,
this case). If the station had negotiated more runs at even though the show’s performance may decline
the same per-episode license fee, the cost per run as more runs are taken of each episode. An advan-
would decline. For example, had the station pur- tage of this method is that the initial run or runs are
chased eight runs for $10,000, the straight-line comparatively inexpensive, especially if the show
amortized cost would be $1,250 per run. The performs well. A disadvantage is that the final run
lower amortized cost would reduce the station’s is just as expensive as the first run, even though the
operating budget by $750 each time the show is show’s popularity may have faded and the ratings
run. On a five-day-a-week strip over 52 weeks declined.
(260 runs in a year), the $750-per-run savings Under the declining-value method, the bulk of
would total $195,000, a sizable amount. (Thus, it the amortization is taken on the initial runs, when
is important to negotiate well to get as many runs as the ratings would presumably be at their highest.
possible.) The station would still pay the syndicator Relatively few dollars would remain to be expensed
the full $10,000 per episode, multiplied by the total in the final runs. In this example, 70 percent of the
number of episodes. program’s cost is taken in the first two runs under
With declining-value amortization, each run of the declining-value system, but only 40 percent is
an episode is assigned a different value on the prem- taken for the same two runs straight-lined. If the
ise that the value of each episode diminishes each show falls apart in the ratings after two or three
time it airs. Thus, the first run may be expensed at runs, the station using the declining-value method
232 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

has already put most of its financial obligation sell. A typical straight barter deal might give half
behind it, but the station using straight-line amorti- of the advertising time within a program to the syn-
zation has the bulk of the expense still to come. dicator, with the other half available for station sale.
In the example, using the declining-value For example, a half-hour program with six minutes
method amortizes all the expense of each episode of available commercial time might allocate three
over the first four runs. Because stations sometimes minutes to the syndicator and three minutes to the
fail to use all the available runs of a program, the station.
fifth run at no charge can be quite helpful to a sta- Cash-plus-barter means exactly what the name
tion. If the run is not taken, there is no charge suggests. Part of the license fee is paid in cash, albeit
against the show as there would be in the straight- a lower cash license fee than if the show were sold
line system. (Not all declining-value amortization for straight cash, and part of the license fee is given
schedules provide free runs; some companies place by the station to the syndicator as commercial time,
some value even on the final run, which serves to which the syndicator sells to national advertisers. A
reduce the expense on the earlier runs, at least typical cash-plus-barter deal for a half-hour show
slightly.) might be a cash license fee plus one minute of com-
The straight-line system is frequently used to mercial time (1:00 national) for the syndicator, with
amortize first-run shows that are expensed on a the station retaining five-and-a-half minutes (5:30
weekly basis and generally run no more than twice local) for its own sale.
per episode. The declining-value system is often used Barter can be both a blessing and a curse. On
for off-network programs and feature films that are the plus side, barter can be a way of reducing cash
generally expensed on a per-run basis and are sold expense at a station. In some cases, especially for
with 5 to 10 runs per episode or film. untried and unproven first-run shows, stations may
Finally, amortization is only an internal alloca- be more willing to give up commercial airtime than
tion of dollars against usage. It does not change the to spend money. If a syndicator takes three minutes
payout of the license fee to the syndicator. The pro- of commercial time within a half-hour show and the
gram may be fully run and amortized before payout station receives three minutes, the syndicator has
is completed, or the station may continue taking received 50 percent of the available commercial
runs of the show for years after the payout to the time, and the station retains 50 percent. As you
syndicator is complete, with the amortization of saw earlier, stations generally figure 30 to 50 percent
the episodes allowing the expense against the oper- of their revenue goes to programming expense, so
ating budget to be delayed until the programs are barter may seem expensive. But because stations
actually run. When all episodes are fully amortized are rarely 100 percent sold out and may average
and all payments made to the syndicator, the final only an 80 to 90 percent sellout over a year, the
dollars expensed in both amortization and payout barter time the station gives up really represents
will be identical. only 30 to 40 percent of revenue potential.
Because most syndicated programs today con-
tain some barter time, barter can be problematic.
Barter and Cash-Plus-Barter Some stations embrace barter so they don’t have to
The second payment method is barter. Barter is a spend real money. Others dislike it because commit-
fairly simple payment system. The station agrees to ments to many shows with heavy barter loads mean
run national commercials sold by the syndicator in significantly less time for the station to sell, hence
return for the right to air the program. No money less revenue. A typical barter deal could result in as
changes hands. The syndicator makes all of its much as half of the commercial inventory not being
money from the sale of commercials to national available to the station to sell. Also, the station may
advertisers, and the station gives up some of the not want to give its time to a third party to sell, often
commercial time it or its rep would have had to at lower rates than the station itself is charging,
 CHAPTER 6 Syndication for Stations, Cable, and Online 233

because the syndicator is selling many markets as a near the rate card price, and deliver the rating prom-
package. ised to advertisers, the syndicator will make money,
Regardless of a station’s feelings regarding bar- and the show will stay on the air. If not, the syndi-
ter, it has no choice about whether to pay cash or cator will likely lose money, and the show might not
give up barter airtime for a show. The syndicator be renewed.
determines the payment terms, not the station. The In an effort to increase the rating and therefore
station’s only option is whether to run the program. the revenue potential, some syndicated programs are
If it doesn’t like the terms, it doesn’t have to clear the run twice during the same week. For example, a pro-
show. gram that runs Monday through Friday during
Barter and cash-plus-barter are used primarily prime access and averages a 5 rating may be rerun
for the sale of first-run programs and the first syndi- the same night during the overnight hours (between
cation cycle of off-network programs because barter 1:00 and 5:00 A.M.), where it might average a 1
is an effective way for syndicators to maximize rev- rating. The prime-access 5 rating and the overnight
enues to fully cover production and distribution 1 rating can be added together to cume a 6 rating.
costs. Producing first-run shows is generally expen- This cumed (or cumulative) rating is considered
sive, and stations are often unwilling to pay suffi- unduplicated viewing because most people would
ciently high license fees for untried first-run not watch the same program twice the same day.
programs. The syndicator’s other choice is to cover Thus, the program has a cumed rating of 6, which
production and distribution costs by bartering a pro- is 20 percent higher than the 5 it achieved in prime
gram. By combining cash payment and several bar- access. A 20 percent higher rating can translate into
ter commercials a day in the first syndication cycle 20 percent more revenue, which could represent sig-
of an off-network program, the syndicator can max- nificant money during the course of a year to the
imize revenue while allowing the station to spend syndicator.
less actual money than if the program were sold Although no standardized ratio of national-
for cash only. Older off-network sitcoms, action to-local commercial time exists, half-hour straight
hours and dramas are generally sold for straight barter shows typically range from two minutes
cash with no barter because production costs have national/four minutes local (generally expressed as
already been covered and demand for these pro- 2:00N/4:00L) to as much as 3:30N/3:30L. Hour-
grams is less. long barter shows typically contain from 3:30N/
Even though clearance in every market in the 10:30L to as much as 9:00N/5:00L. A one-hour
country is the goal, the syndicator must sell the cash-plus-barter program would typically be cut in
show to stations in enough markets to represent at the ranges from 2:00N/12:00L to 3:30N/10:30L,
least 70 to 80 percent of all U.S. television house- plus that would be the cash payment. The amount
holds. Based on this minimum figure, the syndicator of national barter time the syndicator can withhold
projects a national rating and, using a national cost depends on the perceived demand for and strength
per point, determines a rate for each 30-second com- of the program and the ability of the syndicator’s
mercial. The syndicator then attempts to sell all the station sales force.5
national time in the show to national advertisers at,
or as close as possible to, the determined rate. The
syndicator tries to clear the show in the strongest Cable and Syndication
time periods on the strongest stations to achieve
the highest rating. The ratings from all markets Broadcast syndicators have found cable networks to
clearing the show are averaged to produce a national be a ready and growing market for programs.
rating that will, it is hoped, equal or exceed the Instead of sending a large sales force to call on
projected rating. If the syndicator can get the 70 to three to eight stations in each of the 210 local mar-
80 percent national clearance, sell all the spots at or kets to sell a program in syndication, that same
234 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

program is frequently sold to a national cable net- on the original broadcast network with newly pro-
work in a single deal. Often the cable price exceeds duced episodes for the network, (2) weekly repeats
what might be made in broadcast syndication. Also, from previous seasons on local television stations
sales staff salaries and travel expenses are saved. once a week, and (3) the same weekly repeats on a
With more potential customers needing to fill 168 cable network as a strip.
hours a week of airtime, cable syndication has Yet another arrangement is a simultaneous run
become an extremely lucrative marketplace. of brand-new episodes on both a broadcast network
More recent and vintage off-network programs, and a cable network. For example, from the begin-
not to mention new and continuing first-run pro- ning of its network run, Law & Order: Special Vic-
grams, are available than can be fit into traditional tims Unit ran on the NBC television network with a
broadcast station schedules. The huge supply of pro- repeat play several days later on the co-owned USA
grams and reduced broadcast demand have thus cable network.
forced the creation of a cable aftermarket. Some In still another arrangement, a program may be
cable networks program their schedules much as created for a basic cable network and simultaneous
independent broadcast television stations once did, first-run syndication. For example, The Invisible
stripping off-network shows and movies (for exam- Man was created with this idea in mind, taking its
ple, USA’s Law & Order: Special Victims Unit fol- first run on the Syfy Channel followed by a first-run
lowed by a feature film) and vintage programs. syndication appearance of the same episode two
Others buy failed network or syndicated programs weeks later on broadcast television stations in syndi-
at appealingly low prices because these shows either cation. Somewhat similarly, Monk was created for
don’t have enough episodes for syndication or have initial runs on USA and at a later date was played
already failed in syndication. on the traditional NBC network.
A cable network can make an opportunistic Hollywood studios command steep prices when
purchase and program the shows effectively for its they sell off-network shows into syndication on
needs. Basic cable has become a hot competitive cable networks. Table 6.10 shows some recent
marketplace for feature films after their pay-cable prices.
and network exposure and before broadcast syndi- Inevitably, the once-rigid relationships of syn-
cation. The same is true for off-network shows. dication, broadcast television and cable will con-
Broadcasters’ place in line is pushed further back, tinue to evolve and interweave, leading to new
not nearly as central to program distribution when and evermore innovative marketing schemes that
this chapter was first conceived. Even more disrup- involve online distribution. Just when all partici-
tive has been the recent growth in online syndica- pants think they understand how the business
tion, discussed previously in Chapter 4 and again works, someone invents a better (or at least differ-
later in this chapter. ent) mousetrap.
To maximize revenue potential for network pro-
grams, the enduring trend has been to sell off-
network rights simultaneously to both traditional Online Syndication
broadcast stations and cable networks, with the latter
bidding higher for the top shows. Although the types Online shows fall into the same categories discussed
of deals may be limited only by the imagination and earlier in the chapter (off-net, off-cable, first-run,
creativity of the sellers and buyers, perhaps the most movies), but the sales process is still being formed.
common arrangement has become a weekly run on a Wrote one observer: “online video syndication is
television station (one showing of each episode) fol- still feeling its way … there are no rules for online
lowed by a Monday through Friday strip run on a syndication. And while everyone agrees that syndi-
cable network. A popular and long-running program cation is the future of online video, no one knows
might also run simultaneously on different venues: (1) what the field will look like in 5 or 10 years.”6
 CHAPTER 6 Syndication for Stations, Cable, and Online 235

6.10 Prices for Off-Network Program Sold to Cable Networks

Hour-longs:
Show Cable Net $ per episode Year

Hawaii Five-0 TNT 2,500,000 2011

Glee Oxygen 500,000 2010
NCIS: Los Angeles USA 2,200,000 2009
The Mentalist TNT 2,000,000 2009
Ugly Betty TV Guide 200,000 2009
Bones TNT 450,000 2008
Criminal Minds A&E 650,000 2008
Lost Sci-Fi/G4 200,000 2008

Half-hours:
Show Cable Net $ per episode Year
Modern Family USA 1,400,000 2010
The Big Bang Theory TBS 1,500,000 2010
The Cleveland Show TBS/Adult Swim 500,000 2010
30 Rock Comedy Central 800,000 2009
Curb Your Enthusiasm TV Guide/TV Land 600,000 2009
Entourage Spike 600,000 2009
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia Comedy Central 700,000 2009
Old Christine Lifetime 350,000 2009
How I Met Your Mother Lifetime 750,000 2008

YouTube, Vimeo and Blip.tv are planning to Online viewership is projected to reach over 1.3 bil-
develop long-form, professionally-produced, first-run lion people worldwide by 2016.
programs for online streaming, and others probably Off-cable shows that went to broadcast stations,
have similar plans. Blip.tv embeds sponsors’ ads in after some editing, are now sold directly to online dis-
contributors’ videos and pays a share of the revenue tributors (in addition to the usual DVD sales). For
to those who produce the videos (especially program- example, after a six-season run of Nip/Tuck on the
length series). While not everyone who has the talent FX cable network, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment
to make compelling television shows can get a broad- struck a syndication deal with Netflix to stream all 100
cast or cable deal, online distributors are now posi- episodes of Nip/Tuck, as well as three other Warner
tioned to obtain revenue for any producer’s content Bros.-produced series, Veronica Mars, Pushing Daisies
that can draw an audience. Funnyordie.com, for and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
example, is a source of satiric programming, and it DVD sales of off-cable series have been declin-
attracts audiences and thus advertisers. ing as more homes sign onto monthly subscriptions
A decade ago, websites like Atom tried to mar- of streaming services like Netflix and Hulu Plus,
ket informally-produced videos to advertisers but which each charge $7.99 per month. By 2010, Net-
failed. However, now potential audiences are much flix began offering producers $70,000 to $100,000
better connected to wireless computers, phones and per off-network episode, just for streaming rights,
iPad-type tablets, with much faster streaming speeds. which do not preclude syndication to other
236 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

networks (except Hulu Plus, of course). It remains revenue potential of programs through syndication in
unclear whether Hollywood is entirely comfortable international markets. Although most American tele-
with this arrangement. Also, other companies that vision programs are produced in English, foreign
stream videos (Apple, Amazon, Google, YouTube) broadcasters and cable networks find American pro-
are very likely to start bidding wars for hit shows. gramming very attractive. There is a worldwide appe-
Cable operators will likely compete with their own tite for things American (Mickey Mouse, Coca-Cola
streaming services (TV Everywhere or Comcast’s and McDonald’s hamburgers, to name but a few);
Xfinity—See Chapter 4). people in other nations also love American television
At present, movies hold the strongest potential shows and movies. Thus many, but certainly not all,
for online distribution. Netflix is the leader, stream- American television programs find life in other coun-
ing movies to 23 million subscribers in 2011. In con- tries. Often they are dubbed into another language.
trast, YouTube streams an enormous 3 billion They may also be aired in English, either with or with-
videos per day. And it has just begun to move to out subtitles, depending in part on the level of English
long-form content like movies. Hulu Plus also car- spoken by citizens of a particular country and on the
ries movies, and smaller competitors like Crackle expense of dubbing or subtitling.
show movies in addition to reruns of Seinfeld. Even within the same country, some broadcas-
Where all this is going is pretty clear; the questions ters may opt to dub, while others may choose to
to guess at are how soon, how will it be paid for, subtitle, and still others may air the program in its
and who owns everything. original language. Though policies among compa-
nies may differ for various reasons, often the
expense of dubbing is the determining factor. As a
The International Marketplace matter of course, programs for young children are
almost always dubbed: They can’t read yet!
From the earliest days of television syndication In many ways, the syndication process in the
through the late 1990s, the international syndication international marketplace is very similar to the
marketplace was fairly predictable and understand- domestic sales effort. Syndicators have websites,
able. A program created in one country for domestic and salespeople send tempting emails and then visit
syndication, network or cable might also be sold in stations and cable networks in cities throughout for-
other countries, thus extending the revenue potential eign countries. A domestic salesperson may go on
for the program. The basic syndication “rules” were the road for several days in the southwestern United
pretty much the same in international syndication as States, traveling from Dallas to Albuquerque to Lub-
in domestic. Then, as the twenty-first century bock. Conversely, the international syndicator may
approached, something entirely unforeseen happened: go on a sales trip of several weeks, ranging through-
A totally new and exciting arena opened up, produc- out the Pacific Rim from Hong Kong to Tokyo to
ing vast new creative and sales potential. Although the Fiji to Samoa. Although a domestic syndicator’s big-
traditional international syndication market is still gest cultural problems may be regional accents and
very active and important, new programming and local food, the international salesperson encounters
marketing concepts are changing the face of the inter- language barriers and quite different customs. Many
national marketplace. Let’s look first at the tradi- certainly find this makes their jobs both more chal-
tional, tried-and-true international syndication realm. lenging and more interesting.
As in this country, programs are sold for vari-
ous combinations of cash and barter time. The
The Traditional Pattern amounts of cash involved, however, are generally
Just as American syndicators have found multiple pro- substantially less. The production costs of a program
gram sales opportunities in this country in network, are usually recouped in the United States through
syndication and cable, they have also extended the sales to broadcast networks, local television stations
 CHAPTER 6 Syndication for Stations, Cable, and Online 237

and cable networks. International sales become the country, leaving the remaining portion of the sched-
icing on the cake. ule that may be made up of programs produced in
In some instances, especially for first-run syndi- other countries. For example, the European Union is
cated shows, a program is created with American very restrictive regarding the amount of program-
and international partners cofinancing the produc- ming that must contain European content. Further-
tion and distribution costs and then splitting the rev- more, within a single European country, certain
enue. For example, an American company may team percentages must be created within that nation. In
with French and Australian partners. Generally, France, for example, not only must a certain per-
each coproduction partner retains the rights to the centage of the programs carried on the French net-
production in its own country or territory. The work Canal+ be European, but some must also be
American partner may retain North American produced in France. Within the EU, quotas are the
rights, the French company the rights to France same among all European countries, but quotas may
and Europe, and the Australian producer the rights be significantly different in other areas of the world.
throughout the Pacific Rim. Rights in Asia, South In the United States, there are no restrictions
America and Africa might be sold to an entirely or quotas whatever regarding either national pro-
separate company. The divvying up of rights gram origination or employment. American produ-
often depends on the individual clout of the produc- cers are subject only to U.S. labor laws regarding
tion partners and how much they are contributing noncitizens.
to the production, including both money and When a program is produced by or taped in
facilities. several countries, quotas become even trickier. Sell-
A program may even be shot in one of the part- ing foreign-produced programs to customers in
ner countries such as Australia and may use talent another country requires consideration of that
and production crews from one or more of the coun- nation’s employment requirements and content quo-
tries represented. Sometimes this is done to meet tas, among other things. This is one of the reasons
national employment quotas or for nationalistic why fewer and fewer American prime-time series are
pride, but more frequently the purpose is to lower finding their way onto other nations’ television
production costs. In the United States, we enjoy a screens.
high standard of living; we also have high labor For years, most programming went in one direc-
and other production costs. Although shooting a tion: from the United States to other countries. Rel-
series in a country such as Australia may sound atively little programming flowed from other nations
exotic, it is usually done primarily with an eye on into the United States. American dramatic and
the bottom line. action shows generally sold best in other countries.
Unlike program production in the United States, Although car crashes, whodunits and prime-time
when shows are produced in other countries for air- soaps seem to have universal appeal, comedy
ing in those countries or in the international market- shows often didn’t fare as well. What’s a knee slap-
place, the producers must generally conform to per or rib tickler in one part of the globe may not
various quotas. Often a country will require that cer- seem so funny in other areas.
tain percentages of the people employed for the pro- American movies have long been popular in
duction of a program be citizens of that country. most other countries. During the 1980s and 1990s,
This extends from the stars and other on-camera tal- the Hollywood studios increasingly made output
ent to the behind-the-scenes people, including pro- deals in which substantial amounts of programming
ducers, writers, technicians, wardrobe people, from a studio were sold in advance in other coun-
stagehands, secretaries and even drivers. tries. This helped to finance the production costs of
Quotas of a different sort must also be consid- the shows and to give relative assurance that a pro-
ered. Many countries regulate the percentage of a gram actually would be produced. Some people have
program schedule that must originate within that dubbed this period the Golden Age of Export.
238 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

The birth of new broadcast and cable networks

in the United States and throughout the world in the 6.11 Global Branding by
1980s and 1990s created a tremendous demand for Nickelodeon
fresh programming. The rise of the FOX network
had enormous impact not only in the United States
but also around the world. FOX programs such as
Beverly Hills 90210 and The Simpsons became so
popular in other countries that they became global
N ickelodeon has created branded blocks of pro-
gramming both for its own international services
and for sale to other companies in countries where Nick
does not have its own operations. Nickelodeon provides
brands, much like Nike and Microsoft.
not only several hours of the programs themselves but
Many American cable networks have also
also interstitial materials such as promos and IDs and
become global brands. MTV has cable networks in
website content. As a further extension of branding and
many areas of the world programmed in the lan- its image, Nickelodeon also licenses ancillary rights and
guages of the local countries. The Discovery Chan- services. Included are product licensing and merchan-
nel is also global, with localized programming in dising (toys and games), video and audio products
Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle (CDs, videocassettes and DVDs), and publishing rights
East as well as in individual countries, including (books and magazines). Like many other companies,
Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Italy and Nickelodeon believes its trademark is valuable, and it
India. Fox Kids Network, E! and TNT are also carefully guards the environment in which its program-
seen in many countries. And CNN is the original ming and image are presented around the world.
worldwide network, viewed around the globe since As communications shrink the world, programs and
the 1980s. program concepts are becoming both more global and
Global branding has become commonplace in more utilized. For example, Nickelodeon created Rugrats
broadcast and cable circles. Often branding goes as a U.S. cable program. The show has since been
far beyond an individual program or character (see aired around the world. In Great Britain alone, Rugrats
6.11). can be seen on the BBC (the British Broadcasting Cor-
poration’s terrestrial broadcast network), Nick UK (basic
cable and direct broadcast satellite) and Nick Replay
The Emerging Pattern (digital TV). With an eye to the future, when Nickel-
As the twenty-first century began, an extremely sig- odeon develops programs or acquires program rights,
their programmers attempt to do so for all Nickelodeon
nificant change occurred in the international market-
venues (Nick US, Nick UK, Nick Australia and so on).
place. With deregulation and a single monetary
Such strategy is not unique to Nickelodeon; indeed,
standard sweeping Europe, there was a desire for
many multinational companies employ the same
strong locally-produced programming coupled with
approach.
an ability to export such programming—to America
among other places. As a result, format program-
ming emerged as a dominant trend. (Formatting is
essentially the same as franchising.) And unfortu- production elements (scripts, music, scenery design,
nately, we then saw the end of the Golden Age. sound effects, questions and so on) are provided by
To understand format programming, think of the program creators, but local hosts and contest-
Wheel of Fortune and Who Wants to Be a Million- ants are used in each country. Scripts are tailored
aire?. Both programs were created in one country to local interests, habits and language (the American
(Wheel by producer Merv Griffin and syndicator word cookie would be changed to biscuit in Eng-
King World Productions in the United States, land, for example).
Millionaire by producer Michael Davies and the Even the name may be changed to reflect local
BBC in England). In each case, the format is licensed culture and language. (For example, the most popu-
to broadcasters in other countries. Many of the lar syndicated show in the United States is still called
 CHAPTER 6 Syndication for Stations, Cable, and Online 239

Wheel of Fortune in Australia, but its name becomes with station groups, hiatus periods and ancillary
Roda a Roda in Brazil, La Ruleta de la Fortuna in revenue sources. Deal structure will be limited only
Ecuador, Glücksrad in Germany, Roda Impian in by the ingenuity of the participants and will be
Malaysia, Carkifelek in Turkey, and Chiêc nôn kˆy driven by the need to maximize profits for both
diêu in Viet Nam. And Jeopardy! becomes Your syndicators and stations.
Own Game [in Russian].) 2. Cost control. Stations and syndicators are
In some cases, actual video portions of the pro- continually striving to manage costs. The days of
gram may be supplied. (For its preschool program heady economic growth and comfortable profits
Blues Clues, Nickelodeon provided all the anima- between the 1970s and early 1990s seem only a
tion; the various international broadcasters then pleasant memory in the 2000s. In the wake of new
chromakeyed their own local live actors over the competition from cable and the softening of the
animation.) Perhaps most important, the shows are world economy, costs must be controlled. There-
produced in the local languages. Thus, Wheel has its fore, whether in deal making, station operation or
own British Pat Sajak and successors to the classic expansion of facilities or staffs, broadcasters and
Vanna White. Meanwhile, the British host of Mil- syndicators alike share a common goal: the need for
lionaire was replaced by Regis Philbin in this coun- efficiency, streamlining, mutually beneficial dealing
try. Both shows air in Japan with Japanese hosts, in and use of all assets. With FCC regulations allow-
France with French hosts and so forth. ing ownership of more stations by each individual
Format programming has tremendously affected broadcasting company, and with mergers of many
international syndication. What had been pretty syndicators, cost controls become ever more
much a one-way flow of programs from the United important, even as the programming deals are
States to other countries has been abruptly changed. becoming bigger.
Product flow from Europe to the United States and
3. Consortiums/coproduction/co-ventures. All
other countries is now the largest ever. This phe-
these terms mean much the same thing: Station
nomenon has resulted in vast new creative and sales
groups and syndicators are increasingly finding
potential.
new and exciting ways to work together as part-
ners. Spurred by tough economic times and the
need to control costs, station groups and syndica-
What Lies Ahead for Syndication tors can share costs and risks and, perhaps, profits.
Station groups will continue to join forces with one
Syndication is a rapidly changing business. Head- another in noncompeting markets to develop and
lines in trade publications frequently herald new launch first-run programs to meet specific station
and innovative syndication deals. Although it is needs. Increasingly, syndicators will join in these
speculative at best to imagine how the industry co-ventures. Because stations will hold an equity
might look by the end of this decade, several scenar- position in some shows, these shows will probably
ios are plausible. gain some extra promotion and perhaps be given a
1. Innovative deal structuring. As the financial longer time on the air to prove themselves. In other
stakes get higher and competition becomes fiercer, words, coproduced shows will get a good shot at
syndicators and stations alike will become more succeeding (if the audience likes them!).
and more creative in their deal making. Broadcast 4. Cable, internet and mobile media. Increasingly,
syndicators will make offers more attractive to programs created for original telecast via one deliv-
stations while simultaneously finding new ways to ery system are finding their way to another: over-
increase revenue to their own bottom line. This the-air to cable and vice versa; network to either
may involve barter, payout, additional daily or broadcast syndication or cable; cable to syndication;
weekend runs, sharing use with cable, cofinancing cable to foreign; foreign to domestic syndication.
240 PART THREE Understanding Key Processes

And the internet and various mobile media will networks have become actively involved with the
become increasing parts of these aftermarkets. Sev- production of syndicated shows. Many expect the
eral crisscrossing paths already exist, and the line prime-access period (7 to 8 P.M. EST) to attract more
between network/syndication/cable is now blurring. off-network programs now that the Prime-Time
In fact, the broadcast networks routinely promote Access Rule (PTAR) is long gone. First-run game
their cable programs on network shows airing on shows and magazine formats have outlived their pro-
local affiliates; talent is frequently utilized for both tected existence in the top 50 markets. Increased
network and cable telecasts. As cable has grown and competition for hit off-network programs will affect
solidified its economic base, syndicators have played the price for these shows.
to that strength. Once traditional adversaries, now
Just as the children and teenagers of the 1950s
cable and broadcast have formed co-ventures that
and 1960s grew up watching I Love Lucy, The Flint-
will benefit both. Just as politics make strange bed-
stones and The Brady Bunch, so too the next genera-
fellows, so too do the economic needs of the televi-
tion found enduring favorites in The Cosby Show,
sion industry.
The Simpsons and Married … with Children. Today’s
The internet and mobile media have rapidly
teens and adults expect police departments to conduct
become the next challenges for broadcasters, syndi-
advanced crime-scene investigation because they
cators and networks. Although the internet and
watched so many episodes of CSI, Without a Trace,
smart phones offer great opportunities for extending
Cold Case and their clones. This generation has taken
program and product reach and for promoting a
Ugly Betty and Grey’s Anatomy into their lives. Tele-
program or an entire brand, they also create huge
vision shows are valuable assets that can enjoy a long
challenges—even threats. Decisions must be made
economic lifespan. Old favorites in broadcast syndi-
on how to sell a program on the internet and to
cation continue to play and play and play. And the
mobile media, how to charge, and how to protect a
needs of cable have extended the life of many seem-
copyright. Once a program or portion of a program
ingly lesser programs, while the internet offers world-
is on the internet, it essentially becomes available to
wide opportunities to unknown producers.
any person or company in the entire world. The
While sitcoms are still important in syndication,
owners of the program and the content copyright
hour-long network dramas generally are not as desir-
need to figure out how to protect their financial and
able for television stations because it is harder to find
other interests. Producers usually make programs
one-hour blocks of time on stations that will reach
because of their enormous revenue potential from
large audiences (outside of prime time—it’s named
domestic and international syndication, and the
that for the obvious reason). Also, because many
syndication process involves hundreds of millions of
hour-long shows tend to be serial in nature (Grey’s
dollars annually across the United States. The rise of
Anatomy, 24, Lost), once the outcome is known from
the internet and mobile media potentially challenges
the original network run, the dramatic tension and
all these assumptions.
viewer interest surrounding these programs tend to
5. Increasing role of reps. Programmers at station lessen. Their network rerun ratings are generally
representative firms will play an even greater role in considerably lower than their original run rating,
the syndication process. As costs escalate and pro- foretelling potential lower ratings in syndication.
gramming decisions become riskier, the rep pro- First-run series, on the other hand, draw viewers
grammer’s expertise becomes more valuable. To who are more likely to watch live, thus using DVRs
control costs, many stations have eliminated the less, which results in greater viewing of commercials.
program director position and are using rep pro- Some of these hour programs may be sold in
grammers instead. This trend is likely to continue. syndication as once-a-week hours for weekend
6. Increasing role of networks. With the demise of runs, while others are sold directly to cable networks
the FCC’s financial and syndication rules, the following their over-the-air network runs. Other
 CHAPTER 6 Syndication for Stations, Cable, and Online 241

hours (such as Law & Order and CSI) are sold Known technically as IEEE 1394, the descriptively-named
directly to cable networks, bypassing syndication. FireWire system provides high-definition audio/video con-
nections for speedy transfer of such programming as syn-
For the rights holders, the lack of domestic syndica-
dicated series episodes and movies. As you can imagine,
tion potential is often offset by sales to international “emailing” a whole movie or two dozen episodes necessi-
buyers for broadcast in other countries. tates high-quality and high-speed capacity.
The Peter Allen song “Everything Old Is New 3. A few shows move the other direction. The game show
Again” at one time applied to the syndication poten- Remote Control went from cable to broadcast syndication,
tial of most programs going directly to television the first of a new stream of programs for the syndication
stations. Nowadays, especially with the rapid market.
growth of cable and online networks plus tablets, 4. In cases where the rep is negative toward the program,
avoiding an in-person pitch to reps generally has the
program producers have many more potential
advantage of minimizing the strength of the rep’s recom-
buyers for programs when they finish their originals mendation to stations. Opinions tend to be stronger about
runs on network television. If only enough adver- shows that have been evaluated firsthand. Reps eventually
tisers would catch up to pay for the game. see pilots or sample tapes of all shows their client stations
are interested in, but delay sometimes works to the tem-
porary advantage of the syndicator.
Notes 5. Barter splits may vary widely, even among essentially
similar programs. For example, Jerry Springer, Oprah and
1. In the media business, a station group is made up of Jenny Jones are all cash-plus-barter, one-hour talk-show
television stations in two or more different markets owned strips, but the national/local barter splits are quite differ-
by one company, and relaxed FCC cross-ownership rules ent, with Jenny Jones’s syndicator having considerably
now sometimes permit a single company to own two sta- more national time to sell than Jerry Springer’s distribu-
tions within some larger markets. tion company: Jerry Springer, 2:30N/12:00L; Oprah,
2. FireWire, also called i.Link and Lynz, is Apple’s stan- 3:00N/11:00L; Jenny Jones, 3:30N/10:30L.
dard for high-speed data transfer to computers (like USB). 6. Troy Dreier, “Syndicate of Die,” http://www.strea-
The system is copyrighted and fees are high, so FireWire is mingmedia.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/Syndi-
used by the television industry but not the general public. cate-or-Die-65694.aspx.
This page intentionally left blank
PART

4
Television Programming
Practices
Part Four Outline
Chapter 7
Non-Prime-Time Network Programming 245
Chapter 8
Television Station Programming Strategies 271
Chapter 9
Basic and Premium Subscription Programming 303
Chapter 10
Public Television Programming 340

243
This page intentionally left blank
 7
CHAPTER

Non-Prime-Time Network
Programming
Robert V. Bellamy and James R. Walker

Chapter Outline
Non-Prime-Time Dayparts Daytime Talk
Evening News
Scheduling Strategies Late-Night News
HUT Levels Overnight News
The Struggle for Clearances
Advertisers and Demographics Weekend News and
Genres of NonPrime-Time Information
Programming Weekend Magazines
Sunday News Interviews
Sports
Sports Programming in a Children’s Programming
Multichannel Environment Production and Development
Non-Live-Event Sports Processes
Programming Late-Night Talk/Variety

Soap Operas and Game Shows Late-Night Weekend

Soap Operas Entertainment
Game Shows
The Effects of Consolidation
Weekday News, Information, and Cable
and Talk
Note
Early-Morning Newscasts
Morning Magazines

245
246 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

T he migration of television audiences away

from the big broadcast networks to the ever-
increasing number of alternative video outlets has
greatly accelerated in the last five years—a phenome-
football fans plan their whole week around Saturday
college and Sunday professional games, and the net-
work programmer who preempts a weekday soap
opera or The View for a special program will receive
non that won’t be a surprise to you! As Chapter 2 an avalanche of unpleasant tweets and emails.
pointed out, even a cursory glance at prime-time sche- Despite steadily decreasing audiences, millions of
dules shows that network TV has struggled in its Americans still use network evening news as a
attempts to reach and maintain audiences with value daily information ritual, and Letterman or Leno as
to advertisers. Similar pressures have come to major a daily bedtime ritual.
segments of non-prime-time. In fact, network Mon- Networks generating the largest advertising rev-
day–Friday daytime programming has experienced enues have the most non-prime-time programming.
some of the most radical changes of all: The iconic Programmers cannot ignore the non-evening programs
soap opera format now is rapidly fading away, and because there are many more hours to program than
more and more time slots are being returned to affili- in prime time. More than any other type of program-
ates (who hardly know what to do with them). Talk ming, the non-prime period distinguishes the oldest
programs have become indistinguishable from syndi- broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) from their
cated offerings and make up more and more of what more recent competitors. The long-established pres-
is left of daytime network programming. ence of the Big Three in virtually all nonprime day-
For the popular media, prime-time television is parts provides them with heaps of commercial
television. Much of national and local coverage of availabilities to sell to advertisers. ABC, CBS, and
television focuses on evening programs. Critical NBC each sells more than three times as many com-
reviews, star interviews and Nielsen ratings for the mercial minutes as FOX, the most active of the other
top prime-time programs are readily available. English-language networks.
Because prime time is the subject of such intense The primary reason for this vast disparity in the
reporting, you might think the rest of the day is networks’ most basic product, advertising availabili-
insignificant. Not true. Daytime talk and late-night ties, is that the newer networks take a different
comedy are frequently the most provocative and— approach to nonprime-time programming. With the
significantly for the U.S. broadcast networks—most important exceptions of sports on FOX, newer net-
profitable shows on television. The difference works have not competed successfully in nonprime
between what a program costs to produce and the time. Instead of challenging long-running programs
advertising revenue it generates is its profit. Because in early morning, daytime, and late night, the CW
non-prime-time programs are generally inexpensive and MNTV try to capture viewers’ attention in
to produce and carry more ads than prime time, prime time, while ION strips older family-oriented
their ratings can be relatively modest and still supply reality shows. Univision, by contrast, successfully fills
huge profits for the networks. In addition, non- many of its nonprime hours with talk shows and tele-
prime-time audiences are less demographically novelas (television novels similar to soap operas, but
diverse, making it easier for advertisers to target with a definite ending after some months or years)
their commercials to consumers most interested in and carries major international sports on weekends.
their products. This means more compatibility
between a program and its spots (less viewer annoy-
ance) and less advertising waste (fewer commercials NonPrime-Time Dayparts
directed to wrong viewers) than in prime time with
its larger but more diverse audiences. Nonprime time is a broad term encompassing all the
Nonprime-time viewers are often more loyal programming dayparts other than prime time. The
to their programs than prime-time viewers. Many U.S. broadcast television networks program some or
 CHAPTER 7 Non-Prime-Time Network Programming 247

all of the following dayparts (reflected in eastern/ nonprime-time dayparts contribute competitively
Pacific times) with several types of programming. and economically to a network’s performance. Pro-
Weekday Programming gramming executives responsible for nonprime day-
parts are as dedicated to competing for available
Overnight 2:05 A.M.–6 A.M. News
viewers as are their evening counterparts. In prime-
Early morning 6 A.M.–9 A.M. Magazine
time programming, the “war” fought night after
Daytime 10 A.M.–4 P.M. Soaps/Game
night is measured in daily ratings gains or losses.
shows/Talk
Although daily ratings are important to shows in
Early fringe 4 P.M.–6 P.M. Children’s* nonprime time, the key to the battle is to get viewers
Early evening 6:30 P.M.–7 P.M. News into the habit of watching weekday nonprime pro-
Late night 11:35 P.M.–2:05 A.M. Talk/news grams every day or from week to week. With the
*Daytime children’s programming has been abandoned by all exception of Univision’s Sabado Gigante, all ten of
the major English-language networks in recent years. This is the longest-running programs on the networks are
another example of how niche-oriented cable networks (e.g., non-prime series (see 7.1).
Disney Channel, Nickelodeon) have replaced one of the tradi- In prime time, ratings for the Big Four broad-
tional functions of broadcast television. cast networks average between approximately 2.0
Weekend Programming and 8.0 nowadays and range from about a 1.5 at
the bottom end to about 8.0 or occasionally higher
Weekend mornings 8 A.M.–1 P.M. Children’s/
for top-rated shows in the key Adults 18 to 49
Magazine
demographic. This huge variation means sharp dif-
Weekend afternoons 1 P.M.–7 P.M. Sports
ferences in the prime-time advertising rates and
Weekend late night 11 P.M.–1 A.M. Comedy/
profit ratios for the networks. For daytime, the aver-
Music
age is between 2.5 and 3.0 with a range from 2.0 to
The size of the audiences in non-prime dayparts 3.5, a quite different ball game. Although the reven-
is considerably smaller than in prime time, but all ues generated are more modest, the risks are also

7.1 Longest-Running Network Series

Top 10 Longest-Running Programs as of 2011* Years on the Air

1. Meet the Press, NBC (premiered 1947) 64

2. CBS Evening News (premiered 1948) 63
3. The Today Show, NBC (premiered 1952) 59
4. Face the Nation, CBS (premiered 1954) 59
5. The Tonight Show, NBC (premiered 1954) 57
6. General Hospital, ABC (premiered 1963) 48
7. The Price Is Right, NBC, ABC, CBS (1956–65, returned 1972)** 48
8. Days of Our Lives, NBC (premiered 1965) 46
9. NBC Nightly News (premiered 1970)*** 41
10. The Young and the Restless, CBS (premiered 1973) 38

*Sabado Gigante has been on the air 49 years (since 1962), but the first 24 were on a local South American channel; it has been a network
show on Univision for 26 years.
**While in syndication, The Price Is Right had a concurrent prime-time run from 1956 to 1964 and two brief runs on prime time in 1986 and
1993.
***NBC, starting with The Camel News Caravan (1948–56) and then The Huntley-Brinkley Report (1956–70) to the present NBC Nightly
News (1970– ), has had an evening newscast on the air continuously for 63 years.
248 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

more modest. Nonprime programmers use a low- that is less available on networks during the rest of
risk approach when building their schedules. the week, such as sports, comedy, music or extended
Using a low-risk programming strategy, pro- news interviews. Viewers of Sunday morning politi-
grammers concede that blockbuster ratings and cal talk, for example, typically return week after
their accompanying high advertising rates are virtu- week to keep up, and fans of a particular NFL
ally impossible to attain. They take a more conser- team will religiously tune in every Sunday afternoon
vative approach, which limits production costs and to see their favorite.
uses tried-and-true formats. In addition, developing
a schedule using a different series every hour of each
weekday would be far too expensive—by a long HUT Levels
shot. Thus, weekday programming is stripped (the HUT levels reach around 60 percent in prime time,
same programs are scheduled on Monday through while nonprime-time levels can be less than 10 per-
Friday at the same time). Stripping allows viewers cent. Because so few homes are using their television
to build ongoing loyalty to a series while lowering sets (or home computers), the potential ratings and
the financial risks involved in program development. advertising revenue are limited. But the opportunity
To program effectively in nonprime time, the net- to create a winning franchise for a time period
works must assess the available audience in a partic- remains: Even small audiences have value to adver-
ular part of the day. To do this, programmers tisers. In fact, many clients cannot afford to adver-
examine HUT levels, clearances, potential adverti- tise in prime time, so creative programming targeted
sers and likely demographics of audience members. to the “right” small audience is often very attractive
to these sponsors. Weekends are a good example.
Viewers who tune in on the weekend have a differ-
Scheduling Strategies ent mindset than prime-time viewers do. They often
want more movies or sports than they have time to
Scheduling nonprime time presents a unique set of watch during prime time. Longer chunks of leisure
challenges for programmers. The programmer jug- time can offset smaller HUT levels: Weekend view-
gles two types of audience flow: flow-through from ers wind up spending more time watching television,
the first program to the second one in the daypart despite their smaller numbers.
and flow across the weekdays from one day to the
next. Flow-through is usually accomplished by using
blocks of similar shows; flow across the weekdays is The Struggle for Clearances
promoted by stripping a series in the same time slot Nonprime time and prime time especially differ in the
each weekday. While we commonly see blocks of crucial matter of affiliate clearances. When a network
soaps or game shows on TV, late night is blocked schedules a program, an affiliated station has three
too: a late-night talk show is usually followed by options: It can clear the program (air it when sched-
another late-late talk show. For news, talk and mag- uled by the network), it can decide not to clear it
azine programs, continuity comes from the regular (preemption), or it can ask permission to air the pro-
presence of a familiar anchor or host that promotes gram at a later time (delayed carriage). Both preemp-
flow from one day to the next. Also, such program tion and delayed carriage, especially by major-market
genres as soap operas have a cliff-hanger narrative stations, hurt a network’s national ratings because
structure that connects each episode with the next they reduce the potential audience for the program.
day’s episode, driving flow across days. In order to increase clearances of network program-
In contrast, weekend programming is scheduled ming, especially in nonprime time, the networks suc-
weekly—like prime time—with one episode per ceeded in getting the FCC to raise the percentage of
week at the same time from week to week. Viewers U.S. households they can reach with their owned-
return each Saturday or Sunday to get programming and-operated stations. Although most affiliates clear
 CHAPTER 7 Non-Prime-Time Network Programming 249

about 90 percent of their network’s total schedule, together a schedule of programs that will, at the
the percentage in nonprime time, especially in the lowest possible cost, do four big things:
daytime, Sunday morning, overnight and late-night ■ Attract the most desirable demographic groups
dayparts, is substantially lower. The O&Os naturally
clear the entire network schedule. ■ Maximize audience flow-through
In a surprising move after nearly 50 years of ■ Build viewer loyalty
daytime programming, around the turn of the cen- ■ Capture the largest possible audience
tury, NBC (which ranked third in daytime program-
ming throughout the 1980s and early 1990s) One big difference between the major dayparts is
decided to scale back its daytime schedule because that audiences during nonprime-time dayparts are
of low clearances. When NBC first offered The more homogenous (similar in demographic compo-
Other Side, a daytime talk show, it received only a sition) than prime-time audiences. Typically in non-
61 percent clearance rate; in other words, almost 40 prime time, the three networks schedule the same
percent of NBC’s affiliates decided to schedule some program type head-to-head (all soaps, all talk, all
syndicated series instead. Besides eroding its poten- games, all soft news and so on), which creates fierce
tial audience, preemption and delayed carriage dis- competition for single audience group. When select-
rupt the scheduling strategies used to foster audience ing the shows for a particular daypart, the networks
flow from one program to another. For example, an necessarily give primary consideration to these
ABC affiliate that carries Nightline following the elements:
local newscast provides a stream of viewers who ■ Demographics of available audiences
are looking for information. When Nightline is ■ Competitive counterprogramming opportunities
delayed to allow the affiliate to carry a sitcom,
much of the potential audience goes to bed or ■ Economic viability
switches to an all-news cable channel. The delayed The questions are whether an audience group is
Nightline is less likely to attract a large audience large enough to split profitably, whether there is a
when it follows comedy rather than news. chance to capture another big group, and what the
The corporate owners of the broadcast net- cheapest option is that will still please enough
works are also hedging their nonprime-time bets by advertisers.
offering programming to their own and other Indirect influences on programming practices
network affiliates through their syndication arms. also come into play. Daytime programs rely on
Viacom, owner of CBS, also owns King World, the drug and food companies for advertising revenue.
syndicators of former daytime powerhouse Oprah Hence, programmers are wary of scripts or interview
and its popular spinoffs, Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz. programs that tackle subjects such as tampering
When affiliates of ABC or NBC purchase these talk with painkillers or rat hairs in cereal. For three rea-
programs, the shows compete with whatever CBS sons, daytime programming is in much closer touch
affiliates offer, a situation that more than irks CBS with its advertising messages than prime time. First,
affiliates. daytime programs contain more commercial minutes
per hour. Second, because many programs were
once both sponsored and produced by advertisers,
Advertisers and Demographics there is a tradition of sensitivity to advertiser
A network has to determine which segment of the needs. Finally, two major companies, General
available audience it will go after (target), mindful Foods and Procter & Gamble, dominate the adver-
of its competitors’ programming and influenced to tising time in daytime, and until very recently, the
some degree by advertiser support for its program- networks could not afford to offend them. (Now
ming. Then the network programmer’s task is to put most networks are owned by even bigger guys.)
250 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

Genres of NonPrime-Time also risks missing part of the action. Sports also
are one of the programming forms that provide
Programming
excellent branding opportunities for networks, such
There are seven key genres of nonprime program- as “NBC—The Home of the Olympics,” FOX NFL
ming: (1) sports, (2) daytime soap operas (including Sunday and so forth.
telenovelas that also air in prime time), (3) game A network’s sports division is responsible for
shows, (4) news/magazines, (5) talk shows, (6) chil- acquiring the rights to games and events and for pro-
dren’s programs and (7) comedy/music programs. ducing the telecasts. It must work closely with the
Most of these program types are identified with par- programming division because of the complexities
ticular dayparts: sports with weekend afternoons; associated with live sporting events, including over-
soaps and game shows with daytime; children’s pro- time pay and weather-related cancellations. The net-
gramming with Saturday mornings; talk/comedy works’ sports divisions negotiate with the sports
shows with weekday late night; and comedy/music leagues to guarantee that start times occur when
with late nights on Saturdays. Different strategies the majority of viewers can watch. Those sporting
and practices necessarily associate with each genre events that do not attract a prime-time-sized audi-
of programming, as well as different levels of cost, ence are carefully scheduled elsewhere so as not to
and the development processes for new shows vary interfere with the all-important prime-time entertain-
considerably. Not all of these categories are mutu- ment programs.
ally exclusive. For example, the third and fourth Noninterference with prime time diminished as
hours of Today are as much a talk program as a concern in recent years, however, because of the
they are a news/magazine. The View and The Talk rising popularity and enormous cost of major team
are talk programs (duh) but include interviews with sports, particularly football. The late afternoon NFL
newsmakers like the news/magazines. In addition, games and even post-game programs regularly run
ABC schedules the cheap-to-produce reality genre into Sunday prime time and often contribute to high
in daytime (and prime time)-most recently, The prime-time ratings, bumping 60 Minutes and other
Chew and The Revolution. Sunday shows. NBA (National Basketball Associa-
tion), MLB (Major League Baseball), and NCAA
(National Collegiate Athletic Association) playoff
Sports games now regularly appear in prime hours. When
Disney shifted ABC’s Monday Night Football to its
In case you haven’t noticed, on the broadcast net- ESPN cable network because of declining ratings,
works, weekend afternoons (1 to 7 P.M.) are domi- NBC promptly filled the prime-time broadcast NFL
nated by live sports coverage, and they are allowed void with Sunday Night Football while re-branding
to run on into the once-sacred prime time if the Sunday night prime time as Football Night in Amer-
events are popular. Sports are indubitably one of ica. Most regular season team sports coverage
the most important forms of programming in televi- remains in weekend afternoons and early evenings
sion. One of the chief reasons for sports’ popularity (and on cable), while most major postseason con-
with the network higher-ups is their consistent abil- tests are featured in prime time.
ity to attract an audience of young men who are
extremely difficult to attract with other types of reg-
ularly scheduled programming (duh). In addition,
Sports Programming in a
sports provide a much-valued location for zap-
proof advertising and promotion. Sports telecasts Multichannel Environment
are brimming with opportunities for the insertion Although major sports are not the low-cost pro-
of ads, promotional spots and announcements that gramming option they were in the early days of tele-
cannot be avoided by the viewer unless she or he vision, programming costs are always relative in
 CHAPTER 7 Non-Prime-Time Network Programming 251

television. Although CBS claimed to have lost mil- ratings attrition for sports is offset by sports’ increased
lions of dollars on sports rights in the early and value as one of the few programming types that
mid-1990s, within a few years the network once attract the male audience so valued by advertisers, in
again spent enormous sums to regain a piece of the spite of ever-proliferating entertainment options. In
NFL Sunday afternoon package and to renew its addition, such high-profile events as the Super
NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament coverage. Bowl, the Olympics and the World Series continue
This occurred after the network’s prestige was seri- to draw enormous audiences and provide substantial
ously damaged by its loss of the NFL to the less- promotional opportunities for the host networks at
established network in 1994. critical times of the year (the February sweeps and
FOX used the NFL and later MLB, NASCAR early in the new broadcast season).
(National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing), The solution to the tug-of-war over sports has
and, to a limited degree, the NHL (National Hockey been for broadcast networks to partner with cable
League) to establish itself as a legitimate member of networks to share rights to sports programming.
the Big Four to both viewers and the financial com- The most prominent examples are Disney’s owner-
munity. One result of FOX’s new leverage was its ship of both ABC and the ESPN networks, which
ability to upgrade its affiliates in several markets, have shared NFL, NBA and NHL packages; the
mainly at the expense of CBS. The question of FOX/Fox Sports Net combination, which shares
cost, then, involves more than simply the profit or MLB; and the more recent Comcast/NBC merger,
loss made from the ratio of program costs to adver- which shares the NHL and is likely to become a
tising revenues: Losing major sports can undermine more aggressive bidder for sports to feed both the
the legitimacy and degrade the financial value of a network and Comcast’s numerous Regional Sports
broadcast network. Networks (RSNs). Cable networks are able to offer
Cable has clearly had a huge impact on televised most of the near-daily regular season games, leaving
sports programming. Networks such as ESPN, broadcast networks to focus on the postseason and
ESPN2, ESPNU, Versus (VS) and the regional Com- key regular season contests.
cast Sports, Fox Sports and Root Sports Nets exist There are also shared rights arrangements
only because of their sports coverage. Cable’s satu- among separate companies where early rounds of
ration coverage has raised the profile and value of team playoffs and golf and tennis matches appear
sports on television, even as it drains ratings from on cable networks, with later rounds shifting to net-
broadcast networks for all sports but the NFL. works. The split of NBA between ESPN and ABC is
Only the NFL has consistent increases in regular- another example of leveraging the value of sports
season ratings—at a time when most other broad- television. In fact, the sports divisions of ABC and
cast network ratings are declining. ESPN, for ESPN have been merged and now operate in tandem
example, now pays the NFL more per year more often than they operate as competitors.
($ 1.1 billion) for Monday Night Football than any The sports anthology program, exemplified by
of the Big Four broadcast networks pay for their ABC’s long-running Wide World of Sports, was a
Sunday afternoon (CBS, FOX) or Sunday night casualty of the changes in sports television.1 The
(NBC) packages. Although network sports ratings, minor sports that were typically covered by anthol-
like the ratings for all other network programming, ogies have, for the most part, benefited from the
have had some attrition in the wake of cable and explosion in televised sports by gaining individual
internet competition, the falloff is much less than contracts on broadcast or cable (NASCAR, WNBA
that of other program genres. In fact, ratings for and Major League Soccer). There has been a redefi-
the NFL, NBA and even the NHL have recently nition of what constitutes a successful program:
increased while the ratings for MLB, NASCAR and now there is more emphasis on the “quality”
other events have remained stable in the last few than the quantity of ratings. This situation has ena-
years. An important point is that even the limited bled NASCAR to gain lucrative network television
252 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

7.2 Nascar on Television

A lmost $4.5 billion. That’s the price FOX, ABC/ESPN

and TNT paid to carry NASCAR races for the eight
years that started in 2007. The deal’s hefty tag recognized
much larger audiences, taking NASCAR to the No. 2 spot.
When NBC decided not to renew NASCAR’s contract in
2005, ABC/ESPN jumped at the opportunity to air the
NASCAR’s high television ratings as the second most- races again, agreeing to pay an estimated $270 million to
watched sports programming after the National Football air 17 Nextel Cup races (the remaining races were split
League. Among its most valuable assets are the Nextel among broadcasting and cable outlets).
Cup races. NASCAR is widely popular, but whether ABC/ESPN’s
Starting in the 1960s, ABC aired NASCAR races as investment will pay off over that long a haul remains to be
part of its Wide World of Sports program, and after two seen. Competition from the NFL is hard to beat. NASCAR
decades, shifted NASCAR off broadcasting and onto ratings have also been sagging, including double-digit
cable (ESPN), a relationship that lasted another 20 years. dives in the 2009 and 2010 seasons. NASCAR officials
ESPN is widely credited for popularizing NASCAR—so and network executives “study the reasons” for the drop,
much so, indeed, that at the turn of the century, NBC and but many journalists blame a clash between race times and
FOX snapped it up—but unexpectedly, the ratings slid in NFL games, colorless story lines about the drivers, and the
mid-decade. The slide led to the creation of the “Chase for spacing and timing of the many, many commercial breaks.
the Nextel Cup,” an end-of-season playoff series in which
only the top ten drivers were eligible for the final ten races. Debbie Goh, Ph.D.
These races energized the entire season and attracted Nanyang Technological University

contracts (see 7.2). The “a little something for every- With the Winter Games scheduled in the Febru-
body” approach of sports anthologies is less viable ary sweeps and the Summer Games coming right
as a means of keeping program audiences in the before the fall season rollout two years apart, the
multichannel environment because it virtually en- various Olympic events provide hundreds of hours
courages channel changing. of prime-time and nonprime programming and also
The idea of multiple sports in one program lives supply a key promotional platform for touting
on in the biannual Olympic Games and the various NBC’s other programming. The Olympics were
X Games (the “extreme” sports that have a particu- also the first major experiment with multiplatform
lar appeal to young audiences). Although the Olym- programming, a practice that has now become stan-
pics cannot be regularly scheduled in a conventional dard for the Olympics and other long-season sports
sense, the 1992 decision of the International Olym- while stimulating the new media by providing highly
pic Committee (IOC) to have the Summer and Win- visible and valued content.
ter Games alternate every two years enormously
increased the value of the games to television.
NBC, in fact, gave up competing for rights to the Non-Live-Event Sports Programming
NFL, MLB and NBA in the mid-1990s in favor of Non-live-event sports programming on the networks
the lower-cost NASCAR and, even more important, today generally consists of (1) pregame and post-
in favor of branding itself as the “Network of the game programs and (2) sports-league-produced pro-
Olympics.” ABC Sports had used this same brand- gramming for children and young adults. Since the
ing strategy with great success to build its ratings success of CBS’s The NFL Today in the 1970s,
and credibility in the 1960s and 1970s, and NBC broadcast and cable networks have developed simi-
has succeeded in tying itself to all Olympics in the lar shows for other sports. These wraparound shows
public’s mind. (Some people are surprised to hear help networks to more fully brand programming
that any other network ever carried the Olympics.) blocks and expand the programming hours devoted
 CHAPTER 7 Non-Prime-Time Network Programming 253

7.3 Mister Olympic Broadcasting

D uncan “Dick” Ebersol is best known for producing

large-scale events, most notably the Olympic
Games. Long an American television executive, his career
coordinates). Broadcast rights add up to half of the entire
revenue generated by the movement, and NBC alone con-
tributed $820 million to the $1.28 billion collected from
began at ABC Sports where, mentored by Roone Arledge, broadcasters of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. This mas-
he became the first-ever television Olympic researcher. In sive role gives the network some influence on the scheduling
the mid-70s, he moved to NBC and created such enduring of Olympic events. For example, in the 2008 Beijing
successes as Saturday Night Live and Friday Night Videos, Games, in contrast to past practice, swimming finals were
as well as Later with Bob Costas, under his own indepen- scheduled in the morning sessions to allow NBC to broad-
dent production company. cast them live in prime-time, rather than in tape delay due to
In 1989, Ebersol returned to NBC to become the pres- the time zone offset. In addition, the network expanded its
ident of NBC Sports. He immediately negotiated the coverage from Beijing to an unprecedented 3,600 hours,
acquisition of the rights to broadcast the NBA, and in the most of them through such outlets as online channels, digital
following years brought the NFL, MLB and Nascar under platforms and on-demand footage. Such a flood of signifi-
the NBC umbrella. His most influential decision, however, cant (and popular) content contributed in a major way to the
was to turn NBC into “The Home of the Olympics” in the rapid development of these new media platforms.
USA. In 1993, he secured the rights to the 1996 Atlanta Ebersol unexpectedly resigned from NBC in May
Summer Olympics (the 1988 Seoul and 1992 Barcelona 2011, just weeks ahead of the negotiations for the U.S.
Games had been acquired before his arrival at the net- rights for the 2014 and 2016 Olympic Games. Despite
work). This was the first of several record-breaking contracts his departure, the network secured exclusive U.S. Olympic
that would bring the broadcaster every summer and winter TV rights through 2020 with a $4.38 billion contract that
Olympics between 2000 and 2012. includes four summer and winter games.
Under Dick Ebersol’s guidance, NBC effectively became
the biggest single sponsor of the Olympic Movement (the Simon Licen, Ph.D.
International Olympic Committee and the organizations it University of Ljubjana

to sports without paying additional rights fees. In daytime is substantially less. The money needed to
addition, powerful sports entities can demand airing pay for one hour of prime-time drama will cover
of league-produced shows. This began when the the costs of a week’s worth of daytime soap operas.
NBA forced former broadcast partner NBC to Moreover, daytime profits help networks offset
schedule NBA Inside Stuff, a youth-oriented feature extraordinary program investments in other dayparts.
magazine about the league, as a condition of its con- Because viewer loyalties are intense and developing
tract with the league. Similar programming and a successful new programs is difficult, the newer net-
variety of promotional spots are now standard in works were reluctant to try to develop daytime pro-
major sports television rights deals. gramming—which turned out to be smart. Cost
advantages have greatly declined in the last few
years because the audience for network daytime pro-
Soap Operas and Game Shows gramming has succumbed to the lure of popular syn-
dicated offerings on stations, cable and online.
Daytime programming (9 A.M. to 4 P.M.) has tradi- Currently, of the major English-language net-
tionally been one of the most lucrative dayparts for works, only ABC, CBS and NBC have a substantial
television networks. Its profit margin often challenges stake in daytime programs Monday through Friday
that of prime time because the cost per program in (see 7.4), although each of the Big Three have much
254 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

7.4 Network Weekday Daytime Programming

Network Hours Programs

ABC 4 The View, General Hospital, The Chew, The Revolution

CBS 5 The Price Is Right, The Young and the Restless, The Bold and the
Beautiful, The Talk, Let’s Make a Deal
NBC* 3 Today (3rd and 4th hours), Days of Our Lives

*NBC’s Today has expanded into this daypart in the last decade, first from 9–10 A.M. ET in 2000 and from 10–11 A.M. ET in 2007. The
fourth hour of Today is an example of how the concept of brand extension has come to television. This last hour is related to the parent program
only by title as it has completely different hosts (Kathy Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb), little if any interest in news, and much more emphasis on
entertainment, comedy, fashion and food. Because of these differences, this particular brand extension of the iconic Today brand is aired out of
pattern (usually in early afternoon) in some major markets.

reduced the amount of programming they schedule additional worries as the numbers of younger view-
in this daypart in the last decade. Telemundo and ers (aged 18 to 34 and 18 to 49) continue to decline
Univision, however, maintain a major presence in for each of the networks. Cable/satellite networks,
daytime with telenovelas that air during several the internet, video games and home video also con-
hours of their Monday through Friday schedules. tribute to this decline.
In addition to having lower programming costs
in the daytime, the networks schedule about 21 min-
utes of non-program material (commercials, pro- Soap Operas
mos, public service announcements and so on) per For about 50 years, soap operas were the cash cows
hour compared with about 17 minutes in prime for their networks. Production and talent costs are
time. Although daytime audiences are much smaller considerably less than for prime-time programming.
than prime time, daytime programming fills more Soaps are shot primarily in digital studios with mul-
hours per day, and each hour provides more com- tiple cameras and receive far less costly postproduc-
mercial slots. In prime time, top dramas, situation tion editing and sound “sweetening.” Typically, the
comedies and ambitious miniseries have enormous producers, directors, writers and actors hired for
talent costs; sports programming has huge rights soaps produce five hours of programming a week,
fees, and breaking news coverage is expensive. compared producing the 30 minutes of a prime-
Those kinds of programs become loss leaders, time sitcom. Despite the seemingly lower quality,
often costing far more than the advertising revenue CBS’s highly rated The Young and the Restless
they generate. does better at making a profit and delivering its tar-
But daytime programmers face enormous com- get audience—women 18 to 49—than many of the
petition from cable television and syndicated pro- network’s prime-time offerings (see 7.5).
gramming. The collective number of viewers for In addition, the soaps built loyal constituencies
syndicated programming, for example, now regu- that lasted for decades because viewers followed a
larly surpasses that for daytime television on the set of compelling characters nearly every weekday.
major networks. Networks developed this habitual viewing by strip-
Daytime television seems to have the most ping daytime soaps in the same time slot five days a
potential for audience erosion. Compared with the week. Viewers become so determined to see their
1950s and 1960s, the number of viewers who are favorite soaps that daily activities are planned around
at home in the daytime has decreased. Because making time to watch, and episodes are regularly
many more women work, children stay at childcare time-shifted when necessary. Soap operas continue to
centers rather than at home. The networks have be one of the most time-shifted programming genres.
 CHAPTER 7 Non-Prime-Time Network Programming 255

3. Despite efforts to trim costs and with a price

7.5 Network Soap Opera Ratings structure much less costly than prime-time dramas,
soap operas still cost more to produce than talk and
W 18–49
other “reality” programs.
HH Rating Rating
4. Today’s seemingly never-slowing pace of life
CBS The Young and the 3.6 1.7 makes it more and more difficult for viewers to
Restless devote the time and effort required to follow a pro-
CBS The Bold and the 2.2 1.0 gram for five hours a week. Daytime viewing has
Beautiful become “grazing” in which viewers drop in and out
ABC General Hospital 2.1 1.4 of programs. This works to the advantage of rela-
NBC Days of Our Lives 2.0 1.2 tively simple non-scripted programs such as maga-
ABC One Life to Live* 1.9 1.0 zines, reality and talk.
NBC All My Children* 1.9 0.9
None of the problematic dimensions for soap operas
*Cancelled in 2011. are likely to change; this makes the remaining four
“Ratings: Another New Low for GH in Women 18–49,” (2011, May network soaps likely to be the last of the English-
12), Soap Opera Network, http://www.soapoperanetwork.com/
ratings/item/4567-ratings-another-new-low-for-gh-in-women-18-49-
language U.S.-produced soaps. This is a sea change
viewers. from traditional television practice and another indi-
cator of the big challenges that local, regional and
national television programmers face.
Despite this long and enormously successful his-
tory, the most important recent change in network
daytime programming is the decline of the soap Game Shows
opera as a major genre. Since 2010, four long- From the 1950s until the 1990s, game shows were
running soaps—All My Children, As the World the other profitable mainstay of network daytime
Turns, The Guiding Light and One Life to Live— programming. Typically, several episodes of a game
have been cancelled. This surprised many observers show were taped in a single day, and these shows
because soaps survived and even thrived after used the same sets and props for years. In exchange
millions of women began to work outside the home for on-air announcements, advertisers provided the
in the 1970s and 1980s; they even found new popu- prizes awarded to contestants. Usually only the host
larity among college students and others who time- got a big salary, and production costs were very low.
shifted them for viewing at more convenient times. Four kinds of competition have nearly driven
Soaps fell from their perch as the prototypical day- games daytime network lineups:
time program genre for four reasons:
1. The popularity of familiar first-run syndicated
1. The total daytime audience has eroded greatly game shows (including Jeopardy! and Wheel of
since the 1990s when even the lower-rated soaps Fortune)
were able to draw about five million viewers. Today, 2. The growth of cable/satellite networks dedicat-
only the highest rated of the remaining soaps (The ing some or all of their schedules to games
Young and the Restless) regularly attracts this many (GSN, formerly the Game Show Network)
viewers.
3. The draw of network big-money games (Deal or
2. The audience for soaps is ageing faster than that No Deal and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?)
of other programs. The loyalty that made soaps such in prime time
a successful genre has not transferred to younger
viewers who can watch most anything they want on
4. The rise of syndicated talk programming
television at any time of the day via cable, time This last, syndicated talk, is much more lucrative for
shifting and on demand programming. most stations than network game shows. Remember
256 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

that stations get only network compensation and key to successfully attracting mega-audiences lies in
limited advertising slots for a network show, continuing to interview the most important national
whereas they can sell all the advertising time in syn- and international news and entertainment figures, and
dicated shows. They have particularly hurt the clear- in shipping their popular morning personalities off to
ance rate for game shows—which has led to their exotic locales or the sites of hot national news events.
virtual demise as a network daytime staple.
Two network daytime game shows remain,
however, both on CBS: The Price Is Right and Early-Morning Newscasts
Let’s Make a Deal. One of television’s all-time Each of the Big Three provide early-morning news-
longest-running programs, Price was the first hour- casts on weekdays, running from 4 or 5 A.M. to 7 A.M.
long game show (it was even 90 minutes for a short The networks hope to bolster their 7 A.M. program-
time), and developed a near-cult following among ming by getting flow-through from these earlier pro-
homemakers, shift workers and college students. Its grams, but they also realize that many affiliates
network run still seems secure as the program has produce their own morning news shows during part
also developed a devoted following among young of this time period. Therefore, they try to accommo-
people, and host Drew Carey is popular with youn- date affiliates with multiple feeds of these early news-
ger viewers, as well as with more traditional daytime casts. All have beginning and end points at the top
audiences. The continuing success of Price led CBS and bottom of every half hour, so an affiliate can
to revive Let’s Make a Deal, a game that has been on “dump out” or join a network morning newscast
and off network and syndication daytime and prime- after 30 or 60 minutes.
time schedules since the 1960s. The newest version,
hosted by Wayne Brady, places much more empha-
sis on the show business talents of its host than the Morning Magazines
older versions and shows signs of becoming a day- In the period between 7 and 9 A.M., the Big Three
time staple (until the next major upheaval). networks compete head-to-head with magazine for-
mat programs. The long-running Today, Good
Morning America and a CBS challenger appearing
under numerous titles (The Early Show since
Weekday News, Information, 1999), have contested this time period for several
and Talk decades. These morning magazines provide news
headlines, weather forecasts, and interviews ranging
In addition to their own intense competition, the from soft entertainment to hard news. Because they
broadcast networks face increasing challenges from resemble print publications, they are called maga-
strong local stations in major markets in the early zines. Like print magazines, they contain a series of
morning daypart. Local stations in large markets, feature articles, have a table of contents (billboard)
including New York, Miami, Chicago and Washing- at the beginning to tell viewers about what will be
ton, are producing their own early newscasts and on that day, and are bound together with a common
magazine programs (see Chapter 8). Because of cover and title.
their strong local emphases, these competing shows The magazine format is especially suited to the
have garnered strong ratings against network early-morning daypart when most viewers do not
offerings. watch for extended periods of time. As people
If network programs are to remain strong compe- ready themselves for the day ahead, they catch
titors in the major markets in the morning dayparts, short glimpses of television (see Chapter 8 on day-
they must adjust to the changing environment by parting). The segmented magazine format allows
doing what local competitors cannot. Because network viewers to watch for short periods of time and still
morning shows cannot compete for local appeal, the see complete stories. News and weather updates
 CHAPTER 7 Non-Prime-Time Network Programming 257

allow viewers to start their day with useful informa- great. The stakes get even higher during ratings
tion. All national magazines include local breaks in sweeps. To make the shows more attractive, the
which affiliates air brief local news, local weather or cast and crew often travel to exotic locations during
traffic updates. FOX affiliates usually compete with a sweep. Although the cost of remote productions is
other affiliates by having their own long-form local higher, they often return higher ratings and create a
newscasts (but nothing from the network). promotional hook to tempt audiences. During one
Morning magazines are a valuable tool for pro- sweeps period, CBS scheduled an entire week of its
moting the network’s prime-time offerings. For morning magazine inside the studios of Late Night
instance, when a network has scheduled a prime- with David Letterman while Late Night was in Lon-
time miniseries, the hosts of the morning magazine don. This provided cross-promotion for both shows.
interview the stars or appear on the set of the mini-
series. Correspondents from prime-time news maga-
zines (20/20, Dateline) frequently make guest Daytime Talk
appearances on their network’s morning shows to Traditionally, the talk show was used to fill hour-
promote features on that night’s program. Con- long gaps in a network’s daytime schedule and tar-
versely, prime-time programs can help boost the rat- get the desirable 25 to 54 female audience. Further,
ings of morning magazines. For example, CBS’s The if a talk-show host connected with the audience, a
Early Show’s ratings increased for a time when it series attracted very loyal followers who watched
began to capitalize on the success of the network’s daily. With studios and equipment almost always
prime-time Survivor series. Each of the morning available, talk shows are one of the most easily insti-
magazines has weekend editions that further extend tuted and adaptable of genres. Indeed, with out-
their brands. standing success, syndicators have stolen the genre
By early 2011, NBC News’s Today was still away from the broadcast networks with such syndi-
dominating the ratings over its rivals—as it had cated talk as Oprah, Dr. Phil, The Jerry Springer
done for over a decade. ABC News’s Good Morning Show and The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Back in the
America was second, and CBS’s The Early Show 1980s when Donahue, Oprah and Geraldo were
was a weak third and likely facing yet another revi- redefining the daytime talk show, the networks
sion (see 7.6 for more on the battle for morning stuck with their successful soap operas and game
magazine leadership). To some extent, the relative shows in daytime, losing the programming initiative
popularity of the leading morning shows is con- to their syndicated competitors. In the era of corpo-
nected to the night-before ratings (tuning inertia). If rate consolidation, some of these programs began
NBC is the number-one network, the television set is being syndicated by the same media conglomerates
often switched off at night with the channel position that owned the networks.
on NBC, and a disproportionate number of viewers The Big Three have recently re-entered the day-
turn on their sets and see morning programming time talk business. This is a reaction to the decline of
from NBC. Similarly, ABC has an advantage when soap operas as a viable format and the inexpensive
its shows win the ratings the night before. Despite cost of mounting a talk show. ABC started the new
presently out-rating its two traditional network riv- wave of network daytime talk with The View in the
als overall, CBS has never had much success in the late 1990s. The late-morning show (11 A.M. cur-
morning and probably does not benefit from tuning rently) has a unique four-host format that includes
inertia. Of course, NBC’s strong late-night lineup television icon Barbara Walters, its creator and
helps Today much more than its presently low- producer. The View’s continuing success in both rat-
rated prime-time lineup. ings and in its format expansion to international
Despite relatively low ratings, the competition markets, led NBC to expand Today to both the
between the networks for early-morning viewers is 9–10 A.M. and 10–11 A.M. time periods. As men-
always intense because the advertising revenue is so tioned above, the third and, especially, the fourth
258 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

7.6 The Morning Magazine Shows

NBC’s Today morning magazine program hosting team. The network

NBC pioneered the magazine format with the 1952 premiere also invested millions in a new studio, complete with
of The Today Show. Over the years viewers have become Today-like windows showing adoring fans outside.
very attached to the show’s hosts and regular guests. Popular Increasing stability has closed some of the ratings gap
Today Show personalities have included Dave Garroway (its between number-two-rated GMA and number-one-rated
original host), John Chancellor, Hugh Downs, Barbara Wal- Today. Sawyer replaced Gibson on the nightly ABC
ters, Tom Brokaw, Jane Pauley, Willard Scott, Bryant Gumbel, World News evening broadcast in 2010 at which point
Katie Couric, Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira. George Stephanopoulos joined Roberts as co-anchor.
Each of these hosts and regulars had a long run, bringing
stability and familiarity to the program. These are essential CBS’s The Early Show
ingredients for ratings success in a daypart where viewers’ CBS has languished in third place in the morning news rat-
behavior becomes routine, as most people start each of their ings since the beginning of three-network competition in
weekdays in much the same manner. The Today Show’s early mornings in the 1970s. Even when ABC was out of the
sole big ratings dip, which took place in the early 1990s, picture, CBS always ran a dismal second to The Today
has been attributed mostly to revolving hosts following the Show regardless of whether they were trying straight news or
departure of Jane Pauley. The Today Show successfully “infotainment.” The failure of CBS to establish a morning
rebounded in the mid-1990s with a new generation of franchise is one of the enduring mysteries of network televi-
morning stars and, renamed Today, has been the clear sion. The network has always trailed the competition
leader in morning network ratings. Lauer and Ann Curry are regardless of format, personalities or ratings for the rest of its
the present hosts/anchors for the first two hours, supported morning performance. A recent CBS attempt at a star-driven
by a roster of familiar specialists such as weatherman Al Today/GMA-style program (complete with a window for
Roker and big-name contributors from the NBC News. fans to gather!) was The Early Show hosted by former Today
host Bryant Gumbel. Debuting in late 1999, Gumbel (and
ABC’s Good Morning America co-host Jane Clayson) lasted barely three years before being
Like the newer networks of today, in its first decade or so (prior replaced by four co-anchors—including Harry Smith, a vet-
to 1975) ABC did not offer any network service until 11 A.M. eran of a previously unsuccessful CBS attempt at developing
Then it challenged the well-established Today Show by intro- a morning program. As of early 2011, Erica Hill and Chris
ducing AM America and aiming for a younger early-morning Wrigge were the two main anchors, but they had a very
audience. ABC believed that its target audience, women 18 brief tryout. By late in 2011, CBS had acquired former PBS
to 49, were less-habituated viewers than the over-50 age talk host Charlie Rose and OWN host Gayle King for its
group that had been drawn in large numbers to The Today morning show. These two will probably last longer than most
Show, and that these younger women would sample the new CBS morning predecessors if only because it would take a
program. By 1980 the retitled Good Morning America good offer (and strong contract) to get them away from their
(GMA) had moved into first place overall in the ratings. own long-lasting shows. But if history is any guide, their time
Although Today had re-established its first-place position in these jobs will also be limited.
by the mid-1990s, GMA remains securely in second The money that successful morning programs generate
place. After unsuccessfully experimenting with younger, makes it unlikely that CBS will give up on its nearly 40-year
supposedly “hipper” anchors in the late 1990s and early effort to create a successful morning news and infotainment
2000s following the departure of long-time anchors/hosts magazine. Nonetheless, the huge number of options for
Charles Gibson and Joan Lunden, ABC returned Gibson viewers even at this time of the day on broadcast, cable
and added popular prime-time news personality Diane and the internet make for increasingly long odds that CBS
Sawyer. When Gibson became the World News anchor can capture enough of the audience and buzz to compete
in 2006, newscaster Robin Roberts was promoted to co- strongly with NBC and ABC in the early-morning ratings
host, making Sawyer and Roberts the first all-female race.
 CHAPTER 7 Non-Prime-Time Network Programming 259

hour of Today have minimal connection with the stories using satellites to bring in high-quality cover-
parent program. age with on-the-spot video.
More recently, CBS has rolled out The Talk, a Thus, network news may not remain a staple of
program that follows the same basic pattern as The non-prime-time programming if current trends per-
View. In addition to the traditional Big Three, both sist (see 7.7). Less than a third of the adult public
Telemundo and Univision rely on popular talk now watch any of these telecasts with any degree
shows to fill substantial parts of their daytime of regularity, down from more than half in 1990
schedules. and almost three-quarters in 1980. Also, network,
local and cable news audiences slipped precipitously
in viewers younger than 30, perhaps because youn-
Evening News ger adults are more likely to seek news from other
Although ratings have and continue to decline, par- alternatives, such as the internet and mobile media.
ticularly among the young, the evening newscasts This demographic trend suggests that audiences for
remain the centerpieces of the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts may continue to decline.
television news organizations, and the same is true Nonetheless, network newscasts continue to
of Univision. Along with daytime and late-night pro- bring in sizable advertising revenue for the net-
gramming, evening newscasts help distinguish these works. Despite increased competition and lower rat-
full-service networks from their more recent compe- ings, these newscasts also remain important as
titors (FOX, the CW, MNTV, ION), thus enhancing promotional tools. Affiliates benefit because the net-
their brand identification. works promote the evening’s prime-time schedule
The advertising revenue generated by these during commercial breaks. Just as with early-
news programs remains substantial. Evening news- morning magazine programs, the network’s news
casts also give the broadcast networks prestige as division can promote other news programming
major players in national and international politics. within the newscast. For example, ABC promotes
In the early days, evening newscasts provided a ser- Nightline as well as its website (abc.com) within its
vice to affiliates, most of which then had very lim- nightly newscast, while each of the networks gener-
ited, if any, news operations. CBS and NBC ally incorporates promotion for their own news
introduced the nightly 15-minute newscast to net- magazines (CBS’s 60 Minutes and 48 Hours Mys-
work television in 1948, and by the 1960s, the news- tery; NBC’s Dateline NBC; and ABC’s 20/20 and
casts had expanded to 30 minutes. Although modest Prime Time Live) within their evening newscasts.
by today’s standards, the expenses incurred by a net- Indeed, all the networks push their websites in
work news operation during those early years were every newscast and many promotional spots.
often far more than the income derived from adver- Time zone differences present a challenge to
tising on the newscasts. both programming departments and the news
Today, evening newscasts face difficult competi- departments. The solution has been a multiple-feed
tion from cable news networks and internet news schedule. The first feed of a network newscast is gen-
services. Busy viewers don’t need to wait until 6:30 erally 6:30 to 7 P.M. eastern time. Because some
or 7 P.M. for a network newscast because 24-hour affiliates delay this newscast and the time would be
news channels (CNN, CNBC, CNN Headline inappropriate for the mountain and Pacific time
News, MSNBC and Fox News Channel) and hun- zones, a second feed is scheduled for 7 to 7:30 P.M.
dreds, maybe thousands, of news websites spon- eastern time and a third from 6 to 6:30 P.M. Pacific
sored by newspapers, television and radio stations, time. Breaking or updated news stories can be
wire services and the networks themselves, can be inserted into the later feeds.
reached anytime. In addition, the newscasts on the Because most network newscast elements (news
larger local affiliates compete with the network gathering, scheduling and technology) are about the
newscasts for national and sometimes international same across competitors, news personalities become
260 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

7.7 The Evening Newscasts

NBC Nightly News anchor desk, and the president of CBS News was fired. In
NBC first offered a regular nightly newscast in 1948, the 2005, Dan Rather stepped down following criticism of his role
Camel News Caravan with John Cameron Swayze. Swayze in a news story that used faked documents.
was not an experienced journalist and eventually was Long-time CBS correspondent Bob Schieffer was interim
replaced in 1956 by Chet Huntley and David Brinkley. The anchor until September 2006 when Katie Couric (former co-
renamed newscast, The Huntley-Brinkley Report, was a ratings host of NBC’s Today) became the sole weeknight anchor.
hit, becoming the top-rated news program in the late 1950s Although Couric and her producers attempted to shake up
and for most of the 1960s. When Huntley retired in 1970, the conventional formula of an evening newscast with more
NBC retitled the show the NBC Nightly News with Brinkley interviews and guest commentators, such moves were met
and John Chancellor as the main anchors. Following NBC’s with large amounts of criticism and no improvement in the
declining news ratings in the late 1970s and early 1980s, ratings. The newscast soon reverted to the standard anchor-
Tom Brokaw was moved from The Today Show to the Nightly centered newscast that has been a television mainstay for
News anchor position in 1982. As NBC added cable net- over 50 years. After five years of not being able to lift the
works (CNBC, MSNBC), the Nightly News became a source newscast out of third place, Couric left in 2011 to be
of programming material for these newer news/talk outlets. replaced by veteran CBS correspondent Scott Pelley.
Nightly News’s stories are frequently the major focus of even-
ABC World News
ing programming on these cable networks, and archived
ABC has been airing nightly newscasts since 1953, but for
Nightly News reports have been repackaged to provide new
three decades it failed to pose a serious news threat to CBS
programming for its cable partners.
and NBC. In 1977, in a bold move, ABC appointed the
Brokaw stepped down as Nightly News anchor after
head of ABC Sports, Roone Arledge, to supervise its news
the 2004 presidential election and was successfully
division as well as its sports division. Arledge had made
replaced by Brian Williams, a frequent guest anchor on the
ABC the number-one network sports organization with his
Nightly News and former anchor of a long-running CNBC
unconventional strategies—introducing offbeat sporting
evening newscast. Heir to ABC’s Peter Jennings because of
events and building up the dramatic aspects of sports
his similar wry manner, NBC’s Williams is currently the
competition. During his tenure as head of news, ABC
most popular of the network evening newscasters.
assembled a team of highly respected journalists, including
Peter Jennings, Sam Donaldson, Diane Sawyer, Ted Kop-
CBS Evening News pel and David Brinkley, catapulting ABC into the lead in
Walter Cronkite replaced Douglas Edwards as anchor of the the evening news ratings for some years.
CBS Evening News in 1962 and remained until his retire- Most observers credit anchorperson Peter Jennings with the
ment in 1981. In times of crisis, more people tuned in to success of World News Tonight, as he actively served as
Cronkite than to any other newscaster. During the 1970s, executive editor and wrote (or rewrote) many of the stories,
polls repeatedly showed Cronkite as the most trusted source adding his own wry style. After the departures of Brokaw and
of news. Dan Rather took over the helm of the CBS Evening Rather, Jennings’ 2005 death was a shock to many viewers
News upon Cronkite’s retirement, but Rather’s credentials as and industry insiders, closing an era of network news stability,
a highly experienced journalist would have meant little had now called the classic era. After an interim period, Elizabeth
his chemistry not matched that of his predecessor. Vargas and Bob Woodruff were named as Jennings’ succes-
Even though the ratings of the CBS Evening News declined sors in 2006. However, Woodruff’s grievous injuries suffered
after Cronkite’s retirement, Rather continued to dominate the while he was covering the Iraq war put an end to the new
evening news ratings until the late 1980s when the reign of anchor team after less than one month. Charles Gibson
ABC’s Peter Jennings began. In June 1993 CBS decided to became the anchor of the renamed ABC World News later
pair Rather with veteran reporter and weekend anchor Connie that year. Diane Sawyer became the second woman to solo
Chung. The combination did not work out, and ratings did not anchor a network evening newscast when she replaced the
improve. Two years later, Chung was demoted from the retiring Gibson in 2010.
 CHAPTER 7 Non-Prime-Time Network Programming 261

critical for winning the ratings competition. News a loyal, upscale audience. Traditionally, the series’
anchors that can connect with other members of ratings fell or rose sharply depending on national
the news team and the audience are essential as the crises, wars and other disasters. Although the pro-
centerpieces for building loyalty. All three networks gram is typically a half-hour in length, it sometimes
produce high-quality newscasts for which the ratings expands for extremely important stories. On those
have been nearly equal for a very long time, but they evenings, Nightline can obliterate all the competing
risk losing the next generation of news viewers to programs.
cable and the internet if younger personalities are Such major news events as the disputed 2000
not developed to anchor these programs. Prime- presidential election, the events of 9/11, the invasion
time newsbreaks, vacation replacements and week- of Iraq and later the Arab Spring triggered big
end newscasts often are the training grounds for new upward spikes in the size of its audience. Even
anchors and reporters. when major events are not taking place, Nightline
As of the end of 2010, the NBC Nightly News has become a solid ratings performer (often finishing
was solidly in first place in the evening news ratings first in its time slot). The key to its success has been
with an Adults 25 to 54 rating of 2.0. ABC World ABC’s vigorous campaign to have the show cleared
News was second with 1.7, followed by the CBS live in most TV markets.
Evening News with 1.4. The networks have tried
to distinguish the three newscasts from each other
and from cable by creating segments within the Overnight News
newscasts. CBS’s “Eye on America,” NBC’s “It’s The overnight time period (2:05 to 6 A.M.) has the
Your Money,” and ABC’s ongoing “Person of the lowest viewership of any daypart. Be it second-shift
Week” provide hooks for promotional announce- workers, nursing mothers, bottle-feeding fathers or
ments. The networks believe that viewers will link insomniacs, however, there is some television view-
such segments to a particular network and get into ing in the overnight period, but the network compe-
the habit of watching a particular network for a tition is not as spirited as in other dayparts. Unlike
favorite segment. Alternately, they may follow up in prime time, where HUT levels are around 60 per-
on that network’s news website. The news websites cent, overnight HUT levels are just 10 percent.
also offer viewers a chance to view features or even Given the relatively low number of viewers, the
full newscasts on demand, although with reduced potential ratings for individual overnight programs
picture and sound quality. are thus quite low. Some affiliated stations sign off
in the overnight hours, leading to lower clearance
rates that further reduce ratings. Therefore, in the
Late-Night News overnight time period, a 1.0 rating (meaning over
In November 1979, ABC News seized on the Amer- 3 million people) is considered very strong (even in
ican viewing audience’s fascination with the Iran a nation of over 300 million people).
hostage crisis and began a late-night newscast to Given the low ratings and the low HUT levels,
summarize the major events of the day. The show one might wonder why a network would bother to
evolved into Nightline, an in-depth news program schedule any programming overnight. Even with 16
hosted by Ted Koppel until 2005. Then a three- minutes of commercial time per hour, the entire day-
anchor multi-topic format was developed, currently part is worth only a few million dollars to each broad-
hosted by Cynthia McFadden, Terry Moran and Bill cast network. If the network can keep costs below the
Weir. Critics, however, pointed to less depth than in advertising revenue in the daypart and promote forth-
the single-story format and frowned on the rise in coming shows, however, the effort is worthwhile
popular culture stories. because the risk is low. In addition, overnight news
Because it counterprograms the network and gives network affiliates programming at no cost to
syndicated talk shows, Nightline continues to draw sustain their broadcast signal for 24 hours a day.
262 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

ABC’s World News Now and CBS’s Up to the Sunday Morning, first with host Charles Kuralt and
Minute are the traditional overnight news series, then with Charles Osgood, has been a fixture on
although their names have changed over the years. CBS for over 30 years and delivers a surprisingly
Scheduled about 2 A.M., these shows compete solid rating for the time period. These weekend
against syndicated news programming offered to shows allow network news divisions to utilize vet-
local stations by CNN Headline News. NBC’s eran news staff members while also developing and
cable partners, MSNBC and CNBC, also offer infor- experimenting with new talent on the air.
mation alternatives on cable/satellite networks. Each
network does what it can to keep the costs of pro-
duction low. Up to the Minute was one of the first Sunday News Interviews
network news services to provide video stories on ABC, CBS and NBC have traditionally aired public-
demand over the internet, now common practice affairs interview programs on Sunday mornings, and
for television news organizations. FOX has joined them. The format usually consists of
Following their overnight programming, net- a panel of journalists interviewing recent newsmakers
works offer early newscasts that lead into and pro- about current issues and events. These shows have
vide updates for their local affiliates’ news longevity rare in modern television: NBC’s Meet the
programming. At 4:30 A.M., NBC enters the compe- Press, network television’s longest-running program,
tition with Early Today, a joint venture with its began in 1947, and CBS’s Face the Nation began in
cable/satellite partner CNBC. At the same time, 1954. ABC inaugurated its own public-affairs show,
ABC airs America This Morning and CBS carries Issues and Answers, in 1960, which was replaced by
CBS Morning News. These early-morning news This Week with David Brinkley in 1981. After Brink-
efforts lead into the networks’ morning news maga- ley’s retirement, the title was shortened to This Week,
zines: Today, Good Morning America and The and Christiane Amanpour now hosts it. FOX News
Early Show. Sunday, which is allied with the Fox News cable
channel, joined the competition in the 1990s. Meet
the Press, hosted by David Gregory, presently draws
Weekend News and Information the largest audience followed closely by Face the
Nation, hosted by Bob Scheiffer. This Week is third
Although weekday news and information programs and News Sunday, hosted by Chris Wallace, typically
receive the most attention, weekend programs brings up the rear.
include some of the longest-running series in televi- Although these news interviews do not attract
sion. In addition, weekend news and information large audiences, they remain on the air for two key
slots allow networks to extend successful program reasons. First, all four of these programs have
brands such as Today and Good Morning America become important news events in and of themselves.
into new hours. Elected officials and top reporters appear on them to
be seen and quoted; they have a chance to express
themselves at length on important issues; and they
Weekend Magazines themselves watch these programs avidly. Their
ABC, CBS and NBC each program weekend morn- words on Sunday morning television often become
ing magazines. On both Saturdays and Sundays, Sunday night’s and Monday morning’s news. This is
NBC airs a one-hour Today and ABC carries a especially important because Sunday is usually a
one-hour GMA. CBS offers a two-hour Saturday slow news day. Second, the programs attract desir-
version of its weekday magazine, Saturday Early able upscale audiences, and as a result, prestigious
Show, and also Sunday Morning, a 90-minute pro- advertisers are drawn to the shows.
gram that reviews news of the past week and surveys Despite attractive attributes, many stations are
the world of fine art, music, science and Americana. hesitant to clear these relatively low-rated programs
 CHAPTER 7 Non-Prime-Time Network Programming 263

on weekends. Affiliates can make more money car- NBC, which abandoned most cartoon program-
rying infomercials or paid religious programming. ming in favor of tweens live-action programming
To provide affiliates with more flexibility, multiple (Saved by the Bell) in the 1990s, formed (with
feeds of the programs are scheduled, giving affiliates ION) the more economical Qubo Kids lineup, airing
plenty of scheduling options. However, many affili- shows on Saturday afternoons that target 4- to 8-
ates still refuse to clear the time. year-olds. The CW is programmed by 4 Kids Enter-
tainment, an offshoot of the major children’s televi-
sion syndicator Saban, presently under the Toonzai
Children’s Programming on CW4Kids label, demonstrating the continuing
popularity of Japanese anime for young viewers.
Children’s television programming best illustrates FOX, which at one time was a dominant player in
the massive industry changes caused by the prolifer- children’s programming, had abandoned the genre
ation of program outlets. Because a child’s brand by 2011.
loyalty is to the program and not to the network, For some years, CBS “rented out” its Saturday
an upstart network such as the former WB could morning block to Nickelodeon; then it tried
leverage its Pokémon program in several time education-blended-with-entertainment for older chil-
spots, making the WB, at least for a time, the dren, for example, Wheel of Fortune 2000 and
number-one network in both the weekday kids’ Sports Illustrated for Kids. Still slipping in the rat-
and the traditional Saturday morning children’s ings, in 2007 CBS rediscovered animation, installing
block. a lineup of six new animated half-hour series from
The dominant position of basic cable network Canadian producer Nelvana, under the KOL brand
Nickelodeon is further evidence that children are name. Today, the two-hour CBS kids’ block is called
major users of cable television services (see 7.8). Cookie Jar TV. Despite major efforts, all the broad-
Consistently ahead of any of the Big Four broadcast cast networks must continually struggle against the
networks in children’s ratings, Nickelodeon has used attractions of cable and websites directed toward
such popular series as SpongeBob SquarePants, children.
iCarly and Zoey 101, among others, to become the In addition to ratings and economics, program-
major force in children’s television (both on cable mers must also consider factors specific to children’s
and at cousin company CBS) and an increasingly programming. One factor is that federal rules man-
powerful force in motion pictures and product date minimum amounts of prosocial and educa-
licensing. tional programming (see 7.9). Although such rules
After decades of dominating Saturday morning are often perceived as vague and easily satisfied, pro-
children’s programming, the rise of Nickelodeon, the grammers in other dayparts do not face such
Disney Channel, Cartoon Network and the once content-specific rules. Even Univision has had trou-
powerful Fox Kids network drove all three of the ble figuring out what would be acceptable (see 7.10)
older broadcast networks into downplaying the The Children’s Television Act also required
time period. Post-2000, a pattern of leasing kids’ broadcasters to air educational and informational
shows from cable became the norm. The three- children’s programming (knows as E/I). At license
hour ABC Kids, for example, is provided by parent renewal time for stations, the FCC is required to
company Disney, which recycles its Disney Channel consider whether a television station has served the
and Toon Disney cable programming on the net- educational and informational needs of children.
work. ABC calls this “New-to-ABC Kids’ episodes. Broadcasters are now obligated to air programs
Not surprisingly, popular Disney animated theatri- serving a child’s cognitive/intellectual or social/emo-
cal films, such as Toy Story and The Lion King, pro- tional needs. These rules, of course, apply to sta-
vide the self-serving inspiration for many of the tions, not networks, but many affiliates and all the
programs in the block. O&Os want help from their networks in fulfilling
264 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

7.8 “Watching” in New Ways

W hile kids and tweens still watch a great deal of

television, not all viewing habits are equal, and
traditional television shows are finding it harder to appeal
Interstitials between episodes of SpongeBob Square-
Pants feature short videos of kids participating in
polls and games, and the program showcases videos
to older children. Because entertainment programming is submitted to Nick.com by kids. Viewers can go online
now accessible through a myriad of platforms, from home to submit questions to Nick’s hosts and celebrity guests
computers to cell phones and iPads, television program- or visit www.Nicktropolis.com, a virtual world where
mers are increasingly employing cross-platform initiatives to kids create their own avatars and personal rooms in
reach school-age kids. Instead of delayed rollout, Cartoon order to play games, interact with network characters
Network’s animated series Class of 3000 launched with a and connect with friends. Such activities may seem
website featuring online sneak previews, streaming epi- secondary enhancements to adults, but for children,
sodes, downloadable songs, podcasts, ringtones, wallpa- they are becoming the new definitions of watching
pers and messenger icons, plus a funkbox game that lets television.
kids create their own music. Nickelodeon has renamed its
5–7 P.M. programming block ME:TV to reflect the prolifer- Nancy C. Schwartz, Ph.D.
ation of web-based activities for kids. The Academic Edge, Inc.

7.9 Children’s Programming Requirements

T he FCC has long studied children’s television pro-

gramming. Members of the public, including special-
interest groups and parents, have repeatedly stated their
featuring the Power Rangers or products with the Power
Rangers pictured on them during the airing of Mighty Mor-
phin Power Rangers or within 90 seconds before or after the
concerns about “kidvid.” The main concerns regarding program. Had the commercials aired, then the entire pro-
children’s television programming have long been the over- gram would have been considered a program-length com-
commercialization of children’s programming, the blurring mercial and, therefore, in excess of the maximum allowable
of distinctions between program content and advertising advertising time for one hour of children’s programming.
messages, and the absence of educational content. This was a clever stratagem to force stations to exhibit
In 1990, Congress passed the Children’s Television Act, some sensitivity to children’s vulnerabilities. The prohibition
requiring the FCC to impose advertising limits on children’s on host-based commercials was aimed at decreasing the
programming of up to 10.5 minutes on weekends and 12 confusion a young child likely has in distinguishing com-
minutes during the week. The act also restricted the use of mercials from a show’s content. Even before the Children’s
host-based commercials, ones that feature characters from Television Act, networks (as well as syndicators and
the program in the advertiser’s message. At the time, for broadcasters) usually placed interrupters or bumpers
example, a number of commercials featured the Mighty between programs and commercials. Nonetheless,
Morphin Power Rangers; the act eliminated those ads research shows that young children remain confused.

the children’s requirements. All of the programs After the act was in place, the FCC cited statis-
presently offered by ABC, CBS, NBC and the CW tics showing that educational programming on the
on Saturday morning meet the E/I standard. How- networks had actually fallen from 11 hours a week
ever, the FCC does not specify the number of hours in 1980 to just 5 hours by the early 1990s. The
or the actual series that would satisfy the act, so Commission reacted to these findings by adopting
there is always some unease. new rules in 1996 designed to strengthen the existing
 CHAPTER 7 Non-Prime-Time Network Programming 265

7.10 Univision’s Expensive Mistake

I n its most aggressive action regarding children’s pro-

gramming to date, the FCC fined Univision $24 million
in 2007. This was the biggest fine ever for an individual
labeling one of its soap operas as “children’s” program-
ming. Complices al Rescate (“Friends to the Rescue”) follows
the lives of two identical 11-year-old girls who swap identi-
company and a shock to an industry that has a history of ties, lose family members and friends, and suffer injustice.
being rather casual about what is and is not “educational.” Because of the plots’ complexity and the many adult themes,
In the early 1990s, for example, several stations were using the FCC determined that the episodes had little value for
The Flintstones and The Jetsons to fulfill their educational children. The telling point was that about 80 percent of the
requirements. Univision’s fine arose from two years of advertising in the episodes was directed toward adults.

act. Chief among these were rules that did the Production and Development
following: Processes
■ Established a guideline of a minimum of three The development process for animation is different
hours per week of core programming per televi- from that of prime-time or other daytime programs.
sion station Development of an animated children’s series begins
■ Defined core programs as those that are regularly about 12 months before telecast, with pickups of
scheduled on a weekly basis, broadcast between new series exercised in February or March to allow
7 A.M. and 10 P.M., at least 30 minutes long, and producers six to seven months to complete an order
that have as their significant purpose “serving the for a September airing. The first stage is a concept
educational and information needs of children” pitched to the network programmers. The next steps
are the outline, which describes the characters and
■ Adopted new public information initiatives to
the setting, and the artwork, which provides the
benefit parents, such as requiring on-air identifi-
sketches of the characters in several poses and cos-
cation of core children’s programs and providing
tumes. If a project passes these stages, the next step
this information in parents’ guides
is to order one or more scripts, which usually go
Another factor is that children’s programming is through many drafts before final acceptance.
very much fad driven: Children’s interests are fickle Pilot programs are rarely commissioned for car-
and change quickly. Chances are very good that the toons because of the long production time and high
current SpongeBob phenomenon will fade in a few costs. The usual contract for a season of animated
years and be replaced by the next big thing. Scooby programs to be aired weekly specifies production of
Doo, Power Rangers, Pokémon and Teenage only 13 episodes. If it airs any cartoons, the network
Mutant Ninja Turtles have all had their days in the generally schedules each episode four times during
ratings’ sunshine. the first season.
Still another factor is that children’s television is The development process for live action is simi-
often an excellent example of the synergy so her- lar to that of animation, but it substitutes a casting
alded when corporations merge. The most popular tape for the artwork. In hopes of lowering per-
programs are used to market a dizzying array of episode production costs or of targeting a slightly
toys, games, clothing, fast food, snacks, videos and older target audience, the broadcast networks have
motion pictures. One has only to walk through the focused on live-action programs for several years.
various children’s sections of a major store to see The large number of repeats that networks can
how popular children’s programs become strong employ offsets the high cost of children’s program-
franchises for marketing a vast array of products, a ming to a large degree. Popular children’s programs
phenomenon that dismays many parents. can have each episode broadcast dozens of times
266 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

over a period of years (besides spending time on NBC airs three consecutive talk shows (The Tonight
cable and being syndicated to stations). Unlike Show with Jay Leno, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
most programs, which lose substantial audience and Last Call with Carson Daly) in the late-night
share with reuse, both live-action and animated chil- period; CBS airs two talk shows (Late Show with
dren’s programs are less affected by repeats because David Letterman and The Late Late Show with
the audience changes frequently with a new genera- Craig Ferguson); while ABC competes with Jimmy
tion of youngsters to discover every old program. In Kimmel Live following Nightline. FOX has failed
addition, children generally enjoy the familiarity of several times to develop competing talk/comedy pro-
program reruns more than adults do. grams (The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers, The
Despite network cuts, the children’s television Wilton North Report, The Chevy Chase Show) and
market remains strong, vital and profitable to net- presently does not program the daypart.
works that have carved out a substantial niche inside As in prime-time series development (see Chap-
the genre. Even with their recent ratings problems, ter 2), pilots are often produced for nighttime talk
most of the broadcast networks are likely to maintain shows. Producers test a variety of elements prior to a
at least some Saturday morning presence through co- talk show’s release in attempts to gauge a show’s
ventures that allow the broadcast networks to main- potential: Commonly examined are the sets, the
tain a reduced Saturday morning schedule, but that band, the sidekick, and the pacing of the show, but
target young viewers carefully and use the programs of course the key is the appeal of the host. When a
with proven popularity on cable and/or in syndica- network signs a major star to a talk-show contract,
tion. The advantages for the Big Four are that they the network may decide to economize by producing
no longer have developmental responsibilities for chil- rehearsal shows rather than a full-scale pilot. The
dren’s programming and no longer need take on the late-night talk show has some of the same benefits
entire financial responsibility. of the morning talk show. The talk show can pro-
In addition, even in an era of continuing dereg- mote network offerings by booking same-network
ulation of television and equation of the public inter- guests. A well-known celebrity appearing in a forth-
est with the corporate interest, the FCC and coming made-for-TV movie can make a timely
Congress would likely object to a network’s com- appearance on Leno or Letterman to promote the
plete abandonment of children’s programming. show’s exact airdate and airtime.
Although always affected by economic cycles and After the merry-go-around (Version 2.0), late
the fickleness of the audience, children’s program- night gradually settled down. On NBC, Leno’s
ming is likely to remain popular and profitable Tonight (Version 2.0) is currently followed by Late
because it can be linked to other profit centers in Night with Jimmy Fallon and then Last Call with
entertainment, motion pictures, video games and the Carson Daly (a popular former MTV personality).
internet. CBS’s decision to gamble on David Letterman
after he left NBC was a win. CBS had been strug-
gling in third place in late night, and its new Late
Late-Night Talk/Variety Show with David Letterman gave CBS an instant
The studio-based talk/variety show is a prime exam- ratings success in this time period. Following Late
ple of low-risk programming. Its minimal start-up Show’s success, the network lured Tom Snyder
and ongoing production costs make it a perfect for- away from his cable talk show on CNBC and gave
mat for the low-budget realms of both daytime and him his own program, The Late Late Show, follow-
late-night television. On the other hand, it’s had its ing Letterman. After Snyder retired, CBS hired Craig
problems (see 7.11) with changing hosts. Kilborn, former host of Comedy Central’s news
Although other genres have been tried, the talk spoof The Daily Show. After Kilborn’s departure,
show remains the network genre with the greatest comedian/actor Craig Ferguson took over the host-
longevity in the late-night time period. Currently, ing duties.
 CHAPTER 7 Non-Prime-Time Network Programming 267

7.11 The Late-Night Merry-Go-Round

A lthough not the first network late-night program

(NBC’s Broadway Open House has that distinction),
NBC’s The Tonight Show, with an over 55-year run, is the
guest host Jay Leno over Letterman (driving Letterman to CBS
after he lost this too-long too-public decision). Because
Tonight’s audience had aged dramatically toward the end
model for all television talk/comedy/variety programs and of Carson’s reign, Leno retained the opening monologue
a model of stability with only five regular hosts in five dec- that Carson had made famous but changed the show’s
ades: Steve Allen, Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, Jay Leno, style, band and routine to draw a younger audience.
Conan O’Brien, and Leno again. Carson, the host of The Leno’s musical guests were selected with careful attention to
Tonight Show for the three decades from 1962 to 1992, the younger target audience. The Tonight Show with Jay
was such a mammoth ratings success that the network Leno has been consistently the highest-rated of the network
added a one-hour show following Tonight: The Tomorrow late-night programs.
Show with host Tom Snyder, which ran from 1973 to With big ballyhoo, Conan O’Brien moved from Late
1982. Night to Tonight in 2009, and former SNL star/actor
After guest-hosting frequently for Carson, David Letter-
Jimmy Fallon took over Late Night. O’Brien had been
man was given his own daytime show on NBC in the
promised the Tonight show back in 2004 at which time
1980s. Because of low clearances and low ratings, his
Leno was initially supposed to retire. Instead, in 2009 Leno
program lasted only four months. Guessing that Letterman’s
was awarded a nightly prime-time program (10:00 P.M.
offbeat style might better suit late-night audiences, NBC
M–F) which turned out to be a major failure so serious that it
replaced Snyder’s program with the now-legendary Late
harmed all of NBC’s prime-time schedule—a harm that still
Night with David Letterman. Letterman developed a cult
hadn’t been rectified years later. So O’Brien finally got the
following among young viewers, particularly college stu-
dents, who made up a large portion of the show’s tonight slot, but his ratings on Tonight were less than had
audience. been expected and considerably less than what Leno had
Letterman’s show attracted an especially desirable tar- been generating at 11:30. So Leno’s prime-time program
get audience with little falloff toward the end of the pro- was cancelled early in 2010, and after O’Brien vocally
gram, and to capitalize on the potential flow of viewership, refused to give up the 11:30 time spot, he was dumped
NBC added another half-hour to its late-night lineup in and replaced by the return of Leno. (With renewed public-
1988. The show, Later, was originally hosted by NBC ity, O’Brien moved to TBS and started a new talk/variety
sportscaster Bob Costas. program, Conan.) This game of musical chairs was a major
When Carson retired from Tonight in 1992, NBC had embarrassment to NBC and the most controversial and
to decide who would replace him. Of its two final candi- publicized event in prime time since the Leno/Letterman
dates, the network chose stand-up comic and frequent struggle to replace Carson in the early 1990s.

Prior to acquiring the services of Letterman, Although rarely winning the time slot, Late Show
CBS had run original dramas (most of which were has been a highly lucrative program for CBS.
relatively inexpensive international coproductions) The success of Letterman led ABC to try unsuc-
and repeats of prime-time programs. However, cessfully to woo him away from CBS. ABC,
CBS had long sought its own “signature” talk- even more than CBS, has consistently failed to estab-
show personality to compete with Carson. First lish late-night stars. From Les Crane in the early
with Merv Griffin in the 1960s and 1970s and 1960s through Joey Bishop, Dick Cavett, Jack Paar
then Pat Sajak in the late 1980s, the Eye network and Rick Dees over the years, ABC has found lim-
failed to make a dent. Carson’s departure and ited late-night success with repeats of prime-time
NBC’s choice of Leno over Letterman to host The dramas and, since 1981, with ABC News’s Night-
Tonight Show allowed CBS to obtain Letterman. line. Before 2003, ABC tried Politically Incorrect, a
268 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

7.12 Late-Night Network Ratings Season Cumulative as of May 2011

Program Network Number of Viewers A 18–49 Rating

Nightline ABC 4.0 million 1.0

Tonight (Leno) NBC 3.9 million 1.0
Late Show (Letterman) CBS 3.6 million 0.9
Late Night (Fallon) NBC 1.8 million 0.6
Late, Late Show (Ferguson) CBS 1.8 million 0.5
Jimmy Kimmel Live ABC 1.7 million 0.5
Last Call (Daly) NBC 1.0 million 0.4

“Gorman, Bill. (2011, May 12). Jay Leno and Jimmy Fallon Deliver #1 Finishers vs. ABC and CBS Competition for Late Night Week of
May 2-6.” TB By The Numbers. http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2011/05/12/jay-leno-and-jimmy-fallon-deliver-1-finishes-vs-abc-and-cbs-
competition-for-the-late-night-week-of-may-2-6/92379/.

comedy/political discussion program, in the post- Saturday night, many in the desired target audience
Nightline slot, but declining ratings and, according have other things to do than watch television. Sec-
to many observers, the controversial post-9/11 com- ond, cable and syndicated movies capture substan-
ments of host Bill Maher led to cancellation. Its tial audiences among this age group. As a result, to
replacement, Jimmy Kimmel Live, is a Hollywood- reach young adults, networks have tried to grab
based talk program hosted by a cable personality attention with truly unique programs on Friday
best known for his appeal to young men via Comedy and Saturday nights, including outlandish comedy,
Central’s The Man Show. news and music formats. With only a handful of
FOX had three notable late-night talk-show fail- exceptions, however, they have been unsuccessful,
ures prior to withdrawing from the daypart. None so affiliates fill late-night weekend time with syndi-
of the three—The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers cated fare and infomercials.
(1986 to 1987), The Wilton North Report (1987 One of the rare successes in network late-night
to 1988), and The Chevy Chase Show (1993)— weekend programming history is NBC’s Saturday
attracted significant audiences away from competing Night Live (SNL). Debuting on NBC in 1975, SNL
talk shows. As of 2011, only the Big Three competed remains an often innovative 90-minute comedy/vari-
against cable and syndication for late night viewers ety program airing on Saturdays at 11:30 P.M. SNL
on weeknights (see 7.12). With cable increasingly features regular cast members and a different guest-
competitive in late night with its own talk/variety star host each week. Ratings sometimes reach 6.0
or comedy programs (Daily Show, Colbert Report, total and close to 3.0 in Adults 18 to 49—huge rat-
Conan, George Lopez) there is little opening for ings for a time period when HUT levels are so low.
FOX to re-enter the fray. In some weeks, SNL out rates all other Saturday
night network programs including prime time.
Many former cast members have become famous
Late-Night Weekend film and prime-time television stars, including
Entertainment Chevy Chase, Mike Myers, Bill Murray, John
Belushi, Eddie Murphy, Dana Carvey, Chris Rock,
Programmers of late-night (11 P.M. to 1 A.M.) week- Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell, Amy Poehler and Tina
ends generally attempt to reach viewers aged 18 to Fey.
34, but they face competition from a variety of Because producing a fresh 90-minute sketch-
sources in this daypart. First of all, on any given driven comedy is so demanding, NBC occasionally
 CHAPTER 7 Non-Prime-Time Network Programming 269

gives the cast and writers a rest and has offered some broadcast network television industry in the early
specials and a variety of packaged, thematic best-of- years of the twenty-first century.
SNL shows in its time slot. During the crucial The huge profits from daytime and some other
November, February and May ratings sweeps, how- nonprime dayparts are no longer a secret. Local sta-
ever, first-run shows air for at least three consecutive tions now realize that they can generate much more
weeks. revenue from syndicated programs or even infomer-
As is the case with most successful series, SNL cials than they can from the compensation (cash
has had its imitators over the years, the most obvi- and/or advertising availabilities) offered by networks
ous being ABC’s Fridays that lived and died in the for clearing their programs (see Chapter 8). This has
early 1980s. So far, SNL has had only one long- reduced clearance levels for non-prime dayparts and
running network competitor, FOX’s MADtv, led to the scaling back of network offerings. Because
which ran from 1995–2009. Similar to SNL, it of low clearances, the newer broadcast networks
uses a repertory company of young comedians per- have not even attempted to program many of the
forming comedy sketches, including popular culture non-prime dayparts.
satires and recurring character bits. The one-hour However, there is no need to worry about the
program started at 11 P.M., a half-hour earlier than networks. Their corporate owners are increasingly
SNL, allowing it to counterprogram the local news the owners not just of cable networks, but of both
on NBC affiliates and bridge the start of SNL, thus the local stations and the syndicated programming
capturing viewers interested in comedy before SNL that has replaced network programming on those sta-
takes the stage. In late 2006, FOX began to program tions in many nonprime dayparts, and they are buy-
the 12 to 12:30 A.M. post-MADtv spot with Talk- ing up online services (witness Hulu). The Big Four
show with Spike Feresten, and alternate this with networks constitute the largest owners of major tele-
repeats of prime-time series. Both MADtv and Talk- vision stations, and their O&Os are typically much
show left the air in 2009 to be replaced by The more profitable than their networks. In addition, co-
Wanda Sykes Show that lasted only one season. ventures, such as seen on Saturday mornings between
Reruns of Fringe and a reality competition program cable networks, broadcast networks and syndicators,
entitled 30 Seconds to Fame were being scheduled are likely to become the norm in other time periods
by FOX by 2011. and spill over into the internet and as offerings for
mobile media. The old lines of demarcation are rap-
idly dissolving in the television industry—as they did
a generation earlier in the radio industry.
The Effects of Consolidation Several non-prime network programs continue
and Cable to have fiercely loyal audiences. The problem for
the networks is that these audiences are aging and
Network non-prime-time programming is in transi- not being replaced by younger viewers who are
tion. There is no question that daytime, weekend divided among many more viewing options (and
and late-night programming can be lucrative day- other entertainment media) than were their parents.
parts. The combination of relatively low costs for In particular, programs that have traditionally
program production (with the exception of sports) drawn a loyal but older audience (soap operas,
and loyal audiences has produced substantial prof- news) must adapt or run the risk of becoming
its. Why then are many of the remaining network unprofitable—at which point they will likely be so
programs losing audiences? Why have the networks altered as to be unrecognizable or simply disappear.
scaled back or abandoned their programming in The most important factor to consider with
some of these dayparts (for example, NBC on week- regard to both the present and future of nonprime net-
day afternoons, FOX in late night)? The answers to work programming is this blurring of the traditional
these questions lie in the changing nature of the distinctions between network, syndicated and cable
270 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

programs. Relaxation of the financial interest and syn- in exchange for the rights to a successful show. In
dication rules (see Chapter 1) allowed networks to addition, Viacom is not tied to the needs of CBS or
establish themselves as program suppliers to affiliates its local affiliates and can auction off its syndicated
and nonaffiliates. Increasingly, broadcast networks offerings to whatever local stations are willing to
are both programmers and syndicators both domesti- pay the most. Viacom (or Disney, FOX, NBC Uni-
cally and internationally. The continuing relaxation of versal, Time Warner) cannot lose.
the television station ownership cap has made the cor- This is the new television. The low HUT levels
porate owners of the broadcast networks more active in nonprime time have allowed the big media con-
program buyers. glomerates to experiment in the “new world” of
While integrated station and network owner- television programming. There is much more change
ship can be used to guarantee clearance for a net- to come in all dayparts, as the decades-old distinc-
work program, it can also be used as clout for tions between broadcast networks, cable networks,
“sibling” syndicated programming. For example, syndicators and program producers fade into the fog
the revenue goals of a Viacom/CBS-owned television of corporate consolidation and the rise of online and
station might be fulfilled by a CBS network pro- tablet television.
gram. On the other hand, it might be more lucrative
for the station to acquire a syndicated program such
as Dr. Phil from King World (a syndicator owned by
Note
Viacom) or a film from Paramount (another Viacom 1. Despite the demise of regularly scheduled sports
Company). The parent company (in this case, Via- anthologies on the networks, the Wide World of Sports
com) cannot lose in any of these scenarios. More- brand continues as the name of a sports entertainment
over, Viacom can use its clout to gain the attraction at Disney World. The Walt Disney Co. is, of
necessary clearance for a new syndicated offering course, the parent company of both ABC and ESPN.
 8
CHAPTER

Television Station
Programming Strategies
Robert B. Affe

Chapter Outline
The Regulatory Wave Morning (9 A.M. to 12 Noon)
Afternoon (12 Noon to 4 P.M.)
The Digital Wave Early Fringe (4 to 7 P.M. EST/PST
4 to 6 P.M. CST/MST)
Sources of Television Programs
Prime Access (7 to 8 P.M. EST/PST
Network Programming for 6 to 7 P.M. CST/MST)
Affiliates Prime Time (8 to 11 P.M. EST/PST
7 to 10 P.M. CST/MST)
The Big Four
Late Fringe (11 to 11:35 P.M. EST/
The Small Ones
PST 10 to 10:35 P.M. CST/MST)
The Spanish-Language Three
Late Night (11:35 P.M. to 2 A.M.
The Network–Affiliate EST/PST 10:35 P.M. to 2 A.M.
Agreement CST/MST)
Overnight (2 to 6 A.M.)
Preemptions Weekend Programming

News and Local Programming Station Promotion

The Role of Local Newscasts On-Air Promotion of Programs
Other Local Programming Promotion in Other Media

Syndicated Programming What Lies Ahead for Stations

The Prime-Time Access Rule Digital Technology
Off-Network Syndication Competing Newscasts
Movies Channel Migration
Infomercials The Mutation of Broadcasting

Station Dayparts Notes

Early Morning (6 to 9 A.M.)

271
272 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

T he dinosaur could not adapt to a radically

changed environment … and died out; Some-
what more recently, vacuum tube manufacturers lost
their market to transistors; film cameras were
the (antique) 1934 Communications Act. The effect
on the programming business was profound. Numer-
ical restrictions on station ownership were lifted.
Media companies could own, theoretically, as many
replaced by digital cameras. In business, as in biology, stations as they wanted (and the giants wanted a lot!),
the key to survival is adaptation. Media companies of up to a cumulative population reach of 39%. Almost
the past that have ridden the peak of the wave of immediately, television station companies were no
technological, economic and demographic change longer small, informal collections of media properties.
have prospered; those companies able to merely cope The economies of scale created by the 1996 act
with change have hung on to survive, if only tempo- imposed a discipline of managerial realities from
rarily; companies that failed to meet the demands of above, affecting production, purchase, scheduling
change have been extinguished. The dynamics of pro- and promotion at television stations.
gramming a television station have radically changed Some of the most enthusiastic station-buyers
over the last 15 years or so, buffeted by overdue reg- were the networks themselves. Always at the van-
ulatory reform and technological revolution in the guard of the economies of scale that drive commer-
form of digital communications. Consider the impact cial television, three of the four major networks
of the internet, digitized signals and personalized leapt to add to their portfolio of stations. By 2011,
mobile communications devices. Whereas most indi- FOX owned 17 stations, CBS owned 14 stations,
vidual stations were programmed autonomously and NBC 10. Only ABC held back with a smaller
(“inside the building”) for most of the twentieth cen- portfolio of 8 stations.
tury, today the television station is at the end of a For station programmers, the most visceral
pipeline of business imperatives imposed from change was the fact that the relationship between
above. (The sole exception is news programming, dis- the local station affiliate and the network was
cussed later in this chapter.) uprooted. Always precarious and wobbly at best,
On many levels—technological, financial, the balance between the powerful national program-
demographic, marketing and regulatory—broadcast mer and the local outlet was tipped unequivocally
programming is hurtling through creative and eco- toward the network. The days of the locally owned
nomic developments that are breathtaking to its and operated commercial television station were
viewers and gut-wrenching to its participants. Now over. The first and second generations of station
that the predictability and easy profitability of past owners sold out … and moved on.
decades have declined markedly, station owners, Another regulatory change with convulsive
programmers and industry observers warily look to impact was the FCC’s decision to let the networks
the horizon to see what lies ahead. return to the lavishly profitable business of program
syndication. This abrogated the established financial-
syndication rules (fin-syn) and ripped program-
The Regulatory Wave making away from the independent producers and
put it into the hands of big studios with which the net-
The two waves that broke over the programming works had close “marital” relationships (Disney owns
business formed far offshore during the 1990s; one ABC, Paramount once owned CBS, Fox owns FOX).
flooded the business immediately, with a long term Once free to do so, it was an easy play for networks to
impact; the second wave took a longer, slower time produce their own programs and then reap the profits
to crest, but had an equally formidable consequence. of selling them in the programming aftermarket. Soon
The first was regulatory reform, which had several the independent producers were finished off (as
parts. For starters, after decades of patchwork revi- described in Chapter 2), and the Hollywood studios
sions, in 1996 the U.S. Congress finally revamped the made theatrical movies and television largely for the
enabling legislation of the electronic media business, favored network.
 CHAPTER 8 Television Station Programming Strategies 273

Finally, the FCC has backed away from its tra- And the demography of the audience is altering.
ditional insistence on a local orientation for broad- More affluent viewers are abandoning the networks in
casting. The result has been an increase in the droves; younger viewers are, too, finding that the flex-
quantity of affiliates of some network and an overall ibility of the internet and mobile media better suits
decrease in the number of unrelated (independent) their lives. The median age of television viewers is rap-
station owners. Another by-product has been more idly growing older (past 50 years of age), accelerated
substitution of remote owners for local ones and a by the fact that younger consumers spend increasing
concomitant decrease in locally produced programs. amounts of time in online and gaming pursuits. In a
business that relies on young, brand-conscious consu-
mers, the graying of America signals a demographic
The Digital Wave derailment for national advertising via broadcasting.

No business operates in a vacuum, immune to outside

forces, and television programming is no exception. Sources of Television Programs
Many factors affect the environment in which a sta-
tion makes decisions about program selection, sched- In nearly all circumstances, station decisions about
uling, evaluation and promotion. In technology, the programs are evaluated for both their creative (con-
major change has been the adoption of digital signal tent) and financial (business) considerations. When
transmission. As of 2009, all licensed stations (which home viewers enjoy—or disparage—a program on
excludes cable) were required to broadcast a digital the screen, what they see is the result of professional
signal (although some stations sought exemptions programmers’ evaluations of that show’s relative
from the FCC). This has resulted in superior-quality creative and financial merits.
signals, although they are not necessarily in high- Nearly all programs are produced by one of four
definition formats and do not necessarily result in entities: the networks, the television production divi-
better reception for all receivers. sions of the movie studios, the very few remaining
At the same time, stations acquired the ability to independent producers (more common in radio
multiplex—to send several channels of programming broadcasting than television now), or the local sta-
on their assigned frequency—while previously they tions themselves. A producer needs a customer for
could send only one channel. From an economic per- any program, and television programming is relayed
spective, going digital required an enormous financial to homes via one of three outlets—from a network to
outlay, and the station owners thought multiplexing its affiliates, from a syndicator when purchased by the
would provide compensating income. Moreover, as station or its group, or from original production at the
an advertiser-supported medium, broadcast television station (called local). The chart in 8.1 illustrates how
is hyper-responsive to the overall national economy. several popular programs have come to the screen via
When the economy expands, advertising budgets different producers and modes of distribution.
likewise expand; in a period of economic contraction, Not all networks are program producers
advertising budgets are usually among the first because two are co-owned and operated as a unit
budgets cut by companies. with the dominant network. ABC, CBS, FOX and
Another pressure comes from new and intensi- NBC are active producers, but CBS/TW-owned
fied competition—first from cable, then from the CW and FOX-owned MNTV are not; they carry
internet and mobile media. Networks and their mostly syndicated or “repurposed” product from
affiliates no longer capture the majority of television their parent companies. Both Univision (UNI) and
viewing. Combined ratings for the top 20 cable net- Telemundo (TEL, owned by NBC) produce a wide
works now often equal or pass broadcast ratings. range of Hispanic programming—and import from
Yet the broadcasters were slow to convert to digital Mexico as well—but TeleFutura (TEF), owned by
signals and continue to be slow to convert to HD. UNI, produces primarily sports.
274 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

8.1 Program Distribution

Produced by:

Network/Station Movie Studio Independent Producer

Distributed via:
Network NBC Nightly News (NBCUniversal) CSI (CBS) America’s Got Talent (Freemantle
North America)
Syndication Rachael Ray Show (CBS TV) Ellen (Warner Bros) Wendy Williams Show (Debmar)
Local station Local newscasts (self-produced or — —
repeated from another local station)

For purposes of discussing programming, here market. It is called a network-affiliated station.

are three classifications of stations. Most visible are Other stations owned by the Washington Post Com-
the network owned-and-operated stations (the pany, however, are affiliates of other networks.
O&Os, pronounced “oh and ohs”), which are gen- A true independent station has no formal rela-
erally the top stations in the biggest markets. For tionship with a network and instead obtains its pro-
example, ABC-TV, Inc., (owned by Disney) in turn grams from a variety of sources, mostly syndicators
owns the ABC Television Network, which in turn or rerun programs. During a brief 15-year period
owns and operates eight television stations, among (roughly from 1980 to 1995), independents sprang
them WABC-TV (New York), KABC-TV (Los up across America, corresponding to a spurt in the
Angeles), WLS-TV (Chicago), WPVI-TV (Philadel- economy and consequent demand for advertising
phia) and KGO-TV (San Francisco). In the short- time. The economy was so good, in fact, that four
hand of the television trade press, it is often new networks—FOX, PAX, UPN and the WB—
reported that a network has “made” or “lost” were formed, and most of the then-independent sta-
money. That is a largely inaccurate way to report tions chose affiliation.
the fortunes of a broadcasting company. It is impor- Today, most of the former UPN and WB sta-
tant to remember that network television is a pro- tions are affiliated with the CW or MNTV (PAX
gram service; in other words, it is an expense. The died and eventually reemerged as ION—which
network’s programming service is not designed to morphed quickly into a syndication service). In addi-
maximize profit. The real money is made by selling tion, more than 200 stations are O&Os or affiliates
commercials in high-rated programs at the network- of one of the Spanish-language networks (Univision,
owned stations. This is why the networks continue Telemundo, TeleFutura or one of the smaller net-
to beef up their portfolios of owned stations and works). However, the number of owned stations
aggressively lobby Washington to raise the limits and affiliates varies widely for the nine biggies
on station ownership still further. (see 8.2).
As you undoubtedly know, affiliates are stations Altogether, 95 percent of all commercial broad-
that have agreed to run all the programs distributed cast stations today are either O&Os or affiliates of
by one of the nine major commercial networks and one of the nine commercial broadcast networks. In
have signed an affiliation contract. The Washington addition to ION, a few very small broadcast television
Post Company, for example, owns six television sta- networks exist alongside the well-known ones, for
tions, and its Houston station (KPRC) is affiliated example, America One (formerly Channel America),
with the NBC network and has the exclusive right MTV2 (formerly The Box), and Trinity Broadcasting
to run NBC’s programs in the Houston television Network (TBN) and other religious networks. They
 CHAPTER 8 Television Station Programming Strategies 275

8.2 Network Affiliates and Owned Stations

Owned Stations Affiliates* U.S. Penetration

ABC 8 218 96.8%

CBS 14 204 96.9%
CW (CBS/TW) — 195** 95%
FOX 17 180 96.1%
ION 58 95 83%
MNTV (FOX) — 167 96%
NBC 10 207 97%
TeleFutura (Univision) 18 34 75%y
Telemundo (NBC) 13 50 93%y
Univision 19 66 97%y

*America One, for example, has 152 affiliates, but they are low-power, cable and satellite affiliates only; moreover, the network is not pro-
moted on the air, so its affiliates appear to be independents.
**CW also has 15 cable-only digital affiliates.
y
These percentages are of Spanish-speaking households, not total TV households.

tend to have secondary rather than primary affilia- company would send programs through long-
tions, largely with digital-cable or low-power or very distance telephone lines to the local station. In
small market stations. If they have primary affilia- return, GE inserted their commercials inside the pro-
tions, these tend to consist of less than a handful of gram, and at the program’s conclusion, the local sta-
stations. tion could air its own commercials. Thus the first
network was created.
Subsequent networks, including television and
cable, continue to be patterned after this model.
Network Programming The classic network model maximizes the economies
for Affiliates of scale in the broadcasting business because the cost
of producing one program can be spread over hun-
In television, the station–network relationship is dreds of affiliates. In return, with one commercial,
modeled on the pattern established in the days of an advertiser can have its message sent nationwide
radio. The operators of the first radio stations in the same program at the same time. In network-
quickly realized that broadcasting’s programming distributed programs, the network keeps approxi-
demands were an all-consuming flame. As difficult mately three-quarters of the commercial time, and
as it was to create programming for large-city sta- the affiliate retains a quarter of the time for sale,
tions in the early days, it was nearly impossible for traditionally the source of immense profitability.
smaller-market stations to fill their program days. Another advantage is that the local affiliate has
The owners of WEAF, including General Electric, exclusivity, the sole right to the network’s programs
fed that station’s programming to their co-owned (or at least, the right of first refusal). The full-service
station in Washington, D.C., WCAP. In effect, the networks (ABC, CBS and NBC) supply about 12
cost of that program to the local station was zero. to 16 hours of programming daily to their 200þ
That experiment was so successful that when sta- affiliates—nearly 100 hours per week across all time
tions outside the company clamored for programs, periods—which is about one-half to two-thirds the
General Electric created a relationship in which the amount a station needs. UNI supplies even more
276 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

hours to its affiliates. Getting the rest is the primary share and revenue to their competitors, the affiliates
occupation of programmers at the stations (and the of the long-established networks. In addition, most
other networks supply even fewer hours, making the of the FOX affiliates lacked newscasts. Chairman
programmer’s job much larger). Rupert Murdoch soon put them on notice that his
But downsides to the network–affiliate relation- affiliates would produce local news—or lose the
ship exist. Some affiliates are weak stations with FOX affiliation. FOX successfully raided many tra-
poor signals, low-rated newscasts or overall inade- ditional affiliate rosters, especially those of CBS, and
quate performances, all of which disadvantage a net- the Big Three reluctantly became the Big Four. FOX
work and cause it to look for stronger affiliates. captured the crown jewels of the industry by acquir-
From the affiliates’ perspectives, some networks’ ing the broadcast rights to NFL football starting
programming is rated lower (the CW, MNTV, Tele- with the 1994 season. By securing the NFL rights,
Futura) than that of other networks—or a network’s other affiliates suddenly saw the immediate threat of
specific programs might not be as popular in a par- losing loyal viewers, irreplaceable revenue and an
ticular market as in the country overall. For exam- unmatched platform for promoting network pro-
ple, ABC has traditionally targeted the urban gramming. The impact of the NFL deal shook the
audience, but some of its affiliates are in rural loca- underpinnings of the relationship between the Big
tions where urban material doesn’t always suit the Three networks and their affiliates, particularly for
viewers. Nonetheless, both networks and affiliates CBS, whose affiliates opened their eyes to the advan-
need each other to provide what they themselves tages of switching their allegiance to FOX.
lack: The networks lack local presence, and the Before 1994, affiliation switches were rare. View-
affiliates lack the financial resources to program all ers, broadcasters and networks basked in the security
their broadcast days. of loyal, long-term relationships. When FOX
announced a series of affiliation switches in major
markets, it unleashed a flurry of activity, breaking a
The Big Four logjam and causing a downstream realignment of
At the apex of their dominance and profitability in affiliates in nearly every large market in which the
the late 1970s, the Big Three—CBS, NBC, ABC— Big Three networks did not already own stations. In
attracted more than 90 percent of all prime-time Philadelphia, Boston, Detroit, Dallas, Atlanta, Cleve-
viewing and advertising dollars. By the early land, Seattle, Tampa, Miami, Phoenix and many
2000s, their collective share of prime-time viewing other markets—covering nearly one-quarter of the
had slipped beneath 35 percent. Although alterna- U.S. population—one or more long-term affiliation
tive forms of video entertainment, in the aggregate, relationships were broken up, and FOX substantially
have chipped away at the networks’ near-monopoly upgraded its affiliate lineup. By doing so, it achieved
of television, commercial network television con- station parity in network television (reaching equal
tinues to remain the best vehicle for mass advertising numbers of households via roughly the same number
in America and thus continues to be economically of owned-stations and affiliates).
viable. The newer broadcast networks, the cable net- CBS was severely wounded by the raid on its
works and internet websites attract higher concen- affiliates. The network lost decades-long relation-
trations of narrowly targeted audiences, but they ships in large markets and had to spend scores of
cannot come close to contesting the networks for millions of dollars in advertising, promotion and
delivery of mass audiences. publicity, introducing viewers in many markets to
In 1994, FOX upended the cozy three-way bal- the local channel that was the new home of CBS.
ance that had operated for four decades. Initially, The costs were more than monetary; in many cases
FOX’s affiliates were former independent stations, they were a slap to the prestige of the “Tiffany
usually the highest-rated independents in their Network.” In Detroit, for example, CBS lost its
respective markets, but still inferior in audience Channel 2 affiliate to FOX and had to decamp
 CHAPTER 8 Television Station Programming Strategies 277

way up the dial to Channel 62. (It was not exactly in hours, then expects its affiliates to air late news at
the same spectrum with police and fire calls, but it 10 P.M. (9 P.M. central) to get the jump on the late
was close, from CBS’s perspective.) In Miami, CBS newscasts aired by affiliates of the other networks.
lost its traditional position on Channel 4 and moved Affiliated broadcasters are left with large portions of
to Channel 6, which had a serious signal-reception weekdays and weekends to fill.
problem in the northern half of the market. In The other English-language network, Paxson,
Atlanta, CBS lost Channel 5 and moved to Channel launched its PAX service in 1998, concentrating on
46. CBS was staggered by the FOX raid, and it took family-friendly programming, both first-run and syn-
years for the network—and thus its affiliates—to dicated, and morphed into ION in 2007 (after a cou-
recover.1 Today, CBS, NBC, ABC and FOX have ple of other tries at a new name), but it lagged in
between 197 and 226 affiliated stations each ratings and familiarity to audiences. In order to foster
(including O&Os) on their rosters. programming without sex and violence (suitable for
family viewing), it attempted to tightly control the
programming of its affiliates using a contract that lim-
The Small Ones ited the carriage of syndicated series. Many affiliates
In January 1995 two new networks debuted in the soon abandoned the contract, ignoring it and eventu-
same week: “The WB”, owned principally by Time ally jumping ship for more popular programming
Warner, and “UPN”, originally owned by Paramount from MNTV or the CW. Consequently, ION stopped
and Chris-Craft Broadcasting, then by Viacom/CBS. trying to be a network and shifted to a rerun service,
These so-called netlets did not provide the full pro- purchasing long sets of older off-network series, cur-
gramming slate to their affiliates. Instead, the WB rently offering Without a Trace (over and over),
and UPN focused on the heart of a station’s schedule, Ghost Whisperer (over and over), and lots of Criminal
the prime-time hours, adding young-adult-skewing Minds. Dropping its “holier than everyone else” atti-
programming and children’s animation on weekdays tude, it carries Look Sexy Now. It does not produce
and weekend mornings. The new networks patterned newscasts or live talk, instead filling time with paid
their rollout on the model devised by FOX in its early programs (mostly religion) and informercials.
years, introducing one or two nights of prime-time One of the major benefits of the FOX, CW and
programming per year. MNTV affiliations is that they give a network-quality
After a decade of low ratings, CBS and Time look to their affiliated stations, which were predomi-
Warner shut down the networks, and in about the nantly weak independent stations before the mid-
blink of an eye, came up with the CW, cherry- 1990s. As much as any other factor, by their guerrilla
picking the old schedules for the best programs. style of picking off younger network audiences, the
Since the new network could have only one affiliate newer networks have contributed to the blurring of
per market, it captured the best ones (sometimes identities between affiliates and the former indepen-
stealing from the Big Three because NBC’s program- dents. Independents used to be characterized by a
ming was ailing at the time). That left dozens of for- “local” look (“local” used pejoratively in this case),
mer UPN stations (many owned by FOX) and others providing prime-time programming consisting of old
without a network, so FOX invented MyNetworkTV movies and even older syndicated products. Today, it
(MNTV, named like FOX’s MySpace.com). is virtually impossible to distinguish between the two
The new networks’ game plans avoid competing former classes of stations in network prime time.
for ratings with the Big Four across all dayparts.
Instead, the CW and MNTV program only when
they can be competitive, which means primarily The Spanish-Language Three
prime time, and primarily weeknights. Even FOX One of the huge success stories in broadcasting in
does not program three hours of prime time every the last generation has been Spanish-language pro-
night, unlike the Big Three. FOX programs two gramming. The Hispanic population of the United
278 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

States is now the largest minority population, as well Univision also owns the cable network Galavi-
as the fastest-growing minority. Furthermore, this sión, some music services, Univision Radio and
population is densely settled along the states border- www.univision.com, a very popular website. In
ing Mexico (Arizona, New Mexico, Texas), and the addition to its efforts to capture a younger demo-
Mountain states, with significant population clusters graphic, Univision claims to have the largest undu-
in Florida, North Carolina and metropolitan New plicated prime-time audience, with two-thirds of its
York, Chicago and Atlanta. The three major viewers unavailable to any other network.2 During
Spanish-language services—Univision (and its sister hot soccer matches, Univision sometimes leads ALL
network, TeleFutura), and Telemundo, owned by U.S. networks in prime time in adults 18–49. One
NBCUniversal—overwhelm markets that have a year, the highest recorded rating for Univision (a
strong Spanish-speaking presence. Indeed, UNI typi- 35.9) was a tribute to the murdered Tejano singer,
cally outdraws English-language competitors in Selena. As a further measure of its influence, the con-
many time periods and has altered the national cept for the Univision serial, La Fea Mas Bella, was
advertising market. licensed and re-introduced on ABC as “Ugly Betty.”
Spanish-language broadcasting is concentrated Telemundo (TEL) is the second-largest producer
in markets with large absolute numbers of Hispanics of Spanish-language television programming in the
(New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, world, and the second-largest Spanish-language tele-
Dallas, Miami) and also with large percentage num- vision network in the United States. Founded in
bers (Austin, San Antonio, Albuquerque, Bakers- 1954, Telemundo has about 160 broadcast and
field). The Hispanic population of the United States cable affiliates. As a symbol of the growing impor-
was officially (at least) 16 percent as of 2011, pro- tance of the Hispanic advertising market, Tele-
jected by the U.S. Census Bureau to increase to 20% mundo was purchased by NBC in 2002 and gained
in 2030, and to 30% in 2050. substantial financial support for program produc-
Univision, a publicly traded independent com- tion, both for its own affiliates and for shows for
pany (formerly Spanish International Network or international distribution. Because of its majority
SIN), was founded in 1962 and was the first non- stake (51%) in NBCUniversal, Comcast now owns
English-language network in the United States. It Telemundo, solidifying the network’s domestic pres-
owns 18 full-power and 8 low-power outlets, has ence on about 600 cable systems, in addition to
66 broadcast affiliates and is carried on about ownership of six full-power and five low-power sta-
18,000 cable systems, FiOS and both satellite ser- tions with 50 broadcast affiliates. This combination
vices, giving it reach into nearly all of the 210 broad- gives TEL video presence in about a quarter of U.S.
cast markets. It has been the fifth-largest U.S. television markets. Its popular movies, reality pro-
television network for many years. Its best-known grams, talk shows and telenovelas make it the
programming consists of Mexican telenovelas No. 2 network TEL offers the largest amount of
produced by Grupo Televisa, major international bilingual programming, with English subtitles,
sporting events—especially soccer—and Noticiero because it distributes internationally as well as tar-
Univision, its nightly newscast. geting U.S. Spanglish speakers.
Its co-owned sister service, TeleFutura, schedules Another Spanish-language network, Azteca
to compliment Univision’s programming on another America began operations in 2001. Headquartered
18 full-power and 15 low-power owned stations and in Los Angeles, this network has approximately
34 broadcast affiliates, along with about 270 cable 60 affiliates, receives some of its programming from
affiliates. In addition to such blockbuster program- its sister network in Mexico, and reaches nearly all
ming as Sabado Gigante, soccer and hot telenovelas, the Hispanic market in the States. The Hispanic pop-
both networks carry newscasts and some noncom- ulation is younger than the population as a whole, a
mercial programs. In 15 markets, their duopoly status particular advantage for broadcasters who can attract
puts UNI/TEF stations near the top of all stations. them. Its median age is 27.4, versus the overall
 CHAPTER 8 Television Station Programming Strategies 279

median population age of 36.8, and the Hispanic programming is the justification and foundation for
audience has a higher percentage of young adults the entire network–affiliate relationship. This is the
and children, making it ideal for national consumer central idea of the network–affiliate relationship
advertisers. Traditional package-brand advertisers (see 8.3). For example, one variable in a commercial
now allocate larger budgets to reaching this audience, station’s profit formula is the number of advertise-
and the profit potential of Spanish-language networks ments it can air. Although the number of commercials
and their stations has become self-evident. For exam- allotted to an affiliate is only about one-quarter of
ple, at times, in Los Angeles, Miami and Fresno the total number of ads in a given program, small
ratings, Univision stations have led their markets variations in that “about” can mean the gain or
in adults aged 18 to 49 and adults aged 18 to 34 loss of a lot of money for the station.
across the entire broadcast day. Combined with the As you probably know, the commercial breaks
increasing household income of Hispanic families, for the local station are called station breaks or adja-
Spanish-language broadcasting is a growth segment cencies. In a half-hour program, the affiliate’s com-
in an otherwise-mature (and threatened) broadcasting mercials come at the end of the program; the
business. network’s commercials fall within the more desir-
able real estate—within the program itself. In an
hour-long program, half the affiliate’s commercials
fall at the end of the program, half within, while
The Network–Affiliate (again) all the network’s commercials occur within
Agreement the program. Thus, hour-long programs have more
value to stations—ratings being equal—because
Each party to an affiliation makes specific promises some of the “within spots” can sell at higher rates.
to the other party; the legal document binding both
parties is called an affiliation agreement (and some-
times programmers go around moaning that they 8.3 The Soi-Disant “Networks”
can’t do something because of “the agreement”).

T
To summarize, the network agrees to provide its
program service to the affiliate on an exclusive he scramble for programming and the oversupply of
basis. Exclusive means that only one station in local stations has resulted in the creation of self-
each market may broadcast the network’s programs described television networks, such as occur in radio
broadcasting. These are not networks in the true sense of
(except that refused programs can be licensed to
the word; they are national programming or syndication
another station). Further, the network will pay the
services that can be used to fill low-rated time periods.
affiliates a negotiated fee for broadcasting its pro-
Low-rated stations that cannot afford competitive prices
grams. This fee is called network compensation, or
for syndicated programs and lack the ratings to attract
just plain comp. Network compensation can easily
barter advertisers make considerable use of them. ION
exceed $1 million per station in the larger markets. is one exemplar (and MNTV comes close). Another such
Ironically, comp is more important to stations in program supplier is Bounce TV, appealing to black
the smaller markets, where it can represent up to American audiences. Bounce debuted in 2011, with
10 percent of total revenues and spell the difference affiliated stations reaching about half the domestic U.S.
between profit or loss for the affiliate. viewing population either via cable, satellite or broad-
In return for comp, the affiliate promises to casting. Such quasi-networks don’t pay compensation,
broadcast the programs as delivered by the network don’t have newscasts, and usually don’t sell time in the
and to allow the network to retain about three- national spot market. Their programming is either very
quarters of the commercial time within each network local or purchased from syndicators. If there is national
program (to sell the time in the national market). The advertising in the shows, the syndicators put it there.
exchange of local commercial airtime for network
280 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

Tension between a network and its affiliate gov- ■ decides to air a program it produced on its own,
erns the entire relationship. In the network-affiliate such as a local parade, local news special, sporting
detente, each party thinks that the other is getting the event and the like.
upper hand in the deal. The networks believe that the ■ deems the content of the network program inap-
affiliates are reaping windfalls from obtaining high- propriate for local viewers.
quality and commercially attractive network programs ■ wants to keep all the advertising time and revenue
plus receiving compensation. In contrast, the affiliates
for itself (which occurs most frequently on week-
grouse that the networks are hogging most of the com-
ends during the Christmas shopping season, when
mercial inventory during network programming as
local stations try to maximize commercial revenue
well as piggybacking on the affiliates’ success and rep-
during the busiest advertising time of the year).
utation in the market for news and local programming.
These arguments raged back and forth for decades, Usually, when an affiliate preempts a network
indicating that the relationships were roughly equal show, the station will reschedule the program in
in strength. Of course, in markets where the affiliate another time period (called delayed carriage) but
is competitively superior (because of strong news per- will lose whatever compensation accompanied the
formance or such outside factors as signal strength or regular airing (not all programs qualify for comp).
lack of strong competitors in the market), its resent- If the affiliate refuses to clear (air) the program at all,
ment of the network is correspondingly higher than a Big-Four network will then offer it to another sta-
in a market in which the affiliate is weak. tion in the market in order to have some audience in
In truth, networks and affiliates have long had the market for the program and its ads. As you can
need of each other. Under the traditional network imagine, the networks keep careful track of exactly
model, each party trades what it has for what it how many preemptions each affiliate makes, and
needs: The network needs local affiliates to gain access that number can be a powerful bargaining chip at
to the market, and affiliates need the economies of scale the time of affiliation agreement renewal or when
that enable the network to provide the big-budget affiliates request higher compensation. To protect
entertainment/sports/news programming that affiliates themselves, affiliates negotiate in advance for the
would otherwise be unable to produce on their own. right to preempt a limited number of programs dur-
What lies on the horizon may not fit this model. As ing the year.
the internet captures more of television viewers for pro- It is important to recall that networks are not
gramming other than TV shows, and as both produc- licensed by the FCC—only stations are—and affili-
tion and comp costs rise, the industry may be forced to ates must keep their eyes on their next license
adopt something close to the syndication model … renewal dates by offering some programming in
where the highest bidder gets each program. But for the public interest. Sometimes an affiliate contests
most stations, at least the bigger, more profitable its network’s complaints about preemptions on the
ones, that day lies in the fuzzy future, not nearby. grounds that the substitute programs better served
the community’s interests and made the affiliate a
stronger station in the market. This is a compelling
argument when a network repeat episode is pre-
Preemptions empted in favor of a local news special about educa-
tion in the region; it is a plausible argument when a
Occasionally, an affiliate might decide not to air
network is preempted in favor of a championship
(i.e., might preempt) a network program for any of
game in which a local college team is playing; and
a number of reasons. Most commonly, a station
it is a weak argument if the network is preempted in
might preempt when it
favor of a syndicated entertainment program, broad-
■ has a local news emergency that requires live, cast solely for the purpose of selling more commer-
on-the scene coverage. cials to improve the station’s quarterly revenues.
 CHAPTER 8 Television Station Programming Strategies 281

News and Local Programming 8.4 The Not Real News

O
“News is what someone, somewhere
wants to suppress; everything else is just ne of the most enduring criticisms of television
advertising,” news is that it is not “real news”: that television
— Alfred Lord Northcliffe, British press news is somehow counterfeit when compared with print
magnate from the early part of the last journalism. Many complaints about contemporary tele-
century vision journalism begin with the cliché, “Edward R.
Murrow would be spinning in his grave if he saw tele-
Television, like its parent radio, was originally vision’s coverage today of [insert issue of choice].” Then
developed as a community-oriented medium, serving the critic offers what Murrow’s opinion would have
both local viewers and advertisers. Limited by unre- been, were he still alive to have one. Interestingly, Mur-
liable equipment and the financial/organizational row himself clearly anticipated the distinctiveness and
constraints of an infant industry, early television limitations of the new medium and said, in effect, “Tele-
was predominantly a live, local medium. The early vision news is a combination of show business, adver-
days of television were experimental, thrilling, ago- tising and news.”4
nizing and just plain chaotic.3 Television journalism, being so invasive in our lives, is
When the U.S. Congress passed the Commu- often compared on an apples-to-apples basis with print
nications Act of 1934, it established the FCC as journalism, a comparison which is unfair to both.
broadcasting’s licensing and regulatory authority, Newspapers have been regularly published in America
authorizing the Commission to regulate broadcasting for nearly 300 years, protected by the First Amendment
“in the public interest, convenience, and necessity.” from punishment or licensing restrictions, while television
As a matter of philosophical and practical forbear- has been plugged in for nearly 70 years as a captive of
ance, the FCC has historically given broad latitude its technological, economic, competitive and especially
regulatory environments. Of course, just as some news-
to stations in the programming area to meet their
papers are trashy and some world-class, with all degrees
statutory obligations, even though the epicenter of a
between, so television stations vary in quality, commit-
station’s mandate remains serving the public interest.
ment and competence.
The surest path to public service has been through
news and local programming. Television news is
omnipresent and its prospects for the future are rela-
tively undiminished (why is explained in this next sec-
tion), but there is always some criticism of its quality excessive interruption by commercials, in its defense,
and presentation (see 8.4). we should note that it allots about 75 percent of its
newscasts to programming content and only about
25 percent to commercial time. You may think that
is far too much, but it pays the bills.
The Role of Local Newscasts The real competition for both newspapers and
Newspapers devote only a minority of their pages to television is really the internet, of course. It supplies
news reporting. Did you know that this so-called news (and not so news) reports on demand, and there
newshole amounts to no more than 20 percent of stories can be contracted or expanded in a live-like
newspaper space? The rest of papers consist of format for as long as the user is interested. Such flex-
advertising and features (syndicated columns, ibility and user control has driven many people away
Sudoku, Dear Ann or Abby, comics, Miss Manners, from both print and television news—except in times
crossword puzzles and so on), and a big chunk of of disaster when television (usually) shines.
what is euphemistically called “news” is sports. In addition to the obvious community benefits
Though television is justifiably criticized for its of having news content on the air, local news
282 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

programming serves the broadcaster’s commercial 5. Cost containment. Any locally produced tele-
objectives quite well in the following six ways: cast is a budgeting challenge to a business as sen-
sitive to cash flow as a broadcast station. News is
1. Risk mitigation. When a station buys a syndi-
particularly expensive because of the need for
cated program, the result of that purchase can be a
sophisticated news-gathering electronic equipment,
hit, a dud or something in between. Admittedly, no
on-air talent, newscast sets, and behind-the-scenes
station sets out to deliberately buy a failure in the
producers, editors and so on. The start-up price
syndication marketplace. No matter; regardless of
tag is high, but such costs can be accurately esti-
the ratings of the program, the station must honor
mated and budgeted—unlike the syndicated mar-
its contract and continue to pay the broadcast
ket, where the law of supply and demand causes
license fee and continue to air the barter commer-
fluctuations from year to year in the price of syn-
cials, even if the program is taken off the air. News
dicated shows. In addition to reliable budgeting,
programs, in comparison, are rarely abject failures
the cost of adding an additional newscast is
and can nearly always be resuscitated by a “news
incrementally small; most of the expenses (equip-
doctor.”
ment, sets, talent) are fixed and therefore already
2. Exclusivity of product. No competitor can steal covered. Adding another half-hour of news in
a station’s newscast or copy the name of the news- some cases might require only an additional news
cast. The names, faces and personalities of the on-air crew consisting of a single reporter and a photog-
talent are exclusive to the station, too. rapher. (This is a lesson well learned from all all-
3. Brand-building. The newscast’s content and news cable channels and continuous online
production values can be styled so as to match reporting!)
the station’s desired market identity, which 6. Revenue enhancement. News programs can be
results from its entire mosaic of network program- enormously profitable for stations. First, unlike
ming, syndicated programming, news/local pro- the limited amount of commercial inventory
gramming and other community exposure. allowed to stations in network and some syndi-
Affiliates that are number one in news generally cated programs, the station owns all of its news-
are number one in their markets in prime time as cast inventory and, if budgetary needs require, can
well. How much their news ratings are attributable easily expand that supply by shortening the
to their network’s appeal in prime time and how newscast and adding commercial time. Second,
much the prime ratings can be linked to the advertisers usually object to their products’ com-
affiliate’s news success is debatable; what is not mercials being placed during controversial net-
debatable is that local news and prime-time success work or syndicated programs. An airline,
are linked. understandably, won’t want to sponsor the movie
4. Customization of product. In response to mar- Airplane, just as a travel agency will probably
ket forces beyond their immediate control—such as avoid Titanic. Such programs are said to be on an
time of day, competing programs, changing popular advertiser’s hit list.
tastes—the station can alter its newscast’s content Newscasts, fortunately, are usually not hit-
and format. For example, the news can be modified listed, and a large universe of potential advertisers
to offer more or less of hard news or softer cover- is available for the sales department to approach.
age (such features as health or personal finance A third benefit is that the advertising community
stories), or the weather report can be expanded or regards news as the most prestigious category of
given more prominence in the newscast. If those television programming. An image-conscious com-
alterations do not work, the original format can be pany that would reject the notion of advertising in
restored and other changes put into place. No net- an entertainment program might well consider
work or syndicated program can offer such a advertising in a news program as an acceptable
luxury. alternative. Stations use their newscasts as bait, as
 CHAPTER 8 Television Station Programming Strategies 283

a means of enticing new or reluctant potential cli- over-the-air television exclusively. This group is
ents to expanding their advertising to more parts of more likely to watch local news than national
the television schedule. cable news, although local television news is largely
a combination of sensationalistic criminal reports
As of 2011, there were 968 stations offering
and fluff.
local news, with approximately 26,500 staff
Local TV news has taken on the visage of
employed in news departments. Generally speak-
radio, deploying teasing strategies to keep the
ing, the larger the market, the more competitive
viewer watching, while spooning out as diluted a
the product: Nearly 60% of station news depart-
mixture of information as possible to keep them
ments turned a profit, and almost half of all station
watching. Given that down-scale viewers watch
revenue was generated during news programs
disproportionately more television, this is an exam-
(though revenues don’t look that good every
ple of entertainment masquerading as news. Across
year). Industry polls showed that the average net-
the country, news consultants spout templates of
work affiliate was up to 5½ hours of news each
cookie-cutter wisdom while driving out local inter-
day by mid-decade. This spotlights the changing
ests and accents. No longer are reporters true jour-
nature of the station business: As audiences drift
nalists; most are hit-and-run news readers or
away to cable/satellite networks and internet activ-
attractive people looking to move up to a larger
ities, stations use news to strengthen their brands
market. Many local news readers open their pro-
and turn a profit. The old days of “noblesse
gram by saying, “thank you for joining us.” Rather
oblige” in news are long gone: It’s all about the
an insult to the viewers. Some misguided stations
money. In 2011, the FCC released an alarming
have even offered contests for newswatchers. The
report about the state of local television news.5
desperation of some stations to hold on to their
The report was scathing, indicating that while the
viewers is sometimes painful to watch…but
amount of news and the number of news outlets in
we do.
a community might be increasing, the amount of
local investigative news had not. The report equally
criticized the FCC itself for a lack of proper over-
sight in its responsibilities as overseer of licenses of Other Local Programming
the public’s airwaves. Only four times in its history There are two basic categories of local programs:
has the FCC denied a license renewal to a station regularly scheduled shows (mostly produced out of
on the grounds of failure to fulfill public interest the news department, such as public-affairs discus-
obligations. sion programs and weekend sports wrap-ups) and
One of the unintended after-effects of the pay- special events (such as ball games and parades).
tv age has been that some consumers are left with Some nationally important programs that are pro-
over-the-air (OTA) viewing as their only choice, duced locally still exist—mostly in the biggest mar-
and these viewers tend to be poorer and less- kets for such special events as Philadelphia’s
well-educated, the downscale market. The OTA Mummers’ Parade on New Year’s Day, the Boston
component has been variously estimated at between Marathon and so forth—but local programs no lon-
8% and 14% of the total viewing audience, ger drive the financial or programming goals of a
although current levels of MVPD subscribers sug- station, and the news department produces the few
gest that the true amount is nearer 8%. But the that remain, even in the largest markets. The vener-
point is that minorities make up much of this able Chronicle, at 7:30 P.M. weekdays on Boston’s
group: Specifically, 24% of the Asian market, WCVB, for example, has been on the air since
17% of the black market, and 23% of the Hispanic 1984 and is the only large-market, locally produced
market watch OTA only. Overall, twice as many newsmagazine program in America. The exception
homes with less than $30,000 annual income watch illuminates the void (see 8.5).
284 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

8.5 Why So Little Local?

L ocal programming has four main liabilities. They are

primarily related to its labor and cost structures.

1. Labor-intensive. In contrast to the physical simplicity of

3. Advertising considerations. If the local program is a one-
time-only telecast, it might be difficult to find advertisers
willing to buy time in it. Advertising agencies desire
predictability; they want to have some pre-telecast notion
airing a network or syndicated program (which can
of the kind of program they are buying and some realistic
require—at most—one or two technicians to supervise
estimation of what the program’s ratings will be (to justify
master control, videotape machines and digital ser-
the advertising buy to their clients, who are usually much
vers), a local program can require some dozens of
more careful with spending their own money than the
personnel working over weeks or months to plan, pro- advertising agencies are). Unless the production is a reg-
duce and edit just one program. Even the most modest ularly scheduled program or a local traditional event, the
of programs requires personnel to host, write, edit, advertiser might shy away from a novel program. This is
produce, direct and crew the production. particularly true of national advertisers, who generally
2. Cost-intensive. Budgeting is complex for a local pro- will not sponsor an unknown local program. Local
duction: There must be an accounting for talent fees, advertisers, however, are more likely to support a local
production crew, equipment, insurance, storage, con- program because their advertising is less ratings-sensitive
struction, rentals and all other related expenses of the than that of national businesses. Local businesses can
production, all of which are borne by the station. To measure advertising success by other factors, which are
keep the production’s on-air “look” comparable with sometimes as basic as an increase in the number of tele-
network and syndicated programming, the show’s phone calls or customer traffic at their stores.
budget must not skimp. Although television is said to 4. Promotion intensive. Unlike the help they get for pur-
be a “forgiving” medium for production quality stan- chased programming from networks or syndicators,
dards, the local program would defeat its own pur- stations are solely responsible for promoting their own
poses if it looked amateurish. Occasionally, some products. Heavy promotion of a local production,
production costs can be recouped if the station is able especially if it meets with resistance from the sales
to syndicate the program to other stations. The most department (because promos use up time), is danger-
frequent example of this is when a sporting event gets ous; it could result in a disproportionate creative effort
syndicated to a regional cluster of stations. for a minimal revenue return.

For group-owned stations, local production can Syndicated Programming

be a laboratory, a means of field-testing programming
before a launch in syndication (because that’s where To fill the time periods when its network does not
the really big bucks are). For instance, Oprah Winfrey supply programs, a station usually must enter the
hosted a local talk show on WLS-TV in Chicago syndication marketplace for substitutes (spend lots
before her program went to national syndication in of money). See Chapter 6 for a detailed discussion
1986. Maury Povich and Regis Philbin reached syndi- of the syndication processes for off-network and
cated fame after their respective programs’ successes first-run programs.
at local stations. At the other end of the personality
spectrum, Howard Stern had a test run on local tele-
vision in New York (WWOR-TV), years before his The Prime-Time Access Rule
program went to national broadcast syndication in In an attempt to encourage stations to live up to
the late 1990s, and ultimately found its level on late- their public service mandate and, not incidentally,
night cable and then satellite radio. make the network–affiliate relationship more
 CHAPTER 8 Television Station Programming Strategies 285

balanced, in 1970 the FCC issued a regulation and even personal services), there is no inherent value
that chopped off one hour of prime-time television to any given television program. Ultimately, the mar-
per night. (Until then, network prime had started at ket value of a program is set by the price at which the
7 P.M. Eastern/Pacific/6 P.M. Central/Mountain and buyer’s offer price and the seller’s acceptance price
aired for four hours.) The 7 to 8 P.M. hour was overlap. As explained in Chapter 6, a program enter-
dubbed prime-access time, and the regulation was ing the syndication marketplace can sell at wildly
called the Prime-Time Access Rule (PTAR). varying prices, depending on such factors as a sta-
Under PTAR, the commission limited affiliates tion’s programming needs, the demographic “fit” of
to three hours nightly of network programming and the program, the financial resources of the station,
prohibited stations in the largest 50 markets from and the competitive landscape in the market. There
airing any off-network syndication in prime access. is no set formula for calculating a price based on
(An exception was made for network news programs market size or location. Programs are not a fungible
so that they would not count toward the three hours. commodity where comparison shopping can be
A second exception was made for Sundays because, undertaken; each program is different, and its syndi-
at the time, the networks aired family-oriented pro- cation performance is unpredictable.
gramming on the most heavily viewed night of the The syndication contract is an exercise in simple
week, reasoning that seems silly today.) The FCC mathematics. The syndicator sells the exclusive right
naively imagined that the 7 to 8 P.M. time period to air the program in one of two ways—on a weekly
would be occupied by local productions, public- license basis or on a per-episode basis.
affairs shows and more local news.
1. Weekly license. This is the most commonly
Of course the “rule of unintended conse-
structured form of syndication. The station pays a
quences” applied. Rather than produce more (low-
weekly rate for the program (paid monthly), which
rated) public-affairs programs, local stations realized
is satellite-fed to the station. There is barter adver-
that they had just been handed a great gift. They
tising in the program, where the syndicator has sold
could now run syndicated programs (so long as
advertising time within the program, and the station
they were not of the off-network variety) in what
has no say in the scheduling of individual episodes.
was formerly prime-time territory, and they got to
The station must play the program once every day.
keep all the extra commercial inventory and the rev-
(The station may choose to contract to play the
enue that went with it!
program twice a day if the license fee is increased,
Although PTAR was repealed in 1995, it is
usually by about 50 percent.)
highly unlikely that the Big Three networks will get
their lost hour back. Access is the highest-viewed 2. Per episode. This is the original method, in
non-network time period during the day, and sta- which the station enjoys more control over the
tions generate too much commercial revenue to scheduling of the program. As long as the syndicator
acquiesce in returning the time to the networks. gets paid (monthly), it does not care whether the
Now that off-network reruns can air in access in station airs the program every day, twice a day, or
any market, the increase in potential programs has not at all (called resting or shelving). There is gen-
driven prices down for both off-network and first- erally no barter in this method. The station contracts
run programming, and local stations make even for a specific number of telecasts over a stated
more money. period of time. In general, the station may play each
episode up to six times before additional residual
rights kick in.
Off-Network Syndication In either case, when a program is sold into
Unlike other tangible properties for which a price can off-network syndication, it enters the marketplace
be established (such as land, automobiles, textbooks upward of two years before its actual syndication
286 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

date on the air. For example, when Everybody From an economic standpoint, syndicated pro-
Loves Raymond launched on the CBS network in grams pose both opportunities and perils. On the
1996, it was immediately evident that it would opportunity side, the big benefit is the commercial
have a future in syndication. Eyemark, the pro- inventory. In off-network syndication (off-net, for
gram’s syndicator, began the sales process in 1998, short), the station keeps most (if not all) of the com-
anticipating a syndication start date of 2000. From mercial time, creating the possibility of generating
that date and until the eventual network run ends, more revenue from airing a syndicated program
episodes of Raymond will air on both the network than a network one.
and in syndication. Another benefit lies in brand-building for the
Once enough network episodes have accumu- station. During non-network dayparts for affiliates
lated (usually after four seasons of 22 new episodes (and ALL the time on stations without a network),
each), approximately 90 episodes are released into stations have the entrepreneurial challenges of select-
syndication. So, in the fifth year of network produc- ing and scheduling programs of strong appeal to
tion, typically, a program begins its syndication life. their viewers. Each station works with blocks of sit-
In network seasons five through cancellation, the coms, movies, talk shows or court shows, perhaps
program is simultaneously in syndication. As each with a mix of sports and news, to develop a particu-
network year ends, and the network’s broadcast lar identity in the minds of the local audience.6
rights expire and return to the syndicator, those For the afternoon lead-in to local evening news,
22 episodes pour over into the syndication affiliated stations can often acquire syndicated pro-
contract, adding to the number that the local station grams that are more complimentary to their high-
is able to air. profile afternoon and evening news programs than
While a program is still on the network, the sta- those their network provides. Finally, stations can
tion benefits in three ways from having the syndi- use syndicated programs to cater to local tastes. Net-
cated version: works have to program for a national audience or
audiences reached by their owned stations, which
■ National exposure. A network previously spent
tend to be in the largest markets necessarily having
heavily to promote the show as a hit, not only on
different demographic and socioeconomic character-
its own network but also through advertising in
istics than small-city and rural America. The syndi-
the rest of the media. The national name recogni-
cation marketplace makes available programs that
tion rubs off on the syndicated version of the
might be a better fit for regional or market tastes.
program.
At the same time, there are perils. When an indi-
■ New episodes. Every year the station gets the vidual station commits to licensing a syndicated pro-
rights to the previous season’s network episodes, gram, it bears the entire financial risk of that
which were broadcast only twice each. These decision. If a network program fails, the network
“new” episodes (new to syndication, anyway) are will eventually replace it, at no cost to the affiliate.
underexposed because even fans of a program If a syndicated program fails, the station is still obli-
cannot be expected to catch every episode during gated for all the costs of the program throughout the
its network run. contract period (and has to run any prepaid ads).
■ Advertiser access. Advertisers are businesspeople. The station also has to cover the cost of promo-
They crave predictable results. They know and tion for its syndicated commitments, usually “spend-
respect the drawing power of network programs, ing” some of its immensely valuable commercial
but if a network asks too much money for com- inventory. In contrast, network programs generate
mercials, advertisers know that they can buy spots national exposure and national publicity—to the
for less money in the same program at the syndi- eventual downstream benefit of local stations. On a
cation level, and the commercials will still be seen network schedule, a given program is aired on the
nationally. same day, at the same time, everywhere: 60 Minutes
 CHAPTER 8 Television Station Programming Strategies 287

is on every CBS station on Sundays at 7 P.M./6 cen- real-estate seminars, exercise equipment and self-
tral, for example. In contrast, syndicated programs improvement courses. Infomercials are the “elephant
are on the air at different times everywhere. Although in the parlor” of television that station executives
syndicators do support their programs with advertis- prefer not to discuss. These misfits of the program-
ing and promotion (to add value to their barter ming world are pilloried in the industry, ridiculed by
spots), there is no comparing that effort with a net- the public, and parodied on programs ranging from
work advertising campaign, and a station must bear Saturday Night Live to The Simpsons (“Hi, I’m
the lion’s share of promoting the program locally. If Troy McClure, and you might remember me from
an off-network program has no barter spots in it, the other infomercials such as Smoke Yourself Thin
syndicator will have no financial incentive to spend and Get Confident, Stupid!”).
any money on advertising. So why would a station air such easy-to-scorn
Another risk lies in the absence of exclusivity. programs? The answer is that infomercials are usually
Once a program is on a network, it seldom moves paid for in advance, and thus they provide quick cash
to another network. A local affiliate can be confi- to stations. No station brags about airing these pro-
dent its network hit will continue to be aired on its grams, but at the end of a budget period, a station
station for the length of the program’s run. In con- can preempt a program in a low-rated time period
trast, a syndicated program is under the control of and sell the time period to an infomercial provider
the syndicator. A first-run syndication contract can for a rate far in excess of what the station could oth-
be as short as one year and often is as short as two erwise generate in revenue. Most infomercials run in
or three years. Once the contract period is over, the such out-of-the-way time periods as overnight and
syndicator can move the program to another station early mornings on weekends, although occasionally
that offers to pay more, and there is little loyalty to one will pop up in plain sight—for example, opposite
stations in the syndication business. a Super Bowl or other mega-telecast. And the lowest-
ranked stations in a market are the most likely to fill
part of their days with infomercials.
Movies How can the infomercial provider afford to pay
By the time a local broadcast station can air a syndi- such a premium rate? The success of an infomercial
cated movie, the film’s appeal is often exhausted from depends not on its rating but on the so-called
overexposure. As a result, a once-valuable program response rate, the number of persons who call the
franchise has been co-opted by bigger and deeper- toll-free number and sign up for a service or order
pocketed cable competitors. Today it is highly unusual the merchandise. No matter how seemingly odd the
to discover a movie on local television that one has not product being pitched appears, rest assured that
had many opportunities to see elsewhere. Movies in somewhere there is a person on the phone right
syndication have devolved; once a marquee attraction now ordering it. Infomercials are proof, indeed,
carrying a premium purchase price, movies are now an that television continues to be the world’s most
economy-of-scale program choice, a low-cost product influential advertising medium.
for a moderate return on the investment. The situation
differs for affiliates of the Spanish-language networks,
where movies imported from South and Central Station Dayparts
America may still be fresh for American audiences.
There are 24 hours in a day, 168 hours in a week,
8,760 hours in a year. It is literally impossible for pro-
Infomercials grammers and advertisers to work with every one of
The infamous program-length commercials, euphe- all these hours on an individual basis, and not every
mistically called infomercials, sell everything under hour in the day is equally important. For example, on
the sun—kitchen appliances, weight-loss “systems,” any station, 9 P.M. is a far more significant time period
288 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

than 2 A.M. In the name of efficiency and return home in the afternoon between 4 and 6 P.M.
expediency, for the benefit of all parties in the busi- (early fringe). About two-thirds of American house-
ness—programmers and advertisers alike—the hours holds watch television during the evening, peaking
of the day have been grouped into dayparts. The around 9 P.M. (prime time), although peak viewing
dayparts represent the approximate behavior of the by teens and young adults occurs later. Between 10
imaginary typical American television household. and 11 P.M., viewing levels begin tapering off as
The best-known daypart, of course, is prime time. families and older people prepare for bed, then drop
Although it might at first seem to be an arbitrary divi- precipitously after 11 P.M. (late fringe).
sion, the grouping of hours of the 24-hour day into Broadcasters and advertisers must agree on these
dayparts generally reflects the presumed lifestyles and dayparts, which are established by Nielsen Media
viewing patterns of the average American viewing Research, in order to conduct the multibillion-dollar
household. The generally accepted dayparts and business of setting advertising rates and selling com-
their time periods appear in 8.6. mercial time at America’s more than one thousand
Although necessarily arbitrary, the division of commercial television stations. In addition to config-
the day into dayparts does indeed reflect large uring advertising expenditures and revenue, the day-
portions of most people’s lives. For example, most parts also set the boundaries for the programming
people awaken in the morning between 6 and 9 A.M. strategies that capture the time, money and effort of
(corresponding to the early-morning daypart), get off broadcasting producers and executives.
to work or school by 9 A.M. (start of daytime), and

Early Morning (6 to 9 A.M.)

8.6 Time Periods and Dayparts As a lead-in to network morning news programs
(Today, Good Morning America, The Early Show)
6 to 9 A.M. Early morning that commence at 7 A.M. local time, many network
9 A.M. to 12 noon Morning affiliates air local news (or the early early network
12 noon to 4 P.M. Afternoon show). In response to the evolution of American life-
4 to 7 P.M. Early fringe styles toward more working couples, single working
7 to 8 P.M. Prime access parents and longer commuting times, America’s
8 to 11 P.M. Prime time workday is starting earlier and ending later. Although
11 to 11:35 P.M. Late fringe HUT levels are modest at dawn, most people who are
11:35 P.M. to 2 A.M. Late night awake before 7 A.M. are awake for a reason: They are
2 to 6 A.M. Overnight
preparing to go to work. These people are likely can-
These dayparts are standard for the eastern and Pacific didates for news because they are employed (and are
time zones. In the central and mountain time zones, the disproportionately commuters), and they therefore
dayparts change slightly: Essentially, prime time starts an meld the desirable advertising markers of income
hour earlier and ends an hour earlier, and early fringe, and education to the accompanying lifestyle and pur-
access, and late fringe move correspondingly an hour to chasing patterns of working people. In response to
accommodate the earlier hours of prime time. the availability of these viewers, advertisers are
attracted to early-morning news programs.
Central Time Differences: These viewers usually cannot commit to watching
4 to 6 P.M. Early fringe an entire program, however, so the information is fre-
6 to 7 P.M. Prime access quently repeated, with headline, traffic and weather
7 to 10 P.M. Prime time updates occurring throughout the hour or half-hour
10 to 10:35 P.M. Late fringe newscast. This kind of format is called a “news
10:55 P.M. to 2 A.M. Late night wheel.” In fact, viewers listen to the morning news
as much as watch it while they get dressed, prepare
 CHAPTER 8 Television Station Programming Strategies 289

breakfast, shoo schoolchildren out the door and pre- At 7 A.M., UNI carries Despierta America
pare to leave the house themselves. The video product (“Wake Up, America”), which is the Hispanic equiv-
is treated as background chatter, much like radio. In alent of Today or Good Morning America, and con-
larger markets that have the longest commute times, tains talk, entertainment and half-hourly news
the early-morning news starts as early as 5 A.M. updates. Over on Telemundo, the morning offering
The 7 to 9 A.M. time period has traditionally been is Levantate (“Arise!”). The newsholes of these pro-
a network preserve. Today has been on NBC for grams, however, tend to be even smaller than that of
60 years and Good Morning America on ABC for the English-language morning “news” programs.
nearly 40 years, deeply embedding viewing patterns. Affiliates of the smaller networks counterpro-
Most daytime viewing is habitual viewing, and gram this daypart with syndicated entertainment,
the networks try to establish that habit as early in predominantly sitcoms or reality programming (or
the day as possible. CBS affiliates have suffered the the dreaded infomercials). Using entertainment is
most anguish in this daypart because their network an effective strategy: it avoids competing with the
has had only indifferent success over the years with news business and concentrates on the smaller audi-
its many morning efforts (see Chapter 7). Its affiliates ences of children and adults who don’t watch news.
obviously want their network to succeed, but they The business strategy of these stations is not so
cannot wait indefinitely for it to do so; thus, lack of much to maximize profit as to minimize program-
clearance exacerbates the network’s problems. ming costs in a low-priority daypart.
During the first decades of television, when
most television markets had only three stations, a
network program could not finish worse than third Morning (9 A.M. to 12 Noon)
in the ratings. Today, with nearly every available The Big Three networks do not program the entire
channel allocation licensed to an operating station, three-hour morning block; the supply varies from
a network program can—embarrassingly—place one to two hours, depending on the network. As a
beneath a syndicated program, falling to fourth, cost-sensitive measure as well as a nod to the reality
fifth or worse in the ratings. Despite CBS’s expendi- that generating a morning audience is difficult, NBC
ture of tens of millions of dollars to build a success- in 2007 extended Today for a fourth hour, to 11 A.M.,
ful morning news franchise, many CBS affiliates are CBS has continued with The Price Is Right in late
preempting their network’s Early Show. They are morning, and ABC airs The View at 11 A.M. Affiliates
producing their own local news programs or sched- then complete their lineups with a mixture of first-run
uling syndicated programming more attractive to programs, talk and local news. The scheduling strat-
their lead-out audience at 9 A.M. egy is to complement the demographic appeal of pro-
In deliberate contrast to their network competi- grams supplied by the network.
tors, FOX affiliates blaze their own trail. In an With a relatively low HUT level providing a
attempt to capture a share of news-related advertis- shaky foundation for success, the attrition rate for
ing dollars, FOX affiliates in most markets avoid a syndicated morning programs is high. Programmers
head-on competition with network affiliates, instead do not have the luxury of allowing a program suffi-
producing a news product heavily weighted toward cient time to attract its audience. There are no “out
local news, local entertainment and personalities. In of town” tryouts, unlike in the motion picture or
many markets the distinct FOX formula works to theatrical industries. If a program fails to attract a
great success, beating the traditional network news- stable audience within a reasonable period of time,
casts. The FOX strategy is that to copy the approach then, like their network counterparts, station pro-
of CBS, NBC and ABC is futile; the international/ grammers move it to another time period or, more
Washington/New York orientation of the networks often, cancel it.
is both redundant and unimportant to viewers more An intriguing characteristic of both morning
interested in events in their own towns. and afternoon daytime is that if a new program
290 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

can weather the first couple of years of attracting a Casos de Familia, a program about familial stresses.
loyal audience, a kind of “TV inertia” takes over, The rest of the daytime schedule on both Univision
and the program enters “Video Valhalla,” remaining and Telemundo mirror the staple of daytime pro-
on the schedule seemingly permanently. (The Price gramming: relationship programs, soap operas
Is Right, for example, has been on the CBS daytime (“novelas”), game and talk shows.
schedule since 1972.) Viewers during daytime tend
to be homemakers, senior citizens, students and shift
workers. Although they have large blocks of time to Afternoon (12 Noon to 4 P.M.)
watch programs, they are not fully attentive to the The only local newscasts before evenings are generally
programs. So producers structure their programs to around the noon hour, a vestige of an era when more
enable viewers to join, depart and rejoin a daytime adults were home midday, and they have shifted to
program easily; that is why game shows have lots of focus on office workers. In addition to reporting on
noise and require minimal levels of sustained con- that morning’s news stories and aggregating more
centration and why soap opera plots proceed so news-targeted ad dollars, the midday news promotes
slowly. the station’s other programming, particularly the late
For the rest of the morning, UNI carries Quien afternoon news.
Tiene la Razon? (Who is Right?), in which guests The four main choices for the afternoon time
relate their respective sides of a personal conflict/dis- period are soap operas, court shows, talk and
pute, to be resolved by the moderator. Following is game shows (see 8.7). For affiliates of the Big

8.7 The Beloved Soaps and Games

S oap operas are the most venerable program format,

but nonetheless, few are left. ABC’s General Hospital
debuted in 1963. On NBC, Days of Our Lives premiered
daytime television fare. They are suitable for all viewers; the
content is mostly questions and answers; viewers can play
along at home—and feel superior when the contestants
in 1965. Of all the networks, CBS soaps have had the muff an easy question.
greatest longevity until recently; now only The Young and To keep the pace of the game interesting, game shows
the Restless is left (see Chapter 7). Networks and adverti- are usually a half-hour in length. Research has shown that
sers love soaps for the same reasons: the best companion program for rounding out the hour is
Because they are seriously habit forming (Fans of soap another game show. That is why so many game shows are
operas watch not for years but for decades … and, in some found together in a one-hour block. Even though technology
cases, for generations), and because that viewing loyalty can has ramped up the production values of game shows, the
be translated into consumer loyalty when the same products basic elements remain unchanged: question/answer for-
sponsor the same soap for many years. Advertising relies on mat, relatively low skill level, vicarious viewer participation
repeated messages to be effective. A viewer watching the and a clear payoff or disappointment. None of life’s
same program every weekday for years, with the same pro- ambiguities for game shows; every game produces a win-
ducts advertised over and over, is a rare commodity in an ner or a loser.
increasingly fragmented advertising environment. Speaking of winners, even though one might think that a
Lest one conclude that all first-run television in daytime is cash prize would be a more desirable or useful prize, an
devoted to exploiting the dark or voyeuristic side of human under-realized appeal of prizes is the “fantasy” aspect: the
nature, there are more lighthearted categories of programs. opportunity to win a dream vacation, a world cruise or an
The popularity of program formats is cyclical: Just as soaps expensive car. The vicarious enjoyment of watching a
were fading, games rose again. Game shows might be out contestant win a fabulous prize is always greater than
of favor for some years, then return to popularity seemingly watching someone win cash money.
overnight. Game shows are traditional and quintessential
 CHAPTER 8 Television Station Programming Strategies 291

Three, after the midday break for local news, the and hundreds of episodes of old game and reality
afternoon daypart is the mother lode for soap shows are available as reruns, but talk dominates.
operas. (Network executives get irritated when Needless to say, the afternoon is the most
“the soaps” are referred to as such, preferring to programmatically stable and consistent daypart for
have them called “daytime continuing dramas.”) viewers, networks, and advertisers. Talk programs
Affiliates of ABC will certainly carry General Hospi- have become a mainstay of daytime program sche-
tal. Affiliates of CBS will doubtless air The Young dules, but the mortality rate for such syndicated talk
and the Restless. Affiliates of NBC will carry Days is high. Approximately 80 percent of all syndicated
of Our Lives. The Hispanic stations follow the same shows that make it to broadcast do not make it to
pattern, using first-run or rerun telenovelas in the year two. But once a program has established itself
afternoons. These Spanish-language serials resemble as an audience favorite, it can stay on the air for
soaps in their close focus on individual emotional almost as long as the distributor wants. Even if a
ups and downs, but they have a much shorter life- popular host departs, the program can remain if
span (maybe a year or so) and contain a more obvi- the format is popular (see 8.8). The daily syndicated
ous moral or educational point about families or talk show Live with Regis and Kathie Lee enjoyed a
society. successful 12-year run and even survived the depar-
The remaining stations in a market counterpro- ture of Kathie Lee Gifford in 2000. Kelly Ripa
gram with various judges (Judge Judy, Judge Alex, joined the program (retitled Live with Regis and
Judge David Young, Judge Joe Brown) and justices. Kelly) in 2001, and the ratings increased. Then,
If the best court shows are not available, stations Regis finally retired in 2011, ending more than a
usually go for talk such as Martha or The Ellen half-century on television.
Degeneres Show, or in urban markets for off- Another popular daytime program category is
network sitcoms such as Everybody Hates Chris or court shows, in which a real or ersatz judge hears
Tyler Perry’s House of Payne. Otherwise, hundreds disputes and rules on them. The appeal of programs

8.8 Filling the Air with Talk

T alk-show formats run the emotional spectrum. At one

extreme is the soufflé of nearly lighter-than-air content:
interviews with celebrities publicizing their latest movie,
Why are talk shows so common (in both senses of the
word) in television syndication? The major reason is cost or,
more accurately, lack of cost. Syndicated talk programs are
television program or successful drug rehab (for example, relatively inexpensive to produce; in contrast to scripted
Live with Regis and Kelly). In the middle are decorating shows, talk programs are seemingly improvised. There are
and homemaking hints (Martha) or light humor with chat no screenwriters, only low-paid “researchers”; there is no
(The Ellen Degeneres Show). At the other extreme is the expensive location shooting because all programs are shot
exploitative treatment of guests’ troubled psyches or rela- in studios; there is no cast of expensive stars, usually just
tionships, where personal and interrogatory confrontations one or two hosts; and many hosts are paid less than “stars”
delight or repel viewers (for example, Montel Williams, (but not Oprah—see 8.9) because the more relaxed
Tyra Banks, Jerry Springer). Industry research indicates that schedule allows them to take on other work after that day’s
there is a vicarious appeal to these exploitative programs: program is taped. In contrast, the shooting schedule for a
Viewers at home, no matter how troubled their own scripted Hollywood program requires 12-hour days,
personal circumstances, feel relieved that their own lives script rewrites, memorization of lines, laborious camera
are not as pitiful as those of the victimized guests who setups and so on. The low cost threshold makes it easier for
are telling their tales of woe to Jerry Springer on national a talk-show producer to adjust the content to appeal to
television. viewers’ changing tastes and interests.
292 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

8.9 Oprah Winfrey

B orn in Kosciusko, Mississippi, in 1954 to unmarried

teenagers, Oprah Winfrey lived the first six years of
her life in rural poverty with her grandmother. At the age of
Chicago to take over WLS’s low-rated morning talk show
AM Chicago. Within months the show had passed
Donahue and was Chicago’s highest-rated talk show.
6, she moved to Milwaukee’s inner city to live with her Renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1986, Oprah
mother who worked as a maid and was on welfare. She decided to go national at a time when the experts “knew”
was molested by her cousin, uncle and a family friend at the country was not ready for a black woman host of a
the age of 9 and became pregnant at the age of 14 but talk show.
lost the baby. She was then sent to live with her father in In the preceding year, the country had been intro-
Nashville, Tennessee. duced to Oprah. Her role as Sofia in The Color Purple
This is not a very likely resume for one of the most won her a nomination for best supporting actress—but a
influential women in America and, according to Forbes, nationwide TV talk show host? Many of the stations that
the richest African-American of the twentieth century. As picked up her syndicated program were last in their
the story goes, while attending a party at a ranch in markets with nothing to lose. Astoundingly, Oprah
Montecito, California, she fell in love with the location quickly passed Phil Donahue, the reigning talk show
and wrote a check for $50 million to buy the 42-acre king, and soon had double his audience. Critics and
estate. At the same time, according to urbanmecca.com, experts were perplexed, and most reacted with left-
she is the most philanthropic African-American of all handed compliments at best. Time magazine wrote,
time. She has helped raise hundreds of millions to fight “Few people would have bet on Oprah Winfrey’s swift
AIDS in Africa and to fund a girls’ school in South rise to host of the most popular talk show on TV. In a
Africa. Her Angel Network alone has raised more than field dominated by white males, she is a black female of
$50 million dollars, and since she covers all adminis- ample bulk.” A TV columnist referred to her as “a
trative costs, 100 percent of donations go to charity. roundhouse, a full-course meal, big, brassy, loud.” The
But that is the widely publicized background of Orpah Wall Street Journal was marginally kinder when it
Gail Winfrey. (Named after a person in the Bible’s reported: “It’s a relief to see a gab-monger with a fond
but realistic assessment of her own cultural and religious
Book of Ruth, she found her name hard to pronounce
roots.” But it was Newsday who hit the nail on the head
and spell, so she shifted the p and the r and became
when a columnist wrote, “Oprah Winfrey is sharper than
Oprah.)
Donahue, wittier, more genuine, and far better attuned to
On the other hand, her bios say, her grandmother
her audience if not the world.”7
taught her to read by the age of 3, she skipped two of
Since that time Oprah has founded a successful
her earliest grades, and she won a scholarship to attend
production company, cofounded the cable television
Nicolet High School at age 13. In Tennessee, she was
networks Oxygen and own, published two successful
an honor student, voted Most Popular Girl, placed second
magazines, produced a musical version of The Color
in the nation in dramatic interpretation, secured a full
Purple, founded a website visited by 3 million people
scholarship to Tennessee State University, and won the
monthly, cowritten five books, developed a channel for
Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant. Her broadcast
satellite radio, and agreed to produce two new reality
career began at Tennessee State on a local radio station.
shows for ABC. To quote Bill O’Reilly, “I mean this is a
When she started to anchor the news at Nashville’s
woman that came from nothing to rise up to be the most
WLAC-TV, she was not only the youngest anchor, but also
powerful woman, I think, in the world … and she’s done
the first black woman anchor in the station’s history. In
it on her own.”8
1976 she moved to Baltimore to coanchor WJZ’s six
o’clock news, and then cohosted a local talk show and a William J. Adams, Ph.D.
local version of Dialing for Dollars. In 1983 she moved to Kansas State University
 CHAPTER 8 Television Station Programming Strategies 293

like Judge Judy is twofold: First, the personality or From the networks’ perspectives, early fringe is a
character of the magistrate is entertaining; second, low-priority time period, so program time is returned to
the actions and reactions of the litigants are heart- the local stations.9 From 4 to 7 P.M. (4 to 6 P.M. central/
rending, comical or just plain irritating. In any case, mountain time), the networks rely on their affiliates to
for societal good or ill, such programming makes for schedule local news or syndicated talk. Industry
compelling television. A good court program is one research has consistently demonstrated that the best
part confrontational talk show (“Your Honor, he lead-in program for a newscast is … more news! This
stole my pen.” “I did not.” “He did, too, Your is makes sense: Viewers who are predisposed toward
Honor.” “Did not.”), one part game show (who watching any one newscast are interested in news and
wins the ruling?) and one part (a small one) intro- therefore more likely to watch an additional newscast
duction to the U.S. legal system. The overwhelming than would a viewer who doesn’t usually watch the
litigiousness of our society is mirrored in the court news. The results of this research happily match the
shows appearing on television as of the date of this budgetary facts of life for news production: It’s expen-
writing: The People’s Court, Divorce Court, Judge sive to start a news operation but relatively economical
Judy, Judge Jeanine Pirro, Swift Justice with Nancy to expand it. Over the last 15 to 20 years, newscasts
Grace, Judge Karen’s Court, Judge Alex, Judge have replaced expensive and unpredictable syndicated
Browne, Judge Mathis and Cristina’s Court. programs at 5 P.M. In the largest markets—New York,
The “reality” program craze, kicked off by Sur- Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia among them—
vivor in 2000, spawned daytime progeny in the form some newscasts start as early as 4 P.M.
of “relationship” shows. Television has a proud leg- A station can generate more advertising revenue
acy of relationship shows: The Dating Game (1965), in early fringe than in prime time with a judicious
its direct spinoff, The Newlywed Game (1966) and combination of programs. HUT levels during early
Love Connection (1984) all drew on our natural curi- fringe, while not as high as those in prime time, nev-
osity about the personal lives of others. In the twenty- ertheless average two-thirds of prime viewing. Espe-
first century, that has all changed. The relatively cially during winter months, viewing spikes upward
sweet, innocent relationship programs of the past once darkness falls. In this early fringe period, sta-
that masqueraded as game shows have yielded to tion programming strategies generally have either a
voyeuristic hook-up segments, focusing less on locat- news or an entertainment orientation. As the after-
ing Mr. Right and more on finding Mr. Right Now. noon progresses and older children return home
Afternoons fill with talk because it is absolutely from school, followed by employed adults, the aver-
the cheapest programming, and the easiest format to age age of the audience increases, and so does the
change if ratings are low. Occasionally, a station will appeal of the programs. This technique of matching
run a sitcom that failed in a higher-revenue time program content to gradually aging demographics is
period or a sitcom that has outlived its usefulness called aging an audience, and most stations, whether
and is being programmed purely for amortization news- or entertainment-oriented, follow this pattern
purposes. in the daypart (as the networks do in prime time).
The most content-malleable of programs, news-
Early Fringe (4 to 7 P.M.) casts vary their topics over the course of this daypart
to go along with the audience. The earlier afternoon
This daypart’s unusual name harkens back to the newscasts tend to be lighter on news, emphasizing
first 25 years of commercial television, when this feature stories and afternoon rush-hour reports that
time period immediately preceded prime time reflect the interests of the available audience. As the
(which started an hour earlier than it does today). afternoon wears on into early evening and more
Therefore, the hours before prime time were said paycheck-earners return home, the news becomes
to be on the “fringe” of prime time and, thus, early harder-edged, with more news content and less
fringe. fluff.
294 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

News stations surround their newscasts with strongest sitcoms on the station’s schedule in access
news-compatible programs. These programs might (Seinfeld).
be female-oriented programs such as Dr. Oz or Dr. Whether a station is programming from a net-
Phil or court shows like Judge Judy or People’s work, syndicated or news/local source, it wants to
Court. For years, Oprah Winfrey was a program- retain as many of its viewers as possible through
ming juggernaut. Oprah was the center of the syndi- the sequencing of programs in its schedule. As
cated talk world until her decampment from explained in Chapter 1, this is called audience
broadcast to her own “OWN” (Oprah Winfrey Net- flow: The strategy of scheduling programs similar
work) in 2011 (see 8.9). Her program was scheduled enough in appeal that current viewers will stay
to devastating effect in most markets at 4 P.M. to with the next program while new viewers tune in.
funnel viewers into the local newscast. Oprah’s rat- As the audience composition changes during the
ings frustrated competing stations’ attempts to get day, the program lineup changes along with it. But
ratings traction in the late afternoon. Only when a as 8.10 discusses, the strategy of seeking flow has
program with an equally strong personality came to been eviserated by the growth of multiple program-
the television screen was Oprah challenged. ming providers and mobile devices.
Stations that decide not to compete head-
to-head against the Big Three affiliates’ newscasts
usually opt to counterprogram—with comedy. Prime Access (7 to 8 P.M.)
While news attracts an audience that trends older, In television’s infancy, prime time started at 7 P.M.
with higher-than-average incomes and education— (6 P.M. central/mountain time). As the industry
by contrast, comedy audiences in early fringe are reached adolescence, most of television’s partici-
younger, but they are also less affluent and less pants—stations, advertisers, producers—believed
well educated. One might find young-skewing sit- that the networks exercised a stranglehold on both
coms or talk shows appearing at 4 or 5 P.M. (Tyra, the access to the airwaves and the pricing of adver-
Wendy Williams), followed by slightly older or fam- tising and production. After years of lobbying pres-
ily sitcoms opposite the news programs (Frasier, sure, in 1970 the FCC imposed the Prime-Time
Everybody Loves Raymond, Friends, The Simpsons, Access Rule (PTAR). In essence, PTAR prohibited
King of Queens ), which in turn are followed by the stations from running more than three hours of

8.10 Flowing Away

S urveys show that about three-quarters of computer users

report watching at least one entire television program
online, and about half watch shows that they never saw
inertia to remain on the sofa. Once a channel was
selected, the viewer tended to stay with that station for the
rest of the evening, and programming executives obsessed
previously on television. Although men are usually thought over the idea of program flow. Today, with hundreds of
to be more technology- and adaptation-friendly, research viewing options available and the ability to change chan-
has shown that women equally report having watched nels as easily as pushing a button, viewers can surf chan-
“television” programs online or on a mobile device.10 nels at whim. In addition, DVRs make saving programs or
Flow is not as critical a concept as it once was. Before stopping momentarily (without missing anything) easily
cable brought multiple channels to the home screen and possible, and mobile media make industry-created
before ubiquitous remote control handsets made channel “schedules” a thing of the past. Flow is a fading
changing a push-button procedure, the viewer had to programming strategy even for stations, and the objective
physically rise from the sofa to change the channel. The of consumer retention now takes place in an infinitely
incentive to change the channel had to be greater than the more challenging universe.
 CHAPTER 8 Television Station Programming Strategies 295

network-originated entertainment programming per celebrity news never seem to go out of style, which
night during prime time. (Recall that the FCC can- means steady ratings and predictable advertising
not regulate networks; the FCC’s writ extends only purchases, an ideal scenario for a business character-
to the stations it licenses. Networks are not licensed ized by novelty, fads and the fickleness of public
and therefore cannot be regulated by the FCC. There tastes. As a result, new shows have a tough time
is a backdoor, however; the FCC can regulate the breaking through. Demographics play a key role in
stations—that is, the O&Os—that a network owns.) selecting programs, especially for stations that can-
The impulses behind PTAR were twofold, and not buy the top show but can counterprogram to a
while the first was idealistic, the second was as subtle different advertising target (for example, men aged
as a blow to the head. The first impulse was to create 18 to 49).
opportunities for stations to produce their own local
programs, given that their mandate from the FCC was
to operate in the public interest. This opening gave Prime Time (8 to 11 P.M.)
stations access to prime time; hence the name of the
This marquee time period for the networks is dis-
new daypart: prime access or just access.
cussed in detail in Chapter 2. Viewing levels are
The second impulse behind the rule was to cre-
highest, industry prestige is highest and potential
ate a more level playing field between the following:
advertising revenue is highest during this daypart,
■ The networks and their affiliates and for Big Four affiliates, profit margins are higher
■ The networks and the advertising community than in other dayparts. Affiliates preempt these most
visible of network-supplied dayparts carefully—only
■ The networks and the program production
with cause.
community
There is local programming in prime time; it is
After initially celebrating their victory over their news. FOX, CW and MNTV supply their affiliates
network partners, suddenly affiliates realized that with only two hours of programming nightly, not
they had to come up with one hour of programming three as the older networks and Hispanic networks
each night. Not only was making programs a costly do. FOX, in particular, compels its affiliates to pro-
time- and labor-intensive proposition, but it turned gram local news immediately after two hours of
out that the public as a whole wasn’t interested in prime time—at 10 P.M. eastern/Pacific, 9 P.M. cen-
watching the second-rate programming that was tral/mountain. This is not just a bold counterpro-
produced. gramming move (news against three entertainment
Into the breach came the program producers, choices): It allows FOX affiliates get a one-hour
creating new programs for what formerly was jump on the affiliates’ late newscasts as well; many
prime time. The viewers were there, the advertisers early risers cannot stay awake past 11 P.M. to watch
were there, and the games and magazines appeared. news.
A handful of first-run syndicated shows (Wheel of Many affiliates of the smaller networks, with
Fortune, Jeopardy!, Entertainment Tonight, Extra, only a two-hour supply of network prime-time pro-
Access Hollywood, Inside Edition!) have dominated gramming, follow the path of FOX. News depart-
the ratings in this time period for many years. The ments are a profit center for major broadcast
magazine shows are hybrid programs consisting of stations, and the facilities and output of a big news
entertainment, show business and celebrity news department can be leased to a smaller station in the
wrapped in a newscast format. The upside is that, market that lacks the budget to produce its own
unlike sitcoms in syndication, which can be expen- newscast. Many MNTV and CW stations thus out-
sive and risky, magazine programs are plentiful, and source their newscasts, airing news produced for
the rough equivalence of supply to demand results in them by larger stations (usually the local FOX,
stable purchase prices. Plus, entertainment talk and CBS or NBC affiliates). These newscasts are not
296 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

time competitive for the Big Three affiliates but run (10 P.M. central). The Big Three networks, after
at the earlier hour while these affiliates still carry three hours of prime programming, take a rest and
network shows. All of the advantages of newscasts throw the time period back to their affiliates, which
come together with an early late newscast. invariably program their own local news.
With three hours of prime-time programming
■ It counterprograms the broadcast and many cable
momentum as a lead-in, late fringe is a key ratings
networks.
and revenue daypart for a Big Three affiliate. In the
■ It gives the station a one-hour jump on the affili- early days of television, late news was regarded as
ates’ local news. little more than an update of the early-fringe news-
■ It gives access to broadcast-wary advertisers. cast, but in recent years, with the advent of the
■ It fulfills a station’s public service requirements. 24-hour news cycle and cost efficiencies in news
production technology, late-news programs are
■ It gives a high-ratings track record in the time
regarded as separate programs and are important
period.
profit centers.
■ It displays the station’s identity in a high-visibility As a revenue-enhancement technique, affiliates
time period. of the Big Three networks stretch their newscasts
Another advantage, albeit more minor, that to 35 minutes in late fringe, creating another com-
comes from the news franchise is the occasional mercial break. Going to all that trouble to add just
practice of repeating the late-fringe newscast during one more commercial break might not seem like a
the overnight hours. While it might at first seem that dramatic addition, but over the course of one year,
a news rerun is stale programming, there are viewers the arithmetic compounds into large multiples. If
who did not watch the original telecast, and the four commercials are placed in that extra pod five
“news-lite” content of much local news does not days a the week, 52 weeks a year, that translates
detract from its timeliness. Also, there is no pro- into 1,040 extra commercials in a year. If a large-
gramming cost for a repeat, unlike the cost (in dol- market station charges only $2,000 for a commer-
lars or advertising time) of an outsourced program cial, adding just one more break means $2,080,000
from a syndicator. gross dollars in a year—with virtually no additional
costs to generate that revenue! An intelligent media
executive can turn a minor scheduling change into a
Late Fringe (11 to 11:35 P.M.) financial “force multiplier.”
As dayparts are delineated to reflect the typical Not everyone wants to watch the coverage of
behavior of the “average” viewer, a new daypart human debasement that much of local news consists
comes into play at 11 P.M., as older viewers begin of immediately before going to sleep, and some
getting ready for bed and younger viewers eventually viewers already watched an earlier newscast. These
turn from the internet to television. Late fringe is viewers are likely customers for the many kinds of
another example of the interconnectedness of the net- entertainment programs. Stations not airing news
work–affiliate relationship. The local affiliates of have a wide choice of syndicated programs to offer
ABC, CBS and NBC rely on their networks to pro- viewers uninterested in news and information just
vide popular programs during prime time, thus gen- before going to sleep. Late fringe is a strong time
erating a strong lead-in audience for local late news. period for stations without a network feed; strange
Even though news viewing for any given station is as it seems, the strongest ones often outperform local
acknowledged to be a form of habit, viewers do not affiliate news. FOX-owned stations during the last
always act like they are “supposed to.” Local affiliate few years have adopted the strategy of acquiring
late-news ratings can spike up or head downward, top-performing (and expensive) off-network sitcoms
depending on the network lead-in. HUT levels, as a counterpunch to what they see as the uniformity
however, start dropping precipitously around 11 P.M. of local news product. The Office and Seinfeld work
 CHAPTER 8 Television Station Programming Strategies 297

well here. Even stations with smaller program bud- For the competing stations, late night is an ideal
gets can select from a wide range of first-run barter time period to experiment with offbeat syndication
programs with appeal to some part of the demo- ideas. HUT levels are relatively low, so a failed idea
graphic spectrum. will not hurt much financially, and an unexpected
With the rise in the popularity of talk shows, hit can generate a long-term occupant of a late-
another effective programming move has been to night time period. Expectations are not very high;
schedule a second, repeat telecast in late night for there are disproportionately more men available,
viewers unable to watch the original telecast during and if a program is a hit, it can make money in the
the day. Oprah, for example, used to be rerun late at daypart and perhaps even be moved to a daypart
night in several large markets, including New York, that generates higher revenues.
Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia. Smaller sta-
tions also rerun daytime content, soaps, games and
sitcoms—or turn to older movies. Overnight (2 to 6 A.M.)
For the programming executive, one advantage Networks do not program first-run entertainment
of late fringe over early fringe is that late fringe overnight because HUT levels are way too low to
reaches an elusive quarry—men (particularly young justify the costs of daily production and distribution.
men) aged 18 to 49 or 25 to 54. Men watch less Thus, overnight becomes an arena for repeated tele-
television overall than women or children— casts of syndicated programs and repeated newscasts
calculated either by hours spent watching or variety as well as a sanctuary for failed programs or old
of programs viewed. Young men, in particular, are movies to fill the long predawn hours.
more likely to watch narrow categories of broadcast Although HUT levels are at their nadir (about
programs: sports, some action-oriented movies and 10 percent) and the time period is a low priority,
action-oriented reality programs. In late fringe, how- stations wisely do not completely ignore these
ever, men are available, and in addition to sports they hours for three reasons. First, in the 24-hour
do watch comedies and risqué, first-run late-night world, some viewers are always available at all
programs, making these shows ideal for stations times, and advertisers can still be found to buy com-
that choose to go after young men in that time mercial time, even if at very low rates. (Commercial
period. spots run in very cheap time periods are rather affec-
tionately called “a-dollar-a-holler.”) Even if an over-
night commercial costs as little as 20 dollars, a small
Late Night (11:35 P.M. to 2 A.M.) news station may air two dozen of them per hour or
Affiliates of CBS and NBC virtually always clear 100 per overnight period. Multiply $20 by 100
their network’s programming during this daypart— commercials a night, seven nights a week, 52
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, followed by Late weeks a year, and the result is a not inconsiderable
Night with Jimmy Fallon; and The Late Show with $728,000 per year. Every time period counts, and
David Letterman, followed by The Late Late Show every dollar counts.
with Craig Ferguson. Counterprogramming with A second important reason for not ignoring over-
more serious fare, ABC covers the newsbeat with night is more tactical. If the station signs off the air,
Nightline, followed by the entertainment of Jimmy the local cable company might use the now-empty
Kimmel Live. The overwhelming majority of Big channel space to carry a service with content that
Three affiliates are content because these programs might alienate the broadcaster’s regular viewers
attract larger audiences than they could lure with when they turn the television on the next day. The
first-run or off-network syndicated programs. More- content could be as mild as a home-shopping channel
over, the program content is not as restricted as it is or as spicy as an adult movie service. Suffice to say
in prime time because there is no measureable chil- that the station wants to keep control over all pro-
dren’s audience at such a late hour. gramming coming from “its” cable position.
298 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

Third, if a station signs off, the few viewers who Station Promotion
were still watching at that hour will turn away to
another channel. When they turn the set on again, A station’s two constituencies, viewers and adverti-
it will be on a different channel. Why invite custo- sers, need to be continually reminded of the existence
mers to sample a competitor? There is enough free of specific station programs. While the promotion
or cheap programming, combined with old movies, manager is ultimately responsible for promoting,
to fill up the overnight schedule. All else failing, advertising and publicizing the schedule, the pro-
another format ideally suited for late night is that grammer’s intimate knowledge of program audiences
of the infamous program category known as and viewing behavior may be invaluable for design-
infomercials. ing on-air promotional announcements.
Between midnight and daybreak, little locally
produced news exists. The syndicated Poker After
Dark is as popular in the middle of the night as any- On-Air Promotion of Programs
thing could be. If stations want news overnight, they Among all the mass media available for publicizing a
either clear the overnight services offered by ABC lineup, the station’s own air time is the most effec-
(World News Now) or CBS (Up to the Minute) or tive for reach- and cost-efficiency. The station’s loyal
go into the syndication marketplace to broadcast, viewers can easily be located in the market—they are
for example, CNN’s broadcast service or specialized already watching the channel! The station can then
newscasts offered by other program vendors. Finan- redeploy its unsold advertising time by scheduling
cial newscasts are becoming increasingly popular, on-air promos. To ward off the sales manager’s
given the universal viewer interest in the subject of pressure to preempt important promos to place
money and the advertiser attraction that upscale last-minute commercial buys, stations will often
viewers represent. reserve a position for a promo, called a fixed spot.
Very generally speaking, these fixed spots are the
equivalent of a 30-second spot in each network
Weekend Programming hour or a 30-second spot in each half hour of syndi-
On Saturdays and Sundays, networks readjust their cated programs. A promo might be dedicated to one
programming away from their heavy viewers program or to two or more programs. The latter is
(women) to attract the demographic that watches called a combination spot, or combo spot. With
most of its television during the weekend: men. Pre- sales pressure always on, stations favor combo
dictably, sports programming dominates the screen spots for two reasons: It is more efficient to promote
on weekends, especially on affiliates of ABC, CBS, as many programs as possible in one space (or
FOX, NBC, TeleFutura, Telemundo and Univision. amount of time), and using combo spots increases
Advertisers are willing to pay a premium rate to the chances of program flow.
attract men, who watch little in prime time but The trend in the last several years has been
account disproportionately for expenditures on big- toward fewer on-air promos. Since many former
ticket items (automobiles, financial services, sporting independents have aligned with the newer networks,
equipment) and specialty purchases (alcohol, men’s much of their promotion comes from their networks
personal care). Even with relatively low HUT levels, in prepackaged spots. Also, consolidation has com-
affiliates find their adjacencies in top network sports pelled corporate owners to eschew the long-term
events enormously valuable. If a station’s network is strategy of brand-building in favor of running
not providing sports programming, odds are that more commercials (and thus fewer promos) to meet
the affiliate is counterprogramming with female- short-term financial targets. Having said that, the
oriented movies or similar syndicated fare, although fundamental principles apply. The most practical
a few stations go after teens with weekly syndicated way to design an on-air promotion strategy is to
dating programs. remember that “like goes to like.” In other words,
 CHAPTER 8 Television Station Programming Strategies 299

similar programs or programs with similar audi- Lastly, those programs “on next” usually get a
ences should be promoted toward each other. The promo—a vestige of the time when the forces of pro-
trade name for this technique is cross-promotion. gram flow were stronger than they are today.
The station sets its priorities for on-air promotion
according to two criteria: the potential profitability
of the program and the importance of the program Promotion in Other Media
to the station’s overall branding strategy. Outside media—radio, newspapers, billboards—
One category of programs generally fits both traditionally occupied a large proportion of the tele-
criteria: local news. Local news is one of the station’s vision station’s advertising efforts. Over the last sev-
most significant profit centers, and because it is eral years, however, the downstream effects of
produced at the station, this program genre totally deregulation have created many unintended (and
customizable in content, audience appeal and com- unforeseen!) consequences, largely as a by-product
mercial format. Moreover, news programs remind of concentrated media ownership. Today, when
viewers of other news programs; therefore it makes companies can own up to eight radio stations in a
sense for the 7 A.M. network news to contain a market, radio ad rates are too aggressive (meaning
promo for the 12 noon news. The noon news likely very high) for television stations to afford the same
will promote the next news program at 5 P.M. The kind of saturation radio campaigns seen just a few
early-fringe newscast will promote the next short years ago.
newscast, and during prime time, there will likely Cable, too, is starting to price itself out of the
be several reminders to “stay tuned for the late broadcast advertising market, particularly in those
news.” markets with a heavy concentration of ownership
There are two general kinds of promos: topical or an aggressive interconnect (electronic connection
and image. For newscasts, a topical spot is a promo among a consortium of separately owned but geo-
about a specific story: the update on the day’s big- graphically contiguous cable companies). Although
gest trial, or a live shot of a traffic accident accom- the price per commercial seems beguilingly low on
panied by a promise of coverage of the wreckers many channels, the number of viewers per cable pro-
hauling away the vehicles during the next newscast. gram is so small that it drives the cost-per-viewer
A topical promo is timely and story-specific. By con- price inefficiently upward. In short, television is a
trast, an image spot for news should create a general victim of its own attractiveness as an advertising
impression of the news product’s overall identity in vehicle. Compared with other media, television
viewers’ minds. Typical image spots might be fast- remains the most cost-efficient buy for both reach
paced scenes of anchors in motion who are inter- and frequency, but that efficiency is declining.
viewing people out in the field, prodding unseen One solution for most stations has been to
faces over the telephone to make dramatic revela- develop enticing internet sites that both supply
tions, then racing to the news set with their hot stor- extended content for viewers who want more news
ies just in time for the beginning of the program. and program information, and promote the station’s
(Irrespective of whether this is what they actually news, programming and overall image. The down-
do, such promos are designed to create positive side of internet promotion is that only viewers who
images of experienced, professional journalists.) make the effort to go to the site are exposed to the
Topicals and image spots are also the norm for promotion, and network sites tend to be bigger lures
non-news program promotion. After the news pro- than local station sites—except in the area of local
mos are scheduled, the remaining promo time is allo- weather and local events. Thus most web program-
cated according to station needs. Most often, the mers place sidebars that promote entertainment
lion’s share of promos belongs to the programs alongside key news items—to draw the user’s atten-
that produce the highest revenues, for example, tion to additional content that is above and beyond
those programs during early fringe and access. what drove the person to the site.
300 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

What Lies Ahead for Stations Competing Newscasts

It is an axiom of the business that news will continue
Predicting the future of the local television station busi- to be a mainstay of television programming into the
ness has been difficult for the last decade. On one indefinite future. Television’s eternal appeal is that it
hand, the technology is moving away from program- is a “live” medium. No other medium has the imme-
source scarcity to program-source abundance. On the diacy of television. Increasingly sophisticated and
other, parent media corporations continue to derive miniaturized technologies give stations a level of
predictable—if not outright superior—returns from production quality and time-responsiveness that
their affiliates. were unimaginable only a few short years ago.
The main challenge will be competition, not just
Digital Technology at the local level—where competitors are expanding
The number-one threat to over-the-air broadcasters and upgrading their news product—but also from
(as well as advertising-supported subscription televi- competing industries jumping into the news busi-
sion) comes from technology that frees the viewer ness. One of the viewer benefits arising (albeit indi-
from the addiction of passive viewing: DVRs, tablets, rectly) out of the massive consolidations in cable
smart phones and video-on-demand. Although these ownership in the 1990s is that many cable franchises
technologies have done little harm to broadcast rev- in large markets now offer around-the-clock local
enues so far, their household penetration is climbing news channels of their own (such as News 12 Long
swiftly. Losing control of viewers spells the eventual Island and many others; see Chapter 9). To varying
end of commercial breaks as they presently exist degrees, these local news channels are like mini-
because DVRs allow viewers to “skip over” breaks CNNs. They represent a serious threat to the domi-
entirely. nance of broadcasting as a local medium. Their lack
The remarkable thing is that digital television of network commitments means they can cover
and DVR use is not diffusing slowly the way new ongoing local stories as they unfold during the day,
media technologies have in the past—instead, in a whereas broadcasters usually are forced to wait until
period of less than three years, digital totally sup- their regularly scheduled newscasts.
planted analog television. The newest generation of Moreover and maybe worse, local cable news
converters allows for storing lots of recorded pro- shows can undercut the relatively high advertising
grams in memory and represents a marriage between rates of broadcast newscasts by offering more com-
the computer and the television set, a plus for cable mercial availabilities, lower spot rates and more flex-
and satellite viewers but not for broadcast stations. ible packaging opportunities to local advertisers.
On the other hand, the predominant motivation What is particularly grating to affiliates is that
to watch television is to relax. Given their history some of these national and local news outlets are
with new technologies, it is clear that much of the owned by their own network partners! (For exam-
American audience is unwilling to read any instruc- ple, News Corp. owns Fox News Channel as well as
tions, learn any sequences or steps, or wait for their the FOX Broadcasting Network; Time Warner owns
TV set’s operating system to boot up. The safe money CNN as well as New York 1 News.)
says that new media innovations should bend over Other emerging competitors are the internet and
backward to accommodate loyal viewers in such a mobile media. Use of the internet for news program-
way that they won’t need to know about bandwidths ming offers the ultimate of both extremes: global
or protocols—so they can swim in the digital stream instantaneous distribution and individualized news
without understanding it. All of this is predicated on products for the consumer. At present, the web’s
the effective design of very smart converters and their news capability rests largely in distributing news
remote controls, of course, and because there are so that was originally generated for television or print
many ifs, broadcasters must watch and worry. and then was adapted for the internet, accompanied
 CHAPTER 8 Television Station Programming Strategies 301

by mountains of professional and amateur blogging. companies owning stations in markets with
It was thought that true news competition would network-owned stations but not producing pro-
wait until computers were as easy to use and as plen- grams themselves face heavy leverage and conse-
tiful as television sets, but then Wi-Fi proliferated, quent pressure to sell to the larger companies. The
making computers mobile. People began accessing traditional local orientation of broadcasting has
news from practically anywhere they could open a begun to flicker, to be rekindled by industries that
portable computer. Next, cellphones, personal assis- have economies of scale on their sides: cable and
tants (Blackberrys) and music players added video to the internet. These competitors now provide not
their equipment, meaning internet access could be only local service but also increasingly customized
truly anywhere, anytime, if a bit reduced in size. entertainment and news content to individual
At this writing, the major media companies are consumers.
extending themselves into all these new media, using Broadcasting of some sort will stay around
their branding power to stake claims to content because it is universal and free, which is in the
areas in an attempt to follow the audience wherever nation’s best interest, but the number of stations
it goes. Although internet-generated news products per market is likely to fall drastically in another
are not yet profit centers for their participants, the decade or so. For the immediate future, however,
ultimate profits and marketing advantages of these local broadcasting will remain a highly profitable
new media are too potentially enormous to be business, although its owners are likely to squeeze
ignored, and that leaves broadcasters nervous. every dollar of profit they can from it now.
Nonetheless, the maturation of the television
industry means that the original business model of
Channel Migration distant networks and local affiliates is disintegrating.
As of February 19, 2009, all analog television trans- Competition from newer media means that free tele-
mission stopped, and television stations began send- vision has to resign itself to no longer being the big-
ing digital signals. The largest stations (and gest and gaudiest float in the television parade.
networks) broadcast now in high definition—which Video entertainment has become global, instanta-
uses the entire allotted bandwidth—but many sta- neous and customizable in a way unimaginable just
tions have chosen standard definition with the one generation ago. Local stations were once the
option of multiplexing additional signals. So far, sole gatekeepers, and now they survive by fitting
the options for paid use of that extra bandwidth themselves into those niches in which they can be
are scarce, but it was expected to be the savior: to competitive.
become a revenue stream that would cover the enor- Despite the fears of media Cassandras who
mous cost of digitalizing station facilities. But the prognosticate the end of broadcasting, however, his-
FCC will eventually require some number of hours tory tells us otherwise: Television did not kill off the
of HDTV (rather sooner than later) and is likely to movie industry, FM radio did not eliminate AM,
limit reselling or reusing channel bandwidth. cable did not eliminate local broadcast, and
Because of pressure from other users of the airwaves, satellite-delivered television did not defeat cable.
the FCC may also reclaim bandwidth resources from Instead, each industry had to adapt itself to the
stations long before many are ready to give them up. new challenge. Like many businesses, broadcasting
is organic: It expands, contracts, mutates into differ-
ent forms. Unlike many businesses, broadcasting is a
The Mutation of Broadcasting fascinating mix of technology, creativity and com-
Although broadcasting has traditionally been a free merce. The cumulative impacts of computers, digital
service, the American consumer is increasingly technology and regulatory changes will be strong
becoming accustomed to paying for media. Smaller but not fatal.
302 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

Notes moved to television after the war. His onscreen news

career notched highs (with his award-winning documen-
tary series See It Now) and lows (he hosted Person to
1. This disproportionate amount of discussion of FOX’s
Person, an early personality-interview program, during
raid indicates the level of root-and-branch disruption that
which Murrow often looked physically stricken to be
FOX caused in the relatively calm of an oligopoly network
interviewing celebrities rather than newsmakers).
landscape. It was as if a starter’s gun had fired, and all
networks and affiliates scrambled for new partners. 5. Federal Communications Commission, Information
Murdoch’s audacity created turbulence, which distracted Needs of Communities: The Changing Media Landscape
his competitors, thus leveling the playing field for him. The in a Broadband Age, 2011.
raid gave FOX a chance to be sampled by new viewers 6. Information from 2011 Ownership Survey and Trend
and, not incidentally, to deeply wound a major competi- Report, as cited in TV News Check, June 6, 2011.
tor. If there was any doubt about Murdoch’s intentions 7. In their affiliate incarnations, however, stations are
when he started his network in the 1980s, it was now clear somewhat hamstrung because they are legally committed
that the game was being played for keeps. And he did it to air the programs their networks distribute and must
again after CBS and Time Warner closed UPN and the WB work around those. Moreover, when stations are located
and cozied up to form the CW. FOX’s left-out stations got in more socially traditional parts of the country, and a
their own competing network, MNTV. network program is “too cool for the room” (that is, has
2. NSI, 2/14-2/20/11, as cited in TV News Check content inappropriate for the audience), the stations still
(tvnewscheck.com). must clear it—in the absence of an overwhelmingly com-
3. For an unsurpassed anthology of hilarious, believe-it- pelling reason that justifies preemption (and the outlay for
or-not stories of television during its first decades, read a substitute show).
The Box: An Oral History of Television 1920–1960 by 8. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OprahWinfrey, p. 2,
Jeff Kisseloff (Viking Press, 1995). The book is currently for these quotes.
out of print, so try a library. 9. Early fringe is outside prime time, so the networks
4. Murrow (1908 to 1965) was one of the earliest broad- technically could fill it like the other parts of daytime, but
cast journalists to achieve professional notoriety and, later, good luck getting this profitable time back from the
celebrity. Murrow joined the CBS Radio Network in 1935 stations!
and was sent to Europe in 1937. He is most remembered 10. http://mediamatters.org/items/200610240003, 17
for his on-scene reporting of harrowing Nazi Luftwaffe October 2006.
bombing raids in London during World War II. Morrow
 9
CHAPTER

Basic and Premium

Subscription Programming
Susan Tyler Eastman and Douglas A. Ferguson

Chapter Outline
Competing Content Networks Evaluating Apples
and Bananas
The Proliferating
Comparison Problems
Nonbroadcast World Nonbroadcast Audience
Subscribers by Channel Measurement
Foundation and Niche
Subscription Services The Many Channels
Types of Premium Subscription Major Subscription Networks
Services Premium Networks
Video-On-Demand
Competition among Program Hyping Subscription
Services Networks
Selecting Strategies Audio Services on Cable
Economics and Technology
Program Types
Twisting Paths for the
Genres on Advertising-Supported Future
Channels Notes
Genres on Premium Channels
Launching a Network

Scheduling Strategies
Basic Channel Scheduling
Premium Channel Scheduling

303
304 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

C able content networks are popping up every-

where. Once exclusive to cable systems, cable
networks are now carried not just by satellite and tele-
phone companies, but also appear online. You can
households still receiving only over-the-air signals (if
without internet access) cannot see any subscription
networks—only local broadcast stations.
Some companies that provide nationwide sub-
watch MTV on your tablet, if you spring for the scription programming have adopted the word net-
app. Many companies that own cable program net- work in their names, trumpeting that they possess
works first operated local cable systems in the United the primary characteristics of a big network and
States but moved into content ownership as the cable likening themselves to the long-familiar broadcast
installation business matured. Now the owners of networks. Being a network lends prestige while
content networks sell the carriage rights to competi- invoking images of great size and the likelihood of
tors. Why would they do that? The answers are chan- subsidiary services. Others use the word channel.
nel proliferation, government regulation and need for Such program services are saying that they occupy
revenue. a full channel on television sets (no sharing) and that
they are centralized; that they distribute simulta-
neous programming, carry advertisements and sell
Competing Content Networks adjacencies (if advertiser-supported), and that they
are retransmitted to homes via MVPD services.
Subscription content networks is an overall term Whatever a content service is called and however it
that encompasses all kinds of television program is delivered, all are generically subscription (or
services requiring fees to subscribe and distinguishes cable) content networks.
them from the media distribution services (MVPDs). Totaling maybe 100 in the 1990s, the number
The subscription networks traditionally provide pro- of distinct subscription networks had expanded
grams organized in 24-hour channels that come by to more than 200 (or perhaps 300) by first decade
satellite to the MVPDs who in turn put them onto of the 2000s. Enumerating networks, however,
their wires or beam them out wirelessly. Those depends on what you include and exclude (see
structured networks are usually accompanied by 9.1). One problem is differentiating between parent
access to unstructured on-demand programming. companies, networks and channels. NBCUniversal
The MVPDs pay monthly fees to include specific (itself owned by MVPD Comcast) owns the NBC
subscription networks on their services and charge broadcast network as well as Telemundo, and they
their subscribers enough to cover those fees (see both appear on cable systems, but NBC appears via
Chapter 3). The subsets of basic cable networks a local affiliated station and so may Telemundo (and
and premium cable networks refer to those with thus their carriage as stations is legally required), but
and without advertising, respectively (although a in markets with no local Telemundo affiliate, the
very few “basic” networks don’t have ads), plus network can appear as a cable channel. (Generally,
premium networks usually require extra subscrip- broadcasters avoid the term “cable networks”
tion fees. because they come under different FCC rules than
Commonly called cable networks to distinguish those applying to broadcast networks). But that’s
them from broadcast networks (a distinction largely not the whole picture: NBCUniversal owns all or
irrelevant to viewers but crucial to owners), a huge- part of several subscription channels, including
seeming variety of subscription networks appear on USA Network (which is solely a cable network),
the two satellite services, on the various teleco ser- Bravo, Syfy, Chiller, Oxygen and Sleuth, while par-
vices, and online sites carrying web series and movies, ent Comcast also owns E!: Entertainment and
as well as in very different arrangements and selec- FEARNet. Comcast systems may also carry a dedi-
tions on the hundreds of U.S. cable systems. Many cated “Comcast Channel” that promotes the net-
also appear in some variation on distribution systems work itself. In addition, NBCUniversal also owns
in other countries. Of course, the 8 percent of U.S. Universal HD, a hi-def only channel. The industry
 CHAPTER 9 Basic and Premium Subscription Programming 305

counts all these channels separately for purposes of network—or should they be counted as 17 separate
Nielsen ratings. But then there are other kinds of ones? The industry usually counts Showtime as one,
channel multiplication. because it doesn’t care: there’s no advertising. Non-
movie channels also split into multiple content channels
targeting different audiences: National Geographic
Channel also comes with National Geographic Wild,
The Proliferating Nonbroadcast but they are usually counted as two.
World Fourth, there are East and West time zone feeds
for the premium networks, and on some MVPDs
Technical advances make possible both duplication subscribers can watch either feed, such as Starz
and splintering of various kinds. First, fiber technology Edge and Starz Edge West or HBO Signature or
has such great capacity that it readily permits simulta- HBO Signature West. In Washington, D.C., politi-
neous distribution of the same channel three ways: cians like to be able to see what is being fed in
analog, digital and HD, so all established broadcast their home towns so all feeds appear there.
and cable networks were duplicated in three formats Fifth, there are foreign language feeds of Ameri-
until recently. Even digital-only cable networks can can channels for citizens who want their U.S. televi-
exist in both standard digital and HD. And 3D is com- sion in another language (as distinct from all the
ing, necessitating another feed of each network, imported foreign-language networks from other
although analog will soon drop away completely. countries). CNN comes in Spanish, as does Fox
Are TNT and TNT HD one or two networks? Tech- Sports, Discovery, Playboy, Toon Disney and others.
nically, they take up two bandwidth channels. Some foreign language feeds consist of audio overlays
Second, fiber’s immense capacity has led estab- and subtitles; others are separate splinter channels.
lished networks to create or buy up digital niche And finally, some smaller broadcast networks
channels to see what attracts audiences. A&E Tele- duplicate themselves as cable channels, even though
vision Networks, for example, owns the classic Bio one of their broadcast affiliates may also appear as a
(formerly Biography) and History channels, but station filling a channel on the same MVPD. Ion
acquired or invented the digital Crime & Investiga- Television does this, presumably to increase national
tion Network, History en Espanol and Military His- viewing of its infomercials.
tory Channel. Many digital niche channels, such as
Jewelry TV, Cooking Channel and Military History
Channel, do not yet exist in HD, so some have two Subscribers by Channel
versions and others just one. At least 200 subscription television networks exist,
Third, digital fiber can easily carry multiplexed and of those, nearly half reach a minimum of
signals, so several digital networks split their pro- 50 million U.S. homes, making those the ones on
gramming into separate virtual channels—each carry- which most advertisers will pay to place commercial
ing a rotating sliver of programming such as spots. The top 30 of those networks, such as TBS,
thematically chosen movies—called splinter channels. ESPN, USA, The Food Network, The Weather
Did you know there are 17 versions of Showtime? Channel, Discovery, Nickelodeon and the others
Not only are there separate channels for Showtime, listed in 9.1, have become household words because
Showtime 2, Showtime Showcase, Showtime Beyond, they appear on virtually every cable system in the
Showtime Extreme, Showtime Family Zone, Show- United States and on both satellite and the main
time Next and Showtime Women, but each comes telco systems. Each of the top 30 has more than
in East and West (time zone feeds). Plus there is 100 million U.S. subscribers, and many are closing
Showtime On Demand. And all or some feeds can in on 200 million worldwide. Since there are only
be available on a single MVPD (FiOS carries all 17). about 116 million TV households in America and
Do 17 channels comprise just a single premium of those, 107 million (92 percent) subscribe to
306 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

some kind of multichannel system, reaching 100 mil-

lion is not far from reaching nearly everybody. 9.2 Multichannel Reach

T
Moreover, the numbers in 9.1 are for both cable
and satellite but do not include telco subscribers or
he cable industry no longer publishes the precise
other small services (see 9.2). percentages of viewers who receive the cable net-
works over alternate delivery systems (ADS), perhaps
because terrestrial competitors to cable are growing
9.1 Top 30 Cable Programming Networks, while cable system penetration has halted expansion.
2012 (cable and satellite only) Other published sources, such as the FCC, tend to be
somewhat out of date. As a consequence, the most
Services Subscribers accurate subscriber information (as in 9.1) comes from
Nielsen ratings and combines cable and satellite but
TBS 105,400,000
omits AT&T and Verizon, other smaller competitors and
ESPN/ESPN HD 104,400,000 online subscribers.
USA 104,400,000 As was pointed out in Chapter 3, overall cable pen-
Food Network 104,200,000 etration of the U.S. TV households has stayed almost
HGTV 103,900,000 stable for a decade at nearly two-thirds (close to 66 per-
ESPN2 103,800,000 cent) of multichannel households: that’s 70 million
Weather Channel 103,900,000 households subscribing to cable. Penetration from ser-
TLC 103,800,000 vices such as DirecTV and DISH has levelled at about
CNN 103,800,000 30 percent of multichannel homes (another 32 million
Discovery Channel 103,700,000 subscribers), and AT&T and Verizon currently account for
Nickelodeon/Nick 103,600,000 about 5 percent more (another 5+ million subscribers).
FOX News 103,600,000
TNT 103,600,000
Spike TV 103,600,000
MTV 103,400,000
Foundation and Niche Subscription
VH1 102,800,000 Services
Lifetime Television 102,700,000 National subscription networks can be differentiated
Disney Channel 102,700,000 in terms of how established they are and whom they
TV Land 102,600,000 target. Foundation networks—generally the earliest,
A&E 102,300,000 most firmly established, and most popular entries
CSPAN 102,100,000 in the field—reach about a 100 million U.S. sub-
E! Entertainment 101,900,000 scriber homes each via cable/satco/telco or other
FX Network 101,800,000 MVPDs. The very largest (TBS, the Weather Chan-
Syfy 101,500,000 nel, Discovery, Nickelodeon, CNN and ESPN) are
Comedy Central 101,400,000 in hundreds of millions homes worldwide. About
Cartoon Network 101,200,000 25 subscription channels are considered the founda-
History 101,100,000 tion networks.
CNBC 100,900,000 The second broad group consists of the niche or
ABC Family Channel 100,900,000 theme networks. Some of major networks began life
Travel Channel 100,200,000* as theme networks and grew into channels that serve
more than a niche. Comedy Central is an example of a
*Animal Plant, AMC and MSNBC are close behind with 99 million
and 98 million subs. theme network that became a foundation network.
2012 Estimates from SLN Kagan, 2011, and Nielsen Media When a cable network gets into that Top 25 list year
Research, Inc., 2011. after year, it is firmly established. If a new cable, satellite
 CHAPTER 9 Basic and Premium Subscription Programming 307

or telephone system wants to offer potential subscribers target audience. The splintering phenomenon occurs
at least one of every kind of channel, it will begin by particularly in premium services: HBO now provides
seeking to license all the foundation networks. programming for nine subniche channels: HBO2,
True niche networks usually either have a single HBO Signature, HBO Family, HBO Comedy, HBO
program content type (all music, all shopping, all Zone, HBO Latino, HBO on Demand, HBO Home
travel) or target a defined demographic group (just Satellite and HBO HDTV. In addition to the 17
children, just Spanish speakers—groups numbering Showtimes and 9 HBOs, there are 14 different
in the tens of millions) using a mix of program Encores.
types. SOAPnet, Golf Channel, VERSUS, SPEED, As the spread of newer technologies permits
Sundance Channel, the Travel Channel and BET greater proliferation of channels, the strategy of
are niche networks. channel spinoffs (into subniches) is becoming more
Currently, the hot type of niche network is the commonplace. For example, in addition to FX, Fox
branded subniche network, which is the product of spun off a new branded business news channel
further specialization within a theme network by a called Fox News Channel (digital and HD) and a
well-known media company. Investigation Discov- movie spinoff, Fox Movie Channel. Even more
ery is a clear example. Subniche channels are man- widely known are its multiple sports channels (Fox
aged as a group and owned by one parent company College Atlantic/Central/Pacific, Fox Soccer Channel
or network. Most notably, Discovery Communica- and FSN Prime Ticket).
tions, which operates the Discovery Channel (foun- Microniche networks target even more special-
dation) and TLC (formerly The Learning Channel) ized population subgroups, including the hearing-
launched several branded subniche services (Discov- impaired viewers and foreign-language speakers.
ery Health, Discovery Science, Discovery Kids, Dis- Some of these have the same content as another
covery Times, Discovery Home, Discovery Wings channel but include sign language and subtitles or
and so on), all using the Discovery name. Other net- are in another language. Others have a lot of origi-
works, such as A&E and Nickelodeon followed Dis- nal programming. While Spanish-language itself is
covery’s lead, developing additional channels. To hardly a subniche these days, channels appealing to
Lifetime, A&E added Lifetime Real Women; to the viewers with a Latino, or Columbian or Mexican or
classic Nickelodeon, the company added Nick Jr., Caribbean orientation constitute microniches. For
Nick 2, Nicktoons and TeenNick. (Once sufficiently example, Sur Mexico, Sur Peru, ESPN Deportes,
established, instead of more splintering, Discovery Canal Sur, Bandamaz and others appear on U.S.
changed several channel names to broaden or clarify cable systems. In Chicago and Detroit, channels in
content: Wings became The Military Channel; Kids other language groups such as Polish or Armenian
became The Hub for teens, Science lost the word require microniche channels. Satellites and cable
Discovery in its name, Health became Fit & Health carry the Filipino Channel and AZN (targeting
and so on.) Asians). Then there’s Kung Fu HD, MOJO, Rave
Subniche services are made possible by cheaper HD, Rush HD, Treasure HD, and Water Channel.
satellite time resulting from digital compression. All this is probably more than you wanted to know!
As outlined in Chapter 3, digital compression en- Some microniches provide programming that is
courages a process called multiplexing, distributing a further differentiation of a niche service (women’s
several different channels simultaneously, usually 12 sports, independent films) and thus are both narrow
digital channels squeezed onto the bandwidth for- in content and targeted in audience. As streaming
merly used by one old analog channel. In some video opportunities expanded via broadband inter-
cases, the “new” services run the same programs as net connections (see Chapter 4), a few of these
the main network; they are merely scheduled at dif- microniche channels (in particular, TRIO and
ferent times. In other cases, programs are subdivided Lime) shuttered their cable/satellite channels and
by target audience, and each channel focuses on one moved onto the web.
308 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

Virtually all basic subscription networks carry to grow. (At any rate, not even HBO has the penetra-
advertising; the smaller ones carry as much as they tion of any of the top 25 basic cable networks who
can get. A very few services, notably C-SPAN, reach around a 100 million subscribers each.)
C-SPAN 2 and C-SPAN 3, are basic cable networks The premium television field has long had three
but without advertising. Because their content con- distinct components:
sists largely of government meetings, hearings and
1. Pay-cable networks, which charge viewers a
discussion shows on which elected and appointed
monthly subscription “premium” (traditional pay)
government officials appear, they are offered as a
noncommercial public service on the lowest level of 2. Pay-per-view (PPV) services, which charge on a
subscription services (in hopes of forestalling gov- program-by-program basis
ernment regulation of commercial programming). 3. Video-on-demand (VOD) services, which usu-
The C-SPAN group is owned by the parent compa- ally charge per-program-viewed, similar to PPV,
nies of several large cable networks, but also carried and are available in several subvarieties or
by the satcos and telcos. formats, but that offer more viewer control
and often DVR-like functionality
Types of Premium Subscription The key difference to consumers is that classic
Services premium cable means buying a group of movies over
a month (pay-per-month), whereas PPV and VOD
Premium services is an umbrella term for a group of
mean purchasing just one program at a time (pay-
specialized entertainment services that provide special
per-use). One difference is that PPV normally con-
or “premium” programming to about 70 million U.S.
sists of movies while VOD includes a huge body of
cable, satellite or telco subscribers who pay additional
television programs of all kinds.
fees above the basic MVPD service cost. Premium
This chapter differentiates the services by payment
services primarily offer unedited movies and original
method (by month or by use), but at the time of this
productions in a commercial-free format.
writing, the distinctions among them are becoming
Premium movie and sports channels number
very fluid. Many premium services of the pay-
about 15, not counting their splinter services. The
per-month variety are being relabeled subscription-
five with the largest number of subscribers are
video-on-demand (SVOD), and many pay-per-view
HBO, Encore, Showtime, Starz!, Max (Cinemax)
services have switched to VOD as systems digitized.
and The Movie Channel. Another five, HDNet,
Flix, Epix, Turner Classic Movies and The Sundance
Channel, also reach large audiences. Still others are Video-On-Demand
mostly on-demand channels or in limited distribu- PPV was once thought to be the “killer application”
tion. Then there’s Netflix, described in detail in of cable, but the industry had turned to video-
Chapter 4, which is certainly a direct competitor to on-demand in the early 2000s, and VOD households
all pay television channels. have grown along with digitalization. Just to confuse
Details on the number of premium subscribers us all, the video-on-demand name is currently
are generally not available, largely because the abso- applied to four somewhat different formats:
lute number of pay subscribers also began declining
in the early 2000s (so the companies keep the totals 1. VOD, the true digital kind, which delivers
secret). We do know that the total number of sub- movies or programs as the consumer asks for
scriptions to the collective top five had reached 70 mil- them, for a per-program fee
lion by 2008 and has stayed largely flat since. Of 2. FVOD (Free-VOD), where some content is
those, HBO has about 30 million. Its problem is available without charge to entice subscribers
that competitor Netflix had about 23 million subscri- to become more comfortable with the idea of
bers as of 2011, but its subscribership was continuing on-demand programming
 CHAPTER 9 Basic and Premium Subscription Programming 309

3. SVOD (Subscription-VOD), where a separate and teens who like watching many episodes of
monthly fee is charged (for example, Showtime favorite series or some sport at one time and don’t
on Demand and HBO on Demand) but the care if they are “old” or repeats. Cable operators
movies come as requested over the month expect VOD to be the kind of service to which view-
4. Download-to-own, an internet venue that ers are strongly attracted, once they try it.
relies on broadband connections but offers From the standpoint of the end-user’s experi-
the same programming as basic and premium ence, true VOD operates largely the same as most
cable channels MVPDs: recorded programs are stored in DVRs,
with play, pause, stop, fast-forward and rewind
One important limitation to on-demand is that capabilities, but fast-forward may be disabled in
neither all movies nor all TV programs are available. key VOD shows to prevent skipping commercials.
The movie studios and television program distribu- Usually viewers can watch all or part of any movies
tors hold back many shows, requiring each MVPD as often as they wish during a 24- or 36-hour period.
to negotiate a selection of programs for its VOD ser- One of the major reasons for implementing on-
vice. If a show originally had advertising in it, those demand is to cut down on churn (subscribers who
ads transfer to VOD, expanding the reach of those start and stop their premium subscriptions faster
messages. While shows from all four networks may than the network would prefer, a process that adds
appear on the largest on-demand services, only some to the business costs). The industry’s assumption is
of their programs are included. For three reasons, that if more options and more conveniences are
major MVPDs constantly seek to expand and available to consumers, they will be more likely to
update their television and movie listings. First, an continue paying for a service.
attractive on-demand lineup forestalls DVR use, and Internet services such as CinemaNow and
second, carrying the current hits keeps viewers from Movielink offer internet-based VOD services, as
turning to competing online streaming services. A does Netflix (see Chapter 4). The days when VOD
third reason is that MVPDs are able to insert differ- meant only “cable” are long gone, and the internet
ent commercials into television program breaks. may win this battle eventually, as consumers learn to
This is a valuable source of revenue because the turn to their computer or tablet screens for television
ads can be targeted to specific groups of subscribers. as readily as to large HD screens.
One programming problem is that many network Comcast has been able to leverage its full or
executives fear that feeding strong product to VOD part ownership of such niche networks as Home &
will cannibalize their main networks and give them Garden Television, Food Network, Cartoon Net-
little in return. At the same time, MVPDs press hard work, the History Channel and E! Entertainment
to persuade networks to move hit series to their Television to create demand for VOD. Even sports
VOD menus, thus competing with Netflix for the networks associated with the NBA and the NFL
valuable replays. make older game replays and highlights available
Systems that charge for VOD find subscriber on VOD, and multicultural programming is particu-
resistance to paying twice for the same program. larly popular, especially Hispanic programs (see
Digital and HD subscribers already pay for all chan- Time Warner’s FVOD in 9.3). FVOD is now viewed
nels in their monthly bills. For example, the cable enough that Nielsen already measures aggregate lin-
operator charges about $.50 per month for MTV ear cable networks separately from VOD viewership
(hidden in the total bill), which includes The Real of individual programs. VOD revenue today is in the
World, so why would viewers want to pay again billions.
for that show on VOD? With SVOD, subscribers may get the best of
Convenience, however, is the real selling factor both worlds for the same subscription price. They
because on-demand comes whenever the subscriber get (1) a packaged “live” service for watching highly
wants it. Free VOD has great appeal for children promoted first telecasts of premium programming
310 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

battling to win. Because cable subscribers are more

9.3 Time Warner Cable’s accustomed to paying monthly for tiers of services
“Start Over” than paying for each use, SVOD successfully bridges
the two models. Anyone who has had the option of

T ime Warner Cable has its own FVOD feature called

Start Over, an on-demand application that allows
customers to jump to the beginning of a program in
paying a single price for entry to all amusement rides
at a county fair versus a per-ride cost understands
the appeal of SVOD over VOD, even when it is
called “free.”
progress without any preplanning or in-home recording
Services such as HBO that cling to the premium
devices. When tuning to a Start Over–enabled show in
pay-per-month model use SVOD as a way to
progress, customers are alerted to the feature through an
enhance the value of their programming. Disney
on-screen prompt. By pressing “Select” on the remote
control, the program is immediately restarted from the
(which owns ABC Family, ESPN, the Disney Chan-
beginning (but without the ability to skip commercials). nel and other services) is reluctant to give away the
Recently, some HD channels have become “start added value of its programs by making them avail-
over’ enabled. About 70 percent of Time Warner’s able on demand, so it has resisted SVOD. At the
digital subscribers use Start Over, and the idea was other end of the spectrum, World Wrestling Enter-
awarded an Engineering Emmy at the 2007 Consumer tainment launched WWE 24/7 as an SVOD service
Electronics Show. to leverage its 75,000 hours of professional wres-
tling. As long as subscribers are willing to pay an
additional $4.95 or so a month for SVOD access
to basic channels, such channels will resist the
and (2) using a different distribution system, a video- trend toward pay-per-use, the true VOD. Having
on-demand version of the same programs. The pack- unpredictable amounts of revenue is what under-
aged service is like a conventional real-time linear standably scares content suppliers.
network where scheduling is important. The VOD Furthermore, on-demand is not limited to cable,
version has two methods of delivery, depending on satellite and telephone television. Even conventional
the cable operator. The first method warehouses the broadcasting stations can be part of this brave new
programs on a central video server located at the world through online services, second channels nego-
headend building of the cable provider and makes tiated from cable operators in return for retransmis-
the content available whenever the viewer requests sion consent or, they hoped, multiplexed digital
it. Niche or “lightly viewed” networks are consid- channels using a spectrum set aside for HDTV (but
ered the best for early implementations of switched Congress soon put an end to this practice: HD spec-
digital video, a relatively new technology that directs trum is only for HD). Starting in 2005, CBS-owned
channels only to customers who want to view them stations offered CBS on Demand service to compete
at that time. The second system relies on decentra- with HBO on Demand and TBS on Demand. The
lized storage, housed in set-top boxes equipped with internet variety, download-to-own VOD, is more
high-capacity disk storage, if viewers have DVR suited to the type of streaming distribution described
equipment. The operator downloads the material, in Chapter 4 but offers programming identical to that
where it can be retrieved on demand. Either way, offered on basic and pay services.
viewers can watch what they want, when they
want it, for only a monthly fee. They can choose to
watch the first-available “live” version or choose Competition among Program Services
another time to view a replay. When considering advertiser-supported services,
If all these kinds of VOD sound complicated, it what real difference exists between CBS and USA
is because this decade is the shakeout period in networks? Both target a broad audience, both
which new delivery and reception technologies are carry a mix of rerun and original shows, both
 CHAPTER 9 Basic and Premium Subscription Programming 311

carry live sports, both have theatrical and first-run networks bid directly against local broadcast sta-
movies, and both have sitcoms and game shows. The tions (and each other) for the rights to movie
obvious difference is the presence or absence of news packages and hit off-network television series.
programming, but another modest difference lies in Because of the way original contracts for most series
the better than 98 percent reach of a broadcast net- are written, most basic cable networks pay much
work versus the 92 percent reach of the top sub- lower residuals than broadcast stations do. Resi-
scription networks (and much smaller reaches for duals, as discussed in Chapters 2 and 6, are payments
smaller ones). But most important, broadcast net- to the cast and creators every time the program is
works still outspend the cable networks, with each reshown. Licensing fees for cable networks can be
of the Big Four networks spending far more on con- several hundred thousand dollars per episode (which
tent than any subscription program services. Broad- may seem expensive but is far lower than for big
cast network programs garner the most press and broadcast stations). As a result, basic cable television
social network attention individually and as a has become a key aftermarket in the progression of
group. sales of movies and serial programs, generating
One way to understand the multichannel pro- hundreds of millions of dollars in profits for U.S.
gramming business is to consider the wholesaler– and foreign program distributors.
retailer analogy: National cable networks are like In addition, the largest cable networks have
coast-to-coast wholesalers in that they sell their consistently outbid broadcasters (stations and sta-
product—programming—to regional and local out- tion groups—as explained in Chapter 6) to get first
lets, the wired (or wireless) cable system program rerun rights to newly available hour-long adventure
operators, satellite services, telcos and others. and drama series and even some half-hour situation
MVPDs are like retailers because they sell their comedies. (As discussed in Chapter 2, hour-long
product—television programming services—to con- series are less useful in rerun to broadcasters, and
sumers, home by home and subscriber by subscriber. even such a hugely successful action series as CSI
The wholesalers have four functions: has underperformed many half-hour sitcoms in sta-
tion reruns.) All this heavy-duty competition for
1. Licensing existing shows or financing original
content has driven the top cable networks into pro-
programming created by Hollywood’s studios
ducing their own signature series. Although produc-
or independent producers, or in conjunction
tion costs are very high, the reward comes from
with international joint-venture partners
having promotable content (“See X here and
2. Packaging programming in a form acceptable to nowhere else!”). Such series are normally produced
consumers (by providing interstitial promotions in conjunction with advertisers so costs are under-
such as wraparounds, titles, on-air hosts and written. Putting out a new series without underwrit-
graphics) ing commonly means that producers have to wait
3. Delivering programming by satellite to MVPDs for a ratings track record to develop, a long process
4. Supporting their products with national that demands very deep pockets.
advertising and promotion and by supplying A few theatrical films have gone straight from
advertising materials and co-op dollars at the theaters to cable networks, and many European tele-
local system level vision series go directly to cable. Spike TV imports
Japanese shows dubbed in English or cloned. Cable
Program content services actively compete for also has become a foremarket for some programs
fresh content; there are more outlets than top quality that later appeared on U.S. broadcast stations. For
new programs. The licensing of many American tele- example, Politically Incorrect migrated from Com-
vision programs and movies follows a pattern begin- edy Central to ABC in 1996 (although Bill Maher
ning with the most profitable U.S. markets and eventually took his show to HBO to escape censors
ending with international distribution. Basic cable and controversy).
312 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

The battle for movies after their theatrical Selecting Strategies

appearance rages on. The established premium
channels get access to theatrical movies long before To fully understand programming strategies, it is
they are offered to most basic cable networks (and first necessary to grasp the economic fundamentals
broadcasters), but the window for the hottest of multichannel service as described in Chapter 3
movies doesn’t come soon enough to suit HBO and expanded here. Unlike the broadcast model of
and Showtime. Because video sales and rentals maximizing the audience size, the multichannel
have been a cash cow for the major studios, the model seeks to maximize subscriber revenue. On
popular movies exhaust the DVD market before one hand, VOD programmers need not choose
the premium networks are given access to them. their content carefully because there’s room for so
The pay-per-use services, being the newest guys on much programming. On the other hand, selection
the block, would be low on the totem pole in the of programs for most subscription networks is far
bidding for Hollywood’s movie output except for more constrained (see 9.4). And in both cases, only
the fact that most are owned by the same parent so many programs can be actively promoted.
companies as the established pay channels, so
most deals are packages for all channels owned by
one company. Economics and Technology
Of all the problems associated with on-demand, The programming side of the business has matured
the delayed release windows (for movies and broad- to the point that selection decisions related to the
cast TV series), as well as a general lack of fresh subscription networks have become secondary to
content, are especially frustrating for programmers many MVPDs. All carry as many content services
because they have no control over them. Delayed as they can manage, including every foundation net-
windows helped prevent pay-per-view from taking work and the main theme channels and as much
off a decade ago, and they hamper VOD growth VOD as is available. Their focus has turned to
now. Most movies currently have VOD or PPV expanding HD subscriptions with the long-term
release windows about 45 days after a film goes to goal of shifting all channels to hi-def and turning
DVD (and the video stores). Many movies that are off mere “digital” service. At the turn of the century,
highly popular in rental and sales are completely the MVPDs’ primary concern was expanding their
withheld from premium networks, sometimes for media dominance via high-speed internet service and
decades. Currently hot TV series tend to be released Voice-over-Internet (VoIP) phone service; now it is
in just a handful of episodes, the rights to older epi- upgrading subscribers to all HD and even 3D, while
sodes expiring (to go into syndication) and the rights enhancing for-pay VOD.
to the newest episodes protected and not yet avail- For multichannel network programmers, the key
able. Rights owners have to find a balance between to maximizing revenue in the programming realm is
availability to maintain interest and the highest rev- to generate the greatest value for the bread-and-
enue streams. butter subscriber who probably wants choice and
As media conglomerates grow larger, competi- convenience—but who may not need phone or
tion favors the giants. Vertical integration in combi- broadband services and may feel unable to afford
nation with digitalization of cable systems has HD service right now. Although pressure to upgrade
eliminated the shelf space shortage and created con- to HD surrounds the business, this programming
tent shortage instead. The clout that comes with textbook focuses on the traditional two revenue
enormous size has improved the owned channels’ streams (subscriptions and advertising) in media.
ability to license top programs and produce original Advertising is one of the two main revenue
shows, but movies are the lifeblood of the premium streams for virtually all basic cable networks. Agen-
services, and rapid access to them continues to be a cies base their buying decisions on reach, frequency,
barrier to growth. selectivity and efficiency. Subscription channels are
 CHAPTER 9 Basic and Premium Subscription Programming 313

9.4 Ted Turner and CNN

C able, satellite and telco subscribers have a healthy

selection of news channels today. Fox News is the
ratings leader, but viewers can also choose among
Gilligan’s Island, and was once quoted as saying, “I hate
news. News is evil. It makes people feel bad.”
But Turner was an exceptionally astute businessman. He
MSNBC, HLN (Headline News), the business news surveyed the available niche markets in cable programming
channels CNBC and Fox Business, and even the sports at the time and concluded that all the lucrative genres had
news specialist, ESPN News. The grandfather of cable been tapped. He told his new CNN President, Reese
news, of course, is CNN. Launched in 1980, CNN was Schonfeld: “There are only four things that television does,
critical in helping bring viewers to cable television in the Reese. It does movies, and HBO has beaten me to that. It
1980s, and before the advent of Fox News, it was an does sports, and now ESPN’s got that. There’s the regular
influential and well-respected monopoly position in the kind of stuff, and the three networks have beaten me to that.
field. Ted Turner, who created CNN, has been honored All that’s left is news! And I’ve got to get there before any-
as a visionary, in part for his effort in developing a body else does, or I’m gonna be shut out.” In later years
24-hour television news service—which many at the Turner would also create the Cartoon Network and subse-
time said “couldn’t be done.” quently comment that while CNN received most of the
In fact, Turner’s vision had a great deal more to do with accolades, the Cartoon Network was always more
economics than public service. Turner, ironically, never profitable.
liked television news. He built his early success in Atlanta
broadcast television by counter-programming local news, Patrick R. Parsons, Ph.D.
offering viewers re-runs of old network sitcoms like Pennsylvania State University

slowly approaching universal reach, and they offer structured as per-subscriber, per-month charges to
tremendous format selectivity. It is ironic that cable the cable operator. The typical fees range from
and satellite networks have stolen away much of the about $.15 per subscriber for services such as
broadcast audience by offering a proliferation of Country Music TV to about $1.00 per subscriber
choices because the huge constellation of channels for more popular services such as CNN. For
now works against the kind of mass audience view- advertising-supported networks, a tension exists
ing that supports big-dollar advertising. In turn, between getting the national penetration necessary
online media services threaten cable’s revenues. to attract advertisers and keeping the carriage fees
Targeting specific audiences is great, but efficiency high enough to pay the bills. At $.40, A&E’s license
gets lost as smaller and smaller groups of viewers fee is about on par with that of Lifetime Television,
produce diminishing returns in selectivity. As more which is way below that of TNT. The high price of
nonbroadcast networks splinter and launch, find sports contracts has driven up the cost of all chan-
distribution and ultimately, acquire broader house- nels that bid high for telecast rights, driving TNT’s
hold penetration, subscription program services carriage fee above $1.00 per subscriber. Fox Sports
have begun to feast on themselves in the same way Network 1 carries a rate of $2.25 per subscriber, per
they consumed broadcast network share. month, while its second regional network charges
Carriage fees are the other main support of sub- around $1.00. ESPN charged between $4.50 and
scription networks. In most arrangements, the cable $5.00 per month by 2012.
operator pays a monthly license fee to the program Many new channels pay one-time-only launch
supplier, and these fees normally expand in each fees and offer free carriage to appeal to potential
contract renegotiation. In order for large systems cable operators. For example, E! Entertainment paid
with more potential viewers to pay more than operators $7 per subscriber and gave free carriage
small systems, cable network license fees are usually when it launched the Style Network. Originally, the
314 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

Fox News Channel paid $10 per subscriber to be characterize specific networks and are often produced
added to DirecTV’s lineup. By the late 1990s, paying by them to play only on those networks. In addition,
launch fees was such an established inducement sys- subscription networks increasingly choose to license
tem that DBS providers were charging new networks first-run series, keeping them out of station syndica-
an average of $6 per subscriber. tion and away from other subscription networks. (At
On the premium channels, feature films are the same time, a broadcast network may replay epi-
licensed to networks in one of two ways: per- sodes of its hit series on a sister cable network; total
subscriber charges or flat fees. Per subscriber exclusivity has gotten so pricey that sharing programs
means that the film’s producer or distributor negoti- makes economic sense.)
ates a fee per customer for a specific number of runs
within a fixed period, the number varying with the
presumed popularity of the film. Such a fee is based
Signature Programs
on the number of subscribers who had access to the Tough competition for viewers drives most subscrip-
film (though not necessarily the number who actu- tion networks to strive for signature programs,
ally saw it). In a flat-fee arrangement, the parties unique programs or a pattern of programs that dis-
negotiate a fixed payment regardless of the number tinguish a network from its competitors. Signature
of subscribers who have access to the film. programs create a well-defined image for the net-
Once the premium cable networks grew large work and breed a set of expectations for both audi-
enough that the amounts for movies were substan- ences and advertisers. These expectations, whether
tial, they usually abandoned the per-subscriber for- positive or negative, help viewers select which chan-
mulas and negotiated flat-fee arrangements with the nels to watch and lead advertisers and their agencies
program suppliers. The flat-fee method is also used to expect that advertisements on some channels will
for acquiring original programming. In PPV and or won’t be effective. A lack of program definition,
VOD, however, the cable operator pays a per- or an absence of signature programs, killed off sev-
subscriber fee to either the studio or service pro- eral early cable services.
vider, necessitating large enough fees to users to Four major types of signature programs appear
cover their costs. By 2012, the big concern in the on cable program services. The first consists of original
industry was how to configure and reimburse costs movies or series not shown elsewhere, also called
for multiple media use of the same movie by a single made-for-cable movies and programs. Although they
user. If subscribers pay over and above their MVPD are expensive to produce, they are highly promotable
service fees to get HBO (most of which goes back to and attract new viewers more than repeat program-
HBO to cover the cost of licensing the movies it ming does. A second type of signature programming
airs), should those subscribers have to pay again consists of narrow theme genres, such as all live night-
for the same movies if they choose to watch them club comedy or all shop-at-home or all cooking shows.
on tablets or online? Generally no, IF the MVPD BET’s Comic View is an example of the comedy night-
has the hardware and software to track individual club genre. A third type consists of programs for a
movies and IF the online or tablet viewers can iden- niche audience, or viewers with a narrowly defined
tify themselves as the MVPD’s subscribers. (Another set of interests or within a targeted demographic
ID number for all of us to carry around?) group. For example, Spike TV sought a young male
audience with Maximum Exposure. The fourth and
least common type of signature programming consists
Program Types of the cable exclusive, programs shown once or twice
Although the subscription networks license many off- on the broadcast networks but not shown before on
network shows and air movies already shown on the cable. A fifth type consists of long-running popular
broadcast networks, they also carry unique multi- programs whose hosts or personalities have become
channel programs. Signature programs and vignettes household names. See 9.5 about CNN’s Larry King.
 CHAPTER 9 Basic and Premium Subscription Programming 315

9.5 Larry King

U ntil his retirement in late 2010, Larry King Live was

CNN’s top-rated and most-visible program for more
than two decades. Airing in the peak viewing hour
Initially trained in radio broadcasting, King’s CNN
program premiered in 1985, with peak interest occurring
in 1993 when a debate on free trade between Ross Perot
(9:00 P.M. EST), King was known for his high-profile guests and Al Gore reached the largest cable TV audience in
(including the last six U.S. presidents) and his “soft” ques- history, a record that held for more than a decade (until
tioning style. Some argue that Larry King’s ability to book ESPN acquired the Monday Night Football contract in
big names was directly a result of his one-sentence ques- 2006 and routinely surpassed it). King’s show was also
tions and jovial nature. King contends his show was not different from most other television talk programs in that it
journalism but “infotainment,” pointing to his wide range of allowed for live call-ins from viewers at home, encourag-
guests (ranging from Marlon Brando to Pete Rose to J. K. ing a conversational and easygoing format. Larry King’s
Rowling), encompassing a considerable swath of Ameri- work was been richly rewarded; he is one of the few
can interests. Critics maintain that the rise of King’s pro- people to receive Peabody Awards for his work in both
gram represents a notable shift from hard news to soft news radio and television.
stories on television. Many of his programs in later years
featured animal guests or explored perceived non-issues Andrew C. Billings, Ph.D.
such as paranormal activity. Clemson University

Sometimes signature genres cut across various (or so it claims). Then Spike TV dropped the “TV”
networks. For example, such channels as the Travel in order to project an image suited to online and
Channel, ESPN2 and Bravo all caught poker’s wave tablets as well as traditional television (although list-
of popularity in the early 2000s with Celebrity ing companies retain the “TV”).
Poker Challenge and World Poker Tour. The Travel House-remodeling and room-makeover pro-
Channel and Bravo temporarily diverged from their grams gradually became signatures for HDTV and
central programming mission to boost short-term TLC, including House Hunters, Property Virgins,
ratings because of pressure from advertisers to My First Place and Curb Appeal: The Block. Then
attract larger audiences, and the result was far cake and cupcake baking shows led to the rise of
greater than anticipated. Food Network; programs about muscle cars and
Less temporary overhauls in signature program- fancy car values (e.g., What is My Car Worth?)
ming occur, too. American Movie Classics switched became signatures for Spike TV. Spike TV even
from pre-1980 classic movies to modern-day clas- managed to turn car interest into a game show
sics, to the consternation of some system operators with Repo Games.
who wanted the movie content to stay different from And some prime-time successes on the major
mainstream movie channels (but, doubtless, to the broadcasters have transferred effectively to cable
joy of Turner Classic Movies). Another major networks. ABC’s hit with personal makeover
change took place in 2004, when the Game Show shows such as Extreme Makeover led TLC to signa-
Network condensed its name to GSN and got rid ture programs of What Not to Wear and Say Yes to
of classic and neoclassic game shows in favor of the Dress. PBS’s success with Antiques Roadshow
interactive gaming and reality-based content. Proba- morphed into American Pickers on History, Life-
bly the most dramatic makeover for a cable channel time’s Pawn Stars, TLC’s Hoarding and Pawn
was in 2003 when the National Network (TNN, Queens and others, some of which will doubtless
formerly the Nashville Network) rebranded itself a fade away, but a few will weave themselves into
second time as Spike TV, the first network for men defining channel images.
316 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

Vignettes Originals
Another common cable genre consists of vignettes, Despite the continued use of off-network program-
also called interstitials, meaning the programming ming, the dominant trend for subscription networks
bits between the regular programs. Traditionally a (and superstations) is toward more commissioned,
staple of premium services, this type of short-form coproduced or solely produced original program-
filler programming appears between movies that ming (Monk and The Closer are two broadly popu-
end at odd times, and vignettes have also found lar examples). With the exception of signature
their way onto basic program services. The Hall- reruns like Law & Order: SVU on USA, Without a
mark Channel offered a “Tell Us Your Story” cam- Trace on TNT, Everybody Loves Raymond on TBS,
paign in association with Valentine’s Day one year, and CSI: Miami (plus The Sopranos) on A&E, off-
featuring the best viewer-submitted stories of network programming has largely migrated from
romance and love on its subscription network and prime time to other dayparts. It appears especially
online platform. Although the primary purpose of in daytime and access.
vignettes is to promote branding, they also serve as With few exceptions as mentioned above, origi-
backdoor pilots or ways to push viewers to online nal series are what successfully brand a network by
programs and websites. defining and distinguishing it from competing ser-
Many basic networks use interstitials even vices. In the last decade, such networks as A&E,
though the airtime could be sold to advertisers. Syfy, USA, Lifetime Television, FX, TLC, Bravo,
For example, Perspectives on Lifetime, a series of MTV and even ESPN have dramatically increased
editorials and interviews tied to issues such as their budgets for original programming, especially
breast cancer awareness or events such as Black creating programs for Friday and Saturday nights
History Month, contributes to the overall mosaic when the broadcast networks offer weaker shows
of the channel. Lifetime has even experimented than usual. USA, for example, has a big investment
with live hosting between programs to achieve a in the series Silent Partners and two comedies, On
seamless look with no commercials on the hour or We Go and We the Jury. A&E has followed its
half hour, thus keeping viewers away from their successful Intervention with Obsessed. TBS plans
remote controls. Turner Classic Movies shows vin- original shows every night of the week as lead-ins to
tage filler called One Reel Wonders between fea- late-night Conan. Syfy carries originals such as
tured movies. Being Human, Face Off and Alphas to support its
Movie studios also use interstitials to promote original ongoing successes of Warehouse 13, Eureka
theatrical films by showing the first several minutes and Haven. Netflix has its own signature series
of the film to tease the audience into going to the House of Cards. And even YouTube and PlayStation
box office. Universal Pictures paid USA to show are investing big dollars in original programs.
the first 10 minutes of the movie Dawn of the Collectively, the subscription networks spent
Dead. In a similar move on the internet, Warner about $15 billion for original programming in
Brothers showed the first nine minutes of Taking 2006, and that amount is expected to grow, but
Lives online at Yahoo! Movies to whet potential with total pay subscribership flat or declining, it
moviegoers’ appetites. may not grow quickly. As with previous Summer
The growing popularity of the clip culture (see Games, in the winter of 2012, NBC heavily cross-
Chapter 4) on websites like YouTube and Revver promoted live Olympic coverage on co-owned
may add to the importance of vignettes. As online Bravo, CNBC, MSNBC, Telemundo and USA.
videos further shorten the attention spans of many Although the segments of the Games appearing on
viewers, cable networks can be expected to expand the basic cable networks were noncompetitive with
the use of interstitials for content or promotional NBC because they occurred outside prime time, car-
purposes. rying such a high potency mega-event live improved
 CHAPTER 9 Basic and Premium Subscription Programming 317

the channels’ international visibility as well as their shows (Real World, I Used to Be Fat) and music-
domestic viewing (and advertising sales), and the based favorites (America’s Best Dance Crew). Writ-
original nature of the content contributed to their ing about signature programs on MTV is difficult
positive branding. because the trend has been for its shows to move
very quickly, often within a year, from being a phe-
Genres on Advertising-Supported nomenal success to being yesterday’s news (for
example, Jackass). A similar situation exists on
Channels Comedy Central, another favorite of fickle youth,
Some basic services such as USA, TBS, TNT and where only South Park and The Daily Show with
ABC Family consist of a broadly appealing mix of Jon Stewart have much staying power. MTV and
program forms (full service) similar to those of VH1 have a hot new competitor, Palladia (formerly
broadcast television, scheduled by daypart. Along MHD), carrying mostly live rock concerns and
with the superstations WGN America and replays, along with the weekly music performance
WWOR,1 they are among the most popular cable series Uncompressed.
networks. Nearly every genre of program seen on a On Lifetime, romantic made-for-cable movies
broadcast network has been tried by full-service predominate, mostly about relationships and the
cable networks, although not all have proved “woman-in-danger.” Its prime-time schedule has
equally successful. Despite the shift to more original reruns of Reba, along with a full slate of successful
programming, hit off-network syndicated hours original series, including Army Wives, Drop Dead
such as Law & Order and its spinoffs persist in pop- Diva and Project Runway. USA wins awards for
ular with the audiences of broad-appeal networks. Monk and The Closer and has some success with
Because these cable networks generate most of Fairly Legal, but also schedules regular reruns of
their income from the sale of commercial time, NBC shows like JAG and Law & Order: SVU, sup-
they must select programs that will appeal to the plementing them with half hour comedies (We the
same mass audience sought by the broadcast net- Jury, TGIM) and original series (The Enclave, The
works. Most subscription networks, however, espe- Exceptions). History, formerly The History Chan-
cially the newer services, are niche (or theme) and nel, is characterized by older documentaries about
subniche services. They must select programs that battles, airplanes and ships in past wars, as well as
have a particular type of content or that target a by colorful hosted documentaries that investigate the
specific psychographic group. warfare, art and other remnants of ancient Roman,
ESPN’s signature program, SportsCenter, is a Greek or other civilizations, although some of that
flexible sports-talk program that can appear live a material has moved to The Military History Chan-
dozen times a day or be cut back or rerun when nel, which competes with Discovery’s Military
live sporting events take up center stage (see 9.6). Channel. One recent two-hour original special sur-
After obtaining live NFL games, ESPN became a veyed the entire 600 years of the Dark Ages.
major network competing (alongside ABC) for Syfy has filled its early-evening schedule with
such megasports events as NBA, NHL and MLB reruns of hour-long series such as Stargate SG1,
games; soccer; boxing; and NCAA college football. Eureka, Sanctuary and Star Trek: The Next Gener-
The network has had limited success with such series ation, using an uncommon scheduling twist: Starting
as Playmakers, Tilt and SportsCentury. It has also in mid-afternoon, it airs five or six previous episodes
begun producing under the umbrella of ESPN in a row, culminating in one new episode in prime
Films, which is known for such documentaries as time (if any are available). The popular Stargate
30 for 30. series eventually spawned Stargate Atlantis and
Once the home of all-day/all-night music videos, then Stargate Universe. Battlestar Galactica and
MTV now combines signature programs (for exam- Andromeda were also highly successful with scifi
ple, Punk’d, Teen Mom, Sun of a Gun) with reality fans, but after a couple of years or so, these limited
318 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

9.6 The Sports Fan’s Program: SportsCenter

E SPN’s venerable SportsCenter has aired continuously

since the sports channel’s inception in 1979, and had
reached more than 36,000 unique episodes by 2012.
“boo yah” is host Stuart Scott’s catchphrase when describ-
ing the action. SportsCenter’s Chris Berman gave a twist to
the long tradition of nicknaming athletes, as with his Bruce
The program currently appears over 24 hours each day, “Eggs” Benedict and Jose “can you see” Cruz.
(thanks to replays on ESPN’s ancillary station, ESPNEWS), SportsCenter has become the broadest brand of sports
providing a mix of game highlights, recaps, top stories, news and is sometimes referred to as “The Big Show”—
commentary, analysis and predictions. At its start, many handling the most important sports, with niche sports inter-
television experts claimed that an entire program devoted ests being served by complementary ESPN news shows,
to sports was too narrowly defined and doomed to can- such as Baseball Tonight and College Football Gameday.
cellation, but the joke was on them. SportsCenter evolved Starting first on SportsCenter, these shows all now include a
into a national and international phenomenon, part of not scrolling “Bottom Line” ticker to supply ongoing and just-
just one but several television channels of all-sports news, past game scores for several sports. SportsCenter incorpo-
talk and events from ESPN, Fox Sports Regional and other rates other ESPN programming into the show by having
networks. commentary from Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon
When fresh game news is scarce, SportsCenter fills from Pardon the Interruption and integrates itself into ongo-
slow days with such attention-grabbers as Chris Berman’s ing games with a “SportsCenter 30 at 30 update,” in
“2-Minute Drill,” which looks forward to the weekend’s NFL which fans get 30 seconds of the top headlines within a
games with analysis and predictions. Other examples of college basketball telecast, for instance.
SportsCenter -specific formats have included the “Budweiser While SportsCenter had dozens of solo and paired
Hot Seat,” in which a guest is asked some particularly anchors in its earliest days, ranging from George Grande
probing/interesting questions; “Contender or Pretender” to smooth Bob Ley and chatty Chris Berman—today it has
where analysts determine whether a currently successful team roughly 30 anchors, supported by a large team of repor-
or player can continue to excel; and “Top 10 Plays,” which ters. Some notables, such as former Late, Late Show host
can range from the best plays of a particular day to the worst Craig Kilborn, moved into non-sports television, and others,
plays of the week to the 10 best catches by a centerfielder. such as Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts, moved to
SportsCenter not only analyzes games but has influ- broader news formats. No single sports program wields the
enced the way games are played in small ways. For international influence that SportsCenter does. With its
example, the number of slam dunks has increased in pro- clever animated graphics, it is now offered in multiple ver-
fessional basketball because they are more likely to make sions ranging from a Canadian-oriented show to Spanish-
ESPN’s highlight reel. The same can be claimed for spec- language offerings on ESPN Desportes.
tacular dives to catch baseballs. The program has also had
an impact on vocabularies ranging beyond sports. Most Andrew C. Billings, Ph.D.
fans know that “going yard” is a home run and that Clemson University

series completed their storylines, so many old disas- movies (especially old science fiction) and 1960s
ter movies are slotted in, and Wednesday nights TV series, which are then auctioned off on Hulu.
filled with Ghost Hunters or other paranormal Three Scripps’ owned channels, The Travel
shows. Later in prime time and weekends, Syfy airs Channel, the Food Network and Cooking Channel,
a plethora of horror films, full of monsters and seem to interweave some of their programming. The
death in scary varieties. In another twist, it has an Travel Channel now goes beyond travelogues, having
original series called Hollywood Treasures where hit it big with World Poker Tour, but also carries Man
hosts hunt for artifacts and memorabilia from old v. Food, Triple Rush (about bicycle messagers in NYC)
 CHAPTER 9 Basic and Premium Subscription Programming 319

and Ghost Adventures. Food Network has a winner in campaigns in the 1980s that competitors could not
Emeril Live and Tough Cookies, but also carries a afford because of their smaller audience bases. Rela-
show called Have Cake, Will Travel. Cooking Channel tively few systems carried just Showtime, Flix, Encore
gets some Emeril magic via The Originals with Emeril, or one of the other pay services.
along with Unique Sweets and Eat St. With HBO in the primary role for many years,
HGTV (Home & Garden Television) has found the competition among the others focused on secur-
several hits in its schedule of home redecorating and ing shelf space as the second or third (or even fourth)
fix-up shows, including Property Virgins, My First service provider on the local cable system’s menu of
Place, For Rent, Holmes on Homes, Selling New premium offerings. And then cable became all-
York and the parallel Selling LA. If you like these digital like the satellite services, with room for all,
shows, you tend to watch them all, day after day. especially in various kinds of VOD. Today, HBO’s
In some contrast, Spike TV features police videos main competition comes from co-owned Cinemax,
and movies about men doing dangerous (but heroic) The Movie Channel, Showtime, Flix, Starz and
things, such as in its hit Blue Mountain State. Encore, and all of these services, including HBO,
The Discovery Channel has drifted away from have taken advantage of compressed video delivery
stories about pivotal inventions (for example, Indus- and spun off handfuls of additional channels, rang-
trial Wonders) into motorcycle shows (American ing from just four to dozen or more, with a high of
Chopper and Gut Busters), along with Cops & 17 variations of Showtime.
Coyotes, and an New Yorkers-only game show called Selection strategies for premium networks differ
Cash Cab. Meanwhile, much corporate attention from those for basic networks. Because viewers pay
shifted to its two Spanish-language channels, Discov- extra per channel (or per sets of channels, such as 8
ery en Espanol and Discovery Familia, and the newer to 12 Encores), they have higher expectations of the
Investigation Discovery. The latter debuted a sort-of programming on premium channels, which leads to
documentary called I Married a Mobster (probably enormous investments in such original series as the
not to be confused with VH1’s fictional series Mob award-winning The Sopranos, followed by True
Wives). Discovery’s other sister service, TLC, has had Blood, Entourage, Treme and Game of Thrones. In
its own signature shows for several years, entitled addition to original series and movies, HBO carries
What Not to Wear and Say Yes to the Dress (in vari- large quantities of more or less successful enter-
ous sizes), and followed them with Pawn Queens and tainment specials. Those networks competing with
Sister Wives. Bravo has come a long way from its HBO—particularly Showtime—target their movies
days as a fine arts channel. It has captured the reality to more carefully defined audiences and directly
contest genre with its signature competitions in Proj- counterprogram HBO’s lineup, at least on the main
ect Runway, Top Chef and Top Design. channels. Differentiating themselves through acqui-
sition of exclusive rights to hit movies and develop-
ing appealing and promotable original shows
Genres on Premium Channels has become key to the premium services’ competitive
In the days of analog television, every cable system in strategies. Besides spinoff channels, differentiation
the United States offered at least one premium service. via promotion, and original content strategies,
And if a system had only one pay channel, the odds some premium networks have adopted time-
are very high that it was HBO (formerly, Home Box shifting as a strategy by using staggered start times
Office). HBO achieved its leading position through its (see the discussion of bridging in Chapter 2).
early entry into pay television in 1972 and early Nonetheless, both Netflix and VOD threaten
adoption of satellite delivery in 1975. (Showtime these pay movie channels. People’s lives vary so
began in 1976 and moved on the bird in 1978, but much that one month they might watch several
never quite caught up.) HBO then consolidated these movies and another none at all. So much is available
early leads through aggressive national marketing for free and much more on premium VOD that
320 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

subscribers wonder why they need also pay an extra 2. Using performers often seen on broadcast tele-
monthly fee for one or a group of premium channels vision but who rarely headline their own
that they might or might not watch. However, its programs
original series might save HBO, in one form or 3. Developing programs and artists unavailable on
another—perhaps as an online service. broadcast television
For performance specials, every effort is made by
Movies premium producers to preserve the integrity of a com-
The staple of premium cable networks, including plete performance—without the guest stars, dance
PPV and VOD, remains the Hollywood feature numbers and other window dressing sometimes used
film, aired soon after theatrical release. The rapidity by to widen the audience base. At their best, these
with which a film can be offered to subscribers is shows are vivid reproductions of live performances
central to establishing a premium service’s viability (and the practice has been copied by Palladia and
and value. While the pay-per-use services generally other music channels). Premium cable’s time flexibil-
present top movie titles a few months after their ini- ity also permits nightclub acts and concerts to run
tial domestic theater distribution, by contrast, the their natural lengths, whether they are one hour and
usual exhibition window for the monthly premium 11 minutes or one hour and 53 minutes. The private
channels is 6 months after theatrical release (with nature of pay viewing also allows for telecasting
the broadcast networks following at 18 months). “edgy” adult-oriented comedy (for example, Dennis
VOD distributors are very eager to get their win- Miller, Chris Rock) and dramatic material unsuitable
dows earlier than home video, but Hollywood wor- for airing on broadcast television (The Sopranos).
ries about piracy and lost revenue.
None of the national premium services as yet
carry commercials. With rare exceptions, films are Sports
shown unedited and uninterrupted, including those The third major component in pay programming is
rated PG-13 and R (containing strong language and sports. ESPN offers six ESPN-PPV channels on most
behavior normally censored on broadcast televi- cable and satellite systems, along with five other chan-
sion). The VOD services and at least Cinemax on nels, with competition from four Fox sports channels,
the pay side also run films in the NC-17 category and another ten or so specialized sports channels
(formerly X-rated). (Tennis Channel, Speed Channel, Versus, NFL Net-
work, The Golf Channel, Big Ten Network and such-
Entertainment Specials like). HBO and Showtime traditionally scheduled
major, big-ticket, national sporting events in prime
Selecting performers to star in original specials for
time. Indeed, HBO was long known to carry the top
the pay-per-month channels and choosing properties
boxing matches until economics drove them to PPV.
to adapt to the television medium requires an in-
Premium programmers are divided about the value of
depth examination of subscribers’ expectations.
sports to premium channels, because sports blur a
Because the major broadcast networks can offer
movie network’s image. In consequence, neither The
opportunities to see leading entertainers, either on
Movie Channel nor Cinemax ever carried sports.
specials or late-night talk shows, premium program-
Because of the broadcast networks’ financial strength
mers are forced to seek fresher, more unusual enter-
and audience reach (and a general consensus that cer-
tainers and material. They have several options,
tain events like the Super Bowl should stay on over-
especially the following:
the-air television), ABC/ESPN, Fox, CBS, and NBC
1. Using performers who are well known but still manage to acquire the rights to most major sport-
who appear infrequently on broadcast network ing events. Thus the pay-per-month premium net-
television works often have to settle for secondary rights or
 CHAPTER 9 Basic and Premium Subscription Programming 321

events of lesser national interest (and the old ones go gaming network), NBATV, TV One (targeting
to Versus and other sports channels). Nevertheless, an African-Americans) and a few others. But compared
audience can be found for some sports that broadcast with the 25 channels that launched between 2000
television does not adequately cover, such as middle- and 2005, only one network (Sleuth) launched in
and heavyweight boxing, regional college sports, track 2006, only one in 2007 (Chiller, dedicated to the
and field, swimming, diving, soccer and equestrian horror genre), two in 2009 (MLB Network and TV
competitions. One from Time Warner), for example. Maybe the
Big-ticket boxing and wrestling have been pro- declaration was only a little early.
gramming staples for pay-per-view packagers for More typical is the big name launch in 2011 of
many, many years. For some years, the relatively OWN, Oprah’s channel, and the two-channel merger
small universe of pay-per-view-equipped homes took and fine-tuning that produced Discovery’s Fit &
PPV out of contention for major events. But digitali- Health. Most new introductions now occur on the
zation brought PPV and VOD to all homes so they internet and presume a substantial wait until the
gobbled up major boxing matches (generating over interest and revenue build before any shift to cable.
$100 million for a single high-profile match), and To get on the MVPDs, the first element in strat-
DirecTV began carrying live NFL and NHL games. egy for a start-up network is to pay launch fees to
These sporting events continue to achieve record buy cable/sat/telco providers, typically $10 to $12 per
rates and revenues, and they fuel subscriptions to subscriber. A related approach allows such large
PPV, which caused ESPN to enter the PPV competi- MSOs as Comcast and Viacom to become partners
tion in a big way. The key to success in sports now in the venture. With the periodic megamergers of
lies in having strong branding, along with extensive media industries, fewer players are controlling larger
local and national marketing efforts. and larger pieces of the multichannel universe.
Another way to facilitate distribution of a new chan-
nel is not to charge cable systems for carriage for a
PPV Specialties few years. As was pointed out in Chapter 3, some
Interactivity is one way to enhance original PPV cable networks have launched by reversing the tradi-
offerings. For example, Playboy TV has had much tional model of carriage; in other words, by paying
success with its call-in show Night Calls, which gen- MSOs a monthly per-subscriber fee for carrying
erates significant revenue (and thousands of phone them. Because of excessive start-up costs in the
calls). Cable operators get 70 to 80 percent of the $8 range of $40 million to more than $100 million,
to $10 per-program-viewed cost of adult PPV pro- there have always been difficulties launching a new
gramming (compared with 50 percent of the $4 cost cable network.
of typical movies), so adult programming is their Nonetheless, certain incubation strategies have
most bankable asset. become traditional for gaining shelf space for new
cable networks. One is sheltering launches to help
new networks establish themselves before moving
Launching a Network full speed ahead. Americana Television, a 24-hour
As the digital tiers have filled, cable, satellite and country lifestyle channel, got its start as a part-time
telco providers are no longer eager to bring on new service on Nostalgia Television. Viewers could
services unless they can be bundled with existing ser- watch a BET on Jazz program on BET before Jazz
vices from the subscription content networks with Central launched. Turner Classic Movies showed up
big muscle, such as Disney, Viacom or Comcast. on TNT, and Cable Health Club was initially part of
By 2003, observers had declared the end of the era the Family Channel—the pattern Discovery Channel
of new network launches. Still, some new channels followed with its health channel, that later merged
have emerged since that year: Versus (a Fox-owned with FitTV. NewsTalk Television launched with
sports action channel), G4 (a Comcast-owned video 4 million part-time homes as well as 3 million
322 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

full-time homes. Of course, big names such as MLB probably know only too well, MVPDs now offer a
don’t require any shelter. dozen or more packages with fees determined by
To gain sampling, newer networks have also whether the channels are merely digital or HD or
turned to satellite for distribution, because DISH 3D and how many and which channels are included.
and DirecTV offer many more channels than many Moreover, some packages mix basic and premium
cable systems. One final strategy, and a solution to digital services and then repeat the same channels
the low distribution problem for new networks, is at a higher price levels in various HD groupings.
piggybacking or sharing a channel with another ser- Nonetheless, most MVPDs reserve some chan-
vice. American Movie Classics gave Romance Net- nels for pay-per-use (PPV, VOD). Many experts
work a slot on Sunday afternoons and incubated expect all channels (excepting the lowest level carry-
American Pop on Saturday nights. ing local television stations) to become on-demand
Regardless of shelf space, and regardless of offerings eventually.2 As more and more consumers
whether a cable or online launch, a high mortality get their television from apps on tablets or pay for
rate will continue among new services. No matter special internet content, it is expected that they will
what a network’s programming entails, limited distri- become accustomed to paying for each “use” (view-
bution into America’s subscription and broadband ing) of a content channel. However, the total-
households make it difficult to cover operating VOD-day isn’t here yet, and most subscribers accept
costs. Thus, three basic ingredients are needed in the pattern of many channels for a single package
order for a network to survive: a good programming fee, even if they don’t watch all or many of them.
idea, smart people behind the idea and money. In Basic and premium cable networks need to
addition, new program services need to be flexible follow the same general practices outlined in
with regard to tiering, pricing and packaging. Chapter 1: conserve resources, form habits, control
Overcrowding in the subscription cable environ- audience flow, schedule shows to be compatible
ment will inevitably have two outcomes. First, cable with viewer lifestyles and maximize breadth of
operators will remove (or displace to less desirable appeal. Until the day when viewers truly can choose
locations) older foundation services that have become anything, anytime—when VOD and DVRs make
stale in favor of new services; and second (and more scheduling irrelevant—the linear scheduling aspect
common), start-up services will sell out to other of the programmer’s job will be crucial to the suc-
(larger) networks, thus merging their top content or cess of a program service.
serving as a splinter version of the key network. In
addition, because of the high cost of maintaining a
single network’s infrastructure and purchasing or Basic Channel Scheduling
producing programming, a service that is co- The advertiser-supported networks have adopted
marketed (and usually co-branded) simultaneously several program scheduling ideas that have appeared
with several other networks reduces sales, marketing for a short time on broadcast services but better suit
and engineering/production costs. Further, it helps to the special needs of subscription program suppliers.
be able to lose money through sister companies. These include program marathons, blocking, zoning
and other alternatives to ratings that build the net-
works’ appeal to advertisers.
Scheduling Strategies
Subscription networks come in two broad types:
Marathons
advertiser-supported basic cable networks (CNN, Subscription networks often use marathons—all-day,
ESPN) and premium networks, those that require all-night, continuous program scheduling of the same
an extra fee above the regular monthly MVPD sub- series—to counterprogram major broadcast events
scription. But as Chapter 3 explained, and you like the Super Bowl. Marathons are also scheduled
 CHAPTER 9 Basic and Premium Subscription Programming 323

during holidays, protracted bad weather periods, or convenient for all kinds of viewers. A&E, Syfy and
any time viewers are likely to turn into “couch History, among others, follow these general pat-
potatoes.” There have been plenty of examples: Lead- terns. And amusingly, Syfy varies the season of Star-
ing up to and on Mothers’ Day, TBS gave viewers a gate SG-1 in such blocks, mixing up first-season to
Leave It to Beaver marathon with Barbara Billings- sixth-season episodes (so the characters’ hair is first
ley, the actress who played Beaver’s mother, as the long and then inexplicably short and then long
host; Nick at Night provided a Coach marathon again, and costumes change without rationale).
starting after the end of the Super Bowl in hopes of
snaring football fans who liked the old ABC
sitcom about a college athletic director. During the
Homogeneity, Zoning and Roadblocking
2007 Super Bowl, TNT ran 13 hours of The Closer, Cable has developed criteria other than ratings for
which performed well during the actual game. selecting and scheduling national and local services
Marathons can generate exposure for a newly and for attracting advertisers. Cable executives gen-
acquired show as well as remind viewers that a pop- erally emphasize the demographic or psychographic
ular show appears on the network. homogeneity of viewers of a particular service. MTV
Because the networks promote marathons viewers, for example, are alike in age and interests;
heavily, they usually perform well—even better Lifetime viewers are mostly women; Spike goes after
than the average programming—which can lead to men. Viewers of cooking shows, house fixing-up
increased advertising sales. In one case, a marathon shows, historical or science programs and so on
briefly generated a signature program for VH1 when probably share several interests (that advertising
I Love the 70s devoted an hour to each year of the can appeal to). A second and related strategy is zon-
decade; this resulted in the nostalgia sequels I Love ing, dividing an interconnect into tiny geographic
the 80s and I Love the 90s. VH1 previously enjoyed areas to deliver localized advertising, which permits
marathon success with its Behind the Music series on local businesses to purchase low-cost ads that reach
defunct or controversial music groups. only their neighborhoods.
Another strategy is roadblocking, scheduling the
same ad (or promotional message) on many cable net-
Blocking works at the same time so the advertiser’s message blan-
Some networks have adopted blocking strategies to kets most cable channels (and sometimes broadcast
lure mainstream audiences away from network networks, too). This practice occurs at the national
affiliates. TNT’s daytime programming is called level (so all viewers might see the same spot at the
“Primetime in Daytime” and features reruns of such same time) and at the regional level (using inserts on a
off-network programs as Charmed, ER, Judging single cable interconnect). Roadblocking, in theory,
Amy and Law & Order. At one time, these shows keeps grazers from using their remote controls to
were syndicated only to broadcast stations. Now avoid commercials because many viewers quickly give
such scripted dramas go to subscription networks, up surfing when the same commercial message appears
while broadcast stations concentrate on first-run on channel after channel. But the strategy works for
syndication and off-network sitcoms. program promotion, too. For example, on one June
In another variation, several basic cable net- day at 9 P.M., all nine of NBCUniversal’s broadcast
works schedule multiple episodes of a single series and cable networks ran the same the two-and-a-
in one block starting in early evening and going on half-minute teaser for the movie King Kong. Similarly,
for several hours. Spike TV has blocked as many as in 2010, all Nickelodeon channels simultaneously
three or four episodes of CSI on some evenings, and ran a promo for The Last Airbender.
USA has put several episodes of Law & Order: Spe- Cable networks are analogous to radio stations
cial Victims Unit in sequence on an evening. Other in a single large market—both numerous and frag-
channels repeat a single episode all day to be mented. No one can deny their collective media
324 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

reach, but few can figure a way for each individual that deliver the greatest possible audience for each
program service to compete with any of the individ- attraction during the course of a month—not neces-
ual broadcast networks. Only the biggest MVPDs sarily in one showing.
can buy up very large numbers of cable networks Unlike the monthly pay-cable networks, pay-
and market them as a group to advertisers but indi- per-view services rotate rapidly through a short list
vidually to viewers. Most cable programmers must of top-name Hollywood hit films. The same movie
focus their strategies on hard-to-reach audiences, may air as few as four or as many as ten times in a
just as radio programmers do. day. This occurs because PPV, like VOD, markets
“convenience viewing.” PPV networks either rotate
two to four major movie titles a day, some across
Premium Channel Scheduling multiple channels, or run the same movie continu-
The need to schedule movies is likely to be the first ously all day. As the number of channels available to
aspect of traditional programming to succumb to the pay-per-view increases, the trend is to assign one
advent of the widespread availability of PPV or movie per channel, thus emulating the “multiplex”
VOD. Nevertheless, some viewers would rather theater environment.
choose a channel and see what’s there than pick
from a menu, so some pay channels will stay with
a schedule for the foreseeable future.
Title Availability
Balancing the number of major films and lesser-
known but promotable titles every month, then add-
Rotation ing a handful of encore presentations, is one of the
Preplanned multiple reuse of content used to be a key challenges a premium movie programmer faces.
major difference between traditional premium and A crucial factor in preparing the lineup is title avail-
broadcast television; now both broadcasters and ability. Most films with good track records at the
large cable networks lay out a multiplatform design box office are obtained from major film distributors,
before a new show goes on the air. As pointed out in but an increasing number can be purchased from
Chapter 2, only when a show becomes a hit or independent distributors and producers.
develops a cult following are such plans actually Usually it does not make economic sense for stu-
implemented. dios to hold a film in theatrical release for more than
Most pay services offer a range of 20 to 100 a year, but occasionally video sales disrupt the pat-
movies per month, some first-run and new to the tern and delay a film’s availability as already
schedule (premieres), some repeated from the preced- explained. Hot Disney movies for children usually
ing month (carryovers), and some returning from do well in DVD sales, as do some cult films that
even earlier (encores). In the course of a month, bomb in theaters but appeal to DVD buyers. The
movies are typically scheduled from three to eight home video sell-through is a film priced to be bought
times on different days and at various hours during rather than rented by consumers. (For rentals, the stu-
the daily schedule. Different movie services offer vary- dios receive revenues only from the initial purchase of
ing numbers of monthly attractions, but all services each tape by the retailer.) Successful sell-throughs of
schedule most of their programs more than once. extremely popular films, even at much lower whole-
(Programs containing nudity or profanity, however, sale prices, are a distributor’s dream—and the studios
rotate only within prime time and late night on most maximize revenues by delaying premium television
networks.) The viewer, therefore, has several oppor- release until the first stage of video sales has passed.
tunities to watch each film, special or series episode. Time constraints on the use of films also affect
These repeat showings maximize the potential audi- steady product flow, including how long and when a
ence for each program. The programmer’s scheduling film is available to pay services. Commercial broad-
goal is to find the various complementary time slots cast television buyers, for example, traditionally had
 CHAPTER 9 Basic and Premium Subscription Programming 325

the financial clout to place time limitations on dis- five blockbusters, four westerns or three Kevin Cost-
tributors’ sales of films to premium services. The ner films in the same month. Such clustering can be
broadcasters would seek early telecast of key films advantageous, however, when older films can be
to bolster their ratings during Nielsen ratings packaged and promoted as special “festivals.”
sweeps, shortening the period of time during which Broadcast television’s scheduling practices, orga-
the films were available to premium networks. The nized around the delivery of commercial messages,
number of such key films of interest to the broadcast differ broadly, resulting (mostly) in the once weekly
networks has been dropping, however, as their rat- series in prime time and stripped programs and
ings deteriorate because of increased home video nightly newscasts outside of prime. It used to be the
and premium penetration. pattern that in broadcasting, an episode was shown
Some desirable films are unsuitable for broadcast only twice in one year, and the largest possible audi-
sale altogether, increasing their pay-television staying ence was sought. As already explained in Chapter 2,
power. Films such as the Emmanuelle series, although episodes are now repeated on the networks more
not recent, crop up again and again because they than twice (even tripled or stripped) and on associ-
never enter broadcast windows. Therefore, distribu- ated cable channels, plus may be available online.
tors allow premium networks to schedule them as Some premium networks have adopted the short-
many times as they like for as long as they like. length formats of broadcast television, such as
Occasionally, the major pay-per-month services episodes of Weeds on Showtime and Six Feet Under
disagree about whether to schedule a movie after it on HBO. The shorter lengths (not to mention the
has already had a commercial broadcast network sometimes provocative content) help these first-run
run. HBO and Showtime have found a following shows get sold internationally and to move later
for these movies when they are shown unedited into domestic syndication. Most pay programs, how-
and without commercials. Some survey research ever, run to their natural lengths, ending when and
even demonstrates viewer support for reshowing where the material dictates rather than running in
films that have been badly cut for commercial televi- fixed segments to accommodate commercials. Even
sion presentation or that have exceptionally strong with series programs, frequent repetition and rotation
appeal for repeat viewing. Almost all premium ser- throughout the various dayparts set premium pro-
vices also show selected off-network movies, often gram scheduling apart from broadcast scheduling.
drawing sizable audiences. Also, broadcasters set their schedules for an entire
season—pay-per-month and pay-per-view set them
one month at a time.
Exhibition Windows
As explained earlier, distributors create a distribu-
tion window for a film’s release when offering it to Monthly Audience Appeal
the premium services. The programmers negotiate Another major contrast between broadcast and pre-
for a certain number of first-run and second-run mium programming services lies in their revenue-
plays during a specific time period, generally generating strategies. As already noted, to maximize
12 months. For example, a given film may be ad revenues, commercial networks and broadcast
made available to a pay-cable service from April to stations program to attract the largest possible
March. It might premiere in April, encore in August, audiences every minute of the programming day.
and then play again the following March to com- Premium cable networks, in contrast, try to attract
plete the run. Programmers must project ahead to the largest possible cumulative audiences over the
see that the scheduled play periods for similar films period of a month.
from different distributors do not expire at exactly The lifeblood (read daily operating revenues) of a
the same time. Generally, premium services don’t pay service is its direct subscriptions. Pay-per-use ser-
want to waste their scarce resources by running vices must satisfy their customers movie by movie,
326 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

event by event, or night by night. Pay-per-month ser- mix of one particular movie service and so will
vices must satisfy their subscribers month to month, cancel after a trial month or two.
throughout the year, forestalling disconnections. A
premium service’s success is not determined by the Movie Balancing Strategies
audience ratings of its individual programs but by Selecting programs that will appeal to different target
the general appeal and “satisfaction levels” of its audiences through the course of a month becomes the
overall schedule. Insofar as quantitative measures challenge for most pay-per-month programmers. For
such as ratings reflect that appeal (especially for example, if a particular month’s feature films have
one-shots like boxing matches or a live Sheryl Crow strong appeal to teenagers and men 18 to 49, the
concert), they are useful in gauging response. In cable obvious choice for an entertainment special is a
and satellite service, however, where subscribers must show that appeals to women. Premium programmers
be persuaded to pony up month after month, qualita- break down their audiences as follows:
tive measures take on greater importance.
One important qualitative measure is subscriber 1. Urban-rural classifications
turnover. Because both schedules and subscriber 2. Age groups of 18 to 24, 25 to 49, and 50þ
billings are arranged by the month, viewers tend to 3. Gender
evaluate programming in month-long blocks. Sub-
scribers will most likely continue the premium ser- By scheduling programs each month that will
vice for another month if: appeal to all these groups, the premium programmer
theoretically creates a “balanced” schedule.
■ They use their pay service two or three times a Films subdivide into several groups with overlap-
week. ping appeals and are usually scheduled by considering
■ They see benefits in its varied viewing times or on- either their timeliness or their appeals. The major
demand availability. audience attractions for monthly schedules are the
■ The service runs commercial-free, uninterrupted premieres—that is, the films that were recent box-
program content. office hits and are being offered for the first time on
that premium service. These films may be rated G, PG
■ The service runs unique entertainment programs
or R by the movie industry. The second sets of films
and theatrical feature films.
placed in a pay-per-month channel’s schedule are the
The pulse of PPV and VOD success is measured major G- and PG-rated films. This establishes a strong
by buy rates. Careful matching of buy rates and pattern of family and children’s appeal in the sched-
titles offers both the pay-per-view or on-demand dis- ule. The third group of films has varied adult audience
tributor and the system operator a tool for fine- appeals. Films without notable box-office success usu-
tuning scheduling and promotion plans. Providing ally fall into this category. They are repeated slightly
viewers have plenty of PPV or VOD choices, they less frequently than premieres and G-rated hits.
can always find something to watch. In contrast, Other films that were not major theatrical hits
month-to-month services have different problems. may still rate as important acquisitions for premium
While discontinuing a month-to-month pay service services. Viewers may value seeing a film on televi-
seldom reflects dissatisfaction with one or two indi- sion that they might not be willing to pay $8 to $10
vidual shows, viewers disconnect when they feel that to see in a movie theater. Foreign films fall into this
the service as a whole is lacking. Customers repelled group. Also, if a premium network feels that a par-
by violence, for example, may disconnect a movie ticular film has appeal to a segment of its audience,
service if a large number of a particular month’s it doesn’t matter whether it was originally made for
films contain a great deal of violence. A family home video or made for broadcast television; films
may determine that its desire for wholesome, in both categories increasingly show up on premium
G-rated fare is not being filled by the programming schedules. Another growth category is film classics.
 CHAPTER 9 Basic and Premium Subscription Programming 327

Film Placement on subsequent airdates. This presumes several silly

things: that parents have the time to pre-watch
On the pay-per-month channels, the general rules of
movies, that web-adept children cannot defeat chan-
thumb for film scheduling include beginning week-
nel safeguards, and that they do not watch anything
night programming at 7 or 8 P.M. and starting final
they want at other people’s homes or online.
showings (of major offerings) as late as 11:30 P.M. to
12:30 A.M. Those networks concentrating on the over-
night daypart employ still later final showing sche- Evaluating Apples and Bananas
dules. For most of the premium movie services, an
evening consists of three to five programs, depending Audience evaluation remains iffy in the cable indus-
on individual running lengths. Entertaining short sub- try. Inadequate viewing data hampers many national
jects, elaborate animated titles and promotional spots advertiser-supported networks in selling time—espe-
for other attractions fill the time between shows. All- cially the newer niche services. Although the total
movie networks especially favor movie-oriented number of a system’s subscribers is always known
shorts, such as interviews with directors or location more or less accurately, and the most popular services
tours. Using 16 or more new films each month (not are rated by Nielsen, determining how many subscri-
counting carryovers of the previous month’s late pre- bers view the less popular nonpay channels has tradi-
mieres) usually means scheduling four premieres each tionally been a problem on most systems.
week, gradually integrating first-, second-, third- and
up to sixth-run presentations week by week. This pat- Comparison Problems
tern gives viewers a constantly changing lineup of
material from which to choose—and new movies Cable penetration stands at about 60 percent of U.S.
appear every week on the pay-per-month channels. homes. In addition, another 27 percent or so of
Counterprogramming broadcast network sche- homes are connected to the subscription networks
dules is another strategic consideration. For exam- via direct satellite service, and 5 percent get the
ple, on Tuesday nights when CBS scheduled a same channels from telcos, wireless cable or some
string of male-appeal dramas (NCIS, The Unit and other small business. (Collectively, 92 percent of
Without a Trace) and NBC carried Dateline NBC homes get service from MVPDs.) Individually, how-
and two Law & Order shows, premium networks ever, audience ratings for most cable/satellite net-
tended to schedule female appeal films. Taking works (excluding the top-10 services) have only
another tack, preceding or following a popular occasionally exceeded 1 or 2 million television house-
broadcast network show with a program of the holds at a time. In fact, the top five or so cable net-
same genre on pay cable creates a unified program- works garner 3 to 4 million households each in prime
ming block for viewers (requiring channel switching, time (about the same as a 3 or 4 rating among all 116
an easy move with remote controls). Beginning pro- million television households). Although the com-
grams on the hour as often as possible—especially bined audience for ad-supported subscription net-
during prime time from 8 to 11 P.M.—makes it con- works regularly exceeds that of all commercial
venient for viewers to switch to and from pay cable. broadcast networks, the broadcast business is still
Films and specials containing mature themes are very healthy. Because many advertisers continue to
usually scheduled at later hours than G-rated films, buy spots one channel at a time, the combined cable
even though pay television is not bound by broad- network ratings are not much comfort to them.
casting’s traditions. PG features are offered through-
out premium schedules. Magazines and program Nonbroadcast Audience Measurement
guides encourage parents to prescreen all films As is explained in Chapter 5, ratings for subscription
rated PG, PG-13 or R early in the week to decide networks really represent three audience measure-
which are appropriate for their children to watch ments. One measure is the audience watching a
328 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

particular program at a given time, measured by aver- Programmers and consultants are divided over how to
age quarter hour (AQH) ratings and shares as in best increase audience size: Some believe that heavy
national broadcast ratings. A second measure is the series production is necessary (USA); others argue for
cumulative audience that watches a given program in original movie production, heavy promotion and more
all of its showings because some program services effective scheduling (TNT).
repeat shows. When all viewers of repeat showings of The cable industry reports its own ranking of
a program (such as a movie) are summed, the audience top shows, which are based on multichannel
for that one program may exceed a competing broad- homes, not all television homes. The rankings in
cast station’s audience in one market. The third and 9.9 come from these so-called cable ratings, but the
perhaps most important measure to subscription ratings shown in the table are based on household
networks is the cumulative audience for a channel. ratings. In 2004 Nielsen changed the way it mea-
Although people meters have benefited the established sures multiplexed premium channels, no longer
cable networks by increasing their reported share of aggregating the different channels showing the
prime-time viewership, they reveal little about the same program (for example, Entourage) on cable
viewing of less popular advertiser-supported services. and satellite systems. Instead, Nielsen began report-
Subscription networks must commission their own ing ratings for each “plex” separately.
research to understand viewing by such demographic The goal for basic and premium programmers is
subgroups as children, teens and ethnic minorities. to count the number of people who make a return
visit to their channels on a regular basis. Perhaps
because of the influence of measuring the enduring
Measuring Cable/Satellite Viewing appeal of web pages, the cable industry has borrowed
The overriding problem in evaluating cable program an internet term to describe the viability of a channel:
audiences is that local audience shares cannot be stickiness. A website that holds its viewers is said to be
compared directly with local over-the-air audience sticky, like a real spider web, and now programmers
shares. As 9.7 shows, cable franchise areas differ in discuss the stickiness of their channels. It’s a new
size and shape from markets defined according to word for an old concept: giving the target audience
broadcast station coverage patterns (DMAs). This what it wants so it will come back for more.
type of map prevents advertisers from comparing
cable’s effectiveness with that of broadcasting and
other media in one market.
Measuring VOD Use
To be measured on a national level, Nielsen Surveys and audience sampling are unnecessary for
currently requires a subscription network to be avail- gauging on-demand programming. Two-way capabil-
able in about 3.3 percent of U.S. TV households (about ities in most cable systems allow accurate tracking of
3.7 million homes) to qualify for its national cable TV buy rates, and the satellite and telephone services have
ratings report, the Nielsen Cable Activity Report their own usage records. However, this is proprietary
(NCAR). Further, to show up in the report, the net- information, compiled by each separate MVPD sys-
work has to generate at least a 0.1 rating in its coverage tem. No combined measures exist, and estimates of
area (the number of households a channel reaches). all VOD and PPV use are not wholly reliable.
Although in total the programs on all subscription
networks have averaged more than a 25 Nielsen
prime-time rating in the last several years, most viewers The Many Channels
apparently watch the established broadcast services.
The weekly cumes still favor the broadcast channels This section looks at content of the various kinds of
despite gains in subscription network viewing (see subscription services widely available in the second
9.8). Further growth in the number of channels will decade of the twenty first century. It divides them
make increases in individual network ratings difficult. into 15 general types of advertising-supported
 CHAPTER 9 Basic and Premium Subscription Programming 329

9.7 Map of Broadcast Market Showing Cable Franchises

CABLE MEDIA, INC.

A Division of SMS, INC.
CHICAGO’S CABLE SOURCE
Cable television avaliabilities
across Chicagoland cable
systems, and the country.
For local cable advertising
in any and all U.S. cable
television households.
Refer to Chicago’s
Cable source.
CABLE MEDIA, INC.

Courtesy of Cable Media, Inc. Used with permission.

330 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

Channel, MTV, Fox News, Nickelodeon, Spike TV,

9.8 Nielsen Television Activity Report TNT, Disney Channel, A&E, CNN/HLN, Lifetime
Television, C-SPAN and VH1. Of these, only the
Broadcast Affiliates Average Weekly Cume %
Food Network is a relative newcomer. These 20 net-
NBC 75.7 works capture the largest audiences, spend the most
CBS 74.9 money and have the most visibility in the United
ABC 74.6 States and abroad. (Cutting off the so-called founda-
FOX 70.1 tion networks at 20 instead of 25 or 30 is entirely
WB 44.7 arbitrary and based solely on one year’s subscriber
UPN 37.2 rolls. Some networks in the next dozen are equally
well known and may swap places in any given year.)
Cable Networks Average Weekly Cume %

TBS 39.0 Children’s

USA 38.3 For a while, only one or two channels targeted to chil-
TNT 38.2 dren found their way onto the cable/satellite lineups.
FX 29.6 Nowadays, several choices are available—some more
A&E 28.3 family-oriented than purely for kids. Nickelodeon has
DISC 27.6 added Nick Jr., Nicktoons and Teen Nick (Noggin
SPIKE TV 27.5 seems to have been swallowed). After Nickelodeon
ESPN 27.2 and Disney Channel, the best known are Cartoon Net-
NICK 26.8 work, Discovery Kids, TeenNick.com, Boomerang,
LIFE 26.5 FUNimation, PBS Kids Sprout, plus HD versions of
COMEDY 26.5 Disney XD (see 9.10). There’s also Anime Network,
AMC 26.4 BabyFirstTV, Cbeebies, Familyland, Hallmark Chan-
nel, the Hub, qubo, pets.tv, Sorpresa and TV Land.
Nielsen Media Research Television Activity Report, NHI, first quarter,
2006. www.tvb.org/rcentral/MediaTrendsTrack/tvbasics/10_
Reach_BdcstvsCable.asp.
Documentary/Educational
In addition to TLC and Discovery in its various
services and two kinds of premium services by forms, Animal Planet fits here, along with Crime &
adapting grouping patterns used by FiOS, U-verse Investigation Network, History, Military Channel,
and Comcast, and supplemented by Wikipedia! Of Military History Channel, National Geographic
course, the list is incomplete (we don’t want you to Channel and National Geographic Wild, Science
fall asleep!), but you will find most you know here. Channel, PBS World, and Bio (formerly Biography).
Some university towns have local cable channels
Major Subscription Networks they support, often of this educational sort (for
example, UCTV by the University of California
Foundation and BYU TV by Brigham Young University).
As already described in 9.2, these channels are found
on nearly every multichannel service in the United
States, so most people are probably quite familiar Entertainment
with their content. There are the long-established This broad group varies from very adult program-
channels that appear on virtually every MVPD’s ming down to comedy and over to science fiction.
lineup: TBS, ESPN, Food Network, USA, ESPN2, A&E, generally considered a foundation service, fits
HGTV, The Weather Channel, TLC, Discovery here, as does Adult Swim, BBC America, BET, Bravo,
 CHAPTER 9 Basic and Premium Subscription Programming 331

9.9 Top Cable Shows, February 2007 Top 10 Cable TV Programs (Total Day)

Total U.S.
Rank Program Network Household Rating Total Viewers

1 WWE Raw USA 3.4 5,975,000

2 WWE Raw USA 3.3 5,706,000
2 Prime Movie (Montana Sky) LIF 3.3 4,767,000
4 SpongeBob NICK 3.1 4,809,000
4 Monk FX 3.1 4,856,000
6 Fairly Odd Parents NICK 2.9 4,431,000
7 SpongeBob NICK 2.7 3,916,000
8 SpongeBob NICK 2.6 3,838,000
8 Fairly Odd Parents NICK 2.6 3,871,000
10 Fairly Odd Parents NICK 2.5 3,404,000
10 Fairly Odd Parents NICK 2.5 3,459,000
10 Drake & Josh NICK 2.5 3,432,000
10 Hannah Montana DSNY 2.5 3,695,000
Nielsen, www.nielsenmedia.com (retrieved for February 2007). Consult http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com for any week to get current
numbers.

9.10 Are Kids (Still) Watching TV?

W ith MySpace, Neopets, Gaia, YouTube and blog-

ging, it’s not surprising if one wonders whether kids
have time to watch plain old television, whatever service it
2006 “Let’s Just Play” campaign centered on a five-month
miniseries that documented real kids’ efforts to make their
lives healthier, and the “Let’s Just Play” website encourages
comes from. A recent study by the Kaiser Family Founda- kids to join the challenge and implement an action plan for
tion found that “new” media such as computers and video living a healthier lifestyle. In honor of the Worldwide Day
games have not displaced the use of “old” media such as of Play, Nickelodeon goes dark for three hours to encour-
television and music. In fact, for better or worse, the age kids to “get up, go out, and go play.” “Rescuing
amount of time spent viewing TV per day was three times Recess” is part of Cartoon Network’s “Get Animated” ini-
greater than the time spent with any other medium. So, yes, tiative to get kids active, healthy and involved. The network
kids are still watching TV, and they are watching cable, introduced the first annual National Recess Week in 2006,
Nickelodeon and Disney in particular. Despite the broad- concluding with a new “Operation R.E.C.E.S.S” episode
cast network’s efforts, these two networks garner the lion’s of the network’s series, Codename: Kids! Next Door. The
share of kids and tweens. With kids ages 2–11, Nick’s “Get Animated” website features information on how to eat
Sponge Bob SquarePants gets top ratings, and its iCarly like a superhero and games that kids can play both inside
and Drake and Josh are popular with teens. Disney also and outside. Whatever the broadcast networks are doing
captures tweens 9–14 with such live-action series as Jessie has so far not made much of a dent in the distribution of
and Wizards of Waverly Place. But television for kids is ratings.
not all escapades and cartoons.
Concerns about children’s health and wellness have not Nancy C. Schwartz, Ph.D.
gone unnoticed by cable programmers. Nickelodeon’s The Academic Edge, Inc.
332 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

Chiller, Comedy Central, E! Entertainment Televi- Logo carries mostly series and films that previously
sion, FEARnet, FX, FSN, here!, Lifetime, Logo, Oxy- aired on other broadcast and cable networks or
gen, ReelzChannel, Sleuth, SOAPnet (if it’s still alive), appeared only in movie theaters (see 9.11).
Spike, Syfy, TBS, Telemundo, TeleFutura, truTV (for-
merly Court TV), TNT, Univision, WE tv, Wedding
Central, and others. In fact, it’s hard not to think of
Foreign
virtually all television as entertainment, especially if Until the availability of digital channels, the only
you have a dry sense of humor. way to receive foreign-language channels was to
An almost singular channel, MTV’s Logo debu- live in a very large city or stay at a Disney hotel.
ted in 2005. Devoted to gay and lesbian programming, Nowadays, dozens of options have found their way

9.11 Narrowcasting to the Gay Community

T he 8-year run of NBC’s hit Will & Grace (1998 to

2006) brought a successful gay title character to the
prime-time landscape for the first time. The Emmy -winning
Launched in 2005, the Logo channel became the third
channel targeting GLBT (or LGBT) audiences. Owned by
media giant Viacom in its MTV Networks division, Logo
show in turn spawned other programs on cable featuring found a secure place with most cable providers across the
gay or lesbian characters. Showtime followed up with an country. Carriage came easily because the channel was
adaptation of the British hit Queer as Folk, which ran for swapped for Viacom’s fading VH1 Mega Hits, a digital
five years in the early 2000s. Overlapped by another channel already slotted on hundreds of cable systems.
long-running series The L Word (2004 to 2009), these Logo’s programming is a mix of original and syndicated
shows brought the premium network some of its highest programming, including documentaries, music videos,
Nielsen ratings. Bravo found similar rating success with the reality television and travel programming. Its successes
makeover show Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. include the reality series Coming Out Stories, the African-
The popularity of these programs was convincing evi- American themed Noah’s Arc, and the animated series
dence that a niche audience existed for gay-, lesbian-, Rick & Steve: The Happiest Gay Couple in All the World.
bisexual- and transgender-themed (GLBT-themed) program- Logo has captured its greatest Nielsen ratings success with
ming, and soon whole cable networks with programming RuPaul’s Drag Race, a competition reality program
targeted to gay and lesbian viewers appeared. The first launched in 2009 in which contestants vie to become the
network, here!, began in 2002 as a video-on-demand next “drag superstar.” As a result of RuPaul’s Drag Race’s
service or a premium subscription channel on most cable huge popularity, Logo has spun off two related programs
and satellite systems. Its biggest hit is Dante’s Cove, a which have, in turn, become ratings winners: RuPaul’s Drag
dramatic series that mixes the soap opera and horror gen- Race: Untucked and RuPaul’s Drag U. Logo partners with
res. Movies and documentaries are the other popular sta- CBS News to bring coverage of gay-themed news topics
ples of here!’s on-demand programming. to the cable network. Logo has also become an internet
Q Television Network (QTN) was the second cable net- presence by providing three LGBT-themed websites and by
work to target a GLBT audience. Begun in 2004, the short- having its programming downloadable from iTunes. Logo
lived QTN aired primarily in such urban markets as New programming is also available via video-on-demand, and it
York, San Francisco and Seattle, carrying a range of variety, provides a wireless platform for Sprint and Verizon.
talk and music programs. The most popular of its original Reaching beyond television, Logo has also been in part
shows, The Queer Edge with Jack E. Jett, was a variety show responsible for the theatrical release of two motion pictures,
that mixed music and comedy. QTN was unable to gain including the film version of its hit series Noah’s Arc.
carriage outside the largest urban markets, and after being
plagued by rumors of financial problems and impropriety by James Angelini, Ph.D.
its executives, it went dark in May, 2006. University of Delaware
 CHAPTER 9 Basic and Premium Subscription Programming 333

onto the lineups of both satellite services and some options of the early 1990s. Now six different varia-
cable MSOs in very large metropolitan areas (FiOS tions of the trailblazing MTV service coexist and
concentrates more on very local news channels). two VH1s have survived. Defeated by the popular
Many world networks have high production values CMT (Country Music Television), TNN morphed
and serve two functions: They bring homeland com- out of music into Spike TV. Some of the other
fort to ex-patriots while also providing native-born widely-distributed music channels are Centric (for-
Americans with chances to learn about other cul- merly BET Jazz), BET Hip Hop, BET Gospel, Z
tures. The best-known channels include ART (Arab Music Television, A3 Network (a dance and night-
Radio & Television), Asian American Satellite TV, life channel), Fuse, Great American Country, Har-
BBC America, TV Asia and TV Japan. Then there mony Channel and Palladia. Then there’s DMX,
are a slew of Spanish-language channels appealing the digital audio service that comes with DirecTV,
to Spanish-speaking immigrants and to people who Sirius that comes with Dish, and Muzak and Music
want to keep up or improve their language skills, as Choice. Music, music, everywhere, even on TV!
already described.

News
Lifestyle What were once just CNN and CNN Headline
Lifestyle channels are the niche and subniche channels News have now expanded to several options. Fox
that instantly remind viewers they are not watching News battles head to head with MSNBC, each tak-
regular broadcast television. The content is very spe- ing the opposing political slant. CNBC, The
cialized, but so are the advertising and viewers. A few Weather Channel and three channels of C-SPAN
examples are DIY (Do It Yourself) Network, the Out- are available nearly everywhere. Sports news comes
door Channel, the Cooking Channel, as well as The from ESPNews, of course. In addition, two channels
Africa Channel, Planet Green, Recipe TV, Style Net- vie for the business-news market: Bloomberg Televi-
work, Travel Channel, Wealth TV, Casa Club TV, sion and Fox Business Network. U.S. distribution of
Discovery Fit & Health, Fashion TV, HGTV, Halo- foreign-owned news channels has also expanded
gen, Ovation, and Oprah’s darling OWN. over the years, ranging from BBC World News to
the controversial Al Jazeera (see 9.12). In addition,
there are hundreds of local public, educational and
Movies governmental (PEG) channels, especially in and near
Then there are a seeming excess of movie channels. major cities and college towns. In the Washington,
A double handful of advertising–supported movie DC, area, for example, FiOS carries at least 27
channels appear on some basic cable and satellite hyperlocal PEG channels.
services. These include AMC (used to be American
Movie Classics), Hallmark Movie Channel, Lifetime
Movie Network, Fox Movie Channel, Turner Clas- Religion
sic Movies, Reelz Channel, HD Net, HD Theater Depending on where you live, you may think the
and, maybe on some systems, the Sundance Chan- number and variety of religion channels has
nel, VeneMovies, Cine Latino, Flix, Epix, plus IFC increased greatly in the past decade; digital shelf
(Independent Film Channel). Most of the really big space made this possible on cable, and still more
name movie channels require paying a premium. variants exist only online. Current cable examples
are Church Channel, EWTN (Eternal Word Net-
work), Shalom TV, TJC (the Jewish Channel), Gos-
Music pel Music Television, JCTV, the Word Network,
Channels that offer different music formats have TBN (Trinity Broadcasting Network), I-Life, INSP
grown beyond the limited MTV/VH1/CMTV (Inspiration), Smile of a Child and Three Angels
334 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

9.12 The Phenomenon of Al Jazeera

S ince its start up in 1996, Al Jazeera has had difficulty in

shaking the public perception that it sympathizes with
Al Qaeda and provides favorable treatment to extremist
from such established world news providers as the BBC and
CNN, Al Jazeera English sought to give a credible voice to
underrepresented parts of the world. Its stated goal is to
and terrorist groups. Started by the Emir of Qatar, Sheik cover controversial stories not always fully reported by the
Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, Al Jazeera was envisioned as Western news media. Al Jazeera English provided unprece-
a means of encouraging democracy in the Arab world dented English-language coverage within both Gaza and
through the introduction of controversial views on an Israel during their 2008–2009 conflict as well as during the
independently-run 24-hour television news service. Despite turmoil in Egypt in 2011. It is estimated that, as of 2012, Al
its pledge to bring objective news reporting and a freer Jazeera English can be accessed in every major English-
news media, in many countries the public perceived Al language market, is available as a television channel in over
Jazeera as a propaganda vehicle for Al Qaeda and simi- 100 countries worldwide, and appears in more than 130
lar extremist groups. This view stigmatized the network, million homes. It is live-streamed online and available on
ultimately forcing temporary shutdowns of its field offices in Android phones and tablets.
many Arab countries. Indeed, two of its offices were Because its public profile in the United States has
bombed by American troops. been persistently negative, penetration into this country
Over time, however, Al Jazeera expanded beyond has been poor. Only one satellite service (DISH) and only
Arabic news reporting to include Al Jazeera Sports 1 and three local cable providers in the United States carry Al
2, Al Jazeera Children’s Channel, Al Jazeera Documentary Jazeera English (no major cable operators have it). The
Channel, Al Jazeera Mobasher (a channel similar to network is available as a television channel in Toledo,
C-SPAN) and a pan-Arab newspaper. It even spawned Ohio; Burlington, Vermont; and Washington DC.
several Arabic-language television competitors: Al Arabiya However, public perceptions of Al Jazeera (and Al
out of Saudi Arabia, Al Kawthar from Iran, and German Jazeera English) seem to be evolving. Testimony provided
and French Arabic-language news and entertainment sat- by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the Senate
ellite channels, along with BBC programming in Arabic. Foreign Relations Committee in 2001 took a broader view.
CNN now sponsors an Arabic-language website in the Clinton stated that “viewership of Al Jazeera is going up in
Near East, with others in Russian and Spanish, but other the United States because it is real news…you feel like you
American efforts to compete in Arabic via Al Hurra have are getting real news around the clock instead of a million
been unsuccessful. commercials and, you know, arguments between talking
In order to change its image, in 2006 Al Jazeera added heads and the kind of stuff that we do on our news that is
Al Jazeera English, an English-language news channel made not providing information to us.” Because journalists as a
available around the world. This channel provides interna- group make considerable use of the internet to gain back-
tional news coverage 24-hours a day, drawing on news ground and perspectives, a more positive view of Al
offices in Qatar; Washington, DC; London; and Kuala Jazeera English is emerging.
Lampur. Twelve hours of its daily programming originates in
the Qatar offices while four hours come from Al Jazeera’s James Angelini, Ph.D.
other news offices. By hiring experienced journalists away University of Delaware

Broadcasting Network. Sometimes MVPDs group a Sex

few religious channels with TV Land, ABC Family Soft-core pornography still abounds on multichan-
and the Hallmark Channel, creating a “Family” sec- nel services. Social norms that used to discourage
tion of service. This is probably an unhappy linking the proliferation of such services are eroding, espe-
for Hallmark and ABC as well as for the more for- cially with reformers’ attention focused on hard-core
mally religious networks. internet pornography. Another key to the popularity
 CHAPTER 9 Basic and Premium Subscription Programming 335

of soft-core porn is a very relaxed view of “porn” by NHL Network, NBA TV, Big Ten Network, Fox
twenty-somethings, who no longer see social stigma College Sports, CBS Sports Network and MSG Net-
associated with viewing pornography. Not counting work, plus all the regional sports channels operated
all that is available online, the widely available cable by Fox. The most recent trend is to differentiate each
choices include Adult Swim, Hot Choice, Playboy channel by the sport itself, rather than solely by lea-
TV, Pleasure, Spice and TeN (The Erotic Network). gue or channel owner, although branding from NFL
In some locations these are restricted to PPV. or Fox always helps. Because men are a difficult-
to-reach advertising target, the revenue potential is
very high. On the other hand, sports rights fees con-
Shopping tinue to skyrocket (see Chapter 7). Besides the ESPN,
Home shopping channels continue to attract view- Fox and major league channels named above, the
ers, but the number of services has leveled off since Tennis Channel, FUEL TV, the Golf Channel, the
1990, largely because competition from the internet Speed Channel, the Sportsman’s Channel and Yes
has drawn away many customers. The long- HD attract sizable audiences of fans.
surviving options include HSN (Home Shopping
Network), Home Shopping Spree (Spree!), QVC
and Shop at Home. In addition, channels linked to Superstations
department store chains appear on some MVPD’s Local stations with sports and movies can get
outlets, such as JCPenney shopping channels on national attention when distributed by satellite to
Time Warner Cable. distant cities. As mentioned in Chapter 3, the FCC
has called a halt to the proliferation of superstations
but grandfathered the biggest ones: KWGN, WGN,
Spanish-Language WPIX, WSBK and WWOR. These originate in very
Unlike the “foreign” category, this programming large cities and bring urban news and big-time
reflects the mainstream of Hispanic and Latino sports. WTBS in Atlanta is now considered a local
viewers in the United States. Advertisers are keenly station, and its sister network, TBS (once a supersta-
interested in this growing population segment. tion), became a foundation network.
Latino or Hispanic programming is found on Gala-
visión and three hybrid broadcast/cable networks,
Univision, Telemundo and TeleFutura. Univision Premium Networks
regularly often outdraws the English-language The number of pay-per-month channels leveled off
broadcast networks in many markets. There are also when the two kinds of pay-per-use were fully rolled
Spanish-language versions of some foundation ser- out, and then froze or even shrank when Netflix and
vices, such as Discover en Espanol and History en other online movie services gained users. Each pre-
Espanol, plus such Spanish-only channels as Azteca mium channel has worked hard at establishing a sig-
America, HITN (Hispanic Information and Tele- nature program and pushing its brand images, while
communications Network), Mexicanal, Mega TV, fighting to maintain market share.
WAPA America and Cine Latino. In addition,
many channels come with the option of an English
or Spanish audio feed. HBO/Max
Owned by Time Warner, HBO encompasses seven
pay-per-month channels already mentioned as its sub-
Sports niche services (HBO, HBO2, HBO Signature, HBO
ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPN Classic are still the Family, HBO Comedy, HBO Zone and HBO Latino)
top purveyors of cable sports, but they get plenty of plus HBO On Demand. Time Warner also owns
competition these days from Versus, NFL Network, HBO’s sister service Max (formerly Cinemax) and its
336 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

subparts, MoreMax, ActionMax, OuterMax, 5Star- Encore’s programming strategy is to lock in studio
Max, ThrillerMax, WMax, plus @Max and Max releases of theatrical movies for several years,
On Demand. (The sole focus of Cinemax is movies.) although the associated costs of this strategy had
HBO has moved far from the movies-only channel put the company in financial jeopardy in the early
that began in the 1970s. It differentiates itself from 2000s, causing subsequent rebranding efforts to
other “movie” channels by scheduling original pro- gather more subscriptions. Like most other premium
gramming in drama, comedy and sports that is much movie channels, Encore added the Encore name to
acclaimed by critics and viewers. HBO has won many all of its six channels, ending up with the basic
dozens of Emmys, Golden Globes and Oscars for such Encore plus Encore Action, Encore Drama, Encore
programs as The Sopranos, True Blood and Sex and Love, Encore Mystery, Encore Westerns—all with
the City, stealing the limelight from the Big Four East and West feeds—and an on-demand channel.
broadcast networks. Most recently, its drama Game Encore is distributed even more widely in the United
of Thrones seems headed to a new raft of awards. States than HBO because some subscribers can get it
HBO appears on virtually every cableco/satco/telco as part of a digital tier as well as a premium stand-
system in the United States, as does Showtime, and alone or packaged with Starz. However, only the
HBO is distributed internationally to more than 170 main Encore channel is HD; the others are digital
countries, including HBO Canada, HBO en Español, only. On the other hand, most of the movies they
HBO Ole, HBO Brazil, HBO Asia, HBO Central show are in older formats anyway.
Europe and dozens more place-related names. Starz’s makeover was more dramatic, opting for
cohesive graphics packages across all channels,
dropping the annoying exclamation point, and even-
Showtime/The Movie Channel/Flix tually shifting all channels to HD. Starz Theater
CBS Corporation owns Showtime and its movies- became Starz Edge that focused on young men by
only channels Flix, The Movie Channel and the Sun- showing four films at fixed times all week. Two
dance Channel. Showtime’s strategy is to make major channels were merged into Starz Kids and Family
studio deals, having learned a tough lesson in the to make room for a new channel called Starz Com-
1990s when other premium channels kept it from get- edy. And to fit in with the new look, Black Starz was
ting new, big-draw theatrical movies. The channel’s renamed Starz InBlack, leaving Starz Cinema as the
other strategy is to compete with HBO for the top- only Starz channel to keep its original name. Unlike
boxing draws. Showtime won several Golden Globe other premium movie channels, Starz carries some
Awards for its original series Weeds. Showtime’s sub- banner advertising across some of its programs, a
niche channels are Showtime 2, Showtime Showcase, practice that stirs criticism and contradicts its all-
Showtime Beyond, Showtime Extreme, Showtime movie promotion.
Next, Showtime Women, Showtime FamilyZone, MoviePlex replays one of Encore’s seven chan-
along with The Movie Channel and TMC Xtra. In nels each day in the week (all Encore Western one
addition, three on-demand/PPV channels (Showtime day, All Encore Love the next and so on), but
on Demand, The Movie Channel on Demand, and accompanies them with interstitials and a lot of pro-
Showtime PPV) appear on many cable and satellite motion. The Plex idea gave rise to two simulcast
systems. In 2007 Showtime introduced Showtime channels—IndiePlex that carries only independent
Interactive 2.0 on the DISH Network. films and RetroPlex that carries only older movies.
MoviePlex’s distribution is limited largely to DISH
and Comcast systems. In contrast, both Encore and
Encore, Starz and MoviePlex Starz appear on all the major MVPDs, including
Liberty Starz owns Starz Encore, which comprises DirecTV, DISH and FiOS, but unlike HBO and
17 channels of cable- and satellite-delivered pre- Showtime, Starz and Encore are distributed almost
mium movie channels. The cornerstone of Starz exclusively in the United States.
 CHAPTER 9 Basic and Premium Subscription Programming 337

Pay-Per-View/Video-On-Demand the viewers’ attention away from the ongoing drama.

Nonetheless, like network identification bugs (logos
At one stage, PPV and VOD channels were consid-
in the corner on live programming), automated
ered separate and discrete companies, but all have
advance titling is probably here to stay.
been folded in as arms of the main channels. Unlike
Over the years, the premium channels have
VOD, PPV services show the same movie or event to
developed especially sophisticated, big-budget cam-
all subscribers at the same time and charge an extra
paigns for marketing their programs year-round
premium for these events. Besides movies as on Starz
using slogans, giveaways and special package rates.
On Demand, PPV carries primarily major boxing,
The actual promotion vehicles include mass media
wrestling and other fighting events (specifically
advertising, reminders in monthly bills (statement
UFC, Ultimate Fighting Championship). HBO has
stuffers) and coupons in mailers. When trying to
had the most success with PPV, generating huge rev-
expand subscriptions in a local area, they may tem-
enues for top matches. Every MVPD now includes
porarily unscramble their signals to give cable view-
some VOD channels where subscribers choose
ers a taste of what they are missing. Premium
among the available episodes of recent and older
channels seek greater buy rates by broadly (and
television shows and movies. The selection is limited
loudly) promoting specific events or signature pro-
by the rights holders so as not to undercut their
grams (such as Game of Thrones on HBO) through
main broadcast and cable channels and DVD sales.
all available promotional vehicles. They also send a
deluge of special mailers to those who have discon-
tinued their pay channels. When successful, antici-
Hyping Subscription Networks pating and meeting customer expectations creates
brand loyalty that is difficult to dislodge. Just how
Like the broadcast networks, basic and premium net- this principle will apply in some future all-demand
works require sophisticated marketing. Although age is an interesting question.
some newer networks naturally focus on acquiring Regardless of the method, subscription network
new viewers, the usual strategy is to retain existing programmers must get closely involved with the pro-
viewers while developing new services. Above all, pro- motional and marketing efforts on the air, in print
moting brand identity is the key marketing goal, as in advertising and on related websites. These days, the
such phrases as “Lifetime—Television for Women” job of acquiring and scheduling content is tied to
and “Spike TV! The First Network for Men.” making sure that an audience will be there when
All subscription services use on-air tune-in and the program is shown. Launching a new program
cross-channel promotion. Tune-in promotion en- sometimes calls for innovative methods. One event
courages viewers to stay with the channel for upcom- that backfired on Turner was its promotion of an
ing programs. Cross-channel promotion allows “Adult Swim” program called Aqua Teen Hunger
regular viewers of one cable channel (or website) to Force. A few fake devices that looked a lot like
learn about the shows on another program service. bombs were placed under bridges in Boston, causing
Most of these efforts are accomplished using auto- a mild panic. Naturally, the promotion chief lost his
mated equipment with insert capability that can job over that stunt.
introduce one channel’s promos into another chan-
nel’s program lineup in predetermined time slots. In
addition, automated flow-titling has been adopted by Audio Services on Cable
many channels. This form of on-air promotion places
an overlay on one side at the bottom of the screen In addition to video programming, cable and satel-
naming the next program coming up. To the annoy- lite systems provide subscribers with radio and
ance of viewers, such overlays sometimes obscure a audio services. Like video services, radio and audio
crucial part of the story content and certainly draw come in both basic and pay forms and are mostly
338 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

nationally distributed. Above all others, in the U.S. on-demand models for subscription television net-
satellite radio means Sirius XM, a pay service which works that will be profitable remains the active
can be received by mobile receivers in cars or hand goal.
carried and by personal computers. It also has com- As digitalization permits greatly increased chan-
petitors such as Music Choice (12 channels), DMX nel capacity—and impulse technology becomes stan-
(100 channels), WFMT Radio Network and Yester- dard for cable converters—a wide range of
day Today. possibilities opens up for cable operators and pro-
Big cable companies such as Comcast provide grammers alike. Increasing numbers of cable sub-
several channels of national digital audio, mostly scribers can now order a movie, concert or
as part of a package of cable services. Some of sporting event in an instant, and, increasingly, they
these channels carry advertising, and some do not. avail themselves of the opportunities. The quantity
There are also pay services that charge subscribers a of options increases daily, many of which are free,
monthly fee for a series of specialized music chan- not pay, at this time. Projections of 90 million VOD
nels, which are collected by the local cable or satel- homes in just a few years may entice Hollywood’s
lite operator and shared between the two entities. If studios to release movies to pay-per-view services
people want to hear the king of shock jocks on sat- closer to their theatrical release date, truly creating
ellite radio, for example, they’ll have to pay (see a “home box office” bonanza for movie makers and
Chapter 12). event organizers. The key obstacle is that Holly-
Cable operators are understandably skeptical wood and the big program producers receive much
about the size of pay audio’s potential as a revenue of their revenue from domestic and international
stream for wired distribution. The buy rate for all syndication and are reluctant to gamble with any-
digital audio services runs about 15 percent of thing that threatens that honey pot.
basic cable television subscribers, and marketing One caveat lies in the rapid spread of online pro-
plans generally target cable subscribers who have grams that allow viewers with high-speed online con-
high-end CD units. On the positive side, newer nections to watch pirated movies. Hollywood studios
surround-sound and other receiver advances have that invest $150 million for a feature film have more
much improved reception, making more consumers to lose from pilfered content than a music company
more sensitive to audio quality. This new awareness whose product costs a fraction to make. A digital
and appreciation of audio spurred the digital audio copy is a perfect replica of the original, and faster
business, but cable audio now has plenty of compe- connections and larger hard drives encourage pirates
tition from internet downloading, iPods and even to defeat the copy-protection schemes designed by the
cell phone aps (see Chapters 11 and 12). content providers. The curse of pirating generates big
headaches for producers.
In the midst of rapidly changing technologies,
Twisting Paths for the Future programmers hunt new methods of cutting program
costs while recycling and reusing what they have in
The last five years have brought dramatic changes in exciting ways. Basic service strives to identify pro-
subscription cable networks—largely resulting from gramming with appeal to narrow slices of subscribers
television’s digitalization and broadband growth. in order to carve out unique services, while premium
Advertiser-supported cable networks have prolifer- channels adopt a low-price, high-volume strategy of
ated into families of niche, subniche and microniche splintered services. Meanwhile, hundreds of millions
program channels serving subgroups of Americans. of potential subscribers in such countries as India and
At the same time, the subscription services feel pres- China have become a powerful lure for U.S. cable
sure toward online distribution and VOD while try- program suppliers, who can clearly see the pie at
ing to maintain their paying cable and satellite home being split into smaller portions by increasing
customer bases. Finding profitable internet and numbers of hungry new services. Increasing access to
 CHAPTER 9 Basic and Premium Subscription Programming 339

potential viewers in the once-inaccessible countries, media conglomerates that reach across media tech-
however, is fueling experimentation with new types nologies and once-rigid legal boundaries, as well as
of niche services and providing hope to wannabes across international borders in distribution, is unde-
who envision a world market of sufficient size to sup- niably accelerating, and Comcast is leading the way.
port their programming.
Nearly all newer and proposed program ser-
vices fit into the niche, subniche and microniche cat-
egories. Very few seek broad appeal. These newer
Notes
services function like radio station formats, targeting 1. Because of conflicts over program distribution rights,
a specific audience segment with demographically- the FCC grandfathered five satellite-distributed broadcast
tied programming, talent and promotion. More stations but banned others from wide satellite distribution.
niche program services mean greater competition, The five remaining superstations are WGN (now called
however, and in almost every category or genre, WGN America), WWOR-TV, WSBK-TV, WPIX-TV, and
KTLA-TV. KYUR-TV in Alaska calls itself a superstation
the dominant service now has many challengers … but is actually an affiliate of ABC and CW.
including the monster Netflix who directly chal-
2. Camcast and Disney have bet on the monthly sub-
lenges HBO and indirectly challenges all of cable. scription model for the next decade. In 2012, they reached
Because of efficiencies in cross-promotion and a 10-year agreement for Camcast to distribute all Disney
the reuse of original programming in multiple television content (about 70 ABC, Disney and ESPN ser-
media, the clearest direction for the future is vices). This extraordinary deal includes VOD and stream-
ing for tablets, phones and other (perheps not yet
that—joint ventures, mergers and buyouts will
invented) devices, and it bolsters TV Everywhere as the
increasingly integrate cable program suppliers with business model of the future. Amy Chozick and Brooks
both the companies that distribute their wares and Barnes, “If Disney Owns It, Comcast Will Soon Be
with broadcast services. The trend toward building Streaming It.” New York Times, Jan. 5, 2012, p, B2.
 10
CHAPTER

Public Television
Programming
Glenda R. Balas

Chapter Outline
A Special Kind of Television Noncommercial Syndication
Noncommercial Adult
Program Philosophy Education
Commercial Syndication
The Network Model Local Production
Station Scheduling Autonomy
The Carriage Agreements Scheduling Strategies
Counterprogramming the
Multicasting Commercial Networks
Multiple Platforms Stripping and Stacking Limited
Series
PBS Responsibilities Audience Flow
Considerations at the Station
Types of Station Licensees Level
Community Licensees
University Licensees National Promotion
Public School Licensees
State Television Agencies
Audience Ratings
Similarities and Differences Nielsen Data
Audience Accumulation
Program Production Strategy
Program Financing Loyalty Assessment
The Major Producers Demographic Composition
Balance in Selection
Developments Ahead
Syndicated and Local
Notes
Programming

340
 CHAPTER 10 Public Television Programming 341

D o you sometimes say “I never watch public

TV”? Are you sure you didn’t devour Ses-
ame Street as a kid? Did your teacher make you
watch NOVA when you were in school? Don’t you
both these cases, the U.S. Congress (thankfully) over-
turned the executive mandates and authorized fund-
ing. Within 14 years, however, conservatives in
Congress would take the lead to defund public broad-
sometimes find yourself watching Curious George casting once again, an effort repeated yet again in
with a sibling or Antiques Roadshow with some 2011. Ultimately, in both 1995 and 2011, late night
older adults? Did you watch part of Ken Burns’ Base- negotiations prevailed and saved the day for public
ball? A lot of people think they never see public tele- television. Even though public broadcasting main-
vision, but they occasionally do. In fact, about half of tained level funding in 1972, 1981, 1995 and 2011,
Americans watch something on public television at these battles were fierce and the outcomes uncertain.
least once a week. (And of course, “level” means “less” as costs rise.)
These struggles speak to the tenuous and fragile qual-
ities of public broadcasting’s financial position.
A Special Kind of Television Other facets of public broadcasting also point to
a less-than–rosy future for the national service. PBS
Public television, its mission and its public service objec- went from an average 2.0 rating overall in the 1999–
tives occupy a unique position in American broadcast- 2000 season to 1.5 nationally in the 2004–05 season
ing. Generations of children have grown up with and 1.2 in 2009. Underwriting support for national
Sesame Street and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood in programming has seriously slumped since 2001,
this country and abroad, and adults have sampled Mas- resulting in the loss of more than a third of all
terpiece, NOVA and PBS NewsHour for decades. Pub- corporate support by 2004 and the withdrawal of
lic TV, once known as educational television, has several major donors for primetime programs, includ-
become a staple among the informational and cultural ing ExxonMobil, long-time supporter of Masterpiece
offerings in the United States, taken for granted in (that was a biggie). By 2009, underwriting for the
many households and schoolrooms. PBS core schedule had dropped by 50 percent.
Public television didn’t develop overnight or In addition, other forms of giving have decreased,
without a struggle. Critics have argued that public resulting in shrinking state, university and foundation
broadcasting presents a left-leaning ideological support, as well as smaller member contributions.
stance, caters to an elite audience, or has become These broad-based cuts to national underwriting rev-
unnecessary in an age of large-capacity cable and enues were due, in part, to decisions by some sponsors
satellite systems, DVD distribution and internet tele- to migrate to networks and basic cable, where they
vision. Many have questioned public funding for could buy call-to-action advertising. Some major-
public TV, maintaining that the marketplace—not market stations, including WTTW-Chicago, also
taxpayers—should provide the specialized program- blamed PBS, which has not, they charge, been active
ming available on the noncommercial service. enough in securing “what we most need—powerful,
Even U.S. presidents and members of Congress successful, innovative programming.”1
have entered the fray, seeking to eliminate federal Finally, if funding is shrinking, so too is public
funding for public television stations, PBS (Public television, as stations either “go dark” or choose, like
Broadcasting Service) and NPR (National Public KCET-Los Angeles, to leave the system entirely (see
Radio). In 1972, President Richard Nixon—angered 10.7). Analysts suggest the problems confronting pub-
by programming he viewed as left of center—vetoed lic television are not new or unique to PTV and range
the system’s three-year federal appropriation and sent from financial woes in a down economy to the persis-
word that he wanted PBS out of the “public affairs tent programming challenge of having enough content
business.” Nine years later, in 1981, President Ronald of quality and variety to attract a broad audience.
Reagan also tried to cut the system’s funding entirely, Even with these sometimes crippling prob-
this time in an effort to balance the federal budget. In lems, public television stations persist, broadcasting
342 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

multiple streams of content 24 hours a day, seven country uses public broadcasting each month, gener-
days a week, in all regions of the country, expanding ating a monthly broadcast audience of more than
into HD and online, and continuing to serve schools 121.9 million people. Researchers report that Amer-
in essential ways. On the more than 350 public tele- icans rate public television as one of the most trusted
vision stations that cover 99 percent of the country, of all American institutions.
public television provides local programs and a The following sections trace out the history, phi-
nightly core schedule in HD of quality arts, educa- losophy and practices of this uniquely American
tion and public affairs series, supplemented by infor- broadcast service, focusing on programming strate-
mational websites. Even though many Americans gies and current challenges confronting public broad-
view public television as alternative service, watch- casting. Some of these issues also resonate with public
ing it only part of the time, more than half of the service broadcasting in Europe (see 10.1).

10.1 Public Broadcasting in Europe

E uropean public broadcasting has long been seen as

the ideal by a number of U.S. public broadcasters.
Public service broadcasting (as public broadcasting is
Under this law, adopted after the 2010 national elections,
Hungarian public broadcasting has been forced to alter its
editorial policy based on the composition of the Hungarian
known in Europe) has historically enjoyed adequate fund- parliament. Finally, changes in mid-2011 to the governing
ing, editorial autonomy and broad acceptance and sup- statutes for BHRT (Radio-Television of Bosnia and Herzego-
port of its educational and cultural purpose throughout vina) have granted broad powers to a governmental
Western Europe, though times got tougher during the Steering Committee to interfere in the public broadcaster’s
recent global financial crisis. As one might guess, the editorial and managerial issues.
establishment of successful public broadcasters in Eastern Public broadcasters in Western Europe view these politi-
and Southern Europe has been more difficult. While all cal threats to public broadcasting in Eastern and Southern
broadcasting services faced severe budget cuts over the Europe partly as a result of the region’s lack of internalization
past few years, stations are also threatened by national of democratic process. Concerned that public broadcasting
and regional governmental agencies that seek to use the in these countries could disappear in the next few years, the
public airwaves as mouthpieces for their own political European Broadcasting Union stepped in to provide more
agendas and policies. than 500 hours of high quality content each year to public
Newly established public broadcasting services in Bos- service broadcasters in Eastern and Southern Europe.
nia, Kosovo, Croatia, Herzegovina and Hungary seem Further, as reported by Eric Pfanner,* public broadcas-
particularly at risk from political interference. For example, ters in France, Germany, England and Italy have agreed to
in 2009, the Prime Minister of Kosovo suspended the provide consulting and technical assistance with their
public license fee for RTK (Radio Televizija Kosova), virtually neighbors’ transition to digital broadcasting. Importantly,
eliminating the funding base for the Kosovo public broad- the Vienna-based South East Europe Media Organization
caster. The suspension of this monthly fee (which had been (SEEMO) has issued public statements demanding broad
added to all electrical bills in Kosovo) caused the European respect for the social purposes of public broadcasting and
Broadcasting Union, which represents all public broadcas- its role as the bedrock of democracy and public information
ters in Europe, to issue a public letter charging that this throughout Europe. Attitude change is likely to come slowly
decision endangers the broadcaster’s independence. Fur- and in fits and starts.
ther, the new Media Law established in Hungary in January
2011 has seriously undermined the independence of that *Eric Pfanner, “Public Radio and TV Get Peers’ Help in Europe,”
country’s public broadcaster, Magyar Televizio (MTV). New York Times, 5 December 2009.
 CHAPTER 10 Public Television Programming 343

Program Philosophy The Carnegie Commission on Educational Tele-

vision introduced the term public television in 1967.
Officially established in 1967 as a national broadcast- The commission convinced many in government and
ing service, public television’s 125 original stations broadcasting that the struggling new service had to
were all committed to education and community. As generate wider support than it had in its fledgling
descendants of educational radio—which had its own years. One of the impediments to such support, the
origins in the broadcast reform movement of the late commission felt, was the word educational, which
1920s and early 1930s2—these stations were united gave the service an unpopular image. They suggested
by beliefs that broadcasting should not only be a pos- public television as a more neutral term. Thus, a dis-
itive force in society, but that it should also reside tinction has grown between instructional television
outside the capitalist funding model that has defined (ITV)3 and public television (PTV).
U.S. broadcasting since the mid-thirties. These foun- Lacking a truly national definition for public tel-
dational tenets have driven public television’s pro- evision’s program service, a PTV station’s program-
gramming philosophy and ideas about audience and mer must deal with the unresolved, internal questions
purpose since the founding of public broadcasting as of what it means to be a noncommercial educational
a part of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society in broadcasting service. The PTV programmer must
the 1960s, but they are getting a sore test today. come to grips with a station’s particular program phi-
Nonetheless, these concepts continue to frame public losophy. Philosophies vary widely from one station to
broadcasting’s struggle for adequate funding and, as the next, but two common themes persist: being edu-
discussed in the following sections, ongoing debates cational and being noncommercial. These terms
about programming. imply that public television must directly serve “the
In fact, arguments over content have persisted people”; it must be educational and different from
within the industry since public television began. commercial television. One of the implications of
For stations, the debate centers on the meaning of such a fundamental difference is that public television
noncommercial educational broadcasting, which is programming need not pursue the largest possible
what the Communications Act of 1934 and the audience at whatever cost to programming. Public
FCC call public television’s program service. Non- broadcasting has a special mission to serve audiences
commercial television service came into existence in that would otherwise be neglected because they are
1952 when educational interests lobbied the FCC too small to interest commercial broadcasting. This
into creating a special class of reserved channels difference in outlook has great programming signifi-
within the television allocations exclusively dedi- cance. It means that the public station programmer is
cated to “educational television.” relieved of one of the most relentless constraints inhi-
One argument defines educational in the narrow biting a commercial programmer’s freedom of choice.
sense of instructional. From that viewpoint public At the same time, public television cannot cater
television should teach—it should direct its programs only to the smallest groups with the most esoteric
to school and college classrooms and to out- tastes in the community. Broadcasting is still a mass
of-classroom students. The last thing PTV should do medium, whether commercial or noncommercial, and
is to compete for commercial television’s mass audi- can justify occupying a broadcast channel and the
ence. Others define educational in a broader sense. considerable expense of broadcast facilities only if it
They want to reach out to viewers of all kinds with reaches relatively large numbers of people. Public
programs that enrich lives and respond to needs. This broadcasting achieves this goal cumulatively by
group perceives “instructional” television as a duty reaching many small groups, which add up to a
that sometimes must be performed, but their devotion respectably large cumulative total in the course of a
goes to the wide range of programming the public has week. Remember, roughly 50 million U.S. television
come to think of as public television. households tune in to something on PTV each week.
344 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

Moreover, on the commercial side, PBS con- which also appoints the PBS president and CEO.
tinues to move toward practices consistent with The directors are responsible for governing and set-
for-profit media. For example, to appeal more pow- ting policy for PBS. In total, the PBS Board of Direc-
erfully to large underwriters, PBS has expanded the tors is comprised of 27 members, including 14
time devoted to underwriting credits and changed professional directors, 12 general directors, and the
their formats so they now resemble commercials. It PBS president. The board is expected to serve 168
is telling that some corporate underwriters now use public television licensees operating 354 public sta-
the same spots on public television that they air on tions all over the country and in such remote areas
the commercial networks and cable. PBS has also as Guam, American Samoa and Bethel, Alaska.
formed partnerships with commercial entities Because PBS produces no programming, it uses
(DirecTV, Comcast and others) to generate income a host of program suppliers and tries to promote and
and has commercialized its online site (pbs.org) by schedule their programs effectively. In addition, con-
selling advertising on the webpage itself and stituencies ranging from independent producers to
throughout some of the programs streamed on the minority groups constantly pressure public television
site. Finally, as discussed later in this chapter, PBS is to meet their special needs. And, of course, the pro-
exploring the option of creating internal program gram funders have their own agendas too.
breaks for placement of its own promotional spots, In commercial television, programming and
a move seen by many as a first step toward within- money flow from network headquarters to affiliates.
program underwriting content. It seems clear, then, Production is centrally controlled and distributed on
that PBS is not as completely “noncommercial” as it a one-way line to affiliated stations, who are paid
once was … in attitude or practice. compensation to push the network button and trans-
mit what the network feeds. Most of the economic
incentives favor affiliate cooperation with the net-
The Network Model work, placing tremendous programming power in
network hands.
Programming the national Public Broadcasting Ser- In public television, money flows the opposite
vice is a little like trying to prepare a universally way. Instead of being paid as loyal affiliates, member
acclaimed gourmet meal. The trouble is that a com- stations pay PBS, which in turn supplies them with
mittee of 177 plans the menu, and the people who programs sufficient to fill prime time and many day-
pay the grocery bills want to be sure the meal is time hours. Stations pay membership dues to cover
served with sufficient regard for their images. Some PBS’s operational budget and, entirely separately,
people coming to the dinner table want the meal to fees to cover part of the program costs. PBS is both a
be enjoyable and fun; others want the experience to not-for-profit network and a membership organiza-
be uplifting and enlightening; still others insist that tion responsible for developing, maintaining and pro-
the eating be instructive; and the seafood and moting a schedule of programs while also providing
chicken cooks want to be sure the audience comes services to its dues-paying members. None of the sta-
away with a better understanding of the problems of tions are owned by the network. A public station’s
life underwater and in the coop.4 remaining broadcast hours are typically filled with
The analogies are not farfetched. A board of leased syndicated fare (movies; off-network reruns;
appointed and elected representatives governs PBS made-for-syndication series; and instructional pro-
during three-year terms. The PBS Board of Directors grams for local schools), local productions and pro-
includes both professional directors, who lead public grams supplied by other public television networks.
television stations, and general directors, who repre- Four noncommercial networks also distribute
sent the general public. The membership of public programming to public stations. Once thought of
television elects the professional directors, while the as a regional network, American Public Television
general directors are selected by the PBS board, (APT, formerly Eastern Educational Network) is the
 CHAPTER 10 Public Television Programming 345

second-largest national program supplier for public and scheduling, more like syndicators. PBS, however,
stations after PBS, and it distributes such favorites as delivers its programs in a prearranged schedule.
Globe Trekker, The Victory Garden, Agatha Chris- An entire week of daytime PBS programming in
tie’s Poirot, Simply Ming, Baking With Julia and 2011 appears in 10.2, covering the hours from 6 A.M.
The Seasoned Traveler on digital and HD channels. to 7:30 P.M. The daytime schedule emphasizes pro-
As with PBS, member stations pay APT for the pro- grams for preschool children early in the day and for
grams, which then delivers the requested content to older children after school gets out. Many of these
them during off hours via satellite for local recording series have run for decades and are award-winning.

10.2 PBS Daytime Programming (September 12–18, 2011)

Monday–Friday Schedule HD01 Saturday Sunday

6:00 A.M. Clifford the Big Red Dog Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood Sesame Street
6:30 A.M. Wild Kratts Bob the Builder
7:00 A.M. Arthur Curious George Curious George
7:30 A.M. Martha Speaks The Cat in the Hat Knows The Cat in the Hat Knows
a Lot About That! a Lot About That!
8:00 A.M. Curious George Super Why! Super Why!
8:30 A.M. The Cat in the Hat Knows Dinosaur Train Dinosaur Train
a Lot About That!
9:00 A.M. Super Why! Thomas & Friends Sid the Science Kid
9:30 A.M. Dinosaur Train Angelina Ballerina Martha Speaks
10:00 A.M. Sesame Street This Old House Hour Arthur
10:30 A.M. WordGirl
11:00 A.M. Sid the Science Kid Antiques Roadshow Wild Kratts
11:30 A.M. Word World Electric Company
12:00 P.M. Super Why! Baking With Julia CyberChase
12:30 P.M. Barney and Friends The Victory Garden Fetch! With Ruff Ruffman
1:00 P.M. Caillou This Old House Need to Know
1:30 P.M. Sid the Science Kid This Old House PBS Previews
2:00 P.M. Dinosaur Train Ask This Old House Religion & Ethics
2:30 P.M. The Cat in the Hat Knows a Hometime To the Contrary
Lot About That!
3:00 P.M. Curious George The Woodwright’s Shop This Old House Hour
3:30 P.M. Martha Speaks MotorWeek
4:00 P.M. Arthur History Detectives (Specials)
4:30 P.M. WordGirl
5:00 P.M. Wild Kratts American Masters
5:30 P.M. Electric Company
6:00 P.M. Fetch! With Ruff Fuffman History Detectives
6:30 P.M. Nightly Business Report
7:00 P.M. PBS NewsHour Antiques Roadshow (repeat) NOVA
7:30 P.M.

Courtesy of PBS.
346 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

Station Scheduling Autonomy if not impossible, extremely difficult to achieve.

In public television, much clout rests with the sta- Nor were corporate underwriters pleased at the
tions. They spend their revenues as they see fit, scheduling irregularity from one market to the
expecting to be treated fairly and with the deference next.
due any consumer. PBS, as a consequence, has a Even though more and more stations increas-
limited ability to get stations to agree on program ingly mirror the national schedule, decision making
scheduling. Citing the principle of localism as public about program content remains complicated at the
television’s community service bedrock, station local level. The public broadcasting climate supports
managers display considerable scheduling indepen- multiple layers of choosing what gets on the air,
dence, ostensibly to make room for station- which fuels an often-animated conversation about
produced or acquired programs thought to meet what audiences need and what stations should
some local need. broadcast. Those who work in programming within
After the nationwide satellite system was phased the local stations consider their relative autonomy
in (1978) and as low-cost recording equipment (even from PBS) and freedom from powerful com-
became available in the 1970s, stations carried the mercial interests to be worth the extra effort of col-
PBS schedule less and less frequently than originally laboration. The culture at most stations fosters
programmed. Until a networking agreement was consultation among programming, development,
worked out with the stations, no two stations’ pro- promotion and operations personnel, but the chief
gram schedules were remotely alike. National pro- programmer typically has final say in developing
motion, publicity and advertising placement were, programming strategies and the schedule (see 10.3).

10.3 What Do Programmers Do?

F ranz Joachim is director of content at KNME-

Albuquerque. A 35-year veteran of public television,
Joachim got his start as a member of the student crew at
joint licensee of the Albuquerque Public Schools and the
University of New Mexico, holds two licenses, which
allows the station to broadcast four streams of content
KUAT-Tucson in 1976. In subsequent years he also free- on air and over the internet. Long committed to local
lanced at KUAT as camera operator, editor and director, public affairs and cultural programming, the station
until becoming student crew supervisor in 1984. In 1995, also produces weekly series about New Mexico politics
he moved to WUSF/WGCU-Ft. Meyers, Florida, to take and culture.
the position of Senior Editor. Joachim joined the profes- KNME pulls programming from a range of sources
sional staff of KNME in 1999 as Production Manager, a (including NETA, APT and PBS, as well as local programs)
position he held until 2010 when he become director of to build its schedule. Selection of content and the schedule
content at the Albuquerque station. grid are typically developed three months out by the pro-
Joachim sees this career path, which originally gramming team, which includes the station’s CEO. Once
focused on production and technology management, as approved, the schedule goes forward then to promotions,
particularly appropriate to his job as chief programmer at operations and development units, where on-air promos are
KNME. Acknowledging that most programmers come up produced and scheduled and underwriting is finalized.
through the ranks as assistant programmers, schedulers Joachim reports that KNME’s programming is generally
and traffic managers, Joachim sees the PTV programming consistent with the PBS core schedule, rarely deviating from
function as becoming more complicated and demand- the PBS feed by more than 5 percent over the course of the
ing. “The job is no longer just about programming, per year. When the PBS schedule conflicts with programs seen
se. It’s now about content—content on air, on the web, as important to local needs, however, like all PTV, KNME
on the phone, and during Pledge,” he says. KNME, a invariably chooses the localized option.
 CHAPTER 10 Public Television Programming 347

The Carriage Agreements fell, it was only to about 55 percent for these non-
core programs. Station programmers, however, soon
A 1979 common carriage agreement gave some order
took these moves by PBS as a sign that core pro-
to this networking chaos, at least from the national
grams could be moved around at will, and station
perspective. Common carriage refers to a nonbinding
independence began to reassert itself. By the 1985–
agreement among stations that, in this case, established
86 season, same-night carriage of the core itself had
a core schedule on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and
slipped to 73 percent overall. PBS, concerned with
Wednesday nights. During the hours of 8 to 10 P.M.
complaints from national underwriters that “their”
(with time zone delay feeds), PBS fed those programs
programs were not receiving fair treatment, moved
most likely to attract the largest audiences. In turn, sta-
to bolster same-night carriage. In fall 1987, PBS
tions committed themselves to airing the PBS core
began a new policy of same-night carriage by
offerings on the nights they were fed, in the order fed,
which selected, broad-appeal programs would be
and within the prime-time hours of 8 to 11 P.M.
designated for carriage the night they were fed.
For several years the common carriage arrange-
This policy had little effect, however, because PBS
ment worked well. The typical core program received
did not strictly enforce it.
same-night carriage on more than 80 percent of sta-
In 1995 PBS once again attempted to get control
tions. Core slots thus took on a premium quality;
of unpredictable station scheduling. Wanting to
underwriters and producers, looking for favorable
encourage new corporate underwriting because
treatment for their programs, began to insist they be
Congress had reduced its federal funding, a commit-
assigned a time slot within the core period. Maximum
tee of the PBS board presented the stations with a
carriage was thought to mean maximum audience
new common carriage agreement—this time with
size. With more core-quality programs on their
financial penalties. Some 40 stations refused to sign
hands than available hours in the eight-hour core
the agreement until the penalties were removed. The
period, PBS programmers were forced in the early
new agreement went into effect in September 1995,
1980s to move some long-standing core programs
requiring stations to carry certain programs within
(Mystery! and Great Performances, for example) out-
prime time on the feed night (see the programs iden-
side the core period to make room for other programs
tified in 10.4). The agreement promised that PBS
in the hope that the stations would still carry the
would designate no more than 350 hours per year
moved shows on the feed night.
for common carriage, of which stations could
This move was partially successful; even though
choose up to 50 hours not to carry on feed night, a
same-night carriage for the rescheduled programs

10.4 Typical PBS Prime-Time Schedule (September 12–18, 2011)

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

8:00 P.M. Antiques Tavis Smiley Nature Antiques Washington Tavis Smiley Nature
Roadshow Roadshow Week in
(repeat) Review
8:30 P.M. Need to PBS Previews
Know
9:00 P.M. (Specials) Frontline NOVA PBS Previews American POV Masterpiece
Masters
10:00 P.M. (Specials) POV NOVA This Old (Specials) Austin City
House Hour Limits
Courtesy of PBS.
348 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

provision allowing local programming flexibility. both produced by PBS, WNET-New York, WGBH-
Within these limitations, the agreement stated a Boston, APT and NETA. V-me is a Spanish-
goal of 90 percent carriage or better for designated language channel developed in partnership by
programs. V-me Media, Inc. and WNET-New York with
Most programs designated for common carriage offices in the same building. The fourth channel is
were receiving the requested carriage by at least 90 MHz Worldview, which has studios in Falls Church,
percent of stations by 2005, and the maximum num- VA, and Washington, DC. This network pulls from a
ber of designated hours had risen to 500 per year. As number of international channels and aggregates a
for shows not designated, program managers often feed of public affairs programs, documentaries, dra-
tape-delay them outside of prime time, using the mas, music and sports from Japan, Germany, China,
vacated evening slots for other programming. As bud- Vietnam, South Africa, France and Nigeria, among
gets at the local and state levels tighten up, however, others. Although stations pay a tiered price for Cre-
stations are expected to use even more of the PBS ate and PBS World, depending on market size, both
feed, finding it more cost and time effective than V-me and MHz International are free, as long as sta-
local production and tape delay. As KNME’s Joachim tions abide by stated rules of carriage. (V-me, for
notes, “At Channel 5, we now have 50 people doing example, requires a ten-year commitment.)
what 80 used to, plus we’re now programming four It’s clear that the technology is in place for sta-
channels, not just one. We’re working to be as effi- tions to provide multiple streams of diverse pro-
cient as possible, and we’re finding that PBS is recog- gramming for multiple constituencies. Even so,
nizing that and making efforts to work with us.”5 public television’s multicasting efforts generally
involve broadcasting more of the same. A review
of their schedules reveals that most stations look to
Multicasting older programs and successful PTV trends in devel-
oping their streams of content. These decisions are
Digital TV broadcasts are described as long streams based in no small part on the enormous costs related
of digital information or bits that can contain any to new production. As costs rise and revenues flatten
data the broadcaster wants to add to their signals. and fall, it becomes increasingly difficult to produce
Public broadcasters, many of whom began with sin- or acquire large amounts of new content. Critics also
gle over-the-air channels in the 1950s and 1960s, are suggest that PTV caters to a “preferred viewer” that
now able to send multiple streams of video through is largely upscale, older and well-educated. This
the same channel’s “pipeline.” Working with com- institutionalized notion of (much of) the public tele-
pressed content, some public broadcasting stations vision audience leads naturally, says scholar Patricia
now choose to “push” four streams of lower- Aufderheide, to PTV programs that are predictable
definition programming to air, while others elect to and “safely splendid.”6
maintain higher signal quality by broadcasting two
streams at one time, one of which is always HD.
Those stations that are duopolies, holding two Multiple Platforms
licenses, are able to broadcast four programming
lines at one time, without compromising quality. If multicasting is the “push” of PBS content to audi-
Although some public stations have developed ences through multiple streams of programming,
their own local or regional content to fill multiple multi-platforms are the numerous technologies that
channels, many have elected to work with four allow reception. Your television set is one of these
packaged feeds developed by PBS, public stations platforms and is clearly the oldest. (In fact, color tele-
and established syndicators, and then transmitted vision sets came to U.S. consumers in the early 1950s
to participating public television stations via satel- at about the same time as “educational, noncommer-
lite. These channels include PBS World and Create, cial” television.) But increasingly, PBS viewers also
 CHAPTER 10 Public Television Programming 349

get their programs on hand-held devices (cell phones on-air crediting of PBS program funders to prevent
and digital tablets), as well as the internet. Sometimes, violations of FCC underwriting regulations and to
they use all these “platforms” at the same time, so it ensure against public television’s appearing too
may not be uncommon for a dad to watch Sesame “commercial.” The legal standards protect stations
Street with his children, while also (simultaneously) from libel and rights infringements and alert them to
viewing PBS NewsHour on his cellphone and last equal time obligations that may result from PBS-
week’s episode of NOVA, “on demand,” on his lap- distributed programs.
top. A teenaged daughter, also sitting in this family Underwriting and advertising are fundamen-
living room, might be using her tablet to pick up the tally different, although they both share some ele-
American Masters interview with Pearl Jam’s Eddie ments. The key difference is that advertising in the
Vedder on PBS-YouTube. form of a paid commercial usually contains a call
Viewers can also follow PBS, as well as many of to action (for example, “Stop by our showroom
their favorite shows and celebrities, on Facebook today”). Underwriting presents the name and
and engage directly on Twitter with Jim Lehrer makes neutral statements (for example, “Funding
(PBS NewsHour) and Gwen Ifel (Washington provided by Kellogg’s, makers of quality breakfast
Week in Review). If you’re into collectibles and old cereal”) that serve to reinforce brand awareness.
furniture, you can stay up to date with Antiques Over time, the length and kinds of supporting con-
Roadshow by subscribing to its e-newsletter, which tent permitted by PBS rules have become less
is dropped into your email box each month. restrictive, and now on-air crediting is both longer
Even young kids can stay in touch with their and more detailed but continues to lack action
favorite children’s shows (The Cat in the Hat statements, so far.
Knows a Lot About That!, Dinosaur Train and Even as public television strives to adhere to the
Super Why) by downloading PBS apps to their tenets of its early noncommercial roots, the broad-
phones and tablets and watching programs on casting service has continued to move toward a for-
demand. PBS has produced at least 14 different profit model, particularly in its online content. The
apps for mobile devices, and by early 2011 more periodic Congressional threats of defunding make
than 1 million people had downloaded the apps for this essential. In 2006 PBS announced a newly-
iPad and iPhone. Additionally, PBS has more than developed online sales division charged with web
600,000 Facebook fans and more than 700,000 fol- advertising on public TV’s national website, noting
lowers on Twitter. Public TV’s interactions with new that it would ban ads from broadcasting competitors
media demonstrate its exceptional desire to connect and be cautious about display ads and commercials
with—and serve—its audiences. for prescription drugs and R-rated movies. Advertis-
ing on its children’s sites was to be limited, a vague
commitment.
PBS Responsibilities Well, five years later, an examination of Kids
Sprouts Online revealed a site tab dedicated to adver-
Since its founding, PBS has had two key responsibil- tisers, carrying the slogan, “With so many engaged
ities: to accept or reject programs and to schedule parents, there’s no better place to advertise. Live
those accepted. The program acceptance/rejection Sprouts!” Further, PBS continues to feature spon-
responsibility is grounded in technical and legal sorship banners on its six major web categories—
standards established by PBS during the 1970s. Arts, News & Views, History, Science & Technology,
The technical standards protect stations from FCC Business & Finance and Home & How-To—and
violations and maintain high levels of video and allows banners, aimed at parents rather than chil-
audio quality. By their very nature, they can be dren, on PBS KIDS and PBS KIDS GO! Most discon-
applied with reasonable consistency. As the steward certing to some viewers has been the insertion of ads
for underwriting guidelines, PBS maintains rules for in programs that are streamed online.
350 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

10.5 Boon or Bust? KCTS, Early HD Pioneer

H igh definition television (also known as HD or high

def) is characterized by video resolution that is much
higher than that of standard definition (SD). In fact, HD has
established itself as the PBS market leader in digital
broadcasting. This reputation did not come without a price,
however. Local newspaper reports later made the case that
between one and two million pixels per frame, which is the expense of high-end digital production and distribution
roughly five times the resolution of SDTV. contributed to KCTS’s massive debt and the layoffs of staff
Since U.S. broadcasting officially “went digital” in beginning in 1998. Members of the management team
2009, we’ve come to expect very high image quality in the that had pushed KCTS to pioneer in digital broadcasting
television programs we watch. At least one channel on all retired early in 2003 in the face of widespread staff
PBS stations is now broadcast in high definition, and today upheaval and a station deficit of $2.5 million. Not only
much of the programming on PBS is created—through vid- was KCTS unable to pay its rent to the city of Seattle in
eography, editing, graphics, sound and special effects—in 2002, but the Corporation for Public Broadcasting with-
high definition format, which inherently raises video quality held nearly $750,000 in funding in 2003 because the
even on a non-HD digital channel. station’s financial reports were late.**
Even though several PBS stations (most of them large How much of the KCTS financial downturn can be traced
community stations in major markets) were innovators in to its early and aggressive push to “go digital” is debatable,
digital transition, one station—KCTS-Seattle—stands out as but it seems clear that the station’s deficits, which began as
a leader. The station not only took steps in 1998 (eleven early as 1996, were linked to early explorations and adop-
years before the mandated transition!) to broadcast some of tion of expensive digital production and upgrading initiatives.
its schedule in digital format, but also pioneered production At the same time, it also seems clear that the public system as
in high definition. Because of a long-standing, collabora- a whole benefited from KCTS’s pioneering forays into the
tive relationship with NHK, Japan’s public TV network, digital realm, using the Seattle station’s high-def programs in
KCTS was able to borrow the HD gear required to shoot fundraising, taking cues from its digital transition and learning
several shows, including Over California (1994) and from its mistakes. This case study illustrates the risk of being a
Chihuly Over Venice (1998). This extremely scarce HD technological pioneer, particularly in such high-stakes inno-
equipment included not only a 40-pound SONY camera— vation as the digital transformation of a television network.
called the “best video camera in the world”—but also a Was it worth the cost to KCTS, its staff, and the management
300-pound recorder that required its own power supply. team that put the plan in place? You decide!
These early HD programs, which were shot mostly by a
videographer hanging out the side door of a noisy heli- *Although PBS stations have not experimented broadly with digital
copter, were lush “travelogues” of the countryside below. dome technology, as it is tied to a particular classroom or theatre
Viewers likened the experience, with its sweeping visuals space and not broadcasting, PTV stations and producers have
entered into educational partnerships with air and space museums
and orchestral soundtrack, to the immersive dome technol-
and planetariums to share programming.
ogy present in many planetarium shows.*
**“Trouble on Channel 9,” The Seattle Times 22 May, 2003,
KCTS offered the programs (and other similar shows retrieved at http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/local/links/
that followed) to public stations as fundraisers and thus kcts.html.

These decisions to commercialize part of the PBS past, most public TV underwriting opportunities
website are also reflected in efforts to satisfy the needs have been limited to a year. Now, stations and PBS
of corporate sponsors by changing on-air guidelines are offering shorter sponsorship stints, including
for underwriting credits to more closely resemble some as short as a week for children’s programs
those of commercial broadcasting. Public television such as Clifford and Arthur. Critics and proponents
underwriters increasingly are using the same spots alike maintain the effort is to create a more “sales-
they place on commercial venues. Further, in the friendly” environment for companies hard-hit by
 CHAPTER 10 Public Television Programming 351

financial woes. Of course, at the same time, it also deliver programs for adult at-home college education
generates more advertising receptivity in children. and in-school instruction for children. Interactive and
Finally, PBS announced at the PTV annual meeting online services, extensions of PBS’s programming,
in 2011 that it was experimenting with placement of were introduced in the mid-1990s—including Math-
internal promotional material in PBS programs. The line for students and PBS Online on the internet
proposal was met with such outcry that PBS underwrit- (www.pbs.org). Thus, programming for the station
ing and programming executives agreed to back off and broadcasts is only part of PBS’s activities.
just continue their research about ramifications of such
a plan. Critics suggest that internal promotion not only
violates public TV’s long-standing commitments to
Satellite Distribution
uninterrupted programming, but also opens the doors The broadcast operations department manages the
widely to in-program advertising breaks. daily details of the national schedule much as a traf-
Old-timers remember the days when an under- fic department would at a commercial network. All
writing credit was a corporate name on a slide, fea- the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle must be plugged into
tured at the beginning and close of the underwritten place across an array of satellite schedules, ensuring,
program for 15 seconds. Many join contemporary for example, that (1) the end of a 13-episode series
critics in suggesting that program interruption and coincides with the start of another ready to occupy
increased commercial content may damage public its slot; (2) dramas with profanity or nudity have an
television’s already weak support in Congress and early edited feed available on another transponder;
lead to even more reduced allocations during the and (3) replacement programs are available when,
next funding cycle. for example, the Saturday morning schedule of
Another PBS function is warning stations in how-to programs runs short in the summer.
advance of programs that contain offensive language PBS now delivers instructional and general audi-
or sensitive scenes (nudity or violence). It makes edi- ence services via direct-to-home satellite channels
ted versions of programs that contain extreme mate- (TVRO) as well as the regular national program-
rial available to stations. In rare cases, such ming feed provided to PBS member stations retrans-
controversial programs as It’s Elementary (a docu- mitted by DirecTV and DISH Network, but delayed
mentary on gay issues in grade school) have been by 24 hours to allow member stations the opportu-
canceled or postponed, but in general PBS tends nity to air the programming first. In 1999, PBS initi-
toward airing programs as produced. ated two other satellite program services, PBS Kids
Channel (children’s programming) and PBS U (adult
learning service for college credit) carried on
Day-to-Day Management DirecTV. (See 10.6 for the story of the adult educa-
An executive vice president heads PBS’s National tional services.) In March 2004, PBS also launched
Program Service (NPS). This senior executive sets PBS HD, making public broadcasting first to provide
policy for and oversees the content and array of for- a fully-packaged 24/7 channel consisting entirely of
mats within the program schedule, directing long- high definition and widescreen content.
range development of major programs. Other man- PBS HD was available from local PBS stations
agers assist in the day-to-day activities of program that had already transitioned to digital broadcasting,
development, scheduling management and acquisi- as well as digital cable systems that agreed to retrans-
tion of international programs, while content mit the digital signal of their local public television
departments within the NPS concentrate on the stations. By the mid-2000s, 236 PBS stations were
development of news and public-affairs, children’s, on the air with digital signals, reaching more than
cultural and fundraising programs. 85 percent of U.S. TV households. The PBS HD chan-
PBS Plus offers a menu of “user-pays” programs nel featured a mix of new and library HD and wide-
to supplement local schedules. Other departments screen programs, providing around-the-clock high
352 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

10.6 The Demise of the Adult Learning Service

P BS began its Adult Learning Service (ALS) in the early

1980s, offering over-the-air instruction leading to col-
lege credit for more than two decades. With over 100
mathematics, and business. The net result of Annenberg’s
entry into this field was not only an increase in the number
of adult instructional programs available through ALS but
telecourses, the ALS was the largest source of such pro- also, thanks to their above-average budgets, an increase in
gramming in the world. Enhanced by the web and then production values (quality).
programmed as a network (PBS U), the service supplied Colleges and universities that wanted to offer credit for
college credit to more than 5 million students in academic these telecourses normally arranged for local public televi-
areas including arts and humanities, business and technol- sion stations to air the series, and all registration, fees,
ogy, history, professional development, science and testing, and supplementary materials were handled by the
health, and the social sciences. school. Some of the courses used computers, and all were
Shortly after its launch, ALS received a significant boost keyed to special texts and study guides. ALS offered pro-
from Walter Annenberg, then owner of TV Guide, who grammers one of the most challenging additions to their
established the Annenberg/CPB Project. For this project, program schedule. Because such programs required close
the Annenberg School of Communications gave $15 mil- cooperation with the institutions offering credit, they
lion to CPB each year for ten years (1983 to 1993) to fund required a reliable repeat schedule that would permit stu-
college-level instruction via television and other new tech- dents to make up missed broadcasts. In time, however, the
nologies. The project resulted in such high-visibility public wide availability of internet access ended the need for PBS
television series as The Constitution: That Delicate Balance, to act as distributor. Universities could email course materi-
French in Action, Planet Earth, The Africans, War and als and video directly to individual students, irrespective of
Peace in the Nuclear Age, Art of the Western World, Dis- the number taking a particular class, and now with Wi-Fi
covering Psychology and Economics USA, with subject on campuses and larger towns, people can take courses
matter ranging from the humanities to science, whenever and wherever they like.

quality content to those “early innovators” who for preschool children’s programming (offering
owned high definition receivers. This channel evolved Arthur, Clifford the Big Red Dog and Curious
into HD01 (the PBS high definition feed), as all PBS George), along with PBS Kids GO! for early elemen-
stations eventually proved capable of providing HD tary kids (which provided such shows as Kidsworld
programming on at least one of their channels. Sports, Arthur, Maya & Miguel and Wishbone).
By 2002, PBS Kids Channel wasn’t doing well in Although not in HD as yet, all these over-the-air
competition with Viacom’s Noggin, a digital cable/ and digital services are supported with clever online
satellite channel that featured Sesame Street reruns sites, www.pbskids.org, www.pbskidsgo.org and
and other satellite channels targeting children. With- www.sproutonline.com. In most markets, households
drawal of DirecTV’s support in 2005 led to the that subscribe to Comcast or DirecTV get most of these
formation of PBS Kids Sprout and PBS Sprout On channels; other cable, satellite and phone service pro-
Demand, digital commercial channels on cable viders offer some, but not all, of the PBS channels. The
owned by Comcast, HIT Entertainment, PBS and internet remains a reliable source of all PBS content.
Sesame Workshop. They carry such shows as
Angelina Ballerina, Curious George, Barney &
Friends, Bob the Builder, Teletubbies, Thomas &
Fundraising Assistance
Friends, Dragon Tales, Zoboomafoo and of course, The Station Independence Program (SIP), a division
the so-essential Sesame Street. The term “PBS Kids” in PBS’s National Program Service, is big hit with
returned to the main network as an umbrella brand stations. The SIP schedules and programs three main
 CHAPTER 10 Public Television Programming 353

on-air fundraising drives a year, called pledge drives Much of public television’s diversity is
(a 16-day event held annually in March and two explained by the varying auspices under which its
9-day drives held in August and December). Stations stations operate. Licensees fall into four categories:
wishing to avail themselves of the SIP service (and community, university, public school and state
most do) pay PBS additional fees for it. A key SIP agency, and each approaches programming in differ-
function is acquiring, funding and commissioning ent ways.
special programs for use during local station pledge
drives.
Programs with emotional payoff, not necessar- Community Licensees
ily those programs with the largest audiences, tend In larger cities, particularly those with many educa-
to generate more and higher pledges. Self-help pro- tional and cultural institutions but without a domi-
grams and inspirational dramas, for example, gener- nant institution or school system, the usual licensee
ally make money for stations, but documentaries on is the nonprofit community corporation created for
topics such as world economics do not do well. In the purpose of constructing and operating a public
general, such performance events as Yanni and television station. Because the governing board of
Three Tenors do very well in pledge drives. As such a station exists solely to administer the station
baby boomers age and edge closer to the typical (as compared with university trustees who have lots
demographic of “donor,” pledge programmers also of other concerns), many feel that community
rely increasingly on concerts (live and on tape) by stations are the most responsive type of licensee.
music icons of the 1960s and 1970s, including With the separation of community licensee KCET-
Joan Baez, James Taylor, Chaka Khan, Billy Joel Los Angeles from PBS in early 2011, 85 such licen-
and the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary. sees still operate in the United States (see 10.7).
Compared with other licensees, community sta-
tions have traditionally derived a higher proportion
Types of Station Licensees of their operating support from fundraising activities
(including on-air auctions). As a result, their on-air
One of the difficulties in describing PTV program- pledge-drives reflect their so very urgent need to gen-
ming strategies is that the stations are so diverse. erate funds from their viewers. Programmers at these
The 168 licensees operating 354 stations (lots of stations are thus more likely to be sensitive to a pro-
which are unstaffed transmitters) represent varied posed program’s appeal to donors. Certainly, they
management viewpoints. More stations (that is, will lean toward high-quality production values to
transmitters) than licensees exist because in 20 states attract and hold general audiences. Within the com-
a legislatively created agency for public broadcasting munity category, several stations stand apart because
is the licensee for as many as 16 separate trans- of their metropolitan origins, their large size and their
mitters serving the whole state. Also, in several com- national impact as producers of network-distributed
munities, one noncommercial educational licensee programs.
operates two television channels. In these cases The flagship stations of PBS are located in New
(San Francisco, Boston, Pittsburgh and Milwaukee, York, Boston, Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago,
among others), one channel usually offers a rela- Baltimore, Seattle and Pittsburgh. The first four are
tively broad service of PBS programming while the particularly notable as production centers for the
second channel is used for more specialized pro- nation, originating such major programs as NOVA,
gramming, often instructional material. In addition, Nature and PBS NewsHour (see 10.8). Although
a handful of noncommercial television stations are other public stations and commercial entities often
not members of PBS because of signal overlap with participate in their productions and financing, these
other PBS stations or because they dropped their large, community-licensed producing stations gener-
membership. ate most of the PBS schedule.
354 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

10.7 Stations Withdraw From PBS

I n 2008, public broadcasting licensees included

86 community stations, 6 local public school facilities,
20 state government stations or networks, and 56 college
“independent” schedule with local talk and re-runs of clas-
sic films, the station adopted an eclectic international
stance by airing a range of worldwide news programs.
or university stations. Three years later, those numbers had These daily broadcasts included IBA News (Tel Aviv), NHK
dropped by three, and other stations and their boards were Newsline (Toyko), Russia Today (Moscow) and the Al
considering leaving PBS. KWBU-Waco, a university sta- Jazeera English News, and the ratings are looking good.
tion licensed to Baylor University, was the first of the three Happily for PBS and the former KCET audience, public
to close. Having exhausted a $1 million line of credit, stations KOCE-Orange County and KVCR-San Bernardino
KWBU was unable to secure additional funding from enlarged their coverage areas to serve PBS viewers in the
Baylor and subsequently severed all ties with PBS, going Los Angeles area.
“dark” in 2010. Within a year, KCET-Los Angeles and The fate of the huge New Jersey Network (NJN) rings
WMFE-Orlando had also decided to leave PBS. Like another warning bell. The 40-year-old PTV network in New
KWBU (which had limited community support and only Jersey was closed by the state’s budget-cutting efforts. PBS
1,600 members when it closed), the stations cited finan- service to New Jersey had to be picked up by New York
cial woes as the reason for dropping the PBS affiliation or and Pennsylvania stations WNET and WHYY as best they
closing altogether. could. Similarly, the University of Central Florida and Bre-
The case of KCET is chilling. After learning that its PBS vard Community College teamed up to jointly provide PBS
dues would increase by more than 40 percent, ironically services to Central Florida, when WMFE-Orlando closed its
because of the station’s success in generating $50 million PBS station in 2011.
in donations, KCET-TV split from PBS in 2011, becoming Change is here. Another giant in the system, WTTW-
an independent community station. One of the country’s Chicago suggested that it might withdraw from PBS, while
oldest public stations and the PBS flagship of the nation’s Indiana’s eight public television stations are working on a
second-largest media market, KCET pioneered productions merger that would not only share content but also facilities
in the arts, Spanish-language programming, education and (including master control) among the stations. The stunning
public affairs, so it was an enormous loss to the system. losses to the PTV system help explain why PBS is altering its
KCET sold its historic 105,000 square-foot Sunset Bou- policy toward commercials. Programs continue to cost what
levard facility to the Church of Scientology and moved into they cost even when there are fewer (and smaller) stations
quarters half that size in Burbank. Initially programming its to split the expense.

Because of comparatively high levels of commu- the station. WNET, New York’s largest public tele-
nity involvement, community stations have tended vision station, is an exception among community
to attract larger local audiences than other types of stations. It receives a portion of its funding from
noncommercial licensees. Most of these stations state government.
adopted HD technology at a rapid rate at the turn
of the twenty first century, largely because their
membership tends toward the high-end viewers of University Licensees
interest to underwriters. For example, Nielsen Many colleges and universities have activated public
reports that about half of the households in San television stations as a natural outgrowth of their tra-
Francisco, one of the nation’s largest media markets, ditional role of providing extension services within
tune weekly to community-operated KQED. With their states. As they see it, “the boundaries of the
such a high audience level, more of its viewers see campus are the boundaries of the state,”7 and both
its fundraising appeals and thus contribute money to radio and television can do some of the tasks
 CHAPTER 10 Public Television Programming 355

10.8 PBS NewsHour

I n 1973 Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer joined together

to cover the Watergate hearings for PBS. The results
were an Emmy and a new news program for Public
United States and averaging 2.7 million viewers each
night. The program also airs in Australia, Japan and New
Zealand and is broadcast by Voice of America and Armed
Broadcasting. Unlike the commercial nightly newscasts, Forces Radio. Keeping up with the PBS tradition of trying
MacNeil and Lehrer were actually throwbacks to Edward new technologies, the program has archived all broadcasts
R. Murrow and See It Now. Instead of doing many two- on the web since early 2000, and they can be accessed
minute stories, they concentrated on one major story and as streaming video. In addition, audio segments are also
went in-depth. They let people tell their own versions of the released in podcast form.
story in interviews that lasted several minutes; they also Strangely enough, on a network often criticized for its
avoided sound bites and ran extended portions of news left-leaning shows and a tendency to slant the news, PBS
conferences. These were usually followed by nonjudg- NewsHour has been attacked for being too “mainstream”
mental cross-examinations that questioned what had been and for having a “pro-establishment bias.” Several studies
said. released by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, a “left-
In 1983, the program, then called The MacNeil/Lehrer oriented” media watch group, have accused the show of
Report, saw its only major format change as it went from being too balanced, of favoring Republicans and business,
30 minutes to a full hour. It added a news summary of major and of not having enough minorities. One of the group’s
stories at the start and increased the number of in-depth stor- major objections in 2006 was “not one peace activist” had
ies from one to three or four, each running 10 to 15 minutes. appeared on the show during the six months analyzed. The
Because the show airs on PBS, it currently has no interruptions
2011 critique took similar issue with the lack of diversity of
(except during pledge drives). Mondays through Thursdays,
viewpoint about the war in Libya, leaving “little room for
the program often wraps up with a “reflective essay.”
antiwar voices” and critics of U.S. foreign policy.
When Robert MacNeil retired in 1995, the show
The PBS Ombudsman, Michael Getler, agreed, saying:
became The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and in 2006,
“These are perilous times. As a viewer and journalist, I find
acquired new graphics and a new version of the show’s
the program occasionally frustrating; sometimes too polite,
theme song, but otherwise stayed about the same. In 2009
too balanced when issues are not really balanced, and too
PBS added rotating anchors and renamed the show PBS
many political and emotion-laden statements pass without
NewsHour. The most recent change, instituted in 2011,
factual challenges from the interviewer.”* In this day and
remains the most significant. After 36 years with PBS, Lehrer
age, PBS NewsHour may have a unique distinction in
stepped down as a daily anchor of PBS NewsHour, elect-
being criticized for being too fair.
ing instead to cover specific stories and to moderate the
highly-popular Friday weekly analysis segment with Mark
William J. Adams, Ph.D.
Shields and David Brooks. Kansas State University
PBS NewsHour is one of PBS’s most successful pro-
grams, reaching over 8 million people during a week in the *www.pbs.org/ombudsman/2006/10/a fair analysis.html.

extension agents formerly did in person. Fifty-five affairs or cultural program. But these stations rarely
licensees currently make up the university group. produce major PBS series for the prime-time schedule,
Here, too, programmers schedule a fairly broad lacking both budget and permanent staffing. University-
range of programs, largely in HD as well as digital, licensed stations such as WHA (Madison, Wisconsin)
often emphasizing adult continuing education and cul- and KUHT (Houston, Texas) contribute occasional spe-
ture. Some, typically using student staff, produce nightly cials and single programs to the PBS schedule. WUNC-
local newscasts, and many produce a weekly public- TV at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill
356 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

produced The Woodwright’s Shop series, and other State Television Agencies
university-licensed stations have supported short-run
About 186 of the nation’s 354 public television
series aired in the daytime PBS schedule.
transmitters are part of state networks operated by
As operating costs mount and academic appro-
legislatively created public broadcasting agencies.
priations shrink, some university stations turn to
Networks of this type exist in 20 states (or did
over-the-air fundraising to supplement their institu-
until New Jersey faded away). Most of them were
tion’s budgets. In doing so they use tactics similar to
authorized initially to provide new classroom experi-
those of community stations, including airing pro-
ences for the state’s schoolchildren and have usually
grams specially produced for fundraisers. Expanded
succeeded admirably in this task. Then they augment
fundraising efforts are generally accompanied by
their ITV service with a variety of public-affairs and
broadening program appeal throughout the station’s
cultural programs furnished to citizens throughout
schedule, although the shows target a wide range of
their states, but rarely in HD.
small, niche audiences.
State networks, such as those in South Caro-
lina, Maryland, Kentucky, Nebraska and Iowa,
Public School Licensees are very active in the production and national dis-
tribution of educational programs. Their efforts
Local school systems initially became licensees to pro-
range from traditional school programs for primary
vide new learning experiences for students in elemen-
and secondary grades to graduate degree courses
tary school classrooms. From the outset, some schools
offered in regions where colleges and universities
augmented instructional broadcasts with other pro-
are few. These production efforts are thus counter-
gramming consistent with the school system’s view of
parts to the national production centers of the
its educational mission. By 2008 only six of these
community-based licensees. Although state net-
school licensees remained. Most of them have orga-
works hardly ever produce prime-time PBS series,
nized a broadly-based community support group
they frequently join consortia generating specific
whose activities generate wider interest and voluntary
programs for series such as Great Performances.
contributions from the community at large. As a result,
Moreover, the Maryland Center for Public Broad-
the average local-school licensee now draws only about
casting does produce the long-lived PBS series Wall
7 percent of its income from subscriber contributions.
Street Week.
Naturally, programmers at these stations are
Although in recent years these state network
heavily involved with in-school programming—but
stations have gotten more foundation, underwriter
because they desire community support, they are
and even viewer support, state legislatures still
also concerned with programming for children out
appropriate more than three-fifths of their budgets.
of school and for adults of all ages. All of these sta-
This fact, plus the perception of their “community of
tions transmit a digital signal but, depending on sta-
service” as an entire state rather than a single city,
tion resources, may not yet have full HD production
gives programmers at these stations a different
capability. Due to the significant costs of converting
perspective … and keeps them at risk as state bud-
all studio, editing and field equipment to high defi-
gets shrink.
nition, some stations still produce programs in stan-
dard definition and “upconvert” the video to HD.
Other than ITV series, most public school sta-
tions rarely produce original programs for PBS, and Similarities and Differences
they obtain most of their schedules from national, It should be quite evident from these brief descrip-
state and regional suppliers of instructional pro- tions that each category of public television station
gramming. Of course, they usually carry such gen- has distinctive problems and singular opportunities
eral (non-ITV) PBS educational children’s programs for programming. Each station type is ruled by a
as Sesame Street, too. different type of board of directors—community
 CHAPTER 10 Public Television Programming 357

leader boards, university trustees, local school Program Production

boards, state-appointed central boards. Each board
affects overall strategy and program personnel Early in its history, PBS developed a characteristic
differently: schedule of dramatic miniseries and anthologies;
■ Community representatives try to balance local documentaries on topics in science, nature, public
power groups and foster underwriting. affairs and history; concert performances; and a
few other types of programs, none of which ABC,
■ University boards, preoccupied with higher-
CBS, FOX or NBC offers on a regular basis. PBS’s
education programs, tend to leave station profes-
marketplace position has thus historically been that
sionals free to carry out their jobs within broad
of an alternative to the commercial networks.
guidelines.
Today, however, several cable networks (including
■ School boards, similarly preoccupied with their the Discovery Channel, A&E, the History Channel,
major missions, may pay too little attention to The Learning Channel, the Food Channel, House &
their responsibilities as licensees. Garden) offer some programs similar to PBS’s.
■ State boards try to protect their stations from From time to time, some members of
inappropriate political influences and drastic Congress—important critics because of CPB funding
budget cuts. and grants: Congress supplies public television with
about 16.4 percent of PBS’s annual revenue—argue
All licensees in both public TV and public
that PBS has become superfluous because it dupli-
radio struggle to function with what they regard
cates programming available on cable. The argu-
as inadequate budgets, but there are wide funding
ment lacks merit because about 8 percent of U.S.
discrepancies between the extremes of a large met-
TV households don’t subscribe to either cable or sat-
ropolitan community TV station and a small
ellite, while 99 percent can receive PBS. Moreover,
public-school radio station. Significantly, all types
fewer cable subscribers actually watch the cable net-
of stations have been forced to broaden their finan-
works that have PBS-like programs; PBS’s ratings
cial bases in recent years to keep up with rising
are two to four times larger.
costs and funding while improving program quality
and quantity.
Licensees having the greatest success in securing Program Financing
new funding have, in general, made the strongest How a program gets into the PBS schedule contrasts
impact on national public television programming. dramatically with the process at its commercial net-
In turn, successful public television producer- work counterparts. At ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC and
entrepreneurs working through their local stations most cable networks, program chiefs order the pro-
are highly motivated to create new public television grams they want, pay for them out of a program-
programs with broad audience appeal in the hope of ming budget, then slot them into the schedule. To
securing still more underwriting. Such programs minimize ratings failures, the networks first pay for
increase viewership and draw more support in the the production of pilot programs each year. Addi-
form of memberships and subscriptions. tional episodes of the most promising pilots are
Public-affairs programs and those of interest ordered, and each of these series receives a place in
only to specialized smaller audiences—the “meat the schedule (see Chapter 2 for more details).
and potatoes” of public television—do not always At PBS, however, program funding is far more
appeal to corporations (who usually want to avoid complex. A program may have a single financial
controversy) and must be funded by CPB, PBS or backer or several. More frequently than not, funding
foundations (see 10.9). Public radio operates differ- comes from a combination of sources, especially
ently but still shares some of the same problems when the project runs into millions of dollars. PBS
(see 10.10). will partially fund and, on occasion, fully fund a
358 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

10.9 Corporation for Public Broadcasting

A lthough largely invisible to most people, the Corpo-

ration for Public Broadcasting is the largest single
source of funding for public television and radio program-
for remarks he made on Fox News Channel’s The O’Reilly
Factor (see 10.10) and a sting video showing NPR’s then
senior vice-president for fundraising Ron Schiller describing the
ming in the United States. This private nonprofit organiza- Tea Party political movement as “xenophobic.”
tion was established with the passage of the Public In the end, Congress spared the basic appropriation for
Broadcasting Act in 1967 to support and fund the devel- CPB, which included $430 million annually for 2011 and
opment of educational, locally relevant and culturally 2012, plus another $445 million for 2013. CPB also
diverse programs for public broadcasting. It created the retained $6 million for digital projects, which was the bal-
Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in 1969 and National ance of a fund that had previously been set at $36 million
Public Radio (NPR) in 1970. Most of CPB-funded pro- a year. Journalist Steve Behrens reported that “the late night
grams are distributed through PBS, NPR, Television (APT) negotiations” also saved NPR from a Republican-led effort
and Public Radio International (PRI). to ban federal funding for public radio.**
Though it awards federal grants, CPB has a legal What did not survive in the budget deliberations was
mandate to be nonpartisan and ensure objectivity on public the 49-year-old Public Telecommunications Facilities Pro-
programming. Yet controversies continue to plague CPB. In gram, a $20-million line item in the Department of Com-
the mid-2000s, Democrats called for an investigation into merce. This longstanding public broadcasting program had
whether CPB violated federal law when its former chairman been used successfully for years by public broadcasters for
Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, a Bush appointee, commissioned a start-up funds for new stations, to replace failing transmitters
review of several PBS and NPR programs in order to
or to convert to HD. In 2010, even though more than 90
investigate liberal bias. Programs under review included the
percent of the country was covered by both public TV and
Now With Bill Moyers show, which had been criticized for
NPR, the facilities program awarded grants to 30 new
being left-leaning. Tomlinson resigned in 2006 after inves-
public radio operations and one new PTV station.
tigations by CPB’s inspector general revealed he “had
made improper hires, had tried to tamper with PBS’s TV Debbie Goh
programming and appeared to show political favoritism in Nanyang Technological University
selecting CPB’s president while he was chairman.”*
In 2011, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Repre- *Paul Farhi, “Tomlinson Cited for Abuses at Broadcast Board: CPB
sentatives passed a bill to ban government funding for NPR Ex-Chief Puts Friend on Payroll, State Dept. Says.” Washington
and affiliated public broadcasting stations. Conservatives Post, 22 January 2007, p. C1.
claimed this would cut and control federal spending, but critics **Steve Behrens, “CPB Survives, But Not the Facilities Program,”
say it was in response to earlier fallouts with NPR. These Current, 18 April 2011. http://www.current.org/federal/fed1108
notably include the firing of NPR news analyst Juan Williams ptfp.html.

project out of its station program assessment funds, Program assessment fees, now levied on PBS
but many programs must find their own backing. Of member stations, were begun in the early 1990s.
course, producers would prefer to walk away from They represent public television’s response to
PBS with a check for the full amount. But owing to expanding cable network competition for the lim-
PBS’s limited purse, they must usually “shop” a ited supply of programs to buy (see 10.11). Stations
project from one corporate headquarters to the voted to streamline the program funding process so
next, perhaps even to foundations and CPB. Given that newly offered productions could be snapped
the daunting process, producers have been heard to up without delays. The chief program executives
say that they spend more time chasing after dollars now handle selected program funding as a central-
than making programs. ized responsibility (in contrast to the long-beloved
 CHAPTER 10 Public Television Programming 359

10.10 Financing NPR

N PR’s firing of analyst Juan Williams in October 2010

set off a firestorm by both the right and left, who var-
iously charged that the radio network had denied Williams
Five months later, public radio suffered another embar-
rassing set-back, when a conservative sting video captured
NPR’s chief fundraiser disparaging Tea Party supporters as
his right to speak. In an appearance on Fox Channel’s The “seriously racist” and asserting that NPR would be better off
O’Reilly Factor, Williams said he got “worried” and “ner- without federal funding, “although some stations would go
vous” when he saw people in Muslim dress on airplanes. dark.” Both Ron Schiller, vice-president for NPR’s Foundation,
Maintaining that Williams’ comments were inconsistent and CEO Vivian Schiller (no relation to Ron Schiller) subse-
with NPR’s editorial standards, Ellen Weiss, NPR Director quently (and immediately) resigned amid questions about
of News, promptly called Williams and told him his con- NPR’s management and calls to de-fund the radio network.
tract was being terminated. Ultimately, both Williams’ termination and the sting video
Even though NPR chief executive officer Vivian Schiller had negative ramifications for both public television and NPR.
agreed that Williams’ dismissal was appropriate, the ter- Conservative media commentators and Republican law-
mination evolved into a public relations nightmare for makers, in particular, used the incidents to claim that public
NPR. The radio network received more than 23,000 broadcasting was partisan and undeserving of public fund-
emails about the incident, almost all of them negative. ing. House Republicans passed a bill in March 2011 to ban
Williams, a black man working in a largely white government funding for NPR and affiliated public broadcast-
organization, was perceived by many conservatives as a ing stations, and though defeated at the eleventh hour, the
target of liberal bias. Eventually, Weiss, a 30-year budget bill posed a genuine threat to federal funding for
veteran of public radio, resigned her position. Ironically, public broadcasting. Several states—including New Jersey,
Williams went to work for FOX, with an annual contract Virginia and Florida—followed the lead of the House bill to
of $2 million. implement deep cuts in their states’ funding for public stations.

10.11 PBS Competing for Kids

C ross-platform initiatives are not restricted to the com-

mercial networks. PBSKIDSGO.org introduced Kids-
World Sports, a website based on an international
national and world news, technology, entertainment, sports
and weather. On the site, kids are able to play games such
as Just the Facts (news quiz), Pin Point (finding places in the
documentary series that profiles kid-athletes who have news on a map), Match It (connecting photos to news-
the talent and drive to succeed in various sports. On makers) and Get the Scoop (news gathering and writing).
the site, kids can watch short clips from the series, learn PBS’s efforts match those of Nickelodeon, the top commer-
about different sports from videos featuring real kids, cial channel for kids, and are far beyond the efforts of the
send video e-cards and compete in sport-related games. broadcast networks.
News Flash Five, another PBS effort, is a current events Nancy C. Schwartz, Ph.D.
website aimed at tweens aged 8–11. It features a cast of The Academic Edge, Inc.
five kids, rendered in flash animation, who report on

notion that program decision making should To form this fund, stations are assessed in pro-
be tightly controlled by public television’s 168 sta- portion to their market size (and the loss of major-
tion program managers—who usually had 168 market member stations hurts badly here). Programs
opinions). produced either wholly or in part from this fund
360 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

carry an announcement crediting “viewers like you” contribute an occasional series or special to the
because station money is involved—a large part of PBS schedule, but most local efforts either focus
which comes from viewer contributions. too narrowly on a topic to be of wide national inter-
A program on PBS can—and usually does— est or fall short of national standards for writing,
have multiple producers. Typically, separate produc- talent and technical characteristics because they
tion units shoot film for partners in a coproduction lack a sufficient budget. PBS seeks programs on a
deal, as when PBS joins with the BBC to produce a par with commercial efforts in terms of content
science or nature program. In such an arrangement, and production quality.
both have usage rights. Rather than share a program British programs such as Masterpiece and Mys-
with a U.S. competitor, such as a cable network, tery! have become staples of U.S. public television
public television prefers foreign coproduction over because they are high-quality programs available at
domestic coproduction. a small fraction of the cost of producing comparable
fare in the United States. But they, along with other
foreign productions, occupy only a fraction of all
The Major Producers PBS airtime. Beside a mix of foreign producers,
As already pointed out, a very large portion of PBS’s international coproductions, commercial indepen-
schedule comes from series produced by or in con- dent producers and the three producing stations,
junction with three major producing stations— such producing organizations as Sesame Workshop
WGBH in Boston, WNET in New York and (formerly Children’s Television Workshop) have tra-
WETA in Washington, DC. In most years, these pro- ditional ties to PBS.
ducing stations account for well over half of PBS’s This pattern of multiple sources has been con-
new shows (see the list in 10.12). Other stations sistent over decades, although increased competition
from cable networks for foreign programs has fur-
ther squeezed PBS’s options. The greatest change in
10.12 Major Producing Centers programming in recent years has been the acquisi-
tion of funds by means of station program assess-
Stations Program Series ment, not in the actual program sources.
WGBH, Boston American Experience
Antiques Roadshow Balance in Selection
Arthur
Responsibility for acquiring programs falls to one of
Frontline
several “content” managers, including the directors
Masterpiece
of Factual Programming, Fiction and Performance
Mystery!
Programming, and Children’s Programming. They
NOVA
must view sample tapes (demonstrations) and sift
This Old House
through many hundreds of proposals each year.
WNET, New York American Masters
Based on these written proposals or sample tapes
Charlie Rose
(pilot episodes are very rarely made), the manager
Great Performances
decides whether to purchase the program or provide
Live from Lincoln Center
some portion of production funding.
Metropolitan Opera Presents
Happily, in the case of foreign productions, a
Nature
program can be purchased ready for broadcast
WETA, Washington, DC In Performance at the White
because it’s already “in the can” (produced). If the
House
decision on a proposal for a new production is favor-
PBS NewsHour
able, a small research and development grant is usu-
Washington Week in Review
ally the first step, perhaps with a promise of larger
 CHAPTER 10 Public Television Programming 361

amounts to follow. Once production is under way, their program underwriters. For those stations,
the content manager will consult with the producer financial health depends on corporate support,
during the production process to guide the outcome which pays for salaries, equipment loans and other
toward a mutually satisfactory result. It is important production expenses. Were just one major under-
to note that, by law, PBS can order programs to be writer to withdraw support, the financial effect on
produced, but it does not itself produce them. a producing station could be devastating.
Through all this, National Program Service
executives attempt to maintain balance in the
national schedule so that the network doesn’t find Station Pressure
itself one season with, for example, too many sym- Other programming pressures occur. Many stations,
phony concerts and too few investigative documen- for example, refuse to telecast a program at the time
taries in the schedule. To better regulate the flow of fed because their programmers decide it
new productions into the national schedule, PBS
established the Public Television Pipeline, a manage- 1. lacks prime-time quality.
ment system for monitoring and coordinating all 2. contains too much profanity or violence to air
program development activity from the proposal in early evening.
stage through delivery to PBS. 3. occupies a slot the station wants for its own
Throughout the year, the Pipeline sends signals programs.
to producers about PBS’s overall schedule surpluses
4. has little appeal for local viewers.
and shortfalls as well as specific content needs. Pro-
posals are submitted and approval (and perhaps Although each of these reasons has merit at
seed money) obtained from PBS, and the final selec- times, the combined effect of 168 station program
tion process is under way. Pipeline 2011, published managers exercising 168 independent judgments
in Current in December 2010, included 140 projects has often left portions of the PBS schedule in a
scheduled for production within the public television shambles. PBS program executives assembling a
system. A lot of juggling goes on to get something schedule must anticipate these concerns to minimize
new in the Pipeline. defections.

Corporate Pressure Program Rights

Corporate underwriters of programs invest not only PBS programmers must also wrestle with program
prodigious sums from corporate treasuries but also rights. In public television as in commercial televi-
personal effort and reputation, and they feel entitled sion, standard program air-lease rights are set by
to choice slots in the prime-time schedule. Of course, contract with the producer, who owns the rights.
PBS can’t always fit a program in the time slot the PBS has traditionally negotiated with producers for
underwriter wants and still maintain a balanced as many plays as possible so that by airing the same
schedule. program several times, the typically small (per air-
Corporate fiscal needs can also affect schedul- ing) PBS audience snowballs. Extra plays also fill
ing. Often, the underwriting corporation requires out the program schedule.
that a program be played within its fiscal year—- At the same time, the program syndicator seeks
irrespective of audience and schedule needs. PBS as few airings as possible over the shortest time
program executives attempt to accommodate such period to retain maximum control and resale poten-
cases, knowing that if they do not, the corporation tial for a program. A compromise between various
in its pique may refuse future requests for support. producers and PBS that permits four program plays
The major producing stations also attempt to within three years is now the standard rights agree-
influence program decisions at PBS on behalf of ment in public television.
362 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

Syndicated and Local Noncommercial Syndication

Programming The abundance of ITV materials means that it is no
longer necessary to produce instructional programs
American Public Television (unrelated to American locally, except where desired subject matter is
Public Media which is radio) licenses a large number unique to a community. Local school authorities
of programs to PBS and public radio stations, pro- are usually in charge of selecting instructional mate-
grams such as British sitcoms; documentaries; travel, rials for in-school use, although the public television
cooking and music programs; how-to series; and station’s staff often serves as liaison between sources
movies from Warner/Turner and 20th Century Fox of this material and users. In addition, the state may
(for a more complete listing, see www.aptonline.org). appropriate funds for instructional programs, giving
This company is a significant player in public tele- them to its public stations, or school districts may
vision programming and a prime source of entertain- contract with a local public station to supply partic-
ment programs for public stations. ular ITV programs at certain times.
In addition, because of its role in formal educa-
tion, public television has had to develop its own Noncommercial Adult Education
unique body of syndicated material to meet instruc- Quality programming for adult learners is also now
tional television needs. A number of centers for pro- available in quantity to public stations. Beginning in
gram distribution have been established to perform the late 1970s, various consortia began to turn out
the same function as commercial syndication firms, telecourses (television courses) for integration into
but on a noncommercial, cooperative basis (see the curricula of postsecondary institutions. These
10.13 for more on these centers). efforts have centered particularly in community

10.13 Noncommercial Syndicators

T he Agency for Instructional Technology (AIT) in Boo-

mington, Indiana, produces series for primary grades,
high school and postsecondary students. Among the best
especially in science and technology, including Read All
About It, The Landscape of Geometry and Magic Library.
Even PBS, through its Elementary/Secondary Service, offers
known are All About You, Math Works, Assignment: The a slate of ITV programs, such as The Voyage of the Mimi,
World and Up Close and Natural. AIT took the lead in Amigos and Futures with Jaime Escalante.
developing innovative classroom programs that operate in These not-for-profit companies fund their operations in a
conjunction with desktop computers, creating the first inter- variety of ways, including leasing programming they own
active lessons on DVD. to stations and PBS for broadcast, selling DVDs to the gen-
Great Plains National (GPN) in Lincoln, Nebraska, eral public, and acquiring contracts from private founda-
offers dozens of series for elementary and junior high use tions and state and national agencies. For example, in
along with a great many materials for college and adult 2011 AIT (for the fifth year) secured the fulfillment contract
learning. Titles in its catalog range from Reading Rainbow for Jumpstart’s “Read for the Record” campaign. This
(for first graders) to The Power of Algebra, Tombs and Tal- national program, funded in part by the Pearson Founda-
ismans and Truly American (for high schoolers and adults). tion, was an effort to close the early achievement gap for
Western Instructional Television (WIT) in Los Angeles some children living in lower economic environments. Sim-
offers more than 500 series in science, language arts, ilarly, AIT has partnered for years with the Kettering Foun-
social studies, English, art and history. TV Ontario also dation and local and state organizations dedicated to
supplies U.S. schools with dozens of instructions series, literacy and childhood education.
 CHAPTER 10 Public Television Programming 363

colleges, led by Miami-Dade (Florida), Dallas significant occurrences in kindergarten and lower ele-
(Texas), Coastline Community College (Huntington mentary classrooms throughout America, leading to
Beach, California) and the Southern California Con- new and more complex attitudes toward television in
sortium. With budgets ranging from $100,000 to and out of the classroom (see 10.15). Ironically, Ses-
$1 million for a single course, they have proven to ame Street may also contribute to the gap in knowl-
be sufficiently well produced to attract casual view- edge between advantaged and disadvantaged children
ers as well as enrolled students. because it is widely watched (and learned from) by
Meanwhile, faculty members at other leading already advantaged children, perhaps making the dis-
postsecondary institutions began developing curricu- advantaged more disadvantaged.
lum materials to accompany several outstanding
public television program series distributed nation-
ally through PBS for general viewing. The first of Commercial Syndication
these was The Ascent of Man, with the late Dr. More extensively tapped than noncommercial
Jacob Bronowski, a renowned scholar as well as a sources, however, are such commercial syndicators
skillful and effective communicator on camera. as Time-Life, David Susskind’s Talent Associates,
More than 200 colleges and universities offered col- Wolper Productions, Granada TV in Great Britain,
lege credit for that course. Others quickly followed and several major motion picture companies includ-
(The Adams Chronicles, Cosmos, Life on Earth, The ing Universal Pictures. Public television stations
Shakespeare Plays) as programmers discovered that sometimes negotiate individually for program
such series furnished the casual viewer with attrac- packages with such syndicators; alternatively, they
tive public television entertainment and simulta- can join with the public stations through regional
neously served more serious viewers desiring to associations to make group buys.
register for college course credits. Commercially syndicated programs obtained in
This experience led many public television pro- this way by PTV include historical and contempo-
grammers to realize that too much had been made of rary documentaries, British-produced drama series
the supposed demarcation between ITV and PTV. and packages of highly popular or artistic motion
Too often during earlier years, many program pro- pictures originally released to theaters. Such pro-
ducers would not even consider producing so-called gramming, because it was designed for general audi-
instructional television. The first Carnegie Commis- ences, is thought to bring new viewers to a public
sion in 1965 strengthened this presumed gap by station. Many programmers believe those new view-
not concerning itself with television’s educational ers can then be persuaded, through promotional
assistance to schools and colleges and by adopting announcements, to watch more typical PTV fare
the term public television to mean programming (and maybe, just maybe, become members).
for general viewing. The narrowing of the distance The proportion of commercially syndicated pro-
between instructional and general interest program- grams in public television station schedules, nonethe-
ming has been highlighted by the broad use of less, averages less than 5 percent of broadcast hours.
such public TV documentaries as Baseball and The number stays small partly because those syndi-
The Civil War by Ken Burns in the classroom setting cated programs that public stations find appropriate
(see 10.14). are relatively expensive; unless the station secures out-
The lesson for public television has been that ITV side underwriting to cover license fees, it usually can’t
and PTV programs can appeal to viewers other than afford them. Stations now pay as much as $100,000
those for which they were especially intended. The for an hour of British television that cost as little as
Annenberg/CPB series is only one example. Another $50,000 a few years ago. Another reason is philo-
is Sesame Street, which was initially intended for sophical: Although much commercially syndicated
youngsters in disadvantaged households—yet the in- material has strong audience appeal, its educational
school use of Sesame Street has been one of the or cultural value is arguable.
364 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

10.14 Ken Burns and PBS: A Match Made in Broadcasting Heaven?

T here is probably no single person more closely identi-

fied with the Public Broadcasting System than Ken
Burns. Hailed for over 30 years as the most prolific, most
Like many documentarians, Burns plays a variety of
simultaneous roles in the production of his films, serving as
not only director but also, almost always, as producer,
influential, and most awarded documentary filmmaker in writer, cinematographer and even music composer. For his
the United States, Burns has produced virtually all of his troubles, he’s taken home a slew of Emmys and two Oscar
groundbreaking films with and for PBS. And while some of nominations and has been a nominee or winner of awards
his earliest pictures were produced for theatrical release, bestowed by organizations as diverse as the Directors
it’s PBS that made Burns who he is, and he’s returned the Guild of America, the International Documentary Associa-
favor many times over. tion, the Sundance Film Festival, the George Eastman
Burns is best known for his epic PBS documentary mini- House Museum of Photography and Film, the Western
series The Civil War (1990), Baseball (1994 and 2010) Writers of America and the Organization of American
and Jazz (2001), all of which were nominated for—and in Historians.
the cases of The Civil War and Baseball, winners of— But perhaps the honor (if it can be called that) most
multiple Emmy awards. But Burns’s vast filmography also closely associated with Mr. Burns in the minds of film-
includes docs on topics as diverse as the U.S. park system makers and editors is as the inspiration for the so-called
(The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, 2009), women’s Ken Burns Effect, a panning and zooming technique that
suffrage (Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth can be found in just about every one of Burns’ films as
Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, 1999), American well as those of documentarians he’s inspired. (Burns
landmarks (The Statue of Liberty, 1985), and individuals as didn’t invent the technique, but he’s used it so often and
different as Huey Long (1985), Thomas Jefferson (1997), so consistently that, for better or worse, it’s come to bear
Frank Lloyd Wright (1998) and the first black heavyweight his name.) Since Burns in his PBS documentaries uses so
boxing champion (Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall many still images—archival photos mostly, but also
of Jack Johnson, 2004). These and Burns’s other acclaimed paintings, illustrations and clippings from old newspapers
films skillfully interweave archival still and motion photogra- and other stationary two-dimensional visual materials—
phy, period music, interviews with experts and voice-over he’s found that he can bring his movies to life by, for
narration by respected actors and historians to create what example, having his camera zoom in on one individual in
has become a trademark Ken Burns look and feel. a photo, then panning across the width of the picture

Local Production producers found that, among the 79 licensees respond-

The percentage of airtime filled with locally produced ing, more than 3,000 programs had been produced
programming has gradually decreased over the years during the past year. Among them were weekly and
as both network and syndicated programming have occasional nightly broadcasts devoted to activities,
increased in quantity and quality. Owing mostly to its events and issues of local interest and significance.
high cost, the percentage of total on-air hours pro- Also, many stations regularly cover their state
duced solely for local use by public television stations governments and legislators. Unlike commercial sta-
had declined from 16 percent in 1972 to much less tions, which concentrate on spot news and devote a
than 5 percent by the mid-2000s. Moreover, produc- minute or less to each story, public stations see their
tion quality expectations have risen. More time and role as giving more comprehensive treatment to local
dollars and better facilities must now be used to pro- matters. But news and public-affairs programs aren’t
duce effective local programs. the only kinds being produced. The survey found
Locally produced programs, nonetheless, are far stations turning out a spectrum of arts and perfor-
from extinct in public television. A survey of station mance, documentaries, sports events and sports talk,
 CHAPTER 10 Public Television Programming 365

before coming to rest on the face of another person in the major corporation to cut back on its financial support for
photo, and then zooming in on or out from that second PBS and its programs.)
person. Indeed, the threats to public broadcasting—and, as a
The popularity of Burns’ films has been a boon for PBS. result, to the continued viability of his own career—thrust
In fact, the initial (1990) airing of the 11-hour Civil War Burns into the political spotlight in early 2011. As Con-
mini-series attracted more than 40 million viewers, a public gress yet again debated the desirability of funding PBS
television ratings record that still stands some two decades during a recession, Burns wrote an op-ed piece for the
later. (The PBS network and its member stations, recogniz- Washington Post entitled “Public Broadcasting: A
ing the continuing appeal of The Civil War, repeatedly trot ‘Luxury’ We Can’t Do Without.” In his article, Burns
it out during fundraising drives.) Because Burns’ work is so defended the quality of PBS’s work, contrasting it with the
well respected—and is such a reliable audience draw—in content of commercial broadcasting. “With minimal
2008 the Corporation for Public Broadcasting committed funding,” Burns wrote, “PBS manages to produce essen-
to a 10-year agreement with Burns and his production tial (commercial-free) children’s programming as well as
company, Florentine Films. Under the agreement, CPB the best science and nature, arts and performance, and
provided funding for the development of new Burns pro- public affairs and history programming on the dial—
jects, including Prohibition (2011) as well as Vietnam (tar- often a stark contrast to superficial, repetitive and mind-
geted for 2016), biographies of the Roosevelts (Teddy, numbing programming elsewhere.” Burns not only stood
Franklin and Eleanor) and a look at the history of country up for PBS’s mission; he also unambiguously gave public
music. television credit for the existence and success of his own
Given the continual threats of budget reduction and work: “Many say that what can’t survive in the market-
even elimination that public broadcasting perennially faces, place doesn’t deserve to survive. Not one of my docu-
the fact that the CPB has made such a long-term commit- mentaries, produced solely for PBS over the past 30
ment to the development of new Ken Burns films is encour- years, could have been made anywhere but on public
aging. Indeed, Burns himself is all too familiar with funding broadcasting.”
problems; in 2009, his long-term supporter General Motors
publicly announced that it would no longer be able to Davis Weiss, Ph.D.
Montana State University Billings
underwrite Burns’ work. (GM, of course, is far from the only

history, comedy, science, nature and even (surprise) Counterprogramming the Commercial
original children’s programs. Networks
Competition, of course, is a key consideration.
There are three ways to respond to it:
Scheduling Strategies
1. Offensively, by attempting to overpower the
Nowadays, PBS programmers want to maximize competitor
audiences. Gone are the educational television days 2. Defensively, by counterprogramming for a dif-
when paying attention to audience size was sneered ferent segment of the audience than the compe-
at in public television. The prevailing attitude at PBS titor’s program is likely to attract
recognizes that a program must be seen to be of value
3. By ignoring the competition altogether and
and that improper scheduling prevents full realization
hoping for the best
of a program’s potential. Member stations now recog-
nize that bigger audiences also mean a bigger dollar PBS has never been able to go on the offensive;
take during on-air pledge drives. its programs lack the requisite breadth of appeal.
366 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

10.15 Remembering Sesame Street

G enerations of preschoolers, probably including you,

learned the alphabet—and a whole lot more—from
watching the Muppets. Sesame Street premiered in 1969
and Susan’s story included the adoption of their son Miles.
When original cast member Will Lee, who had played
store owner Mr. Hooper, died, producers chose to include
on National Education Television Network, now called the the death of Mr. Hooper into Sesame Street’s story. The
Public Broadcasting Service. After 43 seasons and nearly producers believed that the inclusion of Mr. Hooper’s death
4,500 episodes, it’s one of the longest-running shows in would educate children about the death of a loved one.
television history. Created by Jim Henson, Sesame Street is By the late-1990s Sesame Street’s producers had come
probably the most respected educational program in the to the realization that the modern child had different viewing
world. habits than the child of the past. At the same time, the
The original U.S.-produced show currently airs in 120 explosion of more programming—on cable television, on the
countries, and more than 20 international versions are pro- internet and on DVDs—led to an increased level of compe-
duced in such countries as Brazil, Mexico, France, Turkey, tition for Sesame Street and wee-bit-of-a-drop (!) in the rat-
China and Russia. More than 77 million Americans watched ings, so the producers took steps to make structural changes.
Sesame Street as children, as well as millions more worldwide. First was the inclusion of Elmo’s World as a miniseries during
One survey reported that 95 percent of all American children the final fifteen minutes of every episode of Sesame Street.
watched Sesame Street by the time they were 3 years old, and This segment follows the adventures of Sesame Street’s most
based on Nielsen ratings, the show continues to appear popular Muppet monster, 3½ year old Elmo. In the early
among the top 15 children’s programs on television. 2000s, Sesame Street began including more narrative and
Sesame Street teaches letters and numbers, as well as more storylines in its modular episodes.
basic word recognition, mathematics and science, but its The popularity of the Muppet characters and the show’s
goals include basic social skills. Sesame Street has worked overall success turned Sesame Street into one of the earliest
toward teaching children about how to make friends, and most enduring multiplatform brand names. It may also
practice good hygiene and eat healthfully. Known for its deserve an award for being the most studied program in
rigorous ongoing research, the program’s overall curriculum history: Decades of scholars have poured over it, trying to
has changed over time to reflect the problems of growing assess its influence and efficacy. Comic writer Michael Davis
up in America. At the same time, using witty humor and fast has been quoted as saying: “Sesame Street [is] perhaps the
pacing, the show tries to appeal to parents and older sib- most vigorously researched, vetted, and fretted-over program
lings as well as preschool children. on the planet. It would take a fork-lift to now haul away the
While the elaborate hand-held puppets called the Mup- load of scholarly paper devoted to the series…”*
pets are central to Sesame Street’s broad appeal, its live In addition to its 118 Emmy award wins (more than any
actors keep the show grounded, and the program has led other series in the entire history of television), including a
the way in portrayals of minorities on television. The program Lifetime Achievement Emmy in 2009, the show has won
has been praised for its multicultural cast, as well as for the 11 Grammys, has its own theme park (Sesame Place),
actors’ overall longevity. Sesame Street boasts the longest- publishes magazines on five continents and generates
running Hispanic character in the history of television (Luis) as movies, toys, books, DVDs and video games. The clever
well as the longest-running character with a disability (Linda, use of Muppets, animation, music and live actors in brief
who is deaf) and what are believed to be the longest run- modular segments results in a broad-appeal program cap-
ning African-American characters (Gordon and Susan). turing the imagination of millions of children while involving
The changing relationships among the people who act them and their parents in the learning process.
the characters also get incorporated into the program. For James Angelini, Ph.D.
example, Luis married Maria, the owner of Sesame Street’s University of Delaware
Fix-It-Shop, and Maria later gave birth to Gabby; Maria’s *Davis, Michael. Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame
pregnancy became part of the show’s storyline. Gordon Street. New York: Viking Books, 2008.
 CHAPTER 10 Public Television Programming 367

Prime-time PBS shows average around a 1.2 house- interest only to some very small groups of viewers.
hold rating. ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC regularly col- Many programs are “good for the mission” but earn
lect ratings of 4.5–6 (although their figures are much small ratings. Thus, during the sweeps, PBS now dis-
smaller than a decade ago—the result of audience plays many of its strongest—not weakest—programs.
defections to the many cable networks and online By the mid-2000s the top programmers at PBS
services). had decided to stop using ratings as a “rear-view
PBS, then, must duck and dodge, a strategy mirror” and had begun to state goals for their pro-
called counterprogramming. By studying national grams, using a formal process that judges prime-time
Nielsen data, programmers learn the demographic programs according to predetermined goals. Some
makeup of competing network program audiences stations continue to be nervous about the transition
so they can place their own programs more advanta- to objective standards, preferring to balance critical
geously. For example, a symphony performance that acclaim and awards against audience size. Neverthe-
tends to attract well-educated women older than 50 less, PBS must be accountable to an ever-shrinking
(upscale in socioeconomics) living in metropolitan number of underwriters who want their programs to
areas would perform well opposite FOX’s The Simp- be seen, really seen.
sons, NBC’s Deal or No Deal, or CW’s WWE Friday
Night Smackdown!, all having downscale (lower
socioeconomic) audiences. Similarly, in searching for Stripping and Stacking Limited Series
a slot for the investigative documentary series Front- A standard among PBS’s offerings, the limited series
line, PBS did not consider for a moment the 8 to includes both nonfiction and fictional miniseries (as
9 P.M. slot on Sundays because football overruns explained in Chapter 2, limited series have continuing
often push 60 Minutes into this slot. topics with a fixed number of episodes, usually rang-
PBS tries to avoid placing a valued program ing from 3 to 12 or more). Some notable examples in
against a hit series in the commercial schedules, recent years include Texas Ranch House; Jean-Michel
although there aren’t enough such slots. The net- Cousteau: Ocean Adventures; African-American
work also has traditionally avoided placing impor- Lives; and Ken Burns’ The War. Most limited series
tant programs during the three key periods of all- appear once a week in prime time, much as weekly
market audience measurement (sweeps) in Novem- series are scheduled on commercial television.
ber, February and May—times when commercial Because short-run series lose viewers across the
television throws its blockbusters at the audience. first few weekly telecasts, however, PBS schedulers
But because the commercial networks have cut have experimented with alternative play patterns in
back on sweeps blockbusters in recent years (espe- the hope of staunching the dropoff. Borrowing jar-
cially costume-drama miniseries, which lure away gon from computer technology, they asked whether
many PBS viewers), PBS has grown more willing to limited series scheduling could be made more “user
run an important series through a sweeps month. friendly.” Experiments with the Holocaust series
This is clearly a calculated risk, a kind of TV “mine- and Shoah in 1988 showed that limited series that
field”; a powerful commercial network special could have sufficiently engaging material lend themselves
draw off so many viewers from a weekly PBS mini- to airing on consecutive nights, a practice known
series that few would return to see its continuation in commercial television as stripping. This ploy not
and concluding episode. only attracted at least as many viewers as tuned in to
Further, because public as well as commercial sta- similar programs on a weekly basis but also encour-
tions are measured during the sweeps, PBS’s stations aged viewers to spend significantly more time watch-
demand a “solid” schedule, with a minimum of “mis- ing the series. Moreover, the episode-to-episode
sion programs.” This is a mildly pejorative reference to ratings dropoff disappeared.
public television’s mission to serve all Americans, spe- Which limited series receive special treatment
cifically referring here to narrow-appeal programs of and which must air in the usual once-a-week way
368 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

has hinged on a decision about what “sufficiently Considerations at the Station Level
engaging material” means. This is in part a function
A public television program schedule is notable for its
of production budget, advance promotion, casting,
variety; it is meant to serve the total population over
subject matter and less well-recognized variables
time but not the complete needs of the individual
such as timing, quality and appeal to the public tele-
viewer. Although this is also true of commercial sta-
vision audience. Such decisions cannot be supported
tions, it especially applies to public television schedules.
by audience research alone; the programs must be
Because they usually are so focused in content, PTV
screened (watched) as well. Ultimately, the chief pro-
programs tend to be watched by small, often
gram executive now makes the call.
demographically-targeted population segments. Seek-
When a limited series has too many episodes for
ing the most opportune time slot for reaching those tar-
convenient stripping, PBS bunches episodes together,
get groups is the local program manager’s challenge.
stacking two episodes per evening. Ken Burns’s epic
No U.S. PTV programmer ever builds an entire
on World War II, The War, for example, was sched-
schedule from scratch nowadays. Rather, the man-
uled in this pattern, thereby limiting the magnitude
ager’s ongoing responsibility is to maintain a sched-
of nightly commitment on the part of viewers. PBS’s
ule while considering the following factors:
practice is to schedule limited series on a maximum
of five consecutive nights (although The War 1. Licensee type, as each carries its unique pro-
required seven evenings). gram priorities
2. Audience size and demographics
Audience Flow 3. Competition from commercial stations, other
public television signals and cable networks
Certain PBS series are especially dependent on audience
flow from a strong lead-in. New, untried programs 4. Daypart targeting, such as daytime for chil-
especially need scheduling help. The Ring of Truth, a dren’s programs and instructional services, and
six-part series on the scientific method, for example, early evenings for older adults
was not expected to build a loyal following the way a 5. Program availability
predictable series such as Washington Week in Review
No single element overrides the others, but each
has. Thus it was placed following an established, suc-
affects the final schedule. Public television programmers
cessful science series, NOVA, which regularly draws
seek programs that meet local audience needs and
large audiences (large, that is, for public television)
schedule those programs at times most likely to attract
and itself has no need of a powerful lead-in.
the target audience. Because all audience segments can-
Particularly in need of a lead-in boost—on a
not be served at once, the mystery and magic of the job
regular basis—is another PBS staple, the umbrella
is getting the right programs in the right time slots. High
series. These are anthologies of single programs
ratings are not the primary objective; serving the appro-
with loosely related content that appear under an
priate audience with a show they will watch that adds to
all-encompassing title (or umbrella) such as Ameri-
the quality of their life, is.
can Experience (history programs) or Great Perfor-
mances (ballet, plays, operas, orchestral music,
Broadway shows and so forth). Because the material
offered under the umbrella changes from week to National Promotion
week, the audience never knows what to expect.
Clearly, the format works against habit formation. Still another consideration is the importance of
Thus, it is essential that a strong audience be intro- national promotion. Fledgling programs and episodes
duced to each week’s episode, if not by costly media of an umbrella series need extra help for viewers to
advertising (usually out of public television’s reach), discover them. Although an effective lead-in program
then by a substantial lead-in. is essential, advertising and promotion can alert other
 CHAPTER 10 Public Television Programming 369

potential viewers to a new program and persuade country’s TV households were within measured
them to try it. Unfortunately, public television bud- markets.
gets permit little advertising, sometimes none. Sadly, Beginning in 2010, however, PBS finally began
only a few underwriters include some promotional a fulltime ratings subscription with Nielsen. The
allotment in their program budgets. subscription has provided ongoing and detailed
Still another PBS practice is to carefully schedule viewer information about such programs as Front-
on-air promotion announcements for a particular line, Antiques Roadshow, Masterpiece, NOVA and
program in time slots where potential viewers of even Sesame Street. PBS apparently moved to more
that program (based on demographic profiles) are frequent and in-depth information about its viewers
likely to be found in maximum quantity. Such on- to supply more and better data to corporate under-
air promotion is crucial because it reaches known writers (as well as help PBS programming).
viewers of public television, but its effectiveness is Commercial network programmers, to the irrita-
somewhat hampered by public television’s limited tion of advertising time-buyers, have traditionally
prime-time reach. In one week, a massive on-air inflated affiliates’ ratings by stunting with unusually
campaign promoting one program could hope to popular specials and miniseries during the sweeps
reach at best only 20 to 25 percent of all television weeks. These higher ratings provide the local affiliates
households, and far fewer would actually watch. with an opportunity to raise advertising rates. PBS
programmers schedule some new programs during
sweeps but rarely stunt for an entire four-week
Audience Ratings period. PBS does, however, try to schedule a represen-
tative mix of PBS offerings during each of the
Public television must constantly demonstrate its national survey weeks. No more than one opera is
utility. Many have contributed to its continuance— permitted, for example, nor are too many esoteric
Congress, underwriters, viewers. If few watch, why public-affairs programs scheduled during that week.
should contributors keep public television alive? Not being entirely “holier than thou,” PBS does
Programmers have come to realize that critical practice some stunting during its pledge drives. Just
praise alone is insufficient; they need tangible evi- as networks stunt for economic reasons, so too does
dence that audiences feel the same way. That most public television. The difference is structural: Rather
convincing evidence comes from acceptable ratings. than raise revenue by selling advertising time on the
basis of ratings, PBS stations raise revenue by direct,
on-air solicitation of viewer contributions. Programs
Nielsen Data specially produced for the drives are scheduled
PBS evaluates the performance of its programs with alongside regular PBS series. To an extent, larger
both national and local viewing data, each having its audiences mean larger contributions, but a low-
own particular usefulness in analysis. National audi- rated program may find a small but appreciative
ence data are provided by the Nielsen People-Meter audience and prove a lucrative fundraiser. At the
service (NPM), and the Nielsen Station Index (NSI) same time, high ratings (relative to the whole sched-
provides the individual market data. In the past, ule) have considerable appeal to uncommitted fund-
PBS’s limited research budget permitted the purchase ing agencies and potential underwriters.
of only one national audience survey week per month.
Forty weeks therefore went unmeasured. (The com-
mercial networks, as described in previous chapters, Audience Accumulation Strategy
purchase continuous, year-round national data.) Even PBS strives for maximum variety in its program
though restricted, NSI’s Metered Market Service pro- schedule to serve as many people as possible at one
vided PBS with a comparatively inexpensive proxy time or another each week. Unlike commercial net-
for daily national ratings because 66 percent of the work programs, not all public television programs
370 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

are expected to have large audiences. Small audiences appeal of competing network programs—such as
are usually acceptable so long as the weekly accumu- when a special starts a half hour after a PBS
lation of viewers is large, an indication that the “pub- show—the overnight ratings will suddenly drop at
lic” is using its public television service. And so, an the point where the competing special began.
important element in assessing PBS’s programming This information tells the programmers
success is its weekly cumulative audience, or cume. (roughly, to be sure) the extent to which their pro-
This statistic, along with time-spent-viewing, com- gram has engaged viewers. Noncompelling pro-
prises the two basic elements of audience data. grams are vulnerable to competition. Shows failing
The most important data come from the cumes. this test have to be scheduled more carefully when
Nielsen defines a cumulative household audience as repeated, preferably opposite softer network compe-
the percentage of all U.S. TV households (undupli- tition (like in the middle of the night).
cated) that have tuned in for at least six minutes to a The National People-Meter Service, in addition
specific program or time period. (Six minutes is a to TV ratings and cumes, provides a different but
minimum figure, the “ticket” for admission into equally valuable analytical statistic: the number of
the cume. Even if the viewer watches for 50 minutes, minutes spent by people (or households) viewing a
or leaves and rejoins the audience five or six times single program or even a whole multi-episode series.
during a telecast, that person is still counted only This time-spent-viewing figure reveals how much of
once in the cume, provided the six-minute minimum a production was actually watched, in contrast to
has been met.) the cume, which simply tells how many watched.
A more typical statistic for public television As mentioned previously, some miniseries earn
than cumes are average audience ratings. For the higher time-spent-viewing figures when stripped on
major ongoing series in 2010, the composite average consecutive nights than when scheduled weekly.
ratings were as follows: nature and science pro-
grams, 2.3 rating; dramas, 1.8; musical perfor-
mances, 1.1; news and public affairs, 1.2. Based on Demographic Composition
prior experience, PBS programmers apply informal Another useful way to evaluate a program is by
guidelines for what rating levels constitute adequate observing exactly who is watching. If a program is
viewing. Because ratings are not the sole criterion by designed for the elderly, did the elderly in fact tune
which PBS program performance is evaluated, how- in? When African-Americans were the goal, did suf-
ever, failure to meet predicted levels never triggers a ficient numbers switch on the program? Although
cancellation. Repeated failure to earn the minimum households tuning to public television each week
expected cumes, though, could eventually result in are, as a group, not unlike television viewers gener-
nonrenewal. ally, audiences for individual programs can vary
widely in demographic composition. Programs such
as NOVA and Masterpiece attract older, college-
Loyalty Assessment educated, professional/managerial viewers because
PBS researchers also study audience loyalty (tenac- these programs can be intellectually demanding.
ity) as a way to evaluate a program, something com- Demanding shows are numerous on PBS, thus its
mercial entities pay little attention to. Using ratings cumulative prime-time audience composition reflects
from Nielsen’s metered markets, it is possible to plot this tendency. Many programs, though, have
an audience’s course across a single program or broader-based followings, among them Nature and
across an entire multiweek series. If the audience This Old House.
tires quickly of a program, the overnight ratings PBS’s evening programs have also been found
will slip downward during the telecast (a fate to to have an age skew (tendency) favoring adults
which lengthy programs are especially susceptible). 35 years of age or older. Few young adults, teen-
If the audience has weakened in response to the agers or children watch in prime time. The reason
 CHAPTER 10 Public Television Programming 371

for this skew probably lies in the nature of the even- Critics often overlook the fact that underrepre-
ing schedule, which, despite the occasional light sentation does not mean no representation. NOVA,
entertainment special, consists largely of nonfiction for example, is watched each week in some 900,000
documentaries. According to CBS’s top research households headed by a person who never finished
executive: high school. Even operas average nearly 300,000
such downscale households in their audiences.
Our analysis shows that over age 35, you
Audience statistics serve a unique function: jus-
get an adult programming taste. Under age
tification of public television. Commercial broadcas-
35, you still have a youth orientation. It is
ters and cable operators justify their existence when
only when people reach their mid-30s that
they turn a profit for their owners and investors;
their viewing tastes become more like older
public broadcasters prove their worth when survey
adults’…. And their appetite grows for
data indicate the public valued (that is, viewed) the
news and information programming.8
service provided.
Still, public television’s overall (24-hour-a-day)
cumulative audience demographically mirrors the
general population on such characteristics as educa- Developments Ahead
tion, income, occupation and racial composition.
That is partly because it is a large audience, with Some people in the noncommercial field believe the
more than half of all U.S. TV households tuning to public television station of today will become the
public television each week and about four-fifths public telecommunications center of tomorrow—a
tuning in monthly. Another reason for PBS’s broad place where telecommunications professionals han-
profile is that the overall audience includes the view- dle the production, acquisition, reception, duplica-
ers of daytime children’s and how-to (hobbies and tion and delivery of all types of noncommercial
crafts) programs, many of whom are not frequent educational, cultural and informational materials in
users of the prime-time schedule. all kinds of media and stand ready to advise and
Public television representatives frequently are counsel people in the community. In this scenario,
called upon to explain a seeming paradox: How existing public television stations will transmit,
can public television’s audience duplicate the demo- stream or podcast programs of broad interest and
graphic makeup of the country when so many of its value to relatively large audiences scattered through-
programs attract the upscale viewer? The question is out their coverage areas; and they will also feed
second in importance only to that of how many peo- these and other programs to local cable channels
ple are watching; it is often tied to charges of elitism and transfer programs of more specialized interest
in program acquisition, implying that PBS is not via the internet for use in schools, colleges, libraries,
serving all the public with “public” television. hospitals, industry settings or in use on homes.
PBS replies that it consciously attempts to pro- Clearly this is a view that has vision and pur-
vide alternatives to the commercial network offer- pose. It describes a project that could excite Ameri-
ings; to do so, the content of most PBS programs cans and provide genuine informational service for a
must make demands of viewers. Demanding pro- range of populations. Currently, however, little
grams, however, tend to have less appeal to viewers political or industry will exists to take on such an
of lower socioeconomic status (as well as to younger ambitious project. Rather, public broadcasters will
viewers). The result is underrepresentation of such continue to struggle to “keep up” with the industry’s
viewers in certain audiences. This underrepresenta- digital advancements and to maintain the status quo
tion is, however, on balance, only slight and limited in corporate, member, foundation and governmental
largely to prime time, being offset in the week’s support.
cumulative audience totals for other programs hav- In coming years, emphasis will likely be placed
ing broader appeal. on maintaining most of public television as it is,
372 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

rather than expanding stations into centers of large value of this institution, is founded on the principle
public telecommunications complexes. To this end, that a certain portion of the public’s airwaves should
we will likely see limited growth—probably even be reserved for noncommercial, educational use.
more shrinking in overlapping markets—of the Public financing was a key element of that
quantity of noncommercial television stations, even founding assumption, and billions of dollars have
in areas of minority broadcasting (think Alaska, been invested in making public television available
Indian concentrations, islands, as well as under- to the entire nation. To continue as the national
served rural areas). Analysts also predict that more resource that it has become in broadcasting, public
stations will either close or separate from PBS in the television must further extend its mandate to addi-
coming decade. Public television, they suggest, is tional media technologies. The educational, infor-
“overbuilt,” characterized by a redundancy that mational and cultural functions of public television
seemed helpful in past years when individual sta- are certain to play a key role in achieving that objec-
tions provided just a single stream of programming tive (see 10.16).
and the internet wasn’t a part of television viewing. A renewed focus on its educational mission will
With the loss of funding provided by the Public guide PBS’s program selection and fundraising
Telecommunications Facilities Program (see 10.9), efforts in the future. One of its successes, Arthur,
fewer avenues will exist for funding upgrades, mak- targets school-age children on weekday and Sunday
ing digital catch-up the main focus of effort. And mornings and is the most watched children’s pro-
finally, industry insiders look to increased commer- gram in all of television, among young children.
cialization of the entire system, as stations seek out PBS usually has six of the top-10 preschool pro-
new ways to fund existing services. grams on U.S. television, including Barney and
The coming years, then, will pose multiple chal- Friends, Dragon Tales, Teletubbies and others.
lenges (a polite word for threats) to those who hold On the other side, public television is seeking
public television licenses across the country. Even as wide-appeal programs, much like commercial net-
these dilemmas surface, however, public broadcas- works, that can attract underwriting. One such effort
ters are expected to embrace HD, online, on demand was Slavery and the Making of America, a four-part
and eventually 3D, seeking ways to extend their documentary produced by WNET in New York,
stations’ public services for PBS audiences. As the which was underwritten almost entirely by the
digital age advances, at least the major public broad- New York Life Insurance Company. These programs
casters will be able to offer even more streams of may signal directions for the future. As with all
programming through multiple digital platforms, broadcasters, however, the operative strategy for
squeezing smaller stations that cannot follow suit. public networks and stations is alternative means of
Nonetheless, an increased amount of content will program distribution via the internet, mobile media,
be provided on-demand; and stations will be encour- and interactive CD- and DVD-ROM.
aged to follow the lead of WNET-New York and By 2020, PTV will still be around but may be a
Spanish-language channel V-me in offering special- smaller collective force on the national and local
ized services for specific populations. scenes because it faces daunting competition for
In order for public broadcasting to achieve its product and funds. On the hopeful side, additional
public service potential and move beyond the limita- digital and online channels along with exciting
tions imposed by broadcast towers, the social value of program ideas, coupled with digital compression
noncommercial, educational video service must be and HD pictures, may revitalize the noncommercial
continually reaffirmed by policymakers, public broad- television industry. You never know. In the late sev-
casters and the American public. Public television can- enties, PBS President Hartford Gunn advocated
not advance into the new media environment of the three network services for public television, each
mid-twenty-first century without such affirmation. targeting different audiences and purposes. Video
The public service, and particularly the educational technology—with digital compression capabilities
 CHAPTER 10 Public Television Programming 373

10.16 KUED’s Digital Asset Management—A Case Study

A s early as the mid-1990s, former PBS president Bruce

Christensen was advancing a compelling argument
that the future survival of public television would be
their mission–seeing KUED as much more than a television
station, but rather as a genuine educational institution in
service to a worldwide audience.
determined by the system’s ability to return to its roots— As one of the nation’s leading producers of long-form
educational television. Envisioned by its founders as an documentary programs, KUED prides itself in its reputation as
educational institution that deserved a place beside the “Utah’s best storyteller.” Today, from the moment a program
public library, public schools and the system of higher is conceived, KUED producers begin imagining the docu-
education, the local educational television station was mentary program not only as it will be broadcast as a fin-
seen as a learning resource for the communities they ished television program, but also the multiple educational
served. objectives the program content might fulfill and the media that
By the late-1990s, the multichannel media landscape might best serve them. Since mid-2009, the KUED produc-
contained an enormous array of new delivery systems, tion staff has been systematically categorizing and archiving
and new niche television channels within the commercial program content for delivery online. The station’s commitment
sector were successfully attracting television viewers away to Digital Asset Management has completely revised the way
from what had become known as public television. The production teams perform both in the field and back in the
arrival of the internet made the situation even more compli- studios and editing suites, as the cataloging of raw footage
cated as television programmers scrambled to understand from every production is now standard practice.
the changing viewing patterns and preferences of the tele- As part of the CPB’s American Archive Inventory Project,
vision audience. However, the transition of television from KUED is not only cataloging and archiving every new pro-
analog to digital production and transmission afforded gram segment it produces, but has undertaken the challenge
public television stations with an unprecedented opportunity of cataloging and archiving all finished programs and raw
to reconceptualize the entire television program production footage that still exists from the station’s 53-year production
process, and some stations did so effectively. history. The goal is to deliver the station’s entire digital library
At public television station KUED in Salt Lake City, the to the viewing public online, around the clock.
transition to digital and HD meant a complete technical While the completion of this ambitious project is still
rebuilding of the station from the ground up. But this enor- several years away, when finished it will provide an
mous challenge also created the opportunity for station extremely invaluable demonstration of the educational
personnel to rethink how programming was produced and potential of the local public television station in the lifelong
the multiple audiences that the station could serve beyond learning of humans around the globe.
its regular digital television channels. According to KUED’s
Director of Production, Ken Verdoia, the conversion to dig- Robert K. Avery, Ph.D.
ital HD totally revolutionized the way the entire staff defined University of Utah

and new distribution opportunities—may finally 2. The broadcast reform movement was an effort by a
have caught up with his vision. loosely-organized coalition of not-for-profit broadcasters
to maintain a large portion of the radio spectrum for
public, not commercial, use. The movement—begun in the
Notes late 1920s—generally disbanded after the Wagner-Hat-
field Amendment (which would have set aside a fourth of
the spectrum for non-profit use) failed in 1934.
1. June-Friesen, Katy, “Surge of Channels, People Meter
Chaos Depress PBS Ratings,” Current, 8 Dec 2008, 3. ITV in this now old-fashioned usage should not be
retrieved at http://www.current.org/audience/aud0822pbs. confused with ITV meaning “interactive television” or
shtml. “internet television.”
374 PART FOUR Television Programming Practices

4. Credit for this analogy and other portions of the chapter 7. This particular expression was coined by President
goes to S. Anders Yocum, Jr., who was at that time director Charles Van Hise of the University of Wisconsin in the
of program production for WTTW in Chicago and an early early 1900s, but all land-grant colleges espouse similar
contributor to this chapter, as published in Broadcast Pro- traditions.
gramming (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1980). 8. Quoted in Townsend, Bickley, “Going for the Middle:
5. Joachim, Franz, “Personal Interview,” 20 June 2011, An Interview with David F. Poltrack,” American Demo-
Albuquerque, NM. graphics, March 1990, p. 50.
6. Aufderheide, Patricia, The Daily Plant: A Critic on
the Capitalist Culture Beat. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 2000.
PART

5
Audio Programming
Practices
Part Five Outline
Chapter 11
Music Radio Programming 377
Chapter 12
Information Radio Programming 429

375
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11
CHAPTER

Music Radio Programming

Gregory D. Newton and Matthew T. Kaiser

Chapter Outline
The Shifting Ground Marketing and Promotion
A Little History News and Other Nonenter-
Terrestrial Radio tainment Programming
Cable Radio The Big News Question
Satellite Radio Journalistic Content
Online Audio
Broadcast Radio and the Internet Network and Syndicated
Programming
Choosing a Format Concerts and Specials
Comparing Technical Facilities Feature Syndicators
Defining the Competitive Market
Identifying Target Audiences What’s Coming for Radio?
Knowing the Available Budget
Estimating Potential Revenue Notes

Step-by-Step Selection
Process
Implementation
The Station Sound
The Anatomy of the Clock
The Music
The Clock in Practice
Controlling “the Sound”

377
378 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

I s radio dead? Googling that phrase turns up well

over 100,000 results—ranging from newspaper
and magazine articles to blogs to song lyrics. In fact,
radio has proven to be a very hardy survivor. Its his-
PDs working with station clusters need to
understand their company’s vision of the radio mar-
ket and the roles of their particular stations in their
company’s overall strategy. In other words, pro-
tory is one of continual adaptation and innovation, grammers are brand managers—responsible for all
driven by changes in technology, audience tastes and of the elements that position each co-owned station
lifestyles and the industry’s economic structures. Suc- and with the strategic goal of dominating listening
cessful programmers have reinvented “radio” every within a demographic category or a set of formats.
generation (or even more often), and stations continue Most major group owners specialize in one or more
to be a vibrant part of the media landscape for many formats. These specialties may be in one or two
listeners. related formats that nearly always appear in any
market they participate in—even though they may
have a dozen or more formats across all of their sta-
The Shifting Ground tions. Alternatively, the owners may have a true for-
mat specialization strategy in which all their
Indeed, radio listening is still substantial—attracting properties are programmed in a very narrow format
more than 90 percent of the U.S. population in every range. For example, Clear Channel dominates the
age demographic each week.1 Radio revenues actually contemporary hit radio market whereas Cumulus is
increased in recent years, and industry experts project a country music leader, although both owners have
continued increases in the years ahead (through stations programming many other formats. Taking a
2015). Although listeners may spend a bit less time more audience-focused approach are companies like
each day with their favorite stations, in part due to Univision Radio, the largest operator of Hispanic-
the sheer number of alternative audio and other oriented stations, and Radio One, the country’s larg-
media choices, radio remains a central portion of the est owner of stations targeting African-American
daily media diet for most people. and urban audiences.
Nevertheless, changes that rattle radio’s founda- Two factors, the superfast growth of digital
tions erupt more frequently. It’s hard to overstate media platforms—particularly internet streaming
the impact of media consolidation that came out of and mobile phone applications—and the conver-
the 1996 Telecommunications Act. For station gence of various media forms, make it essential to
groups, who the competition is has altered. It used now take a broad view of the elements that make
to be that a program director (PD) was responsible up successful radio programming. First, the audience
for one or maybe two stations, and the competitors now has a plethora of new listening choices that did
were the other stations in the same local (geo- not exist just a few years ago or were not generally
graphic) market that were broadcasting in a similar available in the car, radio’s most important listening
(or identical) format, or that were targeting the same location. Second, mobile apps have dramatically
demographics. The competition was owned by expanded the range of listening options for anybody
somebody else, and disc jockeys worked for a single with a smartphone (and an adequate data plan),
station (or maybe were heard on-air on co-owned although broadcast radio retains some inherent
AM and FM stations). But a single owner can now advantages.
control five, six or even eight stations in a single Despite the fragmented, complex and rapidly
market. Most of the listening in a market is typically changing landscape of contemporary radio pro-
controlled by two or three owners. The most direct gramming, the more things change, the more we
“competitor” may be across the hall rather than see that (at least some) things stay the same. Key
across town, and the on-air talent is likely working elements of the tried-and-true programming formu-
for several stations during each day, in the local las that worked in the past remain successful (not
market and perhaps also far across the country. only for broadcast stations but for many of their
 CHAPTER 11 Music Radio Programming 379

competitors and imitators). Thus, programmers to have respectively created and perfected the
need to understand the history of the industry— approach. Rick Sklar and Bill Drake are other lead-
what worked, what didn’t, and how radio has sur- ers among the early programmers who significantly
vived by continually reinventing itself—as well as advanced the elements of the format. The original
the new elements in the competitive environment top 40 format was not music genre specific. From
that also shape their opportunities to build and pop to country, a top 40 station played a little bit
serve an audience. of everything, as long as it was a hit, and adjusted
the music rotation by times of day (dayparting) to
cater to the available audience. Music fans now
A Little History had a place to hear the most popular songs of the
day, any time they wanted to tune in. There was, of
In the beginning, there was broadcasting, and broad- course, also some regional variation—the most pop-
casting consisted of AM radio stations. There were ular songs in Nashville were likely to be somewhat
fewer stations (and far fewer competing media) than different from the most popular songs in Chicago or
now, and it was possible to appeal to an extremely New York City.
broad audience through a strategy of providing a Over time, the number of stations and the com-
little of something for everybody. Stations typically petition for listeners increased. FM stations devel-
programmed not only some live music but also com- oped in a different part of the spectrum and
edies and dramas, news and talk programs, farm offered better audio quality. And some programmers
information, game shows, soap operas and a great asked whether it was a bit strange to have a country
variety of other programs for people of all ages. song alongside a rock song followed by a jazzy bal-
Some of the programming was produced locally, lad. Radio stations soon found it necessary to fine-
but much of it came from local and regional net- tune their formats to target a specific audience
work sources that sprang up to serve the growing (segmentation)—fans of particular types of music.
new medium. The industry quickly recognized the Thus, top 40 radio stations focused increasingly
economic advantages of producing one program on the most popular pop (and rock) songs but still
for many stations versus many programs for many kept room in their playlists for the occasional cross-
stations; and the first stars of the new medium were over country or rhythm & blues song, while other
created as successful programs were carried on more stations adopted different niche formats. At first,
and more stations. there were four: country, album-oriented rock
Then came television. Television took many of (AOR), urban or R&B, and middle-of-the-road
radio’s entertainment programs, and much of (MOR). Now, fans of particular broad types of
radio’s audience followed their favorite stars to tele- music could find what they wanted on the radio
vision. “Radio is dead,” said some. “It is old- any time they wanted to listen. Those with wide-
fashioned. Who wants just sound when you can ranging tastes still had top 40 stations.
also have pictures?” But radio was not dead. Radio continued to thrive, and because it
Instead, a new style of programming emerged. The looked like a good business, still more stations
local radio station no longer tried to supply all types came on the air through the 1980s as the number
of programming to all people some of the time but of FM listeners surpassed AM. As more and more
instead offered the most important programming to stations competed for listeners, they needed to find
some of the people all of the time. The format new ways to attract audiences. Thus, the four niche
approach created a new golden age for radio. formats produced offspring, alone or sometimes in
The first music format was top 40 radio. It is tandem, while the “mainstream” parents also con-
difficult to say with certainty who really invented tinued to thrive. From country came traditional
top 40, but Todd Storz and Gordon McClendon country and “young country.” AOR spun off classic
are the two programmers who are generally believed rock, active rock and alternative. MOR led to adult
380 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

contemporary (AC), oldies, soft (or Lite) rock, beau- music of the ‘80s, ‘90s and today”). Oldies multiplied
tiful music/easy listening and adult standards (the into specific ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s formats (or ‘50s/
old middle-of-the-road, or MOR). Then program- ‘60s and ‘70s/‘80s in some markets). Contemporary
mers began merging elements of existing formats Christian, and then Christian AC and Inspo emerged
into new hybrids. Urban and top 40 (now known from traditional gospel, AC and CHR elements.
as contemporary hit radio, CHR) combined created American radio’s family tree also became more
a format originally referred to as “CHurban” but global as various Hispanic formats appeared, similar
that is now known simply as rhythmic CHR. in their structure to existing CHR, AC and country.
Urban plus AC can be divided into urban AC, Latin music formats (including regional Mexican
smooth jazz/new age, and urban oldies formats. and Caribbean music as well as contemporary and
AC and CHR? That’s hot AC and adult CHR. gold-based Spanish-language) appeared in niche var-
Stations and formats continued to multiply iants, and Spanish-language news/talk formats grew
through the 1990s, fragmenting the audience even rapidly—leading the market in some areas of the
further. Programmers responded by further subdivid- United States. Formats have exploded in the past
ing and combining musical genres and other pro- few years. Billboard lists four separate Spanish-
gramming elements into new niche formats in the language charts, reflecting the diversity of cultures
larger (and some of the smaller) markets. Rock, alter- and music often lumped under the umbrella terms
native and AC playlists were merged into an adult Hispanic and Latin. And as with Anglo formats,
album alternative (AAA) format. In turn, pop songs there is frequently some crossover between particu-
from alternative artists and hot AC were combined lar formats (see 11.1).
into modern AC. Alternative plus some programming To get some idea of the musical artists that are
elements that are more CHR than AC leads to mod- characteristic of each format (or who cross over for-
ern rock. Once alternative existed for a decade or so, mat boundaries), consult the charts in trade publica-
it was obviously time for alternative with a classic tions such as Billboard (www.billboard.com), Radio
rock approach, thus classic alternative (or modern Info (www.radio-info.com), Friday Morning Quarter-
gold). Pop mixed with a little classic rock and an back (www.fmqb.com) or All Access Music Group
AC presentation style creates classic hits (“the best (www.allaccess.com).

11.1 Spanish-Language Radio Formats

S panish-language radio formats are found in large

regions of the United States, especially the West,
Southwest and Southeast, as well as in most major cities.
■ Regional Mexican. This format features the traditional
music of Mexico from the past 100 years. It embraces
several specific styles, including ranchero, banda and
Four of the most common formats are the following: Norteña (a musical cousin of Tejano historically
rooted in northern Mexico).
■ Tejano. The term itself refers to Texans of Mexican
descent; the music is native to South Texas. The music ■ Tropical. The music is primarily from (or influenced by)
and the instruments reflect not only traditional Spanish Spanish-speaking cultures in the Caribbean. It also
and Mexican influences but also the presence in South has influences from some northern countries in South
Texas of other European immigrants in the nineteenth America as well as Central America. Music styles
century, particularly Germans, Czechs and Poles. include salsa, cumbia and merengue, among others.
Thus, Tejano music draws on Mexican folk, polkas ■ Latin pop and Latin rhythmic. These are the Spanish-
and waltzes, as well as on contemporary Latin and language versions of the standard CHR formats, draw-
rhythm and blues influences. ing on the most popular music in many Latin styles.
 CHAPTER 11 Music Radio Programming 381

The past three decades also brought additional news/talk, country, oldies, CHR and either classic
competitors to the music and audio marketplace, rock or mainstream AOR (depending on just how
including cable radio, satellite radio, HD radio, one chooses to view recent ratings). If you head
streaming audio, mobile applications, and such south to Memphis, gospel appears among the top
social media as MySpace and Facebook. The major five or six stations along with urban, urban AC
differences between these media and what have been and country. In Dallas, regional Mexican and con-
traditionally called radio stations are that broadcast temporary Christian are among the top formats
radio and HD radio retain a local focus, even if they along with CHR, country and classic hits. Such
incorporate national news networks and syndicated strong differences mean that a smart program direc-
music and information; and they are available to the tor always tailors a station’s programming to the
audience at no additional cost beyond a receiver. available target audience within the market it serves.
Cable radio and satellite radio, on the other hand, The advertising value of different audiences (or, for
require a subscription fee and are essentially some services, the audience’s ability and willingness
national services available in identical form all over to pay a subscription or software fee), the station or
the country. Streaming audio and mobile applica- service’s technical facilities, and the existing compe-
tions for devices like the iPad and various smart- tition in the market also affect programming choices.
phones are a mix, with connections to local
stations’ content as well as possible programming
from all over the country (and the world). Terrestrial Radio
The thousands of audio services available online Since the turn of the century, digital audio broad-
run the gamut from simply repeating the program- casting (DAB) has been supplementing both terres-
ming of local radio stations to offering web-only trial AM and FM analog broadcasting, improving
broadcasts of every imaginable sort, all with a the sound quality of each. Although most other
potentially global audience. Along with all of the countries have adopted a digital radio system that
formats offered by broadcasters, these services pro- uses a different portion of the spectrum—and that
vide other music not widely available—traditional therefore makes digital broadcasting incompatible
jazz, blues, world beat, reggae, show tunes, blue- with existing radio (such as the Eureka 147 system
grass, folk, classical, kids. There is even a satellite used in much of Europe) in those countries—the
channel and other services dedicated to unsigned United States has chosen to create an in-
bands. Some services, like Pandora, use complex band-on-channel (IBOC) system that operates
algorithms to customize music rotations for listeners within the current AM and FM spectrum allocations
(much like various consumer web sites “suggest” and is totally compatible with existing AM and FM
other products you might like based on past cus- systems. Thus, unlike with broadcast television, no
tomer behavior). Streaming audio content is best date for ending analog AM and FM broadcasting in
conceived as “all of the above.” the United States has been established.
Good programming is carefully designed to The U.S. IBOC technology is licensed to equip-
appeal to particular listeners, and tastes vary from ment manufacturers and stations by iBiquity Digital
region to region and among markets in a region. (www.ibiquity.com), and stations broadcasting a
For example, the top-rated station in New York digital radio signal have to pay annual royalties to
City has an adult contemporary format, with classic iBiquity. Referred to as HD radio (note the parallel
hits, two CHR rivals and a tropical station rounding to high-definition television in the name—something
out the top five. In Chicago, meanwhile, news and already familiar-sounding to consumers), it is multi-
talk are more dominant—occupying three of the top plexed along with the primary analog FM or AM
five slots—while the top music formats are urban signal and requires a special HD receiver. Digital
AC and hot AC. Just 90 minutes north in Milwau- FM allows for inexpensive simulcasting (repeating
kee, on the other hand, the top five stations are the main signal, ads and all) at startup. This can be
382 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

followed by the creation of specialty signals for local are large packages of nationally syndicated channels
news, sports and other content for narrow niches, or from such companies as DMX (formerly Digital
the use of content from other co-owned stations, Music Express) and Music Choice. In addition,
perhaps from other markets (multicasting) on sec- DirecTV and DISH offer satellite radio program-
ondary (HD2, HD3 and HD4) channels if the ming on some of their programming tiers. Cable
broadcaster has the desire to split the bandwidth. audio thus comes in a dizzying array of formats,
As of mid-2011, fewer than one in five U.S. sta- ranging from bluegrass to rap to salsa to gospel to
tions were broadcasting a digital signal (see 11.2). pop Latino, just as internet audio does.
Digital authorizations from the FCC amounted to: The disadvantage of cable radio for most peo-
ple is that reception requires a wireline (or satellite
1646 FM stations
dish) in a house or office. The advantages are that
297 AM stations
these audio services come automatically along
2 FM translators with certain tiers of television service and are
1 Low Power FM available all the time, although some, such as
DMX, are pay services. MusicChoice also provides
many of the same channels both on cable and
Cable Radio online. The online availability of the service thus
Many U.S. cable systems and DirecTV and Dish (the makes music available to subscribers not only at
two TV satellite services) offer dozens of digital home but also anywhere they can access a broad-
audio channels alongside digital television. These band connection.

11.2 The Slow Adoption of HD Radio

S tations broadcasting HD radio were mostly the mem-

bers of the “HD Radio Alliance” that formed in 2005 to
promote the service—CBS Radio, Clear Channel Radio,
maintain their existing coverage areas (the geographic
areas where listeners can receive an adequate signal).
With analog broadcasting, a station’s signal gradually
Greater Media, Emmis, Entercom, Bonneville International, fades in quality farther away from the transmitter, creating a
Beasley Broadcasting, Buckley Radio and WBEB- FM Phi- fringe area at the outer reaches where some listening is
ladelphia. With relatively few stations and thus little com- still possible. However, a digital signal is subject to a cliff
pelling programming incentive beyond the already effect—the signal is either of sufficient quality for the
available analog choices, it’s not surprising that few con- receiver to reproduce or it is not. The FCC tried to address
sumers have purchased digital receivers, although there this problem through a rule-making that resulted in a 2010
are several choices available for consumers. order that permitted greater power levels and improved
One other major factor slowing the adoption has been coverage for digital transmissions. But so far, this has had
the slow pace with which the automotive industry has little effect. Broadcasters are a stubborn group, it seems.
added receivers with HD radio as either standard or There are other problems for radio programmers con-
optional equipment in their new car lines. As of 2011, HD sidering a move to digital. The processing required, at both
radio was available from 17 auto manufacturers, repre- the transmitter and receiver, creates a delay of several sec-
senting 109 car models. That may sound like a lot—but onds compared to analog signals—no small concern for
represents no more than one-third of the models available stations who regularly broadcast live promotional events or
(GM and Honda are most notable among those completely sports. The delay means talent on location (in the field)
absent). More important, HD capability was included in the monitoring the on-air signal for cues would be several sec-
standard receiver in just 54 of those new car models.2 onds behind what was happening back in the studio.
One additional concern that delays a shift to HD Radio Slotting in commercials without accidentally covering up
by both AM and FM broadcasters has been the inability to reporting sometimes becomes next to impossible.
 CHAPTER 11 Music Radio Programming 383

Satellite Radio from the featured stars is the primary cost difference
among most of the tiers. SiriusXM programming is
DARS (digital audio radio service) refers to high-
also available online, either as a value added bonus
powered national satellite signals that require only
of a satellite subscription or as a stand-alone
a small receiving antenna that is especially suited to
offering.
cars and mobile media. At the start of the 2000s,
Sirius and XM were two competing satellite-radio
providers licensed by the FCC. Each provided more Online Audio
than 100 channels of audio service nationwide to a Widespread adoption of broadband internet service
combined total of nearly 14 million paying subscri- has opened several opportunities for online distribu-
bers (for $12.95 a month). Like most large radio tion of audio content. These can generally be
companies today, both were publicly traded cor- grouped into two categories. The first, streaming or
porations and eventually were forced by economics webcasting, is akin to traditional radio program-
to merge in 2008, becoming SiriusXM. ming because content is delivered in real-time over
Although their individual subscriber bases had the network to a computer. Some of the streams
grown rapidly by 2007, a great deal of subscriber available are the programming of terrestrial radio
churn had also occurred. The two services had stations, but there are also many, many online-only
tried to distinguish their programming by introduc- services ranging from professionally formatted chan-
ing original live talk and sports, and to make things nels from big companies like AOL to offerings that
worse, both had marketed themselves as different could be fairly described as hobbies. Those providers
not only from terrestrial radio but from each other. have the advantage of not needing a license from the
Moreover, each had signed deals with substantial FCC and are happily without content oversight by
rosters of cable networks that supplied news, sports, the government other than that imposed by defama-
music and other content, and each had various tion or obscenity statutes. However, as with all digi-
exclusive agreements with consumer electronics tal audio services (including satellite radio), online
manufacturers and retailers and with specific car services pay music performance royalty fees to the
manufacturers. In addition, XM provided Major record labels and recording artists beyond those
League Baseball games, and Sirius had the infamous that apply to analog terrestrial radio, making the
Howard Stern (see Chapter 12). economic structure of this market more difficult.
But by 2007 it had become clear that the national The issue of copyright has limited some of the
market could support only one service. Because their potential of online music. However, a more open
receiving equipment was not compatible, the two online space is taking form. In particular, the British
combined companies had to juggle various program- service Spotify launched its U.S. service in 2011 with
ming options for current subscribers by repurposing a library of over 15 million songs. The service pre-
channels on each system and creating a dizzying array sents listeners with the closest thing yet to “any
of tiers of service. Depending on their receivers and song, anytime, anywhere” (or any song anywhere
interests, subscribers can choose from packages deliv- for the 10 percent or so of Spotify users willing to
ering between 120 and 180 channels for a monthly sign up for the service’s paid version that grants full
charge ranging from $12.95 to $16.99. Over half of library access from any device). While it’s clear that
the channels are dedicated to various music formats, personal, portable music devices from the Walkman
most of which are commercial-free; the rest offer to the iPod have cut into the amount of time listeners
news, information, sports, foreign language content spend with radio (and have limited the ability of
and other special programming from former terres- radio stations to stake out musical turf to call their
trial radio stars like Bob Edwards, Howard Stern own), the bandwidth costs of mobile data plans and
and Opie & Anthony as well as multimedia stars like the requirement to purchase a premium subscription
Oprah and Martha Stewart. Access to the content to use Spotify on a mobile device may yet limit how
384 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

much additional damage a service like Spotify— to their terrestrial signal. Such operators have a
where the music resides in the cloud—can do to deeply entrenched “old school” mentality that
radio. makes digital integration a struggle if not downright
While that online audio market is growing, only impossible. They argue that it’s the over-the-air sta-
about one-third of the U.S. population 12þ reports tion that pays the bills and efforts to put in place
listening to streaming audio in the past month as of ‘secondary media’ would cannibalize their listening
2011.3 Most online listening occurs on desktop or audience. Incredibly shortsighted, these broadcasters
laptop computers in offices or homes although inter- will quickly find that they face the very real problem
est in, and access to, audio on mobile devices (smart- of becoming irrelevant to listeners and, in the not so
phones, tablets) is increasing. Compared to broadcast distant future, obsolete. The changing digital land-
or satellite coverage, wireless broadband internet con- scape is making such traditional concerns as market
nections are less widely available. However, wireless size and geographic location into afterthoughts.
providers continue to expand the networks. When After all, with an internet connection, you can be a
wireless broadband is ubiquitous for subscribers, the part of the CHR community on Z100 in New York
“radio” marketplace potentially expands from a few or KISS-FM (KIIS are the actual call letters) in Los
dozen or scores of choices within a local market to Angeles just as easily as you can KTRS-FM in
tens or hundreds of thousands. Casper, WY, or Q-102 in Albany, GA, even if you
Nonetheless, limits on mobile subscribers’ data live in Indiana or Texas.
plans may check their willingness to devote large As its history shows, radio stations have repeat-
blocks of listening time to online radio on smart edly been forced to adapt to technological changes
phones. That will, in turn, curb the short-term and increased competition for the audience and
growth of online listening as people increasingly advertisers. The internet is quite literally the latest
move their overall online use to mobile platforms in a long line of challenges facing programmers
and have to make choices about how to allocate searching for a big enough piece of the audience
data usage. Although audio doesn’t consume as pie. In the 1990s, radio still enjoyed several advan-
much data as video, a heavy listener could easily tages, particularly portability, over early attempts to
run over the allotments of many carriers’ lower tiers distribute programming online. The development of
of service, and that’ll hurt when the bill comes in. wireless internet services (Wi-Fi) and small portable
The second type of online audio service, collo- audio players (like the iPod Nano which also con-
quially known as podcasting (the result of the Apple tains an FM tuner) are removing the portability
iPod’s early dominance of the audio player market), advantage of traditional broadcasting. To maximize
is archival in nature. Prerecorded content is down- their audience and the value of their programming,
loaded from a provider’s website to a computer and smart programmers leverage their existing audience
can then be transferred to another listening device. goodwill and brand recognition in order to aggres-
Podcasts are therefore more mobile at this time than sively court the online and mobile audiences while
streaming services. However, because of licensing not forgetting the traditional (and larger) broadcast
problems, podcasts seldom include popular music audience. Indeed, this symbiotic relationship
and are primarily filled with the spoken word… between on-air and online is one of the most difficult
lots of them. for programmers to figure out. The problem facing
all of them, from the smallest local markets to larg-
est national groups, is how to best compete effec-
Broadcast Radio and the Internet tively. And that often means competing for every
It is absolutely imperative that a radio station have a available listener, including the relative fewer online,
strong presence online. While this may seem like in the increasingly fragmented market.
common sense in today’s environment, some broad- Oddly, for an industry whose past norm was
casters still shun online, seeing it as a distant second change and adaptation, radio has been extremely
 CHAPTER 11 Music Radio Programming 385

slow to accept the online world as a viable extension remain a viable option in a sea of ever-increasing
of a station’s brand. The current problem may stem choices. The stations that were most successful in the
from the fact that there continues to be no clear right mid-2000s realized that by offering compelling orig-
or wrong answers as to how to approach digital inal content, they were able to attract audiences that
integration. Consolidation in the 1990s further actually helped increase traditional station listener-
clouded the situation. Many utility players and ship and as a bonus, online provided an additional
younger staff members who would previously have outlet for revenue to advertisers. During this time,
been given the reins of digital media were instead the added revenue streams from digital properties
eliminated to maximize profits. Certainly another and station events became known as Non-
consideration is the financial risk; many managers Traditional Revenue or NTR.
were hesitant to be innovative with no guarantee It is important to remember, however, that for
of a return to the bottom line (see 11.3). each additional stream a station puts online, there
Finally, by 2000, radio stations and associated are additional royalty costs associated with their
companies like Arbitron and Nielsen seemed to broadcast. Currently, there is a “per performance”
sense the changing environment and began a furious royalty rate scale in place with varying rates for
game of catch-up. The farsighted feared that the broadcasters, statutory webcasters and pureplay web-
window of opportunity for attracting and profiting casters that is approved for modest yearly increases
from the new media audience might close before through 2015. Each time a song “airs” in a digital
they could develop a serious presence in that stream in 2012, broadcasters are expected to pay
environment. $.0020 per performance per listener, with that rate
At first, the stations that did have an online increasing to $.0025 by 2015. While a fraction of a
presence did little more than put up rudimentary cent per play per listener might not seem like a tre-
websites that, at their most technically advanced, mendous amount, those costs easily (and quickly)
offered listeners the ability to email requests to the add up, leaving some broadcasters feeling that online
station or possibly provide screen names so they streaming is not a financially viable business decision.
could instant message the jocks in the control Some larger companies not only support online
room. The majority of these sites were often the streaming, but actively promote mobile phone applica-
product of one poorly equipped and already over- tions (apps) that provide easy access to a station’s con-
loaded staff member at the station or done as trade tent. Some individual stations have launched their own
(a service or goods provided in return for advertising branded apps, but apps that aggregate many stations
time on the station) by the station’s internet service and other audio content nationally or even globally
provider (ISP). The results generally gave listeners dominate the market. Clear Channel Communica-
little reason to visit once, let alone return for subse- tions, one of the most aggressive companies in the
quent visits. Moreover, stations and listeners alike mobile environment, released its I Heart Radio app,
were often frustrated by the technological problems which provides access to a stable of more than 750
that made it difficult to deliver high-quality content, stations from coast to coast. Listeners have the ability
usually stemming from insufficient bandwidth. The to select by market or format and to stream the sta-
bad news was that stations actually offering pro- tion’s online content. CBS Interactive’s radio.com,
gramming online found that it an expensive way to TuneIn Radio and Public Radio Live Stream are
reach only a few listeners. other widely used apps, each offering access to hun-
However, as bandwidth became a more afford- dreds or even thousands of audio streams.
able commodity to the average broadcaster, and as Many barriers to expanding a station’s reach in a
online content became an increasingly important crowded terrestrial environment disappear in the digi-
portion of the average consumer’s media consump- tal world, but going digital is not without new dangers
tion, it became clear (to most insiders) that radio for broadcasters. A question raised briefly earlier in
would have to adapt once again if it expected to this section is the idea of geography, more specifically
386 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

11.3 Online Strategy

A s radio’s attitude towards digital media changed and

the right technology became more accessible,
broadcasters were forced to develop strategies for pro-
available in any other format—including the over-the-air
broadcast—provide an exclusive audio element to promote
and to reward listeners.
gramming in a new environment. The simplest was to A more complex strategy for programming radio online
merely rebroadcast the over-the-air signal in an online goes far beyond rebroadcasting the terrestrial signal to
stream—commercials and all. The streaming audience offer a wide-array of additional content. This includes on-
remains largely popular among at-work listeners. As more demand content, video and additional audio streams. Such
people accessed to audio through their computers, cell aggressive strategies seem to win with consumers and give
phones and music players, streaming audio became a listeners a definitive source for “discovery” of music, which
viable competitor to broadcast radio. Happily, when a has always been a strong suit of terrestrial radio. Content-
station streams itself, the online version can be jointly mar- rich websites should include numerous features of use or of
keted as a sister-service to advertisers. For more information interest to audience members. Some stations integrate
on the streaming audio market, consult Radio and Internet online playlists within their websites and give answers to
Newsletter (updated five days a week at www.kurthanson. most-common-listener-questions like “What song are you
com). playing right now?” or its more frustrating variation, “What
Simply rebroadcasting a station, though, can cause big was the song you played last Thursday right after the
trouble because not all commercials are licensed for weather forecast?” In addition, websites can showcase
streaming online. This seems counter-intuitive; you might local community information, coupons from local merchants
think that any opportunity to put a commercial in front of and online-only promotions. Advertisers who choose to
more ears would be a clear advantage to the advertiser. participate in online-only campaigns find they are typically
And while that may be the case, many national spots use more affordable than their over-the air counterparts. They
union talent to voice and produce their commercials, and also give the advertisers the ability to provide more infor-
under union regulations, the spots are only licensed for use mation about their products than can fit into traditional :30
at the specific over-the-air times and dates that were pur- or :60 commercials. Some stations will go so far as to
chased by an advertising agency or via a station barter create an online “virtual mall” in which many local retailers
agreement. While obviously not the best-case scenario feature their products (for a fee, of course) or where they
both legally and ethically, some stations elect to broadcast hold “half-off” promotions that give the station’s listeners the
these commercials on their internet stream anyway until chance to purchase gift cards or restaurant certificates for
presented with a cease-and-desist order. half price. These ideas provide more affordable opportu-
Savvy broadcasters contract with an ad insertion ser- nities for advertisers, as well as another NTR revenue
vice, which allows selective online preemption of commer- stream for stations.
cials. Companies like Ando Media provide software that Online sister-stations can take several forms, including
allows stations to target certain streamed commercials and subniche formats designed to superserve one or more frag-
replace them with other inventory. Public Service ments of the broadcast station’s audience. For example, a
Announcements (PSAs), other local spots (say, for a local “new country” station can offer an online stream of “classic
car dealer sold in addition to their on-air advertising country” to serve the audience portion that prefers the clas-
schedule), and streaming exclusive content can be used as sics, but which may not be large enough to sustain the rat-
filler. Web exclusive songs, for example, that are not ings needed for a terrestrial station.

“who really is the audience of our station?” This used However, broadcasters streaming online have the
to be much clearer before the internet: “Our audience potential for national and even global reach. As wire-
is anyone who listens to country music as far as our less internet access expands around the world, the
signal travels,” and that answer sufficed for decades. number of consumer devices capable of accessing
 CHAPTER 11 Music Radio Programming 387

U.S. radio services multiplies, along with analytic pro- graphical boundaries on their content while still mak-
grams that track online listenership down to the sec- ing it accessible from anywhere in the world. For sta-
ond. These virtually limitless possibilities have become tions that want to put in the effort and target a
very real for broadcasters. broader audience, it is technically feasible to separate
But here’s the kicker: Even in the online world, purely local content out of online audio and fill the
success for broadcasters is tied to a conscious decision time with something more global in nature.
to target content to a specific group at the sacrifice of Currently, there are more than 13,000 radio
being “all things to all people.” Where on-air and stations on the air in the United States alone, with
streamed online traffic reports in Dallas are invalu- countless more in every country on Earth. While
able to someone trying to make it to work on time online presence is a part of the larger picture, the
in that city, someone listening online from Raleigh or remainder of this chapter tightens its focus to terres-
even London is necessarily alienated by the unfamil- trial broadcast radio. The storyline consists of a pro-
iar and useless information. One of radio’s inherent posed scenario about whether or not to buy and
strengths continues to be localism, which means keep- program a station in the hypothetical market. The
ing people informed of what is going on in a specific problems and the principles for finding solutions dis-
community or group of communities, however cussed here, however, are fully applicable to the pro-
defined. Broadcasters cannot turn their back on the gramming decisions of today’s cable, satellite and
communities in which they exist simply to cater to the online audio services because they compete in the
global population. Indeed, many now impose geo- same or similar marketplaces (see 11.4 and 11.5).

11.4 Dominant Players

T here has been a lot of commentary about consolida-

tion in radio, but how dominant are the top radio
companies? There are different ways of measuring that, but
stations, however. Economic factors and other strategic
considerations led the company to sell a number of stations,
primarily in smaller markets, between 2007 and 2010.
in 2009, only Clear Channel and CBS reported more than Although Clear Channel’s stations run the full gamut of
$1 billion in revenue ($2.35 billion for Clear Channel, formats, they have particular strengths in CHR, AC and
$1.2 billion for CBS). The top three groups generated News-Talk. In addition to the stations and their companion
revenues totaling $4.4 billion (if one combines the revenue websites, the company’s assets also include a leading
generated by the now merged Cumulus and Citadel sta- smartphone app, iheartradio. It also owns about 140 sta-
tions). The remaining six companies in the top ten tions in Australia and New Zealand (owned in partnership
accounted for $1.6 billion … or about 72 percent of what with local entities); Premiere Radio Networks, which syndi-
Clear Channel alone did in the last full reported fiscal year cates approximately 90 radio programs including Rush Lim-
before work began on this chapter (see 11.5). baugh, Ryan Seacrest, Steve Harvey and Delilah. Besides all
that, it owns Katz Media Group, a leading advertising rep
Dominant Content Providers firm with more than 3,000 radio and TV clients; RCS, a
Clear Channel leading provider of broadcast software including the most
Clear Channel Communications, founded in 1972, has popular music scheduling application—Selector; Inside
two operating divisions—Radio and Outdoor Advertising. Radio, a radio industry trade publication; and Clear Chan-
Of primary interest here, the radio division is the largest nel Total Traffic Network and CCC News Networks.
group owner in the U.S., currently operating more than
850 stations in approximately 150 markets (including 89 Cumulus
of the top 100). That figure is substantially reduced from its In 2011, Cumulus Media, the country’s second largest
post-Telecommunications Act peak of more than 1,200 group owner by number of stations, acquired Citadel
(Continued)
388 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

11.4 Dominant Players (Continued)

Broadcasting, the third largest radio group in the U.S. The through the acquisition of English-language stations in the
combined group has more than 550 stations reaching 120 largest Hispanic markets in the U.S. Those stations are then
markets, including 8 of the top 10. Ranked by number of reformatted and launched as Hispanic.
stations, there is now a very big gap between the top two The formats include the following: Adult Contemporary (in
radio companies and everybody else. The new Cumulus the Hispanic version, some combination of Romántica, bal-
combined Citadel’s format strengths in Country with lads, international pop hits and top 40); Regional Mexican
Cumulus’ larger station roster. (Banda, Ranchera, Mariachi and Norteña music); Tropical
The company also includes all of the former Citadel (a “Latin beat” music format from the Caribbean that includes
Media (and former ABC Radio Networks), a major syndi- salsa, merengue, cumbia and reggaeton genres); Tejano
cator whose offerings include Imus in the Morning, (music performed by Tex-Mex/Chicano groups (conjuntos)
American Country Countdown, ESPN Radio, ABC News that is a cross between contemporary Rock/Ranchera/
and Sports, and ESPN Deportes as well as other Spanish- Country, with lyrics in both Spanish and English and poten-
language programming (some in partnership with Hispanic tially appealing across ethnic boundaries); Hip-Hop (Hip-Hop
digital content provider Terra). music culture today has obviously grown far beyond its urban
roots, reaching all segments of American society); and
CBS RadioCadena Univision-News/Talk/Sports AM Network.
In contrast to Clear Channel and Citadel, CBS has focused In addition to their own stations, Univision syndicates a
almost exclusively on large market stations—of their 130 number of their personalities and shows to Spanish-language
properties, 129 are in markets among the top 50 DMAs stations in other markets, including Eddie “Piolín” Sotelo,
(the exception is KEZN in Palm Springs, CA). As a result, whose Piolín por la Mañana originates weekday mornings
even though the number of stations owned is much smaller on KSCA and is syndicated to approximately 50 markets;
than the totals for Cumulus or Clear Channel, CBS is a solid Javier Romero, who hosts a music-intensive morning show that
number 2 in radio revenue. also features lots of interviews in Miami, El Desayuno Musi-
In addition to the stations, the company also has its own cal; Raul Brindis, whose morning show originates at KLTN in
mobile app (radio.com) which includes a number of channel Houston; and New York’s Luis Jimenez, host of a morning
offerings from outside the CBS group. Although late entering show that is stylistically similar to many English-language
the online universe under former head Mel Karmazin (who morning offerings, with prank calls, musical parodies, com-
didn’t see streaming as important to the business), all CBS edy characters and sketches and listener telephone calls.
stations now offer live streams of their programming as well
as a multitude of other digital offerings. Perhaps best known Westwood One
for their flagship News and News-Talk stations such as Also in 2011 (a busy year), Westwood One merged with
WCBS (New York), WBBM (Chicago), KMOX (St. Louis), Triton Media Group, the parent company of Triton Radio
WCCO (Minneapolis-St. Paul) and KCBS (Los Angeles), the Networks (which included Dial Global), Triton Digital
company also has significant programming strength in vari- Media and TM Studios. The merged company created the
ous adult-leaning pop and rock formats—classic hits, AC, largest provider of radio content in the U.S. Its services
Hot AC, adult hits and alternative/AAA. include the following:

Univision
■ Thirteen format offerings are available as 24/7 “turn-
Univision Radio was created in 2003 when television key” programming or in more customized structures.
company Univision completed its acquisition of Hispanic ■ More than 200 syndicated programming choices
Broadcasting Corporation. The radio unit, part of Univision available for almost any programming hole, from short
Local Media, is now the largest Spanish radio network in features lasting no more than a couple of minutes
the U.S., operating 70 stations in 17 markets, including all (e.g., Ask Dr. Phil, Late Show Top Ten, Talking Points
of the top 10. Their primary growth since 2003 has come with Bill O’Reilly, Weather Channel Radio Network)
(Continued)
 CHAPTER 11 Music Radio Programming 389

to weekly one- to two- hour programs (such as Beatle support and, one assumes, the goodwill of listeners to the
Brunch, Dave Koz, House of Blues Radio Hour, program. These “thank you” announcements are called
countdown shows for country, CHR and AC formats, underwriting spots, not commercials; and, unlike commer-
and MTV Tres, a Spanish-language countdown) to cials, they are governed by specific FCC restrictions limiting
syndicated personalities for Monday–Friday dayparts what can be said about the business in several ways.
(Kevin & Bean, Bob & Sheri, Rocsi on the Radio, The While music is a relatively minor element of the pro-
Billy Bush Show). gramming offered by National Public Radio (although this
■ Special programming built around several entertain- varies among public radio stations), NPR is notable for a
ment events such as the Grammy Awards, the Acad- number of the shows they produce and/or distribute. These
emy of Country Music Awards and the BET Awards, include All Songs Considered (and the All Songs Considered
with packages tailored to particular formats. 24/7 Music Channel online and mobile service); long-
running favorites like Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz,
■ National broadcast rights for a number of top sports,
Mountain Stage, The Thistle and Shamrock and World
including the NFL, NCAA football and basketball,
Café; and various concert recordings from South by South-
and the major PGA tournaments.
west, Bonnaroo, the Village Vanguard and other locations.
■ A range of digital services and products provided by
NPR has also been a technological pioneer in radio.
Triton Digital Media, including content management
They were among the first to develop satellite distribution of
system (CMS) architecture, streaming management,
programming to stations in the 1980s and, more recently,
web analytics, mobile apps, texting and email services,
have been leaders in the rollout of various online and
game and audience loyalty elements, and ad insertion.
mobile applications for getting audio content to audiences.
■ A rep firm.
American Public Media
■ And all of TM Studios’ services include commercial American Public Media is the parent organization for Minne-
jingles; radio, TV and online imaging packages, sota Public Radio, Southern California Public Radio and Clas-
music libraries; production music; and show prep and
sical South Florida. Beginning with the launch of a single
comedy services.
classical music station in Minnesota in 1967, they have grown
NPR to operate 43 radio stations and 32 translators in Minnesota,
National Public Radio (NPR) is the largest producer and dis- Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, South Dakota, North Dakota,
tributor of public radio programming in the U.S., but it differs Idaho, California and Florida (making them the largest owner
in significant structural ways from its commercial counter- and operator of public radio stations in the U.S.).
parts. NPR is not a network with affiliate stations, but rather a The second-largest producer and distributor of public
membership organization that provides programming and radio programming, American Public Media is the largest
other services to its member stations. And its business model producer and distributor of classical music programming in
is very different. Unlike commercial networks or syndicators, the country, offering a full-range of content for classical
NPR carries no advertising in its broadcasts (although like stations from a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week classical music
other public media, it can—and does—include advertising service to Performance Today, a daily two-hour classical
on its non-broadcast platforms such as the website). music program, to weekly programs and specials. They
Instead, broadcast revenue comes from a combination also provide a number of other prominent programs
of philanthropic grants, government funding, program fees including that all-time favorite A Prairie Home Companion,
from member stations and underwriting (as explained in The Splendid Table, Marketplace and Being.
relation to PBS in Chapter 10). Underwriting is a form of Like NPR, it is considered an innovator. In addition to
support where businesses make donations to NPR (or local developing a wide range of new media platforms and
public radio stations) to support either the general operation content, APM was the recipient of the first Knight News
of the service or, more often, a specific program. In return, Innovation EPpy Award for their Public Insight project. This
they receive brief statements on air thanking them for the project, which has been rolled out to many other major
(Continued)
390 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

11.4 Dominant Players (Continued)

public radio and TV stations, develops and applies Scarborough Research division. Its methods enable mar-
social media techniques to engage the public and tap its keters and media companies to develop much more com-
insight with the goal of producing significant journalism plex profiles of their consumers on a local, regional and
featuring stories and perspectives from every facet of national basis.
experience.
Billboard
PRI Billboard Magazine, part of the Billboard Information
Public Radio International is the third major distributor of Group (a division of Nielsen Business Media) is published
noncommercial radio fare in the U.S. Established in 1983 weekly. Following its acquisition of Radio & Records, its
as American Public Radio, PRI understandably changed its became the leading trade publication for the music and
name to Public Radio International in 1994 (it was con- radio businesses, although the scope of its coverage
stantly confused with APM). It distributes over 400 hours of extends beyond pure music to include much of the enter-
programming weekly to approximately 800 stations in the tainment industry. Along with news, analysis and trend
U.S., as well as across other media platforms—including reporting, it features widely-watched charts of music sales,
SiriusXM’s Public Radio Channel. Although its best known airplay and downloads developed with data from
programs are talk-based (including This American Life, Nielsen SoundScan and Nielsen Broadcast Data
Michael Feldman’s Whad’Ya Know, BBC World Service Systems. The company has separate online presences
and Bob Edwards Weekend), it also produces and/or for industry pros (billboard.biz) and consumers/fans
distributes a number of music and music-oriented talk pro- (billboard.com).
grams. These include Echoes (a mix of instrumental, world Billboard.biz houses the full collection of weekly charts
music and impressionistic jazz recordings along with Living and all of the articles printed in each week’s magazine, a
Room Concerts recorded in artists’ homes), Afro-Pop database of all Billboard articles, reviews, features and
Worldwide (the music of Africa, the Caribbean and the special reports dating back to 1991, as well as weekly
Americas), Soundcheck (covering music of all genres, fea- album, singles and video charts dating back to 1984 and
turing interviews, listener phone calls and studio perfor- year-end charts dating back to 1946. Billboard.com is
mances), Jazz After Hours and the Pittsburgh Symphony more of a typical consumer entertainment news site, with
Orchestra. music news, videos and a limited selection of weekly
charts.
Ancillary Services
Jacobs Media
Arbitron Jacobs Media is a Detroit-based media research and con-
For most stations, networks, syndicators and advertisers, sulting firm. Although there are many prominent radio con-
Arbitron is the provider of radio audience information in the sultants, Jacobs Media stands out in a couple of ways. First,
U.S., in both local markets and nationally. Local radio rat- in addition to its status as the preeminent rock radio con-
ings are available both in local station/advertiser form and sultancy and creator of the Classic Rock format, its staff has
for networks (Arbitron Nationwide). The national network also worked extensively with public radio stations and
rating service is known as RADAR. The company was also NPR—likely the only major consultant to have a significant
the developer of the Portable People Meter (PPM) device client base in both the commercial and noncommercial
that has replaced diaries as the primary means of gathering sectors. Second, its was one of the earliest voices in radio
radio ratings data in many markets (see Chapter 5 for a full to recognize the importance of mobile applications, and
_
discussion of PPM), and that has led to various forms of the JacApps service that Paul and Fred Jacobs began has
cross-media audience measurement. The company also developed hundreds of mobile apps for both commercial
provides consumer behavior research (such as such as life- and noncommercial stations, groups and networks, as well
styles, shopping patterns and media behavior) through their as other companies.
 CHAPTER 11 Music Radio Programming 391

11.5 Station Groups by Revenue

2009 Radio Revenues (000)
Top 3

Rest of Top 10

Clear Channel Communications

CBS Radio

New Cumulus (+ Citadel)*

Citadel Broadcasting

Cumulus Broadcasting

Entercom Communications

Cox Radio

Univision

Radio One

Bonneville International
Radio Revenues (000)
Emmis Communications
0

0
00

00

00

00

00

00

00

00

00

00
0,

0,

0,

0,

0,

0,

0,

0,

0,

0,
50

00

50

00

50

00

50

00

50

00
1,

1,

2,

2,

3,

3,

4,

4,

5,
Choosing a Format potential revenue. Once completed, this evaluation
will determine which music format is commercially
The heart of most radio stations continues to be viable and which can best help the station or service
their music, however distributed, and the principles succeed in a given market.
guiding on-air have counterparts for cable, satellite
and online-only radio. In all cases, the program Comparing Technical Facilities
director’s job is essentially a continuous cycle of Unlike television, radio isn’t going fully digital anytime
analysis, design and implementation. The first step soon. Industry deals still focus on traditional AM and
in analyzing a market is a thorough evaluation of FM analog technology. Therefore, the old rule holds for
all stations (or competing services) and their current now: The best over-the-air facility has the best chance to
programming. This information can then be used to succeed. Going head-to-head with a similarly formatted
modify or replace existing program formats or to competitor that has better facilities is almost always a
decide which property to buy and what to do with big mistake. For AM stations, power (strength of sig-
it after purchase. Such an evaluation, in the context nal), frequency (lower in the band is better) and any
of the company’s overall strategy, takes into account license limitations (reduced power or eliminated night
the following factors: (1) the technical facilities of service and directional requirements) are the key factors.
each station or service, (2) the character of the For FM stations, power and antenna height are the cru-
local or national market, (3) the delineation of a tar- cial considerations. Generally, these elements determine
get audience, (4) the available budget and (5) the signal quality.
392 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

A clear, undistorted signal is less tiring to the This rule of thumb does not hold in all cases.
listener than one that is distorted, faint or accompa- For example, a 5,000-watt facility at 1600 kHz
nied by natural or artificial interference. All other might easily fall victim to a 1,000-watt station at
qualities of similar formats being equal, the station 710 kHz. In AM, both power and dial position are
or service with the best signal will be the listener’s important. The lower the frequency, the greater the
choice. Emotional fatigue unconsciously sets in after range of the AM signal. A 1,000-watt AM station at
a period of straining to hear a program with a noisy, 710 kHz might easily reach a bigger population than
uncomfortable signal. a 10,000-watt station at 1600 kHz.4
An FM station with 100,000 watts of effective In FM, tower height and power are the principal
radiated power (ERP) and that has its antenna assem- considerations, and antenna height is generally the
bly mounted on a 1,000-foot tower is a much better most important (a station with a higher antenna
facility than a station with the same power but with using lower power will generally cover more area
the antenna mounted on a 500-foot tower. An AM than a station with more power but a much lower
station with a power of 50,000 watts on a clear chan- antenna). However, the terrain is also an important
nel (820 kHz) is a much better technical facility than factor; hills can block FM signals. Three classes of
a station with 5,000 watts of power at 1570 kHz. FM have been developed (see 11.6).
Usually the low-power station is at the mercy of the
higher-power station. A 5,000-watt facility with a
talk or news format may be very vulnerable to a Defining the Competitive Market
same-format station broadcasting at 10,000 or Before any discussions of the opportunities that exist
50,000 watts because the more powerful station will within a market can take place, it is absolutely essen-
provide a listenable signal over a larger area. tial that a complete and thorough market analysis be

11.6 Classes of FM Stations

T here are three broad classes of FM stations, although

there are also subclasses, and not all stations use the
class maximums. Class A stations are permitted a maximum
For many years, AM was the king of radio. AM stations
were tops in ratings, regardless of format. Beginning in the
1970s, FM replaced AM as the music format champion.
of 6,000 watts—or 6 kilowatts (kw)—ERP with a maximum Music simply sounded better on FM because of the techni-
antenna height-above-average-terrain (HAAT) of 100 cal differences between the two bands. Furthermore, FM
meters, which provides a signal radius of approximately doesn’t fade under bridges or inside urban skyscrapers and
18 miles. Class B stations (located in the more densely doesn’t suffer from weather interference the way AM does.
populated eastern United States) have a maximum ERP of To survive, AM turned toward full-service programming,
50 kw and a HAAT of 150 meters. Class C stations are including elements of news, talk, sports, satellite or syndi-
located primarily in the flat parts of the western United cated programming, ethnic (non-English-language), and
States and are permitted up to 100 kw and a maximum religious (preaching and gospel music) content. The sta-
HAAT of 600 meters. These stations may have a signal tion’s technical facility plays an important part in the initial
radius of 60 miles or more. Dial position is much less decision about whether to enter the music programming
technically important in FM, although stations at the center competition. It would be aesthetically foolish and econom-
of the dial get more sampling. An FM station at the upper ically disastrous to pit, say, an AM station against a full-
fringe of the band (the lower portion from 88 to 92 MHz is power FM station in the contemporary rock field. Always—
reserved for noncommercial stations) needs an advertising having the best or one of the best facilities in the market is
and promotional blitz when altering its format. crucial to beating the competition.
 CHAPTER 11 Music Radio Programming 393

completed. As discussed in Chapter 5, Arbitron is the area that makes up the television viewing mar-
(www.arbitron.com) data is an invaluable resource ket, and will often contain counties well beyond the
in this process that provides an immense amount of reach of a terrestrial radio station but served by tele-
information ranging from demographic breakdowns vision stations in the market. Once these areas are all
of current stations to format performance and criti- identified on a map, a Coverage Map (how far a sta-
cal reception in the market. All of this data compiled tion’s signal will travel from its tower) of the station
together will paint a clear picture of the competitive should be placed over top of the market map to iden-
landscape—what competition exists in the market, tify how the station in question relates to the different
what formats are present, and where the format categories. These will be important not only in under-
holes or underserved demographics may be. Further, standing what areas the station will cover, but also in
it will identify the key players in the market and estimating potential revenue, which is covered later in
identify the strengths of each. this section.
The first step is identifying geography: “Where Because these are man-made geographic bound-
will the radio station in question exist?” Although aries, it is likely that a station may service areas that
the internet makes it possible to hear programming fall in more than one ADI or TSA (or, in some
almost anywhere, most of the audience will be from densely populated areas, even more than one
the local area, and so that area is generally the first metro). For example, the Brunswick market on the
concern of programmers. However, this process is coast in Southeast Georgia is at the far north end of
not as simple as merely identifying the city. Arbitron the Jacksonville, Florida DMA. The signals of the
makes clear distinctions among radio markets across stations based in the metro (a one-county metro,
the country, and nearly every viable radio station Glynn County) do not simply stop at the county
falls into more than one geographic category. Note line, but broadcast into areas north toward Savan-
that Arbitron reviews, and sometimes changes, these nah, areas that are outside of the DMA. In this case,
market definitions on an annual basis. the TSA actually straddles two different DMA’s:
To review the relevant material from Chapter 5, Savannah, Georgia, and Jacksonville, Florida. To
the Metro Survey Area (often referred to simply as see the market breakdown in the city you live in,
“metro” or “the metro,”) is defined as counties or in the geographic area you are most familiar
where the sum of the percentage of listening and the with, look for the most recent Arbitron map in the
percentage of commuting is 70 percent or more, pro- radio reference library at http://www.arbitron.com/
vided that a minimum of 55 percent of the listening in radio_stations/reference_metroinfo.htm.
the county is credited to stations that are home to the The next step in completing the radio market
existing metro radio market. The Area of Dominant analysis is to compile a list of all of the radio stations
Influence, or ADI, includes all counties adjacent to that currently exist in the metro, any construction
the Metro where measured listening is predominantly permits (CPs) that may have been granted or are
to the stations from that metro. All counties are pending with the FCC, and those stations in both
exclusive to one ADI (in other words, are assigned the TSA and DMA that may provide fringe compe-
to one, and only one, ADI). However, the assignment tition. This list should include important statistics
can change over time if listening patterns change. The for each station that include but are not limited to:
Total Service Area (TSA) includes the outlying coun- service (AM or FM), frequency (98.7 Mhz, for
ties that often directly border the counties in the ADI example), signal strength (in watts), antenna height
that have significantly less total listening to stations in above average terrain (for FM stations), format,
a market but are still served by the stations in that owner and ratings.
area. The Designated Market Area (DMA), similar One common methodology helps to represent
to the ADI but defined by Nielsen and not Arbitron, some of this data in graphic form to make the analysis
394 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

easier. A demographic profile of each station and each only to look at the formats of individual stations but
ownership group is represented in a set of bar graphs to also to consider how the programming and audiences
show what percentage of listenership a station has in for each station fit together in the group. Different
each of the six standard demographic groups. The groups try to leverage different audience segments.
bars in such graphs display the age “leaning” of a sta- One may focus on capturing the female audience
tion’s audiences, suggesting the industry name of skew across several age categories; another may try to dom-
graphs. Arbitron is the principal source of these data. If inate a specific age demographic for both men and
using a hard copy of the Arbitron ratings book, this women. It cannot be overstated that most such deci-
information can be found already completed in the sions are based on financial considerations relating to
6 A.M. to midnight, Monday through Sunday page. potential revenue, as well as how likely programming
This information can also be obtained online through decisions may or may not attract advertisers.
Arbitron’s TAPSCAN software (by subscription only)
that will create these or any other reports on demand.
While Arbitron is the preeminent source, any audience Identifying Target Audiences
analysis service that provides demographic separation It is not enough to study population graphs and other
will have the necessary information. Skew graphs for research data about a market’s radio listeners. Radio
two stations in the hypothetical market that is consid- is essentially a lifestyle medium. Listeners choose sta-
ered in this chapter are shown in 11.7. tions, at least in part, because the station’s image
Once the market is identified, coverage maps reflects their self-image: their tastes, their values and
are created, and demographic profiles are assem- their interests. It is important to go into the commu-
bled, program strategists can begin the work of iden- nity to find out specifically what people are doing,
tifying what opportunities exist in the market. They thinking and listening to. It is helpful to observe life-
can quickly decide what demographic groups are styles by visiting restaurants, shopping centers, gas
best served by which stations and groups, and there- stations, nightclubs, bars, parks, sports arenas and
fore which stations will represent major competi- other places where people go to have a good time.
tion. Compare the examples from the hypothetical Don’t think of observation as a task reserved for
market in 11.7. KAAA, a rock station, is skewed times of change, however. Being active in the commu-
male (nearly 70 percent) and young (more than nity, and especially in the areas of most importance to
half the audience is younger than 35 years of age). the audience, is not a one-time or occasional effort but
KIII, a soft AC, is nearly the opposite. Their audi- an ongoing process to keep programmers in touch
ence is nearly all female and older (almost 60 per- with listeners and all aspects of their lives. Street pres-
cent between 35 and 64 years of age). ence, as both a promotional exercise and a research
Graphs for the Big Sky and RadioEast station tool, is critical to the success of most music stations.
clusters appear in 11.8. Although the individual sta- Personal interaction with the members of the
tions vary, group patterns emerge here. Both groups audience and community is important and can pro-
skew male overall, but Big Sky more so. There are vide valuable insights, but programmers should be
also significant differences in the age breakouts. careful not to generalize too much from that kind
RadioEast is strongest for ages 35 to 54, while Big of anecdotal evidence (and should never assume
Sky’s stations appeal to younger listeners. These dif- that their personal tastes reflect the target audience’s
ferences reflect the existing formats of the stations in taste). Therefore, formal research using careful sam-
each group, but more important, they provide impor- pling procedures should supplement personal inves-
tant strategic information about the marketplace for a tigation. Most cities have research firms that can be
potential new entrant (including any reformatted sta- hired to make special studies, and many national
tion within one of these groups). In order to maximize firms specialize in broadcast station research. Psy-
the advantages of group ownership, it is essential not chographic profiles (listener lifestyles and values)
 11.7
Percentage of Total Audience Percentage of Total Audience

0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Te
en
Te
en 100
s s
M M
18 18
+ +
W W
18 18
+ +

M M
18 18
– 24 –2
M M 4
25 25
– 34 –3
M M 4
35 35
– 44 –4
M M 4
45 45
– 54 –5
4

M
M

55
55

–6
–6

4
4
M M

KIII-FM
65 65
KAAA-FM

+ +

W W
18 18
Station Skew Graph Samples: KAAA-FM and KIII-FM

– 24 –2
W W 4
25 25
– –3
CHAPTER 11

34 4
W W
35 35
– 44 –4
W W 4
45 45
–5 –5
W 4 W 4
55 55
–6 –6
4 4
W W
65 65
+ +
Music Radio Programming
395
 396

11.8
Percentage of Total Audience Percentage of Total Audience
PART FIVE

0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Te Te
en en
s s
M M
18 18
+ +
W W
18 18
+ +

M M
18 18
– 24 –2
M M 4
25 25
–
Audio Programming Practices

34 –3
M M 4
35 35
– 44 –4
M M 4
45 45
– 54 –5
4

M
M

55
55

–6
–6

4
4
M M
Big Sky

65 65

RadioEast
+ +
Station Skew Graphs for RadioEast and Big Sky

W W
18 18
– 24 –2
W W 4
25 25
– 34 –3
W W 4
35 35
– 44 –4
W W 4
45 45
–5 –5
W 4 W 4
55 55
–6 –6
4 4
W W
65 65
+ +
 CHAPTER 11 Music Radio Programming 397

can provide additional invaluable information for a major market. But talent is often expected to do more
programmers about target audiences. for that money than they used to have to do, in every
A study assessing current formats in the market market. The afternoon drive jock is probably also
using lengthy, in-depth interviews might get interest- recording midday, afternoon or evening shows (voice
ing responses: too many commercials, bad commer- tracking) for as many as five or six other stations in
cial production, too much unfamiliar or repetitive addition to making a promotional appearance or two
music, obnoxious contests, can’t-win contests or for the station each weekend. In smaller markets, they
DJs who talk too much. A station getting answers may also be doubling as sales personnel.
like these is ready for a major overhaul (or is vulner- In addition to staff salaries, management must
able to new competition). However, research is expect substantial ongoing costs for promoting and
merely one tool in the programmer’s arsenal. Any advertising. Moreover, a station often employs vari-
study should be carefully weighed before being ous consultants to help with specific areas of the
used to make important decisions. operation—legal, technical, management, personnel,
As an example of the kind of findings that prove marketing and sales as well as programming—and
useful, a broadcast station may identify its typical all of these consultants are useful or even essential
over-the-air listener as a male, 30 to 40 years old, in at one time or another. Some consultants are practi-
a professional career who earns $75,000 to $100,000 cally required on an ongoing basis—for example, a
a year, drives a Lexus or other upscale car, drinks communications law firm in Washington, DC,
imported or craft beer, goes out at least twice a should handle proceedings with the FCC and keep
week to a good restaurant, and plays golf. The station the station advised of changes in the requirements
can sell this audience to advertisers that have the for operation or of any licensing changes pending
same target. Station promotional efforts, from con- before the commission for stations in their market.
tests to events, would tie in elements of lifestyle with Engineering consultants with experience in going
the programming on this particular station. before the commission are necessary when the station
is applying for a new license or at any subsequent
Knowing the Available Budget time when the station makes a change to its facilities
In addition to a program director, the usual hit music that requires FCC approval. Programming consul-
operation requires one or more air talents along with a tants can provide important insights on a regular or
production director and, perhaps, a music director. Sal- occasional basis by finding market voids and spotting
aries vary widely, even within market classes, and are a competitors’ weaknesses (or your own). They may
function of the station’s results (ratings and ad revenue), even assemble a staff to work up a specific format.
the individual’s job history and the individual’s negoti- Consultation is (Whew!) expensive, however. An
ating skills. In a medium market of 500,000, the engineer may charge $700 a day plus expenses; a pro-
program director may earn as much as $50,000 a grammer may charge $3,000 a month on a three-
year—more if she or he also handles an air shift. The to-six-month contract. For a complete station overhaul,
morning DJ probably gets $50,000 to $80,000, and a consultants range from $400 to $1,000 a day. A neo-
popular afternoon drivetime DJ may get up to $40,000. phyte licensee may be literally unable to start up without
The production director’s salary is probably between using one or more consultants, and even experienced
$30,000 and $50,000 per year, and the other five or operators will frequently rely on the expertise consul-
six jocks fall in a somewhat lower range. tants provide. (As you can imagine, sharing such exper-
In the top-10 markets, stations would likely have tise has been one pressure toward or byproduct of
to double or triple these salary figures to get the consolidation.) A great deal of highly specialized knowl-
required talent. Top morning show talent for a large edge and experience must be brought to bear immedi-
market can easily run well into six figures, with super- ately once the FCC has given the licensee authority to
stars earning a million dollars or more annually. Suc- operate the station following construction or, more
cessful PDs can likewise command six-figure salaries in commonly, a license transfer.
398 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

Estimating Potential Revenue Following Arbitron’s pattern, most radio audience

segments end in a 4. If particular advertisers are not
It’s a cold, hard reality, but programming decisions are
seeking all listeners 25 to 54, then they generally want
based primarily on their revenue potential. Maximiz-
a subset of that market; some seek subgroups of 25 to
ing advertising revenue is normally the goal of the sta-
34, 25 to 44, or 35 to 54. For example, many night-
tion’s owners, and the value of a station and its
clubs and other entertainment venues target audi-
programming is found in the value of the audience to
ences aged 18 to 24 or 18 to 34.
advertisers. Program directors need some understand-
Selected advertisers, such as banking, financial
ing of basic business principles in order to be effective.
institutions and packaged vacations, may seek listen-
Good programming (along with good promotion and
ers aged 55 to 64. For the most part, though, older
a few other factors) should deliver a good, salable audi-
people are seen as set in their buying habits, and
ence. That is what determines the success (or failure) of
regarded as saving money rather than spending it; it
a station (unlike commercial-free services).
is presumed that they have probably bought just
In addition to cable, satellite and online radio
about everything they are ever going to buy. This per-
competing for audiences, television, outdoor, direct
ception is not necessarily accurate, however, because
mail and those few remaining newspapers compete
people are living longer, healthier, more active lives.
with radio for many of the same advertising dollars.
Many advertisers are most interested in the large
The increasing number of stations and audio services
population bulge represented by the baby boomers.
has fragmented the available audience more than
They see that market as having money, responding
ever, making survival even more difficult. Broadcast
to advertising and receptive to buying, even if it
radio is generally viewed as a mature medium, dem-
means going into debt. Stations have tended to track
onstrating little revenue growth.
the boomer generation and adjust their music formats
Although total revenues for the industry have
to continue to appeal to this group as it ages. This has
gone up in recent years despite the recent recession,
resulted in continued heavy play of late ‘50s, ‘60s and
this factor is rapidly affected by dips and rises in the
‘70s music (oldies or classic rock, as well as AC for-
overall economy. Radio’s percentage of total advertis-
mats that feature plenty of songs from that era), which
ing dollars has been around 6 to 8 percent for dec-
capitalizes on the hit songs of the baby boomers’
ades, and consolidation did not improve that figure
teens-through-20s years. The next largest population
as many had hoped it would (leading many of the
bulge, the boom echo, were teens and 20s themselves
largest groups to divest some of the stations they per-
from roughly the mid-80s to shortly after the turn of
ceived as less important, often in smaller markets).
the century. Their music is also well represented, in
On the other hand, the new competition hasn’t
various alternative and rock formats as well as con-
particularly hurt it, as yet—largely because most ser-
temporary country and Hot AC.
vices are supported by subscriptions rather than by
advertising, or they have limited availability to audi-
ences compared with broadcast radio, or because Step-by-Step Selection Process
they don’t accept advertising (or only very limited
amounts). The picture may not stay this way. Format strategy can be examined by working through
It is important to keep in mind that commercial a hypothetical market—say, a metropolitan area of
media compete intensely for local advertising reven- slightly more than 1 million people, with 19 commer-
ues. In any area, advertisers most desire the 18- to 49- cial stations licensed to the city or to nearby suburbs.
or 25- to 54-year-old audience (although as the baby The market also includes four noncommercial stations:
boomer generation ages past 60, some advertisers and three public radio stations affiliated with colleges and a
programmers are beginning to target those older contemporary Christian station. (The different nature
demos). In radio, the audience subdivides into 10- to of noncommercial operations is discussed in Chapter
15-year segments that specific formats target. 10.) See 11.9 for a list of commercial stations in this
 CHAPTER 11 Music Radio Programming 399

11.9 List of Stations, Formats, Facilities, Owners and Ratings in the Hypothetical Market
(6 A. M.–Midnight, Monday–Sunday)

Station ERP/HAAT Share 12+

Format Frequency Owner Cume (00) M 18–34 W 18–3 M 25–54 W 25–54

KAAA-FM 97 kw kW/375m Big Sky 8.2 24.6 8.4 12.6 3.9

Rock 100.7 1475 559 329 558 309
KBBB-FM 6 kw kW/100m Big Sky 2.3 0.8 0.8 2.7 2.7
Smooth jazz 98.1 446 41 39 147 156
KPPP-FM 100 kw/325m Big Sky 5.6 7.6 10.7 5.6 6.7
Hot AC 99.1 1423 329 409 379 465
KSSS 1 kwD/1 kwN Big Sky 1.5 2.9 0.1 3.2 0.4
Sports 620 386 89 9 217 39
KSSS-FM* 6 kw/90 m Big Sky 1.7 3.8 0.4 4.0 0.4
Sports 105.1 401 120 31 263 52
KCCC-AM 1 kwD/1 kwN HugeCo 1.3 1.4 2.0 1.1 1.2
Variety 1320 309 63 79 70 97
KDDD-FM 100 kw/300 m HugeCo 10.9 10.5 18.5 5.4 11.6
CHR 102.9 2268 443 575 434 692
KIII-FM 100 kw/425 m HugeCo 3.9 1.3 3.8 2.6 7.1
Soft AC 94.9 918 97 174 219 389
KKKK-AM 5 kwD/5 kwN HugeCo 6.5 2.0 1.4 5.3 3.5
News/talk 1010 1207 77 65 329 254
KLLL-FM 100 kw/425 m HugeCo 6.1 6.6 11.1 4.6 7.9
Hot country 102.1 1249 223 334 301 412
KOOO-FM 98 kw/350 m HugeCo 7.6 5.0 6.6 6.8 8.1
Country 96.3 1401 162 256 326 441
KRRR-AM 5 kwD/5 kwN HugeCo 1.1 0.1 0.1 1.3 0.5
Talk 910 359 10 11 90 43
KFFF-FM 100 kw/400 m RadioEast 5.4 3.4 7.9 4.0 9.2
AC 104.3 1201 149 268 285 500
KGGG-AM# 50 kwD/50 kwN RadioEast 1.4 0.2 0.1 1.4 0.6
Oldies 1490 392 21 14 92 67
KGGG-FM# 100 kw/275 m RadioEast 5.8 1.4 2.4 6.2 6.9
Oldies 92.7 1156 86 82 351 387
K J J J-FM 100 kw/300 m RadioEast 6.5 7.7 4.3 12.4 6.1
Classic rock 107.7 1199 258 180 584 359
KNNN-AM 1 kwD Hometown 3.7 4.1 5.5 2.5 4.5
Urban 1110 513 90 129 104 166
KHHH-AM 2.5 kwD/.5 kwN Faith 0.9 0.2 0.5 0.8 0.8
Religious 780 252 21 11 69 63
KEEE-FM 100 kw/250 m OK Ltd. 4.4 3.3 1.7 4.1 2.9
Classic country 93.5 730 86 78 186 174

*Simulcast approximately 75%.

#
Simulcast approximately 90%.
400 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

hypothetical market. Boldfacing shows the leading sta- competitive situation? What groups are unserved in
tion in each demographic group. the population? See 11.10 for a description of the
The market is typical of many medium and population distribution in the hypothetical market.
large markets, with three significant group-owned First, let’s look at the competitive structure of
station clusters. The remaining commercial stations the market. Big Sky’s existing primary strength is
in the market are owned by small groups, with addi- in the male demos; it has the number-one station
tional properties located in other markets. Of the (KAAA) among men aged 18 to 34 and 25 to 54.
three groups, HugeCo controls the most stations in Between the rock and sports stations, it has nearly
the market and is one of the biggest national station 35 percent of the 18 to 34 male demographic and a
groups, with several hundred stations covering all 20 percent share of men aged 25 to 54. With classic
market sizes. Big Sky is also a major group with rock and oldies formats, RadioEast is also strong in
around 200 stations nationally, primarily in medium the male demographics, but has primarily an older
and a few large markets. RadioEast is a relatively audience (remember the skew graphs?). Meanwhile,
small company, family controlled with fewer than because of its size, HugeCo has effectively covered
20 stations, most in medium and small markets. the full age range on the female side. Big Sky has
This is their largest cluster and second-largest only one female skewing station, hot AC KPPP,
market. which is a distant third among women aged 18 to
After a period of rapid consolidation, program- 34 behind HugeCo’s CHR KDDD and hot country
ming and station rankings in the hypothetical mar- KLLL. Among women aged 25 to 54, KPPP is sev-
ket have been fairly stable for the past couple of enth, also trailing HugeCo’s mainstream country
years. The last station acquisition took place two KOOO, RadioEast’s AC KFFF, and oldies KGGG.
years ago when RadioEast bought into the market. Given that overview, let’s look at potential for-
The last format change (KIII’s move to soft AC from mat holes in the market. We can eliminate the news
alternative) took place at about the same time. There
is relatively little competition within formats;
KDDD-FM, KAAA-FM, KOOO-FM and KKKK-
11.10 Selected Population
AM have generally been the ratings leaders for and Demographic Estimates
quite some time.
Station facilities are remarkably equivalent. Of Total metro population: 861,000
the AMs, only one station is a daytimer (KNNN), Total DMA population: 1,300,000
although KHHH does have a restricted nighttime DMA Racial/Ethnic Population Estimates
pattern. In the FM band, all are high-powered class White 77.0%
Cs with the exception of Big Sky’s KBBB and KSSS,
Black 10.0%
both of which are class A stations licensed to nearby
Hispanic 5.0%
suburbs of the metro city. Most of KSSS’s program-
Asian 3.0%
ming is simulcast on KSSS-AM as well as on four
Native American 5.0%
other AM stations around the state (billed as the
Women 51.4%
Sports Monster Radio Network). Big Sky recently
Men 48.6%
added a translator for KBBB on the opposite side
Teens 12–17 10.5%
of the metro area to improve coverage.
18–24 11.3%
Even taking into account the relatively poor
24–34 16.5%
nature of its facility, Big Sky believes KBBB is under-
35–44 18.7%
performing in its present/smooth jazz format and is
45–54 16.4%
considering a format change. Given the makeup of
55–64 10.6%
the market, what are the best options? Is there a
65þ 16.0%
format that could improve Big Sky’s overall
 CHAPTER 11 Music Radio Programming 401

and talk formats right away. They’re expensive to although the reverse is often not true, and KAAA
program, requiring large staffs unless you offer pri- plays some alternative music. Most likely, moving
marily syndicated or network fare; and with two sta- KBBB to alternative would simply take audience
tions covering that territory, there are already from KAAA, leaving little or no net gain.
enough stations in the market providing that There are several possibilities, however. One
programming. option would be an older-skewing music format
We can also eliminate country off the top. like adult standard. This audience is not well served
Although this is a strong market for county music, by existing programming, but that is because an
there are already three stations in the format, with a older audience (55þ) is often difficult to sell to
combined 18 share of persons 12þ. Each station has advertisers. Another possibility is urban or urban
carved out its own audience niche, and no single oldies, currently available only on an AM daytimer
station seems to have a segment large enough to fur- with poor facilities. According to the U.S. census
ther subdivide. Moreover, the two most successful data, the market has a substantial minority popula-
country stations are owned by HugeCo, and their tion (approximately 10 percent black and 5 percent
combined promotional and programming strength Hispanic), and the urban format can also have sub-
would represent a substantial barrier for any new stantial appeal for white ethnic audiences. One of
competitor to overcome. Big Sky should look the Hispanic formats might succeed if it had that
elsewhere. market all to itself, although implementation is diffi-
The situation in AC is similar, except that no cult for a company without previous experience in
owner has more than a single station in the format. that marketplace because of language and cultural
KFFF, KIII and KPPP represent a combined 15 share barriers.
(and a whopping 23 share among the primary target Finally, there’s CHR, currently represented
audience, women aged 25 to 54), and their formats by the 12þ market leader KDDD with a share of
are spread across the range of AC programming. A 10.9 percent. That big share of the audience is a
fourth station would be competing head-to-head tempting target, and the opportunity for Big Sky to
with one—and, to some extent, with all three plus strike at the market’s biggest group is a battle many
CHR KDDD (which, like many CHR stations, program directors would relish. Moreover, the CHR
sounds more like an AC format during weekdays (or the urban) audience would be a good fit for
in order to better capture at-work adult listeners). KPPP if there were some minor tweaking of its for-
There could be some small niche available, but the mat, and this could potentially strengthen Big Sky’s
competition in this segment, although indirect, is relatively weak overall female numbers without Big
most likely a significant factor in KBBB’s current Sky having to simply steal from KPPP’s existing
low ratings. Moreover, we certainly want to avoid audience (although there would undoubtedly be
potentially cannibalizing our existing female audi- some audience sharing).
ence on KPPP. Thus, an urban hybrid (rhythmic CHR or urban
In the rock category, Big Sky is dominant AC) looks to be the best opportunity in the market.
(KAAA). Oldies and classic rock belong to competi- Census data indicates a substantial younger popula-
tors, but those are generally one-to-a-market for- tion—57 percent—within the target age range
mats (although an oldies hybrid might be a for contemporary music (28 percent in the core
possibility). Combining the sports stations (KSSS- demographic between 18 and 34 years of age, plus
AM and FM) with KAAA, Big Sky has very strong 11 percent aged 12 to 17, and another 18 percent
male numbers. Perhaps it would be possible to fur- aged 35 to 44; slightly more women than men in all
ther increase our younger male demographic power ages). Most of this audience is currently served by
with an alternative format or add some older listen- relatively few stations because the majority of sta-
ers with a AAA format? The rock audience will gen- tions chase the mid-adult demos. The existing
erally accept alternative music on their station, urban station would not be a significant competitor
402 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

because of its facility. In addition, picking rhythmic gradually add air talent as they can be located and
CHR rather than true urban would allow the new hired. In the interim, the station operates either with-
KBBB to attract listeners from the large KDDD audi- out DJs or by utilizing voice tracking.
ence and potentially turn them into listeners whose Some stations have used the initial launch
first preference is KBBB (P1s in rating terminology— period to make a splash in the market by offering
the core listeners of a station). extended commercial-free stretches or other special
programming that lasts a few hours to a few days.
But beware of setting up inappropriate audience
Implementation expectations with this strategy. Whatever manage-
ment does needs to both encourage the target audi-
A format change will necessitate a new station iden- ence to sample the station and begin the process of
tity (new call letters, which would require an FCC building an affinity with that audience.
application, and a fresh slogan), new music and Building the station’s music library is another
probably new air talent. Moreover, the work will task to be accomplished before the format goes on
have to happen quietly, behind the scenes, in order the air. Developing rapport with record company
to avoid tipping off the other stations (and media promoters is one way to receive music (see 11.11 to
reporters) in the market. That means some (or even get a sense of the risks). When the music director or
all) of the work must be done away from the station program director makes contacts with friends in the
or at times when few, if any, other staff are around. music business, the station gets on their call schedules
The program director’s first step is to settle on the and mailing lists. This ensures that the station will
station’s target audience and identity. receive all the current material promptly, in many
Branding and positioning are complicated mat- cases prior to the actual release date. Most important,
ters, but in simplest terms, the station needs to create however, is becoming a reporting station for trade
an image in the audience’s minds that matches the journals. Getting current CDs is fairly easy for sta-
audience’s self-image. In other words, the station tions in larger markets and others that report their
should fit into the listeners’ desired lifestyle in all airplay to major trade outlets because the record
regards, from the music to the logo and slogan to labels will happily provide them. There are also
the DJ patter between songs. Who is the typical lis- more specialized trade journals, such as CMJ (www.
tener, the highly valued P1? In this case, imagine a cmj.com), and reporting airplay to those magazines
young (20- to 30-year-old) adult, most likely female, can also be a way to ensure music service (see 11.12).
who works in a professional or technical field; she To prepare a new contemporary format, the sta-
enjoys music (with a danceable beat), clubs, movies tion needs the previous 6 to 12 months of releases.
and sports; drives a small, sporty car; is interested in Performance licenses (requiring annual royalty fees)
fashion; dines out several times a week; exercises should be obtained from each of the three traditional
regularly; and enjoys traveling. performance rights organizations (PROs): ASCAP
Next, we’ll need to consider, in consultation (www.ascap.org), BMI (www.bmi.com) and SESAC
with the general manager and other corporate (www.sesac.com). The licenses grant the station the
executives, whether current Big Sky personnel (at right to play nearly all popular music, a necessary
KBBB or perhaps KPPP, or at another station out- expense for music stations. The PROs then distribute
side the market) are suited to the new format. If so, most of the money to the music’s copyright holders
those people may be quietly brought into the process (music publishers and songwriters), based on surveys
as needed. If not, there will be that much more work reporting the amount of airplay.
for the PD and the one or two other managers who If the station plans to stream its signal online,
are aware at this point of the impending change. The separate licenses are required from ASCAP, BMI
air staff can be hired prior to the debut but doesn’t and SESAC. More significantly, streaming requires
have to be. Some stations change format, then paperwork to be filed with the U.S. Copyright Office
 CHAPTER 11 Music Radio Programming 403

11.11 Pay-for-Play

R ecord companies rely on about 1,000 radio stations

in the largest markets to expose their records and thus
influence music sales, although online exposure is now also
“Pay-for-Play” promotion (read payola) as well as legitimate
promotion by independent contractors.
In genres that don’t rely on mass audiences, indepen-
significantly influencing sales. Dozens of songs are dent promoters are effective and generally work fully within
released weekly, but only a handful of slots open on most the law. Texas, for example, has its own blend of roots
radio station playlists. To call attention to new releases, the country music, and about a dozen promoters target radio
record industry enlists promotion specialists who introduce stations in the state. The Americana format—a hybrid of
the product to radio programmers. Some of these promo- country, roots and folk—has promoters dedicated to its
ters are label employees; others are independent contrac- stations. Christian and college broadcasters have their own
tors, often called “indies.” cadres of indie promoters.
One promotion strategy used to be called “Pay-for-Play” Some indies are paid by artists and smaller labels to
but that term (and the associated practices) are in bad represent them in small markets in the hope of gaining
odor. Some indies were paid by major labels to get songs notice by larger stations. Money is not usually passed on to
on major station playlists, and payments varied based on stations at this level (though one wonders where it goes …).
the station’s market size. Bonuses were paid when songs Labels can also bypass promoters and programmers to
deal directly with big station groups at the corporate level.
were added during a desired week, a song’s rotation
Fees are considered “sponsorship” when songs are pre-
increased or a song reached a certain position on the
viewed by corporate programmers or “showcases” when
playlist. Indies paid the station for the right to “represent”
new talents perform.
them by getting the station exclusive releases, prizes or
The internet has certainly facilitated the success of local
other promotional considerations. The indies guaranteed
artists and bands by giving thousands of groups a chance to
promotional payments to the stations, then billed the record
find an audience. Artists are creating their own promotions via
companies.
websites, and of course social networks can build fan support
This sounds smelly, but the “Pay-for-Play” strategy was
and regional popularity. Moreover, the enormous inpact of
technically not payola because indies didn’t pay DJs to
videos going viral on YouTube can’t be overestimated.
play specific songs; they wrote their contracts with partici-
pating stations. However, the word indies has been tarred Frank Chorba, Ph.D.
because it has been used for both highly questionable Washburn University

(www.copyright.gov) along with a small fee, and world, it could have taken months to build the gold
additional performance royalties are due to the library, and these recordings would have been kept
record labels and musicians. That separate perfor- under lock and key to forestall avid collectors
mance right is acquired from SoundExchange among staff members. This remains true today for
(www.soundexchange.com), an organization formed the few stations that still play compact discs on the
to manage those digital copyrights for the record air, use carts (audio cartridges), reel-to-reel or even
labels much as the traditional PROs track airplay on special occasions, actual vinyl records. While cer-
and collect and distribute money for songwriters. tainly not commonplace for everyday use, many
When assembling the music library, someone facilities still possess the ability to use one or more
will have to dig for the recurrents and the gold— of these now antiquated technologies.
especially the latter. Because of their age, physical If nothing more than for ease and sound quality,
copies of these recordings may be scarce. Promoters most radio stations’ audio functions are completely
and distributors are often out of stock and in some digital. This is especially true for the music library if
cases, discs are simply out of print. In a pre-digital the desired format is already in use by the company
404 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

needed to complete the library in a service (or combina-

11.12 Measuring Airplay tion of services) like Play MPE (plaympe.com), New

D
Music Server (newmusicserver.com) or Radio Currents
(radiocurrents.com). These services are available to pro-
isagreements about airplay decisions and how the
quantities of spins are reported have been an
gram directors music directors and operations man-
onoing problem for both radio and the music industry. agers through an agreement between the station and
Because of flagrant abuses in the past when stations and the service for providing digital audio licensed for
local retailers individually reported figures, nowadays broadcast use, and may contain audio in all categories
sales figures and airplay (spins) are monitored by such from gold to currents.
independent tracking organizations as Nielsen Broad- Another option that may be preferable when put-
cast Data Systems and Mediabase Research. Outside ting a station on the air with brand new facilities is to
monitoring presumably prevents unscrupulous program- simply purchase a digital automation system with a
mers from reporting that they played certain songs more complete (or nearly complete) music library pre-loaded
or less frequently than they really did. Subsequently, in the system. Wide Orbit (wideorbit.com) is one such
station play figures are compiled into charts for various company. In addition to WO Automation for Radio,
formats, and reported in trade magazines like Billboard. they also own the rights to automation software like
Scott Studios 32 and Maestro (products formerly
Frank J. Chorba, Ph.D. owned by dMarc and Google). Another major provider
Washburn University
is RCS (rcsworks.com), owned by Clear Channel,
which offers automation products like Zetta and
NexGen in addition to the widely used music scheduling
in another market. Online file transfers, flash mem- software Selector. They can include the music itself (for
ory devices and cheap digital storage make compil- an additional charge, of course).
ing an initial music library a process that may take Digital automation systems are dedicated com-
only a day or two as opposed to months. It should puters that are used solely for running the radio sta-
be noted, however, that a music library is never tion, and often contain a central server with hard-
“complete,” but rather is continually changing with drive audio storage and a separate machine that
music being added and removed almost daily. acts as the user interface and playback machine in
Some stations employ the use of gold services such each of the station’s control rooms. All of the music,
as TM Studios’ Gold Disc™ Library, a complete oldies station imaging, promos and commercial inventory
library available on compact disc. Although it is an can be first hosted on the server, and are streamed
additional programming cost to the station, a pur- over the local network to the computers in the con-
chased library offers savings in time and convenience. trol room for storage and playback on air. This is
Each disc contains upwards of 20 songs, and provides especially efficient in the case of audio files that are
an expansive collection of “the hits.” In a newer incar- used on more than one station in the cluster. Take,
nation, TM Studios (tmstudios.com) provides various for example a commercial for a local car dealer:
catalogues of oldies and currents in both compact disc Rather than loading the car commercial on to each
and on demand formats, including the popular Prime of the station’s machines individually, the spot can
Cuts discs that are mailed weekly to the station. TM be placed on the server and then distributed to one
Studios also provides a comprehensive collection of or all of the on-air machines in the building (or
online services that provide on-demand download maybe be sent farther away). This double redun-
capabilities. Depending on how far back a station will dancy can also be a lifesaver in the event of a cata-
need to go for music, another online service may pro- strophic failure of one of the local machines in a
vide all of the necessary audio needed for the library. A control room. In a digital environment where no
straight-ahead CHR whose gold category may only go physical copy exists, backups (and backups of back-
back three to five years would likely find everything ups) are essential.
 CHAPTER 11 Music Radio Programming 405

Initially, the program director will need to tem- The Anatomy of the Clock
porarily act as the music director in order to struc-
One of the program director’s major responsibilities
ture the music when revamping a station or flipping
is to construct one or more clocks that serve as tem-
formats. Later, those duties can be transitioned to
plates for each hour of a station’s programming. So
one of the jocks who will act as the music director
called because it resembles the face of a clock, it cre-
(MD). In a typical setup, the music director works
ates a graphic representation of the formula by
for the program director, overseeing music research,
which the station is built to achieve the desired
taking calls from record company promotion reps
“sound.” A clock will divide any given hour of pro-
and independent promoters, and preparing pro-
gramming into portions for music (by category), sta-
posed additions and deletions to the playlist. The
tion elements (jock chatter, weather, news, imaging
program director has the right to make the final
and promos), as well as commercials. It will also
call, but the music director does the background
provide specific placement (in minutes) for each of
work.
the elements that make up the hour. For instance,
commercial breaks may be scheduled to always fall
at 20 and 50 minutes after the top of the hour, with
The Station Sound weather being the last element in the 20 break.
The PD also will create as many clocks as are
As you might guess, the four main elements that go
needed: one for an hour with no news, another for
into creating the sound of a radio station are the
an hour with two newscasts, another for an hour
music, the jocks, the imaging and the commercials
with one newscast, another for an hour with 10
(spots). The art of radio programming is finding
commercial minutes (or 12 or 16 or however many
just the right balance as these elements come
the station allows and could sell). Clocks are a way
together, and that balance in turn determines
to effectively manage dayparting—that is, estimating
whether the final product is great, mediocre or
who is listening at a particular time of day and what
downright terrible. Clearly, no one “right way” to
their activities are, and then programming directly to
program a radio station exists (or we’d all listen to
them.
the same stations). Rather, each PD has his or her
The most common dayparting strategies use
own style that influences the overall sound and gives
Arbitron-defined standard dayparts: Morning Drive
each station its own unique personality. Most pro-
from 6 A.M.–10 A.M., Middays from 10 A.M.–3 P.M.,
grammers will specialize in one specific format, or at
Afternoon Drive from 3 P.M.–7 P.M., Evenings from
most a handful of formats, but what works in one
7 P.M.–Midnight, and Overnights from Midnight–
format probably doesn’t work in another, and the
6 A.M. Each daypart may have its own clock or
same problem exists from market to market. One
multiple clocks. Conversely, there may be one
common key, however, to programming success in
clock for morning drive, and the same clock may
all formats is good research, driven by the listeners.
be used throughout the rest of the day.
Ultimately, the listeners decide the success or failure
of a PD each time a new ratings book is released
(and a lot of tension precedes the release of each
book!). The Music
To illustrate how the basic process works, this Our hypothetical rhythmic CHR will use five major
chapter presents a model that combines aspects of music categories: power, current, recurrent, power
systems used by radio stations across the country. gold and gold, though other stations or formats
This system represents one plan for programming a might employ additional categories. Some program-
rhythmic CHR station that is designed to achieve mers might also further divide the categories by
maximum attractiveness to the target demographic tempo, style, genre or—in the case of formats with
of Adults 18-34. substantial gold libraries—by era.
406 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

The Model commercials, five might be played). Some stations

subdivide this category by tempo or mood, placing
Any contemporary music station can use this basic
slow songs in one group and fast, upbeat ones in
formula ranging from CHR to rock and AC, country
another; other programmers subdivide by popular-
or urban. It would require significant modification,
ity, grouping those moving up in the charts sepa-
however, to work for an oldies or classical format.
rately from those that have already peaked and are
moving down in the charts. The same research meth-
Power. This category contains approximately ten top
ods used to determine the power songs determine
songs, played at the rate of four to eight each hour. (The
those in the current category. Together, the powers
rotation would be slower, one to three each hour, in
and currents form the station’s current playlist of
most non-CHR formats.) Rotation is controlled so that
about 30 songs.
the same song is not played at the same time of day on
consecutive days. Rotation time, or the time that elapses
Recurrent. This category contains songs that are no
before the cycle of ten songs begins again, will likely vary
longer powers or currents but have been big hits within
by daypart ranging from as little as 75 to 90 minutes in
the last two years. (Some rock and AC stations may
the late afternoon and evening in our rhythmic CHR
keep songs for up to three years in the recurrent
format to as much as six or eight hours in some AC or
section.) These songs get played at the rate of two to
rock formats. The exact rotation is decided by the pro-
four per hour, depending on commercial load and
gram director. The songs in this category are the most
desired rotation time in the first two categories. Some
popular of the day and receive the most airplay. They are
stations limit this category to 30 records played at the
selected weekly based on the following:
rate of one an hour; others may have as many as 100
■ How they test during call-out research with the songs, playing them twice an hour. Songs usually move
station’s audience into this category after being powers or currents, after
■ Their national airplay rankings and audience test a short “resting” period (where the song is not played
scores from services like BDS Radio (bdsradio. on the station at all) of anywhere from one to four
com, airplay charts available at radio-info.com) weeks depending on the song. A few songs will be
dropped from the library and never make it to the
■ Local sales (to a lesser degree, but still may pro-
recurrent category, predominantly novelty records
duce “local hits”)
that are burned out (listeners have tired of them) and
Area record stores can be contacted weekly for records that stiffed (failed to become really big hits).
sales information, which they record by bar code. In These songs should be tested periodically for audience
smaller markets, rankings of sales and airplay in burnout by telephone call-out or web-based research.
trade magazines often play the biggest part in deter-
mining playlists (see the “Music Research” section Power Gold. This category contains records that
of this chapter). In bigger markets, telephone testing were very big hits in the past three to ten years.
was traditionally used to measure popularity, but There may be anywhere from 100 to 300 of these
the popularity of cell phones among young listeners classics, and they are played at the rate of one to
and restrictions on calling out have diminished the three per hour, depending on commercial load and
use of this option. In a call-out, a sample audience format. The songs are recycled every few days with a
hears part of a song, almost always “the hook,” and few “new songs” from the library of power golds
is asked to evaluate it. Many stations also now use being added, and others being removed ensuring this
online panels of listeners to evaluate songs. category always stays fresh. These are the “never-die”
songs, often by core artists in the format, that will
Current. This category contains the remaining 20 always be recognized by the target audience and imme-
or so currently popular songs. They are played at the diately identified as classics. They greatly enhance the
rate of three or four per hour (in an hour with no format because listeners get the impression that the
 CHAPTER 11 Music Radio Programming 407

station airs a broad range of music. Because there are ■ 1973 to 1980
so many of them, auditorium research is the best way ■ 1980 to the early 1990s
to test these songs for desirability, recognizability and
burnout, but they may occasionally also be rotated It is important to manage the rotations carefully
through call-out or web tests. within gold, power gold and oldies categories,
because there is never any “new” music from these
Gold. The gold category contains the “best of the periods; that is to say, you can’t go back in time ten
best” from the past 10 to 15 years that are not in the years and release a new song. There are only a cer-
recurrent or power gold categories. This group of tain number of songs that will exist in these catego-
200 or so titles is played at the rate of maybe one ries, which is why program directors will hold some
an hour, depending on format and commercial load. of them back, playing only 30 to 50 at a time when
In some formats, they may disappear entirely for cer- the library has more than 200 titles. This little trick
tain dayparts (in the case of our hypothetical rhyth- enables the listener to still find discovery (or the
mic CHR, we probably would not schedule many, if “man, I haven’t heard this song in forever”) factor
any, in afternoon drive and evenings). Songs in this that exists with older songs. There are no “new
group are carefully researched, usually with audito- oldies,” so programmers have to be smart about
rium tests, to make sure they appeal to the station’s their use.
target demographic group and are not suffering Finally, it is important for programmers to real-
from burnout. Stations can extend their gold catego- ize that a song that is a huge hit in one market can
ries by not including in the active library every song be a dismal flop in another. This is especially impor-
that meets their criteria for airplay. Rotating songs tant for a PD to remember when moving to an unfa-
in and out of the active gold library every few miliar city.
weeks—or creating subcategories that rotate at dif-
ferent speeds—can increase the audience’s sense of The Research
musical variety on the station—while maintaining a
consistent sound. In case we haven’t said this often enough, the key
A final category, oldies, may complete the ingredients in designing a successful format are care-
record library for some formats (although CHR sta- ful planning, ongoing local research and a willing-
tions omit it entirely). Oldies comprise the largest ness to adapt to changing audience tastes and
group because it covers the greatest span of time— competition. Although music tastes within a format
all the hit songs from the 1950s up to 10 or 15 years tend to be more homogenized nationally today than
ago. As many as 600 songs may be in the group, and in the past, because of video music channels on
they are played at the rate of one to two per hour in cable, the mobility of the population and consolida-
some formats. The commercial load and the number tion in the music and radio industries, successful
of older listeners the station wants to attract will programmers are always aware of—and take advan-
determine how many oldies get played. Songs in tage of—market-specific variations. Music stations
this group had to be hits at the time they were may employ one or more people to handle call-out
released and must continue to be popular. Program- or web-based research and to assemble statistics, or
mers for AC and oldies stations subdivide songs in the music director may work with specialized con-
this category according to the dates the songs were sulting services.
originally hits. The year categories listed here The more objective information that the
roughly parallel major historical shifts in the style researcher gathers, the easier it is for the program-
of popular music: mer to evaluate the record companies’ advertising
and sales. Record promoters naturally emphasize
■ Mid-1950s to 1964 their products’ victories, neglecting to mention that
■ 1965 to 1972 a record died in Los Angeles or Kansas City. The
408 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

station must depend on its own research findings to electronically. The tabulated results will be broken
rate a piece of music reliably. down demographically and usually provide valuable
As explained in Chapter 5, call-out and web- information to programmers about which songs to
based research gets reactions directly from radio lis- play in which dayparts and which songs may be
teners. Two versions of the technique are used— wearing out for the target audience. Additional
active and passive. In active call-out research, the questions can be asked; for example, “What station
names of active listeners are obtained from lists of do you listen to most?” “Second most?” “Who has
contest entrants or regular listeners who volunteer to the best news/the best sports/the best personalities?”
be part of a web panel. The passive version selects “What is the most irritating?” and so on.
names at random from the telephone directory (see Web-based systems have made research more
11.13). accessible to small- and medium-market stations
Another method of radio research, primarily for than traditional telephone or auditorium testing
the gold and recurrent parts of the library, is audito- because web testing is less expensive. The process
rium testing. Several companies specialize in this begins similarly to that of active call-out telephone
kind of audience research. Typically, they bring a testing. A station recruits a sample of audience mem-
test group to a large room and ask them to evaluate bers willing to participate in testing (in this case, via
music as excerpts are played. As many as 300 songs on-air announcements or the station’s website).
may be tested, with the audience writing their Once the panel is assembled, the program director
responses on special forms or punching in responses uploads the song hooks to the website weekly (or

11.13 Call-Out Research

W hen calling randomly selected people out of the

telephone book, the first step in an interview is to
qualify the person—that is, to make sure the person is in the
For example, assume 100 listeners are called within a
week, and 30 records are discussed. Twenty-four listeners
say they like song number five, and 36 say it is their
target demographic and listens to, or prefers, the kind of favorite record; 11 said they didn’t like it, 6 didn’t care,
music the station plays. In either case, respondents are asked and 9 hated it. Fourteen had never heard it before (a very
to listen to excerpts (hooks) from the songs being researched high recognition rate of 86 percent). Song number five thus
and to rate them on a scale from 1 to 5 as follows: has a total score of 325 and an average response of
3.78—this song is scoring very well with that core audi-
1 ¼ “Hate it.”
ence. It should definitely be high in the playlist, and
2 ¼ “Dislike it.” depending on its age, trend and the scores of other current
3 ¼ “Don’t care.” songs, it might qualify for the power category.
4 ¼ “Like it.” When doing call-based research of any kind, it is cru-
cial that the questions be asked in the right manner. It is
5 ¼ “My favorite record.”
important to make the respondents understand that they are
Research will also assess the extent to which a record might being asked to help determine the station’s music selection.
be burned out by asking listeners whether they are “tired” of Because the station is their favorite, they should be pleased
hearing the song. (A high burnout percentage tells a PD that the to have the opportunity to shape its programming even
song might need to be retired from the active library, either more to their liking. During a music interview, respondents
temporarily or permanently.) When a sample is completed can also be asked to comment on other things they like or
(100 calls is typical), the votes for each number on the scale dislike about the programming. This requires a sympathetic
are tabulated. The various totals are then manipulated to obtain ear on the part of the researcher. No arguing back
interpretations in terms of ratios or percentages. allowed.
 CHAPTER 11 Music Radio Programming 409

even more frequently if needed) and then sends out jocks as well as the program and music directors
an email to the sample group announcing that the can get printed lists (paper logs) of all the songs to
music is ready for their assessment. The listeners be played, although it is far more common to display
then complete the testing at their convenience, and the log on a computer monitor in the studio. Expe-
the results are made available immediately to the rienced talent with a good understanding of the for-
program director and music director. mat may sometimes be given the flexibility to make
alterations to the schedule, but not all PDs are com-
fortable giving up that control. Similarly, freehanded
The Rotation
jocks who think they may be able to skirt the system
Regardless of format, music stations must control and add or delete songs at their leisure are often
rotation, or the frequency of play of different kinds caught when the program director runs reconcilia-
of songs. For many years, stations used a flip card tion reports that compare what was supposed to
system (really!). Each song was placed on a 3  5 play with what actually did play.
index card in a file box, sometimes separated into When setting up the rules for the format, the PD
different categories of music. DJs were instructed must balance concerns about the sound of the sta-
to play the next available and appropriate song tion with the ability to schedule music. The more
and place the flip card at the back of the stack. rules that are in place, the more difficult it becomes
Surprisingly, the basic system hasn’t changed to schedule each day without breaking one or more
much, but music scheduling software allows for a rules. In setting up the rotations for various music
much more sophisticated means of tracking what categories, it is especially important to watch the
song is played, and where it is played in regard to the relationship between the number of songs in the cat-
other elements surrounding it. By placing “restrictions” egory, the rotation speed and the clock structure.
on songs, the music director and program director cre- The program director must make sure the categories
ate exactly the flow they want. By combining airplay are not cycling in time frames that are multiples of
data with ratings information, programmers can track each other, which would lead to categories synchro-
how the music flow impacts audience flow as well as nizing and the same songs playing together in a pat-
how frequently the audience is really hearing a song. tern. In the example of our hypothetical station, the
Computers can be used to do the following: power category is set to turn over every 90 minutes.
■ Follow a category rotation Thus, the current category should be rotated at a
pace to avoid turning over at 3 or 4.5 hours
■ Restrict some songs to particular dayparts
(which would synchronize to the second or third
■ Balance up-tempo and down-tempo songs power rotation at 90 minutes). Good choices
■ Avoid the scheduling of two songs by the same or would be 3.5 or 5.5 hours, keeping given songs in
similar artist too closely together (for example a the categories out of sync for substantial lengths of
power gold by Justin Timberlake followed by a time. Gold and recurrent categories generally have
gold from NSync) enough titles and slow enough rotation that syn-
■ Prevent songs from playing too close to the same chronization is not a major issue, but programmers
time every day should still be aware of unintended patterns.
Superior program directors will manually “mas-
■ Prevent adjacent songs of the same type (such as two
sage” the log prior to its final approval, personally
“old school” songs or two rhythm-and-blues songs)
reviewing the music song by song to catch any of the
Adherence to such restrictions leaves most of above-mentioned unintended patterns. While schedul-
the control in the hands of the program director ing software usually eliminates these, the computer
rather than in the hands of the on-air personality— only knows to do what you tell it to do. Even with
whose focus should be on his or her performance sufficient restrictions and rules outlined in the software,
between songs rather than on selecting music. The different songs by the same artist may unintentionally
410 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

be scheduled as the first song out of a commercial specified format without the drabness or dullness
break. Should this happen three times in a five-hour normally associated with sameness. In this context,
airshift, it may seem to the listener that an abnormal sameness means consistency and not predictability.
amount of music is being played by that artist, espe- A listener who tunes in to the station at odd hours
cially if the jock calls it to their attention. By personally should always hear the same sound and get the same
reviewing the log, the PD can almost completely elimi- feeling from the station that they get when tuning
nate such errors. into the station driving to work in the morning or
on the way home in the afternoon. The listener
should know what kind of programming to expect,
The Jocks and a well programmed station will deliver no mat-
Station personalities make up a large portion of the ter the day or daypart.
overall “sound” of the radio station, and along with The best air talent offers enough of herself or
the imaging, is what truly gives a station its own iden- himself to the audience that a relationship develops,
tity. Once there was the big-voice boss who told the and the kind of familiarity translates into more regular
listener this was a Big Announcer, but this style faded listening. Listeners should feel as if they have a trusted
in the early 1970s. Now there are SCREAMERS!!! friend with them in the car or at work when listening
(sometimes derogatorily referred to as pukers) who to the station. This relationship is especially true on
try to wake the very young. Then there are the country and adult contemporary stations, and while
shock jocks, the adult-male-oriented personalities still a factor is less of a consideration on CHR sta-
who court FCC retribution daily (see 12.5 in Chapter tions. The true test is when jocks have the opportunity
12, which discusses indecency in radio program- to interact with listeners at station events: Do the lis-
ming). But most contemporary stations rely on con- teners initiate conversation recalling intimate details
versational jocks who just talk normally, as they or things that were said on air weeks ago, or do
would with any friend, when they open the micro- they think it’s just a person wearing a polo shirt
phone switch. What they talk about, and the attitude with the station logo on it? Jocks are station person-
with which they convey the information, is what alities and should have personalities that are funny,
makes each talent and format distinctive. informative, trustable and most of all likeable. With-
Typically jocks will work in shifts following (or out these characteristics, the jock is nothing more than
on a slight variation of) the standard daypart schedule: an announcer, and announcers are a dime a dozen.
Morning Drive from 6 A.M.–10 A.M., Middays from The ever-increasing demand from owners to cut
10 A.M.–3 P.M., Afternoon Drive from 3 P.M.–7 P.M., expenditures and post higher earnings at radio sta-
Evenings from 7 P.M.-Midnight and Overnights from tions nationwide leads some programmers to con-
Midnight-6 A.M. The challenge for the PD is to make sider going as far as eliminating some, most or all
each daypart its own distinct entity, appropriate to the local air talent order to pass those savings to the
audience’s characteristic activities at that time, while bottom line. While this obviously would save
simultaneously keeping the station’s sound consistent money in the short term, a successful station can’t
across all dayparts. The most important ingredient in survive for long playing just music and commercials.
making daypart distinctions is the personality of the Radio needs personality to succeed—otherwise, the
jock assigned to each time period, followed by the listener is more likely to plug in an iPod or fire up a
appropriate adjustments to the music rotation and service like Pandora so as to skip the commercials
other programming elements. Neither the PD nor the altogether. Technology has provided one partial
air talent should ever lose sight of the fact that consis- solution to this dilemma: the invention of a process
tency is the primary goal. For key attributes of each known as voicetracking, or the pre-recording of
daypart, see 11.14. some or all of a jock’s talkpoints during a shift.
Under the direction of a strong PD, a kind of One or two people can voice track an entire day’s
“sameness” will develop among all the jocks in a programming on a station before going off to do
 CHAPTER 11 Music Radio Programming 411

production, engineering or sales; or one air staffer KABL (“Cable”) in San Francisco, KOST (“Coast”)
can provide voice tracks for many stations in a in Los Angeles, and KEGL (“Eagle Radio”) in Fort
local or regional group, perhaps in addition to a Worth. These call letters are memorable and distinc-
live shift on one station. tive brand identities and get daily usage.
Using the internet, it is technically easy for the air Other call letters may not stand out as much, but
talent to be in Dallas and upload voice tracks to stations have a history or geographic tie-in to their metro ser-
in Michigan, Florida and Oregon. (But beware the vice area. WCOL in Columbus, Ohio, employs the
accent … People in Oregon don’t talk like people in first three letters in the city’s name, and WPTI in
Dallas.) Not only can this provide budgetary savings Greensboro, North Carolina takes its calls from the
for the local station, but it also offers the opportunity region known as the Piedmont Triad. Other times,
to use better-quality air talent than would otherwise the calls will give clues to the station’s history: In
be affordable in many small and medium markets. Charleston, West Virginia, WVSR’s calls recall the
Large-market talent may be available to voicetrack day when the station was known as “Super 102,”
stations for as little as $100 per week. and the calls stood for the Valley’s Super Radio.
The downside is the potential for losing what Today, nearly every city has a “Magic,” a
radio is best at—being live, local and immediate. If “Kiss” and a “Mix.” More recent variants include
a station is voicetracked from a distant source and names like “Alice” (KALC, a Hot AC station in
has competition that is well programmed, live and Denver) or the Jack/Bob/Mike/Dave/Tom “anti-
local, history says unequivocally that the nonlocal radio” or “we play everything” formats that origi-
station will lose. If management decides to voice- nated in Canada and have spread to other countries
track, it would be best to limit it to off-peak hours (although with mixed results).
like overnights, weekend mornings and nights if pos- Stations often combine their call letters and dial
sible and to make every effort to ensure the talent position in on-air identifiers—especially if they are
localizes the content. Ideally, the voicetracks should rock stations. In Indianapolis, rocker WFBQ calls
be recorded as close to the actual airtime as possible itself Q95, and rhythmic CHR WBBM in Chicago
in order to provide the most up-to-date information. is B96. This practice generally involves rounding
off a frequency to the nearest whole number (102.7
as 103, or 96.9 as 97). The increase in the numbers
The Imaging of stereo receivers with digital dial displays, how-
The first step in positioning the station in the listener’s ever, has discouraged the use of rounding off.
mind is establishing a name and call letters, which will Most stations now give their actual dial location
then be used in the imaging or audio vignettes placed on the air, such as Rock 100.5 (“Rock One Hun-
throughout the hour to establish the identity of the dred Point Five”), KATT in Oklahoma City.
station. Often this will employ a mix of dial position
and call letters, as well as a tag line or slogan
that further establishes the station’s image such as The Attitude
“Jacksonville’s #1 Hit Music Station,” or “Today’s Aside from the station personalities, the imaging is
Best Country.” The name should reflect the lifestyle the only other element that really can set a station
and attitude of the target audience, and the call letters apart from its competition. These pieces of audio
should be easily recognizable and easy to recall. are used in various places throughout the broadcast
Gordon McLendon, an early innovator of the hour and “position” the radio station, and will estab-
top-40 format, was one of the first broadcasters to lish the attitude of the station. For example, rock sta-
recognize the value of sayable call letters. His first tions will almost always use a deep male voice with
big station was KLIF, Dallas, originally named for phrases like “everything that rocks,” and attitude
Oak Cliff, a western section of the city. The station statements like “turn it up, and rip the knob off.”
call was pronounced “Cliff” on the air. Then there is Adult Contemporary stations conversely will use a
412 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

11.14 Key Personalities of Dayparts

M ORNING DRIVE: Most morning jocks are friendly,

funny and entertaining, all keys to relating to the
target audience. Morning jocks generally talk more than air
audience is bigger in the time period than at any other time
of day, and stations earn a substantial part (if not a major-
ity) of their revenue during that daypart. For most stations, “If
talent in other dayparts because their shows are especially you don’t make it in the morning drive, you don’t make it at
service oriented. Morning-drive air talent are more than all.” But how far are you willing to go to make it?
mere jokesters—they provide the day’s survival information In many major markets, shock jocks rule the morning air-
to the audience: how cold (or hot) it will be, whether it will waves, at least among the male audience aged 18 to 49.
rain (or snow), what time it is, frequent updates on traffic These hosts (almost all are men) target that group with a mix
problems that will keep them from dropping the kids at of crude sexual humor and innuendo, risqué audience phone
daycare and getting to work on time and so on. Reports of calls and titillating interviews with pop culture icons from
a pile-up on one expressway give listeners a chance to athletes to porn stars. Some of the best known, such as
switch their commuter routes—and the station a chance to Howard Stern and Opie & Anthony, have left broadcast
earn a brownie point. radio for less restrictive satellite or online services. And the
Traditionally, morning drive lasted from 6 to 10 A.M., shock format is not confined entirely to mornings. Although
and it is still defined that way by Arbitron. For PDs and some stations downplay personality in favor of heavy doses
morning jocks, however, the reality could be different. of music after 9 A.M., some practitioners of crude humor have
People are spending more and more time in their cars as found success (at least for limited times) in afternoon drive-
the suburbs surrounding many large urban areas continue time or evenings. Most large or medium markets probably
to sprawl outward. Commutes take new forms (suburb to have at least one performer, local or via syndication, that
suburb rather than suburb to city), and people’s work might be described in this vein. Some of the more well-
schedules have changed to incorporate flex time or earlier known names often associated with this style (or who have at
(or later) shifts. As a result, the real “drivetime” has least attracted regular attention from the FCC for on-air
extended. In many markets, traffic builds to significant vol- antics) besides those listed above include Doug “Grease-
ume by 5:30 or even 5 A.M. Therefore, most large-market man” Tracht, Mancow Muller and Bubba the Love Sponge.
stations and some midmarket stations begin their morning The question for programmers is always, “What is best
shows at those earlier times. Some also end earlier, getting for the station in my situation?” A number of factors affect
to their midday programming by 9 A.M. the decision as to whether the station should go the shock
Morning jocks are often paired in teams of a lead DJ route—including the target audience and the market’s taste
and a sidekick—someone to bounce jokes off of—or a co- for the material, the talent’s track record (in terms of ratings
anchor who can add to the act—commonly a male plus a and FCC enforcement), and the station owner’s content
female. On most stations, the morning jock is the only per- policies and expectations for revenue. These performers
former permitted to violate format to any appreciable extent can be consistent moneymakers, but the price can be
(the “morning zoo” approach). Indeed, morning can be steep. Some advertisers will shy away, no matter how big
almost music-free on some music stations. Normally, morn- the ratings get. There is no easy answer, nor one that is
ing drivetime personalities are also the most highly paid, correct for all stations in all markets. Programmers need to
but with that pay comes greater pressure. They have a carefully juggle competing needs when selecting morning
greater responsibility than other jocks because the talent. If you were programming a low- or mid-rated rock

more conversational, upbeat station voice with form of sweepers, liners and jingles. In the past,
phrases like “more music while you work,” or imaging could last as long as 30 seconds, but the
“today’s hits and all your favorites.” recent trend is to keep them as short as possible—
The imaging will always incorporate the name sometimes as short as 5 or 8 seconds. The PD will
of the station in some way, and can be used in the work closely with the imaging director, who is often
 CHAPTER 11 Music Radio Programming 413

station with a so-so morning show, and Mancow was movie sneak preview and so on. By Thursday, and cer-
available in your market, what would you do? tainly on Friday, weekend plans become a focus.
MIDDAY: The midday jock is frequently conversational in EVENING: More teens and young adults are available to
style, warm and friendly. Incidental services (requiring talk) listen at night, making this daypart especially strong for
during this daypart normally are curtailed—although not CHR and urban stations, as well as younger-skewing rock
eliminated—in favor of longer music sweeps. Most of the or country stations. The ability to use listener phone calls on
audience is at work or school. Music rotations may be slo- the air, juggling the phones along with music and every-
wed and more recurrents, golds and oldies added so as thing else, is an essential ingredient of many CHR evening
not to seem too repetitious to the all-day, at-work audience. jocks’ shows. They may open the request lines and play
Although there is still out-of-home listening during the specific records for specific people, get listeners to intro-
10 A.M. to 3 P.M. period, Arbitron data show that the duce songs or play along with pranks, or engage in short
majority of listeners are at home or at work. Many midday funny bits (with the calls always edited before playback).
jocks capitalize on the dominantly female audience by Because the majority of adults over 25 are doing
something other than listening to the radio (most often
using liners (brief continuity between songs) that have
watching television, dealing with children and household
special appeal to women and by talking about what the
chores and so on), AC stations, older rock outlets and other
listener might be doing at home or after work. At-work listeners
adult formats may try slightly altering their programming in
may also be targeted through daytime-specific promotions
the evening to attract an audience. Syndicated programs
(giving away lunch to everybody in the office after entrants
such as Delilah or Rockline offer programming that is dif-
have mailed in business cards or faxed in requests, for exam-
ferent yet similar enough to have broad appeal for the AC
ple). Noontime may lend itself to special programming as
or rock audience.
people leave the office or take a break from work; for example,
OVERNIGHTS: Only large-market stations typically still have
the all-request “dinner” hours popular on many country, AC,
live air talent in overnights, from midnight to 6 A.M. But
oldies and rock stations.
regardless of whether the shift is live or voice tracked, the
AFTERNOON DRIVE: The afternoon jock (3 to 7 P.M.) jock’s attitude is usually one of camaraderie. “We’re all up
is more up-tempo, as is the music rotation during this period late tonight, aren’t we? We have to work nights and sleep
if the station is dayparting. Teens are out of school, and days.” This jock must commune with the audience: the taxi
adults are driving home from work. In small markets, this drivers, revelers, police officers, all-night restaurant and
necessitates a delicate balance between teen-oriented grocery store workers, insomniacs, parents up giving
music and music suiting the moods and attitudes of the babies two o’clock feedings, shift workers at factories,
going-home audience. Again, weather and traffic are bakers and the many others active between the hours of
important in this period (especially traffic), although not midnight and 6 A.M. The commercial load is almost nil
quite as much as in the morning. Information is more likely during this period, so the jock can provide listeners with a
to take the form of the afternoon jock alluding frequently to lot of uninterrupted music. If they’re not voice tracking it,
evening activities—about how good it is to finish work and many stations will run network or syndicated material here
to look forward to whatever events people in your audience to save on costs or use some of this time period to offer
will be a part of that evening—a concert, a ball game, a public-affairs programming.

one of the on-air personalities or the production Most stations will use sweepers between songs
director, to establish the overall idea, and then the during music sweeps (hence the name). These
imaging director will complete the clips and place short, highly produced imaging elements include
them into the automation system for use in the call letters, an identifying slogan, or air talent
rotation. identifier. They move the audience from one song
414 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

to the next while reminding them of the station The Spots

they’re listening to (for diary purposes) and reinfor-
Just as there is no one “right” way to program a
cing the station’s image, often by making aural
radio station, there is no single set of clock formulas
connections between other elements of popular cul-
that will drive a station to the top of the market.
ture and the station. Companies like TM Studios
Remember that a change in one area of the clock
(www.tmstudios.com) can provide produced imag-
will also change other aspects of the clock. Increas-
ing spots or just the production elements (music,
ing the number of commercials per hour to satisfy
sound effects, drop-ins from popular movies or
demands for higher revenues means less room in a
TV shows) for local producers to use in creating
given hour for music. Less music on a music inten-
these important pieces. Music skills as well as
sive station means fewer listeners, which in turn
creative audio production abilities are valuable
leads to lower ratings, and then to lower revenues
commodities in this regard. Some companies will
in the long run. Spot loads will vary considerably,
differentiate between different types of sweepers
depending on the format. For example, news-talk
by assigning them different names including stabs
stations historically carry the heaviest spot loads—
or quickies, or categorize them into (a) sweeps,
potentially as many as 18 or 20 minutes per hour.
(b) sweeps, and (c) sweeps.
Music intensive stations, however, generally do best
Liners serve a similar imaging and transitional
running between 8 to 12 minutes per hour. This
purpose but are simple scripted voice tracks or live
number may increase slightly during morning drive
reads without music or effects. They can be used to
when music is less of a focus (and the ads have
promote upcoming station events, music coming up
greater value).
after the break, or a general image for the station.
Finding this delicate balance is often the work
To be effective, however, liners must be kept fresh,
of intense negotiation between the PD, the sales
constantly rewritten and replaced.
manager and the general manager. Once an agree-
Singing jingles, sometimes as long as 30 or
ment is made, there should be no deviation from the
60 seconds, were frequently the centerpiece of
plan until the time comes for a re-negotiation of the
station imaging in most formats other than AOR
current terms. Most companies will decide on one of
prior to the mid-1980s. Companies like JAM
two systems by which to set the number of avails in
Creative Productions (www.jingles.com) still
an hour, either by units or by time.
produce short, custom radio IDs and jingles that
In a unit system, there is a definite number of
consist of a few bars of music with the station
avails in a given hour, regardless of the duration of a
call letters and identifying slogan sung over them.
spot. Most radio commercials are either (:30) or
Producers create several versions for use between
(:60) in length, but in a unit system, length is of little
songs of different tempos and in different day-
concern. If the consensus of management is to run
parts. Stations that purchase a jingle package
three stopsets an hour with three avails per stopset,
generally receive not only complete jingles but
there are only ever nine avails per hour, and stopsets
also the individual components (music tracks,
can be filled with any combination of spots. For
vocal elements, and so on) that they can remix
example, the stopset could only ever be as long as
themselves. Although available for nearly any for-
three minutes (three sixty’s), or as short as a minute
mat, they are seldom used today except on oldies,
and a half (three thirties). The stopset could also be
AC and country stations (as well as some news
comprised of two sixties and a thirty, or two thirties
and talk outlets). Historically-minded readers can
and a sixty, but never more than three commercials
find examples of older jingles at both the JAM web-
running back-to-back. This strategy is employed
site and at www.pams.com (PAMS Productions
more often by programming-driven companies, and
was one of the original jingle producers in the
often times both the listener and the advertiser win;
1950s).
 CHAPTER 11 Music Radio Programming 415

the listener knows that the commercial breaks are units per hour afterward. A risk-filled tension
usually short, and the advertiser knows they won’t always exists between the number of commercials
be lost in the clutter. Also by limiting the number of and the number of interruptions that can be toler-
avails, a station can charge a premium price for each ated. Setting the audience up to believe that commer-
of the avails because fewer exist. cials will be non-existent or severely restricted makes
In a time system, management agrees to allow the likelihood of long-term station success very lim-
for a certain number of minutes per stopset. Using ited—the revenue has to come from somewhere, and
the previous example of three stopsets an hour, now advertising is usually the most efficient means of
with three minutes of avails per stopset, the commer- generating substantial revenue (if you have a sub-
cial load could significantly increase, and spot dura- stantial audience). One key to understanding radio
tion is of the utmost concern. In this scenario, the programming strategy is to compare stations with
stopset will still only be a maximum of three minutes regard to commercial load and the number of inter-
in length but could contain as many as six spots per ruptions per hour (stopsets). Because advertising is
break, or conceivably as many as eighteen in a given necessary to keep the lights on, management must
hour if all of the spots are (:30) in duration. Accord- establish a policy that is reflected in clocks and
ing to a stopwatch, the same duration of time has stick to it (see 11.15).
passed (three minutes) but perceptually the listener
has endured as many as six commercials in one
break. The danger in this scenario is that listeners The Clock in Practice
will perceive the station as having “too many com- Once all of the elements are established—the music
mercials,” and may be inclined to tune to another is assembled into categories, the station imaging is in
station as soon as they hear the first commercial. place, the number and duration of stopsets are
For the station’s relationship with advertisers, there decided upon and the air talent is selected—then
can be concerns about perceptions of clutter.
In these cases, stations may try to change lis-
tener perception by having long music sweeps. 11.15 Quality in Commercials
Remember a change to one area of the clock
means changes to other areas of the clock. Stations
running “10 songs in a row,” or “50 minute music
hours” leave room for only one or two very long
breaks. A listener staying through a ten-song sweep
S pot quality and production is critical to the station
and advertiser’s success. Too often, radio spots
(including promos and PSAs) are full of clichéd copy and
fail to grab the audience’s attention. Listeners don’t so
will have been tuned in for 35 to 45 minutes, or
much hate commercials as they hate poorly executed,
three quarter hours. The tradeoff is the six- or
pointless commercials that don’t address a recognizable
eight-minute commercial break that follows and
need of the audience. Commercials should sell the
the second long stopset that will come up after just
audience on the product or service by explaining how
one or two more songs. The strategy may work, at that product or service fills some need or desire, and they
least in the short run, if everybody in the market must complement the format rather than clash with it.
follows along. The risk is that a heavier- Stations that will take any spot so long as it’s paid for, or
than-normal spot load opens a station up to attack rely on poorly or untrained salespeople as copywriters
by a “more music” competitor. and producers risk alienating their audiences and failing
Perceptions that audiences consider commer- in the long run. Stations best serve their audiences and
cials to be, at best, a necessary evil, have led stations their advertisers by making sure that the commercials
to have kicked off new formats with no commercial they run fit the format, address the target audience
load whatsoever. In 2004 Nine-FM (WRZA, 99.9) directly, and are creative, effective selling tools aired in
launched in Chicago with 9,999 songs in a row and a relatively uncluttered environment.
a promise to restrict the commercial load to just nine
416 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

the PD can finalize the clocks and prepare them for

broadcast. The clock can be created in scheduling
11.17 Evening Hot Clock
programs like Selector, and the computer “knows” Music ID Music
Sweeper
that at six minutes after the hour it should play the 5 Commercials Music
Liner/Promo
next power song. Because the computer plans ahead,
Music Music
it will adhere to the usual restrictions, making sure,
Liner Sweeper
for example, that another song by the same artist
Music Music
has not played recently and is not scheduled too
Liner
closely in the future.
Music
Besides structuring information (news, weather, 6 Commercials
traffic), promos and commercials, the clock also
5 Commercials
structures the music for a given hour. The music por- Music
Liner/Promo Music
tion of an hour depends on the number of commer- Music Sweeper

cials to be aired. A commercial-free hour, for

example, requires many more songs than an hour
with 14 spots. A clock for a basic morning-drive The clock in 11.17 is intended for an early-
hour designed to handle one newscast and 16 minutes evening show. The music selection contains 12 songs
of commercials appears in 11.16. This leaves room made up of six powers, two currents, two recurrents,
for up to 10 or 11 songs, depending on how much one power gold and one gold. Note the long music
the DJ talks (if the station has a star morning person- sweep from before the top of the hour until approxi-
ality, there may actually be a clock with little or no mately 20 or 22 minutes past. This selection fits a
music scheduled). The music for this morning hour CHR or urban contemporary station but would be
with approximately 10 songs might consist of four different on a rock or mainstream country station
powers, two currents, two recurrents, one power (where the rotation of currents would be slower and
gold and one gold. The service elements—news, more golds would be played). A midday clock might
weather, traffic—are spaced more or less evenly look similar to this one but with more golds and
throughout the hour. As is typical of a contemporary recurrents scheduled to slow down the current rota-
music station, news has been placed in the middle of a tion a bit so at-work listeners aren’t hearing the same
quarter-hour. Station imaging, promotion and identi- song four or five times. The rotation pace of the
fication elements, either recorded or voiced live by the currents would then pick up again during afternoon
air talent, occur between every song. drivetime and evening.
Once the music log is completed using the clock
as the template, it is merged with the traffic (com-
11.16 Morning Drive mercial) log to create one seamless schedule known
Music ID Music
as a broadcast log that then is loaded in the on-air
Sweeper
6 Commercials Music
computer in the control room. In some cases, the log
Liner / Promo may even include scrollable live copy or other per-
Traffic / WX Music
formance notes for the air talent. The automation
Music Traffic / WX
Commercial
software then will take over and play the log element
Liner / Promo
by element until the jock in the control room stops it
Music Music
to talk on air. In voicetracked environments, the
Sweeper
Music
automation system will simply keep on running
6 Commercials until interrupted. In some stations, the automation
Commercial
Traffic / WX News software is put in “auto” at 7 P.M. on a Friday,
Music 3 Commercials
Sweeper Music Promo and is left running unattended until the morning
team shows up on Monday.
 CHAPTER 11 Music Radio Programming 417

Controlling “the Sound” perception would exist when comparing, for instance,
two CHR stations. The listener will choose the one
Many of the tricks used by program directors to con-
that makes them feel better and more energetic.
trol the sound of a radio station are not immediately
Another consideration for program directors is
noticeable to listeners but greatly affect the presenta-
the overall tightness of the radio station—that is,
tion of a station on-air. Perhaps you’ve heard a sta-
how quickly the station moves from one element to
tion that just sounds better than its competition, but
the next. In the past, this was a trademark of a good
you don’t know why or can’t quite put your finger on
DJ in the studio who was “jockeying” records, carts
it. That sense is the cumulative result of all of the
and tapes while also talking on air. In today’s radio
small factors that contribute to “the sound.”
environment where almost everything is automated,
Part of controlling the sound is the processing
the degree of tightness falls back on the program
that is placed on the station. Once the audio stream
director. Tightness is achieved by placing trip tones
leaves the control room, it passes through a series of
or aux marks on the audio files before they are
audio processors before making it to the transmitter
loaded into the automation system. These trip
and eventually over the air. Most of the processors
tones are inaudible cues that tell the computer it is
that are used in broadcast facilities have endless set-
time to begin playing the next element on the log.
tings, and a good program director will work with
Without the use of trip tones, the song (or sweeper,
the engineer to get the processing just right. Often-
commercial or voicetrack) would completely fade
times this processing will use significant compression
out to “dead air” before beginning the next element
on the audio signal, making it “sparkle” when it hits
(Eeek!). The more dead air, the more listener fatigue
your receiver.
sets in. Subconsciously, the listener feels exhausted
Another trick programmers will use is speeding
just from listening to the station in part because of
the music—just slightly—before it is placed into the
the constant, jerky starting and stopping of audio.
automation system. It was falsely believed for many
With proper trip tones placed on all audio, a smooth
years that top 40 stations sped up the playback
fade happens between all elements; when one song
speed on their turntables slightly to fit more music
fades out, another begins before reaching dead air.
(or spots) into an hour, but that wasn’t the reason.
This also helps to aid in the pacing of a station,
Instead, programmers speed music both to give their
keeping it moving forward and not stopping or los-
station more energy and thus take energy away from
ing momentum.
their competition. If you hear a song on a station
Every program director has his or her own style
that is speeding music, then tune in to the competi-
that influences “the sound” of the radio station and
tion, that same song on the competition’s station
helps to provide the station with its own unique per-
seems to drag on which makes the competing station
sonality. No two program directors will use the
seem slow and boring (the kiss of death).
same list of tricks and procedures to make their sta-
Even on an iPod or CD, the music will never
tions unique. As discussed at the beginning of this
sound the same as it does on the radio station speeding
section, ultimately the listener decides the PD’s suc-
the music. A famous example was a song released
cess or failure when a new ratings book is released.
called “Baker Street” by Gerry Rafferty in 1977.
Most stations playing that record sped the song up
significantly, and in that context the song was a huge Marketing and Promotion
hit, making it to #2 on the Billboard hot 100. How-
ever the album, “city to city” was one of the most The modern radio station pays almost as much
returned albums in music history, because the song attention to marketing as to programming. Market-
never sounded the same at home as it did on the ing is essential for keeping a station from simply dis-
radio. If people returned records because the songs appearing in the crowd. A carefully designed and
didn’t sound the same, then it is likely that the same executed social media strategy is critical for drawing
418 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

listeners to the community the station wants to cre- Some markets are now utilizing digital bill-
ate, and stations continue to use television, newspa- boards which, though more expensive per month,
pers, billboards, bumper stickers, bus cards, cab tops give the station the ability to change what is on the
and other graphic media because they also help billboard weekly or even daily. Television advertis-
reach the target audience. Promotional stunts have ing, which is even more expensive but often neces-
long been the special province of pop radio and sary for launching a new format, can help generate
involve the cooperation of programming personnel. the kind of top-of-mind awareness among the audi-
If this chapter’s hypothetical station were trying to ence that drives ratings. Occasionally, a radio sta-
launch in a large market, the station might need as tion will be able to trade advertising with a
much as $2.5 million the first year for promotion. television station, offering mutual promotion of
Station promotion takes two forms: on-air and each other’s programming.
off-air. On-air promotion is suited for retaining Station promotion can have three possible
current listeners through reinforcing their positive goals: to build audience share (by extending the lis-
image of the station or extending the amount of tening of the current audience), to build cume (by
time they listen through contesting or other incen- attracting new listeners), or to simply enhance the
tives. Social media are also suited for image audience’s expectations of the station without hav-
reinforcement and are the best means of building ing to meet an immediate ratings goal (positioning).
a stronger relationship with your existing audience. In any case, it is essential that the promotional effort
But social media platforms can also be used to be focused on the listener and the specific goal if it is
attract new listeners—if your existing audience to succeed. Too often, promotions happen because
will serve in the messenger role. Creating evange- of advertisers’ or a station’s own economic concerns
lists out of your most dedicated listeners can be rather than through a focused attempt to achieve
very effective—we all respond more favorably if one or more of these three goals (see 11.11, which
we get a recommendation from somebody we discusses the way the industry pays to get songs on
know and trust. For a new station, attracting the air).
new listeners without that personal touch is Contests can build the station’s share of audi-
increasingly difficult in a cluttered market space ence if they are constructed to extend a listener’s
and requires a significant investment in off-air pro- time spent with the station (see 11.18). Thus, their
motion, often in conjunction with on-air stunts and elements need to stretch over multiple quarter hours
events, to have any chance of success. Going viral is (but be careful not to overdo it). To build the cumu-
the goal. lative audience, a sufficient budget is needed for
Off-air alternatives include billboards, televi- reaching and enticing potential listeners with bill-
sion, online and direct mail. The first two are useful boards, print or television or direct mail. In addition,
for broad market awareness; the latter two for stations should concentrate their efforts on one pro-
more targeted campaigns. In a medium-sized mar- motion at a time. Multiple concurrent promotions
ket (500,000), television and billboard advertising simply dilute the impact of each and may confuse
might run $25,000 a month for good exposure. It and frustrate listeners. At the same time, plenty of
may cost five times that in a Dallas- or Chicago- FCC rules and regulations apply to contests and
sized market. Not only are unit prices higher in other station promotion (see 11.19).
large markets but more territory must usually be Community involvement projects are as impor-
covered. Reaching the whole population in one tant as contests for programming and promoting a
market with a set of painted billboards may require successful radio station. The station must be highly
35 billboards, for example, although a similar visible at local events to gain a strong, positive, local
showing in Dallas would require 125 billboards image. The event should be one that is of significant
at an average cost of several thousand dollars interest for the station’s target audience and that fits
each per month. their lifestyle and the station’s image. The following
 CHAPTER 11 Music Radio Programming 419

11.18 Contesting

T he traditional promotional stunt is the contest, but the

industry favors the term “word game.” Many people
think they cannot win contests, but they like to play games.
There are three steps to properly promoting a contest:
(1) Tell ‘em you’re gonna do it: “It’s coming—your chance
to win a zillion dollars!” (2) Do it: “Listen every morning at
For many stations, a contest approach emphasizes a 7:20 for the song of the day. When you hear it played
superprize of $25,000 or more. Such amounts can be later in the day, be the first caller at 555-0000 and win the
offered only a few times each year (during the Arbitron money!” (3) Tell ‘em you did it: “KPPP congratulates Mary
survey sweeps). And because a station cannot afford to risk Jones of your town, winner of a zillion dollars in the KPPP
losing the big prize on the first day of the game, winning song-of-the-day game!” (and preferably include Mary’s
has to be made difficult. hyperexcited response to winning as part of the message).
Traditional promotion theory holds that people are more It is important to avoid giving exact addresses on the air.
likely to think they can win a small prize than succeed in a The station might be legally culpable if a robbery or other
$25,000 treasure hunt or win a safe containing $50,000. crime occurs. Also, in order to discourage possible
With a superprize, one person is made happy, but thou- unpleasantness for their listeners, many DJs do not use the
sands are disappointed. Thus, it would be better to break up last names of callers on the air.
the $25,000 prize into $250 prizes and scatter them Exercise caution when recording and airing telephone
through a more extended period. But the growth of huge conversations. It is illegal to record and play back a
national station groups has added an interesting twist. Those phone call unless the person being recorded is informed of
stations regularly pool resources and jointly run a contest the recording and consents before recording starts or
with larger daily or weekly prizes than would be possible for could reasonably assume from circumstances that the call
a single station or single market cluster. Thus, instead of giv- might be recorded and aired. Thus, most stations avoid
ing away $102 (or whatever number corresponds to a sta- call-outs because the phone-call target does not respond
tion’s dial position) in the birthday game, a station may spontaneously after going through the consent process.
award several thousand dollars to the one hundredth caller. Listeners who call in to the studio phone line, however, are
The catch is that the same prize is being offered simulta- assumed to be aware that their voice may go out on the
neously by the morning jocks on dozens or hundreds of sta- air. Management should seek legal counsel on call-out
tions across the country, making the odds of winning questions and should write specific instructions for pro-
infinitesimal, although many in the local audience may not gramming personnel on how call-out calls are to be
realize it unless they listen very carefully to the contest rules. handled.

are community promotions that, depending on the ■ Stations near rivers or lakes may purchase (or
format and market, might benefit both the station more likely hire) a boat to cruise around passing
and the community: out t-shirts, drink coozies or other recreation
goodies to people who are listening to the radio
■ The station’s van (often wrapped or decaled with
station on weekends in the summer.
the station’s logos, armed with CDs, bumper
stickers and T-shirts) sets up a tent and broadcasts ■ The station runs announcements and then helps
live outside a venue before a big concert. collect clothing and other items to benefit the vic-
tims of a recent tornado by letting people drop off
■ Station jocks emceeing community events or the
goods at the station and has the station van parked
county fair.
at different collection points in the community.
■ Two or three jocks take the van and sound
equipment to the beach (or a public park) on the Radio stations will also seek out various charity
Fourth of July to provide music and “freebies” to events in the community that also matter to the lis-
listeners and friends. teners. For example, in most communities, radio
420 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

11.19 Constraints on Programming and Promotion

R adio broadcasters have to be aware of myriad rules,

regulations and guidelines. To keep up with them,
radio programmers read trade journals, retain legal coun-
Sounds That Mislead Similarly, opening promos or com-
mercials with sirens or other attention-getting gimmicks (such as
“Bulletin!”) cause listeners to believe unjustifiably that they are
sel specializing in communication law, and join the about to receive vital information. Listener attention can be
National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) as well as gained in other more responsible ways that do not offend FCC
state broadcast organizations. Programmers have to be rules or deceive listeners. Monitoring locally produced com-
aware of legal constraints that may limit their ingenuity. mercials or promos for misleading production techniques is
Illegal or unethical practices such as fraud, lotteries, plug- especially important. Similarly, hoaxes perpetrated by air tal-
ola and the like can cost a fine, a job or even a license. ent, even in the name of entertainment, can result in FCC pen-
alties. For example, a station in St. Louis was cited for airing a
Contests and Games The principal point to remember
phony emergency alert (on April Fool’s Day) that claimed that
about on-air contests and games is to keep them open and
the United States was under attack. Particularly offensive in the
honest, fully disclosing the rules of the game to listeners.
commission’s view was the DJ’s use of the actual emergency
Conniving to make a contest run longer or to produce a
alert tone at the beginning of the bit to heighten the realism.
certain type of winner means trouble.
Plugola and Payola Fifty years ago, the radio industry
The perennial problem with many brilliant contest ideas is
was rocked by a series of payola scandals involving some
that, by the FCC’s definition, they are lotteries—and adver-
of the industry’s biggest names and stations, in which bribes
tising of lotteries is explicitly prohibited by federal law
were paid by record promoters to DJs in return for playing
(although there are many exemptions for things like legal
certain songs on the air. The bribes could be in the form of
commercial casinos and Indian gaming, charity bingo nights,
cash but just as often involved drugs, sex, trips or other
and state lotteries). If your contest includes a prize, requires
inducements. Although a number of reforms were imple-
some form of consideration and is a game of chance, it is a
mented in the 1960s, record promotion (the attempt to
lottery and probably illegal. (Consideration here refers to influence airplay) remains a high-stakes, high-pressure part of
payment of some kind—which could be money or extraordi- the music and radio businesses. Similarly, announcers who
nary effort—that needs to be made in order for someone to “plug” their favorite bar, restaurant or theater (in return for
be allowed to participate in a contest.) Consult the station’s goods or services) are asking for trouble for themselves and
lawyers or the NAB legal staff if there is the slightest question. the licensees (plugola). Certainly, any tainted jock is likely to
Because of the way it conducts national contests across be fired instantly. Most responsible licensees require air per-
multiple stations in the group, at least one large group has sonnel to sign statements once every six months confirming
also run afoul of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) rules that they have not been engaging in any form of payola or
regarding deceptive advertising practices. The stations were plugola; some require drug tests for their employees.
accused of misleading listeners about the nature of the con- Program Logs Any announcement associated with a
test and their chances of winning by failing to make the commercial venture should be logged as commercial matter
multimarket, multistation nature of the contest sufficiently clear (CM), even though the FCC has done away with require-
in the rules (which must be broadcast several times each day ments for program logs per se. Logs have many practical
during the run of the promotion) and by broadcasting the applications aside from the former legal requirement,
winners’ comments without identifying them as residents of including advertising billing, record keeping, format main-
other markets (thus implying they were local residents). tenance and format organization.

stations are heavily involved in events like Relay for Some stations will also leverage their audiences to
Life, and will align themselves with large national put on radiothons once a year to benefit charities
charities like the American Cancer Society, Ameri- like St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital or Chil-
can Red Cross or the National Diabetes Association. dren’s Miracle Network. It is perfectly acceptable for
 CHAPTER 11 Music Radio Programming 421

a station to ask listeners to donate to a cause, and sell additional vehicles) by being associated with the
most listeners are happy to oblige for their favorite promotion.
station, but care should be taken to not ask listeners The key to strong promotion of a station is vis-
to give too much or too often as it may have the ibility, and the station should be everywhere the tar-
opposite effect and alienate the listener. get listener would be in the community. This is
Many station owners now expect promotional becoming an increasing struggle for those stations
efforts (aside from those done for charity) to directly who continue to cut back both promotion and air
generate nontraditional revenue for the station. staff. Radio stations need people to succeed, and
These events are similar to traditional promotion in those stations that find ways to retain their staff
the ways they try to connect the station to the audi- and keep the station visible will be those that suc-
ence’s lifestyle. But nowadays, the station’s sales ceed in the coming years.
staff (or a single, dedicated NTR account executive)
works with the promotion director and PD to put
together a package that will involve several large
advertisers in an event. The projects can take many
News and Other
forms, but a typical one for many is the “Taste Nonentertainment Programming
of …” The stations sell sponsorships to food and bev-
erage distributors, which gain the sponsors plenty of The FCC has no formal requirements for nonenter-
visibility on all promotional literature and often tainment programming, although licensees are
exclusive rights in their product category to sell at required to ascertain the problems, needs and inter-
the event (a single beer distributor, for example). ests of their communities (by whatever means they
At the same time, the parent station group can deem appropriate) and to provide programming that
use the event to promote several of its adult formats addresses those issues. Each station’s public file must
(AC, news/talk, country, some variants of rock and contain a quarterly list of programming that the
urban) on its other stations. Local restaurants can licensee has broadcast to meet those needs.
purchase booth space to offer their products. Live Stations targeting younger listeners often do not
music or other entertainment can be involved, creat- want to carry news, believing that their listeners are
ing an additional potential revenue stream in the bored by it. (However, adult-oriented stations must
form of tickets for attendance (but be sure the sta- provide information to their audiences, especially
tion can at least cover the cost!). during morning drivetime.) News, public affairs
Some stations will go so far as to build entire and “other” nonentertainment programming create
promotions in an NTR environment. For example, a flow or continuity problem for the format. The
a sales rep may get a local car dealership to agree to complaint is, “We have to shut down the radio sta-
trade a Jeep Wrangler in exchange for being given tion to air that junk.” Junk, of course, is any pro-
the promotion plus the cost of additional advertis- gramming not directly related to the music format.
ing, and a local marina or powersports dealer is However, that assumes that all nonentertainment
brought on board to trade a JetSki with a similar content must be long form. The programmer’s trick
arrangement. The station makes money on the is weaving into the format an appropriate kind and
advertising schedule and now has a Jeep and a JetSki amount of nonentertainment material, which can be
to giveaway, simply for mentioning the dealers in effectively woven into any format. Much important
airtime that would have already been dedicated to information, from traffic and weather reports to
a promotion. Theoretically, everyone wins: the sta- upcoming events in the community, can be dished
tion has a great grand prize to give away just in time out in 60, 30 or 10 seconds, for example. Public
for summer (and makes money), and because of the service announcements (PSAs) are both nonenter-
listener’s frenzy to try to win the grand prize, the tainment and community-oriented programming,
advertisers build name recognition (and hopefully and a station can make significant contributions to
422 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

the community welfare with an aggressive PSA pol- wanted lots of news on their music stations. More
icy. The key for programmers is to be as careful and contemporary views hold that the task for program-
deliberate about the choices they make with this mers is to find news and information that is relevant
material as they are with their music. These nonen- to the target audience because it will provide an
tertainment elements should be as timely and rele- important component in the overall station identity.
vant to the lives of the target audience as the Listeners do value information—but only if they
music. The morning jock shouldn’t be wasting sev- understand how it is relevant to their lives right
eral minutes rehashing the weekend on Monday now.
morning—he or she should be letting listeners Some thinking on news scheduling hinges on the
know whether to grab their umbrellas or their sun- habits of listeners and Arbitron’s method of calculat-
glasses as they struggle to get out their doors and off ing ratings by the quarter-hour: The idea is to hold a
to work. On Thursday and Friday, the afternoon- listener for at least five minutes in any quarter hour
drive talent should be focused on events coming up by playing some music so that the station will get
that weekend as well as on helping the audience credit in a listener diary even if the listener tunes
avoid the overturned semi at the airport freeway away at news time. News is therefore often placed
exit. in the middle of one or two 15-minute periods each
Radio will probably always be a service hour. This strategy assumes that a significant num-
medium, and broadcasters will always differ on ber of listeners are turned away by news. Music sta-
what constitutes community service. In a competi- tions, especially those targeting younger listeners,
tive major market served by a number of communi- have generally eliminated newscasts except in morn-
cations media such as newspaper, cable, television, ing drivetime.
radio, MMDS, LPTV and DTH satellite, the FM
radio station that plays wall-to-wall rock music is
doubtlessly providing a service, even though it is Journalistic Content
solely a music service. When the audience has so Having decided where to put news, the programmer
many options for music, from iPods to satellite must then decide how to handle it. For some sta-
radio, a programmer must ask just what it is that tions, it is enough to have jocks (or sidekicks) rip
the station provides that will convince the audience and read newswire copy as it comes out of the
to listen. In information-poor markets, owners may machine. Some have been tempted to satisfy
elect to mix talk shows with music, air editorial the need for local news by simply stealing from the
comments on community affairs, and in general pro- local newspaper or USA Today. Programmers
vide useful information to the community. The ser- tempted to go this route should be aware, however,
vices and information provided should be based on that stations have been successfully sued under copy-
competitive market factors, the owners’ and man- right law for engaging in this practice. Although the
agers’ personal choices, and a realistic understand- facts of the news cannot be copyrighted, the specific
ing of the role a radio station can play in the expression of those facts can be.
particular market situation. On a slightly more elevated level, there are now
local news services available that will provide local
and regional news (including traffic and weather) for
The Big News Question any station willing to pay for the service. The best
Do listeners want news on music stations? Early known of these is Metro, a service that Westwood
studies by consultants concluded that a large per- One sold to Clear Channel in 2011. The advantage
centage of rock listeners were “turned off” by to the station is the ability to deliver timely and valu-
news. These same listeners also hated commercials, able local information at less than what it would
PSAs and anything else not related to music and fun. cost to hire its own news staff. The disadvantage is
Some studies found, however, that everybody the loss of any exclusivity. The same reporter filing
 CHAPTER 11 Music Radio Programming 423

the story for your station on the downtown fire and station. Networks provide an integrated, full-service
resulting traffic jam at 8:05 A.M. is likely to be on product (music, news, air talent, national spots, other
your competition at 8:08 (or 8:03). features) that airs simultaneously on all affiliated sta-
Another option is to enter into a joint agreement tions, while syndicators provide one element (a single
with one of the local television stations or the local program, a music service and so on) to individual
newspaper. The local evening television news anchor stations that may sometimes air the material at differ-
or a sports reporter may be a valuable addition to the ent times.
radio station’s morning show, and the teaming has National and regional syndication can be
promotional advantages for each company. Some divided into three categories: short form, long form
clustered stations have adopted a variation of this and continuous music formats. A program of suffi-
cross-promotional approach if the cluster includes a ciently broad appeal can run in more than one for-
news or news/talk AM station—the FM music sta- mat (thus increasing the odds that the supplier will
tions get their morning news from the AM station be able to sell the program in most markets). Sta-
news staff. Opinions are divided about the advisabil- tions use short-form programs as spice in the sched-
ity of identifying the anchor as from the FM or the ule, airing most longer syndicated fare on weekends
AM station during an FM newscast; some stations or at night (some network material may air in other
believe that maintaining a single brand identity is cru- dayparts). Many syndicators and networks also pro-
cial to the station’s image and success, while others vide material not only for broadcast but also for
trade on the legitimacy associated with the news sta- online platforms (podcasts, website content, etc.).
tion by identifying the anchor as being from that sta- Short-form offerings include individual network
tion. The lack of exclusivity is still an issue. newscasts as well as syndicated programs and series.
Programmers who set the highest goals for Many syndicators provide material not only for
themselves do well to hire at least two persons to broadcast but also for online platforms (podcasts
staff the news operation who trade anchoring and and other digital content). Familiar long-form pro-
reporting duties during the day. This news operation gramming includes shows that run several hours on
would be extremely luxurious for a music station, a daily or weekly basis, for example, Cumulus’
however. The typical full-time news staff in radio American Country Countdown with Kix Brooks or
stations throughout the country—if they have American Top 40 with Ryan Seacrest from Premiere
one—is one person, perhaps supplemented by part- Radio Networks (a Clear Channel subsidiary). In
time stringers or a service. And even at stations that addition to Cumulus and Premiere, major national
have a news staff, the news staff is most likely serv- syndicators include Dial Global (www.dial-global.
ing multiple stations in a market. com), Westwood One and United Stations (www.
usrn.com).
Continuous music formats are just what the
name suggests—24-hour, 7-day-a-week music selec-
Network and Syndicated tions. Until the late 1970s, stations programmed
Programming their own music or purchased long-form all-music
programming tapes from such syndicators as
For economic reasons or other factors, stations may Drake-Chenault. Syndicated formats are available
not wish to locally program 24 hours a day, 7 days a from a number of companies, including many of
week. Thanks to digital technology, satellites and the those mentioned above. The increased availability
internet, national or regional programming is easily of satellite delivery in the 1980s brought a new
available from either a radio network or a radio syn- type of national music programming service—the
dicator. Both offer similar types of programming, but full-time, live network radio format. Modern
they can be distinguished by the nature of the rela- satellite-delivered networks supply the combined ser-
tionship between the program supplier and the local vices of a traditional network (news and advertising)
424 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

and a formatted program service (music and enter- studios and a programming/production staff of several
tainment programs). Satellite Music Network people with a small production studio (for local com-
(SMN) was the first provider of real-time satellite mercials, weather forecasts and so on), an on-air com-
radio in ten different music formats, including two puter and a staff of one or two. In smaller markets,
versions of country, two rock formats, two formats going with such a service may allow a reformatted
targeted toward adult African-Americans, two adult station to break even in less than a year.
contemporary formats, one version of nostalgia and Like a locally produced format, the network or
one version of oldies. That service was eventually syndicated service operates from a clock, each hour
consolidated with ABC Radio (www.abcradio.com), following a set pattern of music sweeps, some com-
and is now owned by Citadel. Dial Global, part of the bination of mandatory and optional stopsets and
TM Studios company, is another major provider of perhaps other material (jingles, sweepers and so
network music formats. There are others who offer a on). The typical network clock shown in 11.20
limited number of formats, including United Stations. might be used in the daytime for an oldies or AC
The decision to go with one of these services format. There are 11 minutes of avails in three stop-
instead of locally generated programming can reduce sets: 2 minutes for the network (the first minute in
operating costs by one-half. About half of all com- each mandatory break) and 9 for the local station.
mercial stations use at least some national or regional Also note the long music sweep (or two long sweeps
radio programming, from overnight filler to 24-hour if the local station doesn’t take the optional break at
turnkey operations (in turnkey arrangements, man- about 35 minutes after the hour), and note the
agement is turned over to another entity). Although opportunities for localization (liners to be recorded
local programming is desirable, nationally pro- by the network air talent as well as things that can
grammed song selections are based on the kinds of be done within the station breaks).
professional research that smaller local stations find Local stopsets and other content are triggered at
difficult to afford. Using a network or syndicated for- the local station by a network command using subau-
mat package, a small-market station can achieve a dible tones (different tones can be used to trigger dif-
consistent “big-market” sound with a recognized ferent local elements). After the three- or four-minute
appeal to audiences and advertisers.
Network formats offer a complete package that
includes practically everything but local commer- 11.20 Network Clock
cials. Syndicated formats at their most basic provide
only music that is intended for use on fully auto- Legal ID
mated stations. A station running a syndicated for- Music Music Sweeper
Jingle Music
mat may choose to run without air talent or may use Music Liner
Sweeper Music
local air talent, or for an additional fee the syndica- Mandatory Jingle
tor may also provide voice-tracking service. Unlike Break Music
networks, format syndicators traditionally do not Sweeper
Music
sell commercial time or produce newscasts. Music
Network formats are generally available on a Liner
Liner
barter basis (two minutes per hour is the norm), Music
Music
although stations in unrated markets or brand-new Jingle
Network
stations may be required to take the service on a Music Promo
cash-plus-barter contract. Full-time satellite program- Mandatory
Sweeper Break
ming eliminates the need for large staffs, large facilities Music/Opt. Music
and large equipment budgets. In the most extreme Break Liner Music Jingle
Music
form, current digital automation systems allow sta- Liner
tions to replace a complex of air studios, production
 CHAPTER 11 Music Radio Programming 425

break, the station’s automation system then seam- audience what music is coming up or what just
lessly rejoins the network at the appropriate point. played), the slogan sounds to the listener like the
For liners, the network channel is kept open, so the network DJ is at the station. Most of this process
liner plays over the music as a song fades or the intro is really common sense and involves little more
begins. than the kinds of things a programmer would do if
In the late 1990s, many of the networks and syn- the air talent were indeed at the station (for example,
dicators settled on a single technological standard for having the air talent repeat the call letters or slogan
satellite receivers provided by StarGuide Digital Net- when coming out of music, so the station and music
works (www.starguidedigital.com). At each manda- are associated in the listener’s mind).
tory break, the local station must fill the time with But it’s surprising how many stations fail to fol-
local content, such as commercials, promos, PSAs, low through and wind up sounding like a satellite
weather and traffic. The network then uses this time station because they create localizing material too
to send important information (last-minute changes in infrequently or irregularly. Others make the mistake
the network’s lineup of air talent or the network’s of completely eliminating local programming and
spot log, for example) or other material (such as cop- production personnel, leaving account executives to
ies of the network commercials for use in hours where write and produce commercials and the receptionist
local stations are not using the full network feed) to to voice track a weather forecast a couple of times a
the affiliated stations using their regular channel. In an day—employees who are often without the training
optional break, the network will program a precisely or talent to effectively execute those tasks.
timed song so stations that don’t have local spots Local information remains important: regardless
scheduled there can continue with music. of the market, people still want the weather forecast;
It’s a system that can be a bit awkward at times they want survive-the-day information like traffic
for the network PD—after all, how many songs in a during the morning and afternoon drivetimes, and
particular format remain popular and run exactly they expect the local radio station to provide it. Many
3:30? The timed song is generally a secondary gold network-affiliated stations adopt a middle-ground
or oldies because the programmer wouldn’t want to approach, running local information in morning dri-
miss playing a top current hit in its regular rotation. vetime and perhaps during one or two additional
The key to successfully operating with a satellite- shifts during the day while using the satellite primar-
delivered format is effective localization—making the ily at night and on weekends. Most networks require
station sound like a part of the community even the affiliated stations to air the scheduled network
though the programming isn’t locally produced. Net- spots, however, even during hours when the station
works offer major-market-quality personalities, thor- is not airing the network programming.
oughly tested and carefully scheduled music and One downside to running full-service satellite-
(sometimes) network news. delivered music programming is the lack of control
Another part of their service is aimed at helping at the local station. Sometimes the network person-
stations localize the product, but it is always up to ality talks too much or makes inappropriate com-
the local station to direct the effort. At the request of ments. One station became upset when the
the local station, network talent will record local network DJ (in Dallas) told Christmas listeners to
station IDs, liners and other voice tracks (intros to “avoid the crowds and stay in today,” which was
weather or news, contest wraps so that the tenth then followed by local commercials asking people
caller sounds like she’s talking to the network DJ to do exactly the opposite! By choosing a format
and so on). These are then sent to the local station syndicator, a station may exert more control because
for insertion in the programming. Most stations the music and all other program elements (especially
have their call letters or slogans voice tracked by DJ tracks) can be located (and therefore altered or
the appropriate network talent. Placed at the start eliminated as needed) at the station. The price of
of every break, song intro or backsell (telling the such control, however, is paying someone to mind
426 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

the format, to handle voice tracking and ads. For they know will deliver a given audience and amount
locally controlled stations, this is not a huge con- of revenue for an unknown. Stations will expect a
cern, and format syndication works well. For an careful fit between special programs and their regu-
automated station with a distant owner and a skele- lar formats. Contemporary radio listeners have
ton staff, however, the network format is a better many choices and are ready to push a button if the
option. sound or voices are too staid, too serious or other-
wise perceived as “not for them.”
For a network that seeks musical concerts and
Concerts and Specials specials, three alternative strategies exist:
Special music programs have long been popular with ■ Produce many shows of varied appeal to capture
both stations and advertisers. Concerts command
fragments of the youth or adult audiences.
premium prices because they provide exclusive access
to top-ranked music in a live setting. Some acts are ■ Concentrate on the relatively small number of
particularly valuable because they cross over a variety stars that appeal across the broadest format
of station formats (for example, from country to AC, spectrum.
like Shania Twain or Alternative to CHR, like Green ■ Buy or produce programs that have unique, broad
Day), making it fairly easy for some music shows to appeal.
air on at least one station in most markets. Since the
The third strategy is often the most economi-
mid-1990s, however, only a few musical megastars
cally efficient, although many national programmers
have been able to attract audiences on the scale nec-
also follow the first strategy to at least some extent.
essary for both meeting the costs associated with
For example, countdown shows target specific
national production and distribution and justifying
groups who will listen to a wide variety of music
local stations’ preemption of regular programming.
over the course of the show. Countdown shows suc-
(Access to these rare concerts and major performers
ceed best as regularly scheduled weekend features,
remains beyond the financial reach of most local sta-
and audiences tend to seek them out. These unique
tions on an individual basis.)
music programs usually clear the broadest range of
Syndicators capable of recording such shows
affiliates, which makes them potentially the most
generally offer them to stations on a barter or
profitable syndicated programs and competitive
cash-plus-barter basis at prices ranging from $25 to
with top-rated radio sports.
$50 per hour in small markets to several hundred dol-
lars per hour in large markets. Networks may include
these music specials as part of the full-service network Feature Syndicators
programming of music, news and sports. Networks Radio broadcasters may use features to attract a spe-
can also go into the syndication business, offering cific target audience during mornings, evenings or
music specials on a station-by-station basis. weekends. Most popular syndicated feature programs
As with any other type of network program, the are brief inserts such as the ET Radio Minute, Late
key to revenue for a music special or concert series is Show with David Letterman Top-Ten List and CBS
the size of its cleared audience. Fitting a particular HealthWatch. Stations producing their own program-
concert or series of concerts to a demographic cate- ming include short features to add spice and variety
gory that matches a salable number of affiliates is to programming and use the longer programming to
very difficult. Most of these programs target either fill unsold or low-audience time periods.
the youth demographic, aged roughly 18 to 34 (it Syndicated features are as varied as their produ-
may include teens), or the adult demographic, aged cers, which include many of the companies previously
25 to 54. Each group presents programming pro- mentioned in this chapter: Dial Global, Cumulus,
blems, and local stations can be understandably Premiere Radio Networks (www.premiereradio.
reluctant to preempt traditional programming that com), Westwood One and United Stations are
 CHAPTER 11 Music Radio Programming 427

among the biggest. A few major-market stations also services because they will further fragment the audi-
syndicate their talent (for example, KLOS in Los ence and reduce the time spent with other media
Angeles offers morning duo Mark & Brian to stations including radio. At the same time, terrestrial broad-
in other markets). casters retain significant competitive advantages
One of the most important types of feature pro- over many of the competing technologies, because
gramming today is the syndicated morning show. radio remains free to the listener, plus stations have
Several successful major-market morning shows the ability to make use of those same next-
have made the transition to national syndication, generation platforms to distribute their content to
including Kid Kraddick (Dallas), Rick Dees (Los listeners who prefer those platforms.
Angeles), Mancow Muller (Chicago) and Bob & Changing technology and listener lifestyles have
Tom (Indianapolis). As with the other programming left local stations with no exclusive property in
discussed in this section, a syndicated morning show music genres or key artists to be used as a competi-
can offer small- and medium-market stations talent tive driver in a market. That’s not to say that music
that would otherwise be far beyond their reach, will disappear as a programming staple. It remains
albeit at a still significant cost in cash and avails. attractive to a large audience and is a very cost-
A wide range of styles are available, from Bob effective way to fill time. But personality and local
& Tom’s Midwestern, occasionally risqué, humor to service—the things offered besides the music on a
the outrageous and frequently offensive style of station—has always been the soul of successful
Mancow. As with all choices, programmers should radio. These are things that Pandora, Spotify and
be aware of the tastes and interests of their audience similar newer entrants to the audio space do not
and market when selecting a syndicated morning (and probably will never) offer. Thus, many local
show. All of the shows can point to significant rat- stations will best be able to fend off the challenge
ings successes; most have also failed in some markets from newer services by emphasizing their people
where they were on the wrong station or the show and their local commitment, along with their free
was just not appropriate for the market. cost to the audience and their availability every-
Many companies that syndicate long-form for- where their audience wants them to be.
mat packages also supply short features that fit On the other hand, stations have to be present
within their long formats and provide other prep in the mobile space (smartphones, tablets) as
services for local air talent (entertainment news, audiences—especially younger audiences—move more
joke services, other short items that can be used on (and, in some cases, all) of their media use to those
the air). The short features are also made available platforms. Apple leads that market as we write this;
to other stations in the same market on a format- but the lead is shrinking rapidly and the Android oper-
exclusive basis. If a feature is format-exclusive, that ating system will almost certainly be the dominant
same short feature can be sold to more than one mobile platform by the time you’re reading this
station in a market if their formats differ, but only chapter (and Blackberry may have disappeared).
one rock or one country or one talk station can In any case, stations will probably need to have apps
license the program. This arrangement assumes non- running on at least a couple of platforms so the only
duplicated listeners. real question is which one is the most important—
where to start when you launch something new? The
answer to that question, as has been the case for radio,
What’s Coming for Radio? begins by understanding on what devices and where
your audience is most likely listening.
It’s clear that “radio” will no longer be delivered Convenience (as defined by the listener) will be
only via broadcast transmission but also via other the primary driver for strategic decision making in
wireless (and wired) services. While the greatest almost every case. The mantra recited by leaders in
threat to radio as it existed is 4G wireless broadband most media companies is “the content you want,
428 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

anytime, anywhere.” While there are still occasional the Clear Channel approach of the past decade.
licensing hurdles to overcome before that ideal can Indeed, even Clear Channel slimmed down after
be realized, those barriers are fewer for radio than the company was taken private, shedding many
for other media businesses. The radio companies smaller stations and some other lines of business.
that survive will do so by not only creating compel- Rather than trying to dominate everywhere, groups
ling broadcast fare but also through the develop- such as Merlin (a large market example) and Town-
ment of mobile apps and by taking advantage of square Media (a small-market example) are focused
distribution platforms in addition to the broadcast on more narrowly defined geographic, demographic,
signal—by making that content available in a wide product and market-size segments; or on providing
range of forms and engaging listeners in whatever services to companies in those markets (such as
way that listeners prefer. Triton Digital). Other entrepreneurs are individuals
The industry consolidation that followed the or groups focused primarily on new media audio
1996 Telecommunications Act has permanently opportunities presented by the spread of 4G net-
and fundamentally altered the strategies and eco- works and platforms. All of them are hoping to
nomics of radio programming and thus the day- prosper in the changing marketplace; and, most
to-day nature of the work the employees of those importantly, none of them believe that “radio is
groups perform. Owners and programmers seek to dead.”
counter the technological pressures fragmenting the
audience by finding different ways of engaging their
fans. This requires leveraging their best talent across
not only multiple stations (probably in multiple mar-
Notes
kets) but also across multiple platforms. Your morn- 1. Arbitron, “Radio Today 2010,” p. 87. This study is
ing jock or team doesn’t just do four or five hours on available at www.arbitron.com.
the air. She, he or they (or, more likely, their pro- 2. See http://ibiquity.com/automotive for updated figures.
ducer) will certainly also be expected to produce 3. Arbitron and Edison Media Research, “The Infinite
high-involvement content for all the other platforms Dial 2011.” This study is part of an annual series and is
including the station’s website, perhaps a daily pod- available at www.arbitron.com and www.edisonmedia
cast (or series of podcasts) available for listeners to research.com. See more recent versions of this study for
download or stream to their smartphone or tablet or updates on listening patterns.
desktop. Personas or characters they create could be 4. In the United States, the AM band runs from 520 to
1710 kilohertz (kHz), with station allocations spaced at
extended into other media, from video to games that
10-kHz intervals. The FM band runs from 88 to 108
listeners can play on their mobile device—either megahertz (MHz), with allocations spaced every .2 MHz
within a station app or as a stand-alone … anything beginning with 88.1 (then 88.3, 88.5 and so on through
that keeps the audience engaged. 107.9), although the lower 4 MHz (88.1 through 91.9) are
The nature of ownership is also changing. reserved for noncommercial educational (NCE) stations
only. Note that interference concerns will prevent assign-
Although there may be some exceptions (Cumulus),
ments of stations on adjacent frequencies within a market.
most radio owners are no longer looking to emulate
12
CHAPTER

Information Radio
Programming
Matthew S. Pierce and Robert F. Potter

Chapter Outline
Information Versus Heritage Talk
Entertainment Radio Politics/Issues Talk
Identifiable Personalities Sports Talk
Branding Stations and On-Air Success Talk
Personalities Hot Talk
Urban Talk
The Rise of Information Faith Talk
Radio Spanish/Foreign-Language Talk
Cost Decline in Distribution Health and Help Talk
Technology Technology Talk
The Abandonment of the The Content Infrastructure
Fairness Doctrine
Hosts
Embracing Formerly Taboo
Callers and Listeners
Topics
Commercial Interests
Migration to FM
Mobile Phones On-Air Talk Techniques
Synergistic Advertising
Telephone Screeners
Environment
Controversy, Balance, and
Information Programming Pressure
Formats Information Formats on
All-News Formats Public Radio
Network-Delivered Newscasts What Lies Ahead
News Scheduling Priorities
Notes
Talk Formats

429
430 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

J ust what is meant by information radio? It is tradi-

tionally viewed by broadcasters as a fairly expan-
sive term encompassing various formats where the
spoken word—rather than music—makes up the main
Things Considered), interview shows (Talk of the
Nation, Fresh Air with Terry Gross and The Tavis
Smiley Show), comedy (A Prairie Home Companion
and Wait, Wait … Don’t Tell Me!), and call-in talk
content feature. These formats occur on satellite radio shows such as the hilarious Car Talk.
channels and the internet as well as on analog and digi- Even the most highly targeted “all music” sta-
tal terrestrial broadcasting, and are known individually tions provide generous amounts of information to
by such names as talk, news, news/talk and sports talk. their audiences in the form of pop psychology,
All fall under the larger umbrella of information radio humorous stories and discussions of “what’s hot,”
but raise the following question for programmers: What all presented in the latest lingo of the target audi-
is the overall goal of information radio—is it to educate ence. These stations know that, even though they
or to entertain its audience?1 tie their brand images closely to their music mix, to
succeed in the ratings they still must offer substantial
amounts of useful information to their listeners—
such as traffic, weather and lifestyle news—
Information Versus especially during drivetime dayparts.
Entertainment Radio If you are still having trouble thinking of all
radio as information radio, consider that more than
A quick first answer is that with a name like infor- one-fifth of the average commercial radio station’s
mation radio, the format must be designed to edu- airtime is set aside for advertising and promotion—
cate (and that sounds boring). However, some almost all forms of which contain spoken informa-
industry analysts believe all radio formats—not just tion about products, services or the station itself.
delivering the news or talk about issues—function to Even commercial-free public radio uses enhanced
educate and are thus a form of information radio. If underwriting announcements between programs.
this sounds extreme, consider that about 14 percent Furthermore, the on-air signal is only part of a
of the broadcast stations in the United States are modern radio station’s or satellite service’s business
officially programmed as what the industry calls strategy. Stations and their program hosts now take
information radio, that is, full-time talk, news or advantage of multiple distribution paths to reach an
sports (Ahh: not so boring to fans). Add to that audience. Podcasts, online streaming and apps for
another 12 percent of stations categorized as pro- smartphones and tablets make content available to
gramming religious or Christian formats offering a listeners whenever and wherever they want to listen.
focused type of information (in the form of sermons, A station’s or satellite service’s reach now goes
religion-themed talk shows, call-in prayer shows and beyond the radio waves that carry its signal.
so on) to an audience with a specific psychographic The challenge for content providers, whether
profile. Of the remaining 74 percent of stations, they are traditional broadcast stations or webcas-
most schedule some talk, some news or some sports, ters, is to “monetize” these various distribution
typically during drivetimes, in late night and on the paths (often referred to as platforms). That means
weekends, even though their “official” formats are finding a way to make money from the content no
some sort of music programming. In addition, sur- matter how it is delivered. For example, advertising
prisingly, more than 90 channels on the SiriusXM may support a talk program delivered to listeners
satellite service focus on information rather than over an AM broadcast station, but that same con-
music. Even noncommercial radio stations—those tent can be provided commercial-free to a listener’s
that we usually associate with classical music, smartphone through an app that requires a subscrip-
opera and jazz—devote substantial portions of tion fee to access the content.
their programming to delivering information in the Consultant Kipper McGee observes that tradi-
form of large news blocks (Morning Edition and All tional broadcasting seeks to import listeners to a
 CHAPTER 12 Information Radio Programming 431

station by encouraging them to tune to the station’s means discussing the hot topics and news that the
frequency (“Hear weather and traffic on the 10s!”), audience really wants to hear.3 This attitude puts
but now broadcasters also have the opportunity to off serious news junkies, but it makes money.
export their stations’ content to listeners in ways Just as Chapter 11 discussed how hot songs are
that allow them to consume the content on their tracked by music station programmers in trade
own time schedule.2 magazines like Billboard, information station pro-
Station websites have evolved from simply grammers refer to publications like Talkers Maga-
offering information about station events, biogra- zine (www.talkers.com), which offers a Week in
phies of station DJs and personalities, and details Review feature listing the top-10 people, issues and
on movies, concerts and other happenings in the sta- topics being discussed on information stations
tion’s city of license. Now they export content across the country. Only programmers and hosts
through daily podcasts, free downloads and live who recognize the importance of presenting these
streams of the station’s broadcast signal. Websites issues in an entertaining way are likely to succeed
encourage greater interaction with visitors and link big time.
to social media sites such as Facebook. There are plenty of examples in radio history of
Chicago music station WXRT, for example, talk-radio personalities who took themselves too
invites listeners to become an “XRT VIP” and seriously, abandoned their focus on the entertain-
“access exclusive experiences and XRT ticket ment value of their presentations, and suffered reve-
giveaways.” VIPs get access to the “XRT VIP nue and ratings decline. One personality who
lounge” where they can earn points by participating suffered from this lack of focus on the entertainment
in station promotions, filling-out surveys, using value of her show is Dr. Laura Schlessinger. Her
advertisers’ coupons and clicking through to adver- increasingly strident anti-homosexual rhetoric in
tiser websites. Earned points can then be used to the late 1990s resulted in censure by the Canadian
enter contests, participate in online auctions or Broadcast Standards Council, a loss of several key
trade for prizes. U.S. affiliates, and the loss of several national adver-
The VIP lounge has elements of popular social tisers, including the biggie of Procter & Gamble,
media games and gives listeners an incentive to par- which withdrew support from her proposed televi-
ticipate in marketing campaigns they might other- sion show.
wise avoid. WXRT “monetized” its website by Controversy again swirled around Schlessinger
creating a place where businesses can reach potential in 2010 when she used a racial epithet 11 times
customers. while responding to a caller on her radio show.
So, a lot of information is being disseminated by She apologized the next day and then announced
radio stations and their personalities, regardless of she would stop hosting a radio show at the end of
format, both on and off the air. However, many her contract, saying she would be freer to speak her
industry consultants believe it’s more important for mind through books, a YouTube channel, blogs and
all stations—even those that are formally informa- her website. Nonetheless, in 2011 she copied the
tion formats—to focus on being a source of enter- path of other program hosts too controversial for
tainment for listeners. These analysts suggest that a broadcast radio and moved her show to satellite
station can dominate in ratings and revenue only radio.
when it is programmed as a form of audio entertain- At a radio industry conference, a panel of news/
ment. The most successful news/talk/sports pro- talk programmers clearly explained the entertain-
grammers require their air talents to remain ment value of their programs. One programmer
focused on the entertainment value of their presenta- summed it up this way: “All highly rated radio is,
tions. According to consultant Holland Cooke, both first, entertaining, and in radio there’re only two
information stations and popular music stations ways to entertain an ear—with spoken words [as
“play the hits,” but in information radio that in] news/talk or with music. When we got our staff
432 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

to realize their spoken words had to be as entertain- format undoubtedly comes from the on-air person-
ing as the music down the street, or the movie on alities who present the topics in compelling, interest-
HBO, we started to have success.”4 ing and often controversial ways.
To a certain extent, then, all radio formats have
information as a key ingredient. For some formats,
the most engaging way to deliver information is to Identifiable Personalities
present it between musical segments the audience Among dominant information formats, talk is
will find appealing. In information formats, of almost always live and delivered by identifiable
course, the majority of the broadcast day is filled personalities. Having recognizable individuals is
not with music, but with the spoken word, and the extremely important. Research has repeatedly
formats are growing in popularity among program- shown that the most loyal radio listeners seek
mers and listeners—in the form of all-news, all-talk feelings of pseudo-friendship or imagined personal
or the combination of the two known as news/talk. relationships with media personalities. These
Consider that in 1980, only 75 radio stations in the relationships are evidenced by unexpectedly intense
United States offered full-time information program- love/hate reactions to national talk hosts such as
ming. By 1985, that number had grown to only 100 Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh, Tom Joyner, Jim
stations. Then, during the next 25 years, the number Rome, G. Gordon Liddy, Dr. Joy Browne and Phil
of stations officially programming the information Hendrie. An emotional connection, whether positive
format skyrocketed! The Broadcasting Cable Year- or negative, has been shown to be absolutely neces-
book 2010 listed 2,793 full-time news, talk and sary for sustained listener involvement and long-
news/talk stations—moving ahead of the number term ratings and revenue success. A list of selected
of stations with country music formats. nationally syndicated and satellite radio talk hosts
This surge in the number of stations is not the from Talkers Magazine’s “Heavy Hundred,” along
only sign of the format’s popularity. Arbitron’s with their web addresses, appears in 12.1.
Radio Today 2010 reported that information radio Often even local personalities can develop siz-
also had the second-highest 12þ share of all formats able loyal followings. These hosts tend to be long-
in 2009, with an average 12.9 percent of those lis- time residents of the broadcast city. They know the
tening to the radio at any time tuning to an informa- history of the area, and long-time local listeners
tion station. That was just behind country music’s develop a sense of having “grown up” with them.
13.4 percent share of 12þ listeners. During the his- Even those new to the area become attracted by
toric 2008 presidential election year, information how tuned in to the happenings of the city such
radio had the largest share of 12þ listeners. local personalities are—they know about everything
Perhaps even more important, large portions of from family activities happening in the coming week
those listening to information programming are in to the hot-button local political issues.
the demographic segments desirable to many adver- Sometimes information stations that have a
tisers. Moreover, advertisers believe their commer- comparatively small share of the listening audience
cials are more effective in information formats can still be successful because of the connections
because listeners are more engaged with the content, they make with their niche audiences and the loy-
making it more likely they will actually pay attention alty that follows. For example, consider WVON-
to the messages being delivered in advertisements. AM (Chicago). Rarely does the talk station register
Do you agree? more than one percent of the available listening
Information radio has become popular with audience. However, the station has remained suc-
programmers because it is a format that really cessful by developing close ties between its local
engages listeners. One reason for its persistent pop- personalities and its primarily African-American
ularity is the presentation of timely “hit” topics. audience. According to communication scholar
However, much of the driving force behind the Catherine Squires, who spent time observing
 CHAPTER 12 Information Radio Programming 433

12.1 Popular Nationally Syndicated or Satellite Radio Talk Hosts

Talk Personality Description Website

Glenn Beck “High-profile star of the current conservative talk media www.glennbeck.com
genre. King of controversy.
Jim Bohannon “Seasoned late-night broadcaster with journalistic qualities. www.jimbotalk.net
Political moderate heard in syndication.”
Sean Hannity “A multimedia mega star in conservative talk. Solid mainstay www.hannity.com
of the genre.”
Clark Howard “Respected consumer advocate and personal financial www.clarkhoward.com
advice expert.”
Don Imus “Legendary talk media personality still performing daily syn- http://www.wabcradio.com/
dicated morning show simulcast on cable news/talk TV.” showdj.asp?DJID=40880
Laura Ingraham “A major fixture in the world of conservative talk entertain- www.lauraingraham.com
ment. Top female in talk radio.”
Rush Limbaugh “Twenty-three years in syndication and still the most important www.rushlimbaugh.com
talk show host in America.”
George Noory “Ubiquitous purveyor of late-night paranormal and oddities www.coasttocoastam.com
chat.”
Dave Ramsey “A media superstar in the world of personal financial advice www.daveramsey.com
and multi-media industry icon.”
Randi Rhodes “Progressive talk radio pro earning success in national www.therandirhodesshow.com
syndication”
Jim Rome “Still the ‘champ’ of nationally syndicated sports talk radio.” www.jimrome.com
Michael Savage “Boisterous talk radio personality heard on more than 300 www.michaelsavage.com
affiliates.”
Dr.Laura Schlessinger “Still an important player with legendary status. Unique per- www.drlaura.com
sonal advice host. Heard exclusively on satellite radio.”
Bev Smith “Important player in African American targeted talk radio.” www.aurnol.com
Howard Stern “King of satellite radio and ‘pop culture’ talk. Still a multi- www.howardstern.com
media superstar and one-of-a-kind radio legend.”

WVON talents and listeners, the station sustains a reputations initially developed by establishing
loyal audience that counts on the station to “talk long-term relationships with listeners in their local
their talk” when it comes to issues of concern and markets.
interest to the African-American audience in the
third largest market in the United States. So loyal
Branding Stations and On-Air
is the WVON audience, in fact, that Squires
reported listeners were willing to make financial Personalities
contributions to the station when its advertising Carrying a syndicated show with an identifiable
revenues were lower than anticipated.5 Although national personality and developing local talents
some of those listed in 12.2 have begun to branch for the surrounding hours—who then become local
out to national audiences via syndication, their household names—should be the goals of every
434 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

Subscribers to “Rush 24/7” are given access to

12.2 Popular Local Hosts audio and video podcasts through the iTunes library,
including downloads of his minute long “Morning
New York WNYM www.am970theapple.com
Updates,” archives of his complete programs for the
Curtis Sliwa
past four weeks, live streaming video of him during
Los Angeles KFI www.kfi640.com his radio show, and commercial-free versions of his
Bill Handel radio program. (That’s a LOT of Rush.) In addition,
KABC www.kabc.com subscribers can download documents discussed dur-
Larry Elder ing the show, related articles and audio, plus other
Chicago WVON www.wvon.com reference materials. A free app is available for subscri-
Cliff Kelley bers who want to consume the content on their
WGN www.wgnradio.com smartphones or tablet computers. The 24/7 package
Garry Meier even claims to include a super-secret email address
WLS www.wlsam.com that allows subscribers to reach Limbaugh directly.
Roe Conn Some stations or personalities, on the other hand,
San Francisco KGO www.kgoam810.com send out newsletters free of charge in an attempt to
Ronn Owens make more personal connections with their listeners
Dallas WBAP www.wbap.com while also developing databases of contact informa-
Mark Davis tion for future direct marketing campaigns. Kim
Komando, host of a weekly syndicated tech-talk
show, also sends out daily computer tips and weekly
information radio programmer. How does a pro- newsletters via email to millions of people who have
grammer identify the right ones? signed up for the free service on her website (www.
Arbitron’s research revealed an important fact komando.com). Komando also offers alternate access
about strong personalities: Listeners will find them to content through a subscription service called
on the dial even if they change stations in the mar- “Kim’s Club.” For a monthly fee, club members get
ket. In other words, listeners are often more loyal to access to podcasts, streaming audio and streaming
the personality than they are to any individual sta- video of her (radio) program. Club members are
tion. A successful program host creates his or her also automatically entered into show contests.
own unique style or “brand.” Just as consumers What was once a business of attracting listeners
often become loyal to a particular brand of laundry to a broadcast station to boost advertising sales has
detergent and other products, they can also become now become a multi-platform marketing operation.
loyal followers of a popular on-air personality. Content is now recycled and repackaged to generate
Once a program host has created a unique profits long after the program host has said “Good-
brand with a loyal audience, he or she can deliver bye, until tomorrow” to his or her broadcast station
content on many platforms and monetize them to listeners.
generate profits. In the early days of the internet Scott Betram, program director for Rockford,
and before the rise of social media sites, syndicated Illinois, station WROK-AM, is an example of a
talk programs used periodic newsletters as a source broadcaster who recognizes the importance of main-
of revenue for the host and/or syndicator. Rush taining these many digital platforms. “Website,
Limbaugh, for example, offered yearly subscriptions streaming audio, Twitter, Facebook—they all help
to his monthly newsletter The Limbaugh Letter for put WROK on the computer or cell-phone or iPad
purchase on his website (www.rushlimbaugh.com). of listeners every day. It helps brand us as a news/
Limbaugh still offers the traditional newsletter, but information/opinion source that will continue to
he has expanded his offerings to take advantage of provide content even when the consumer is away
new digital platforms. from the radio.”6
 CHAPTER 12 Information Radio Programming 435

Many hosts have further capitalized on their pop- station and going to another in the same market
ularity by writing books. For example, Howard Stern’s without a lot of time (sometimes a year or more)
Private Parts, Limbaugh’s The Way Things Ought to passing. The logic behind these clauses is that having
Be, Michael Savage’s The Savage Nation, and Dr. noncompetes in place will prevent the personalities
Laura Schlessinger’s The Proper Care and Feeding of from bringing their stations’ strategic secrets—along
Husbands not only gave those hosts another stream of with their loyal listeners—to competitors.
income, but the publicity the books received likely This approach is not without its critics, many of
directed new listeners to their radio programs. Public- whom argue that noncompete clauses have a negative
ity surrounding a new book can be substantial. For effect on station morale that does far more harm than
example, talk-show host Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays any “strategic secrets” that may get into the competi-
with Morrie, a memoir of his time spent with one of tion’s hands. The American Federation of Radio and
his former college professors, lasted over five years on Television Artists (AFTRA) continues to lobby state
The New York Times best-seller list! And every copy legislatures and Congress to outlaw noncompete
sold mentions his daily syndicated radio show origi- clauses in broadcasters’ employment contracts.
nating on WJR-AM in Detroit. Arizona, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachu-
Knowing about syndication agreements is crucial setts, Maine and New York are among the states that
for programmers. National hosts who have developed have made these noncompete clauses unenforceable.
brands that can generate the most revenues sell them- Still, the initial motivation for noncompete clauses
selves for fixed periods of time—one year, two years, should not be lost amid the controversy: Once a sta-
etc. Beginning the next round of negotiations with the tion has a successful local personality on its airwaves,
syndicator at exactly the proper time gives an edge. To the programmer needs to try to do everything possi-
continue a station’s association with the personality, ble to keep that person there!
locking the agreement up early (before a competitor The rise in the number of recognizable person-
moves in) is an important strategic move. alities and the greater loyalty they command are,
However, if a programmer, sales manager and indeed, important reasons behind the increase in
general manager decide that a new agreement with the number of information stations and their ratings
the syndicator is not cost-effective because of successes over recent years. However, other factors
increases in the contract costs or decreases in pro- also led to the popularity of the format among pro-
jected sales revenue (see Chapter 3 for a related dis- grammers and the listening public.
cussion of television syndication), it is better to
know sooner rather than later that the station may
lose that personality from its programming lineup. It The Rise of Information Radio
is also not a bad idea to estimate when competitors’
national syndication contracts will be renegotiated. Aside from social and cultural influences contributing
It could be that a favorite personality might unex- to an interest in information radio, several technolog-
pectedly become available as a result of failed nego- ical, economic and policy changes have also played a
tiations with a competing station, and a clever role, especially affecting terrestrial broadcast radio.
information programmer would be ready to act The six key factors are summarized in 12.3.
quickly to sign that big-name personality, knowing
that his or her loyal audience will follow.
Cost Decline in Distribution
The strong loyalty between listeners and person-
alities also impacts the information programmer’s Technology
relationship with local hosts. Often, management The shows of Rush Limbaugh, Dr. Laura Schlessinger,
insists on noncompete clauses in contracts with the Ed Schultz or others wouldn’t be available today with-
most popular “franchise” personalities. These out the dramatic drop in the cost of distributing
clauses prevent local personalities from leaving one broadcast-quality audio over long distances that
436 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

than equal treatment. Because of this, few station

12.3 Factors in the Rise of Talk owners were willing to take the risk of programming
Radio anything more than the blandest kinds of talk.
Rather than risk complaints at renewal time, it was
easier to avoid all controversy.
1. Decline in distribution costs due to satellite The Fairness Doctrine was merely an FCC pol-
technology icy that had not been made law, so the FCC could
2. Repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 decide to drop it at any time, and that time arrived
3. Acceptance of formerly taboo topics at the height of deregulation under the Reagan
administration. Although many members of Con-
4. Migration of music-oriented audiences to FM
gress and some lobbyists fought to write the Fairness
5. Proliferation of cellular phones
Doctrine into law, each of three attempts ended in
6. Attraction of format for advertisers failure. After several years, it became clear that the
Fairness Doctrine was not likely to return, and
broadcasters subsequently felt increasingly free to
engage in even the most outrageously slanted forms
occurred in the early 1980s. Prior to that time, radio of talk programming.
network operators were forced to pay premium fees to By the early 1990s, radio talk hosts had more free-
the telephone monopolies for land-based distribution. dom than ever before to advocate one view of a contro-
This created the “chicken and egg” question common versial issue and ridicule opposing points of view. Show
to most new technologies: Which will come first, the hosts could take—or even distort—one side of an issue
nationally-distributed radio personalities or the expen- and demean opposing perspectives, often with tremen-
sive distribution system? By the mid-1980s, commer- dous success in audience ratings. Such talk was appar-
cial satellites magically appeared in the sky, and thanks ently much more interesting than talk that tried to be
to the much lower cost of satellite distribution, national fair or equal to both sides (see 12.4). Despite com-
syndication of unproven programming became eco- plaints of extremism, the FCC decided to rely on the
nomically feasible for the first time. One of the earliest marketplace to provide fairness. In theory, if one sta-
of these shows was Limbaugh’s talk show, and in an tion took one side of an issue, other stations in the mar-
interview, Limbaugh noted that his popular show airs ket would program opposing views to attract the
during the midday daypart, as opposed to perhaps the disaffected audience. Overall fairness would be found
more strategically advantageous slot of morning or across the dial, rather than forced on each individual
afternoon drivetime. This occurred because satellite station as had been the case before.
time was only available during the midday hours By 2000, journalists, media scholars and even poli-
when his syndicated show was first developed.7 ticians were commenting that talk radio—particularly
at the national level—had become primarily a haven
The Abandonment of the for such politically conservative hosts such as Rush
Limbaugh, G. Gordon Liddy, Ken Hamblin and Sean
Fairness Doctrine Hannity. Although this was no problem for the conser-
Fairness was another problem. Prior to 1987, the vatives in the audience, polls showed that almost three-
FCC’s Fairness Doctrine required radio stations to quarters of liberals felt that the information radio
cover all sides of controversial public issues equally. format did not provide balanced programming.
In application, this severely limited the topics aired Many conservatives pointed to failed programs hosted
on talk radio because station owners feared lawsuits by such liberal icons as Mario Cuomo and Alan
or complaints at license renewal time by those who Dershowitz as evidence of the marketplace at work.
felt they were treated “unequally.” Indeed, both However, in 2004, Air America Radio debuted
sides of a controversial issue would often claim less on stations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and
 CHAPTER 12 Information Radio Programming 437

12.4 Blogs ‘n Talk Radio

F or listeners eager to have their say on radio, the surest

way is through the web. Recognizing that a daily
smorgasbord of opinions and ideas flow freely online, talk
Bloggers are also playing bigger roles in balancing and
policing the air waves. For an independent talk radio show
like Air America, which was created during the 2004 pres-
radio programs like Open Source and Air America are idential elections to counter conservative talk radio shows
turning to bloggers to provide content for their shows. like The Rush Limbaugh Show and The Sean Hannity Show,
Open Source, distributed by Public Radio International, bloggers’ input is critical because the show doesn’t employ
draws on comments and information posted by bloggers its own reporters. In 2007, hundreds of blogs demanded
on its website, www.radioopensource.org. Bloggers sug- that advertisers pull their ads from San Francisco-based radio
gest ideas for the program, recommend guest speakers and station KSFO-AM after several of its talk show hosts allegedly
questions, and even appear as guest speakers. According made racist and violence-inciting remarks. Audio clips of the
to its site, Open Source sees itself not as “a public radio shows were posted on blogs—and some were sent to
show with a web community” but “a web community that advertisers, causing companies like Bank of America and
produces a daily hour of radio.” To date, about 40 stations Mastercard to stop advertising with the station.
(out of nearly 10,000) carry the program, whose topics
range from global warming to national service in America Debbie Goh, Ph.D.
to Groundhog Day to what to do in outer space. Nanyang Technological University

San Francisco and was touted by some as the begin- reject liberal ideals and have no interest in listening
ning of syndicated “liberal radio.” Relying on easily to progressive talk show hosts. However, former Air
identifiable personalities, Air America Radio signed America employees blamed the network’s failure on
on with dayparts hosted by comedians Al Franken, a series of owners and managers with little broad-
Janeane Garofalo and Public Enemy rapper Chuck casting business experience.9
D. With the Fairness Doctrine now a distant mem- Proponents of progressive talk radio note that
ory, such “one-sided” left-leaning programming many liberal or left-leaning personalities are doing
content became just as fair as the conservative well. Air America alumus Randi Rhodes left the net-
radio that had been around for decades. work to be syndicated by Premiere Radio Networks
Despite reaching 2.1 million listeners on 75 that also syndicates conservative Rush Limbaugh’s
affiliates, in 2006 the company filed for bankruptcy program. Rachel Maddow moved from Air America
claiming it had lost more than $40 million in the two to a prime time show on the MSNBC cable network.
years since signing on. On top of that, the network Progressive hosts Ed Schultz and Stephanie Miller
also lost Franken—by far its highest-profile host— who chose to remain independent of Air America
who resigned to run for the U.S. Senate in Minne- remain nationally syndicated.
sota. Still, in early 2007 Air America was purchased
by Stephen Green, a real-estate entrepreneur who
guaranteed to bring what he called an “underper- Embracing Formerly Taboo Topics
forming asset with unrealized potential” to profit- Although the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine
ability.8 His effort also failed, and Air America—as removed most government-imposed restrictions on
live radio—folded in early 2010. the nature of talk programming, several social and
The failure of Air America reignited the debate cultural events in the 1990s appeared to give broad-
about why conservative talk radio was dominating casters the public’s permission to stretch the limits of
the format. Conservative talkers pointed to the what is considered acceptable on radio in another
demise of Air America as proof that Americans direction. What had once been confined to the
438 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

seamier sections of porn magazines, internet chat Anthony (former talkers on WNEW in New York)
rooms and X-rated movies was by the late 1990s in which listeners were encouraged to have sex in
suddenly fair game. Media frenzies such as the public places. At first, this seems no more shocking
O. J. Simpson trial, the Jon Benet Ramsey murder, than other stunts hosted by syndicated personalities
and the Clinton impeachment hearings encouraged on hundreds of stations across the country. Still,
on-air listeners to vent their reactions to topics as when the Opie & Anthony bit resulted in a broad-
intense as murder, child sexual abuse and oral sex. cast “play-by-play” of copulation—at New York
Many programmers heard from citizen action City’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral during a mass—the
groups outraged by the sordid and often sexual ever-elusive line of public acceptability was crossed.
details being broadcast during morning drivetime— Then, Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake had a
not coincidentally the times when parents drive their “wardrobe malfunction” that led to Jackson’s breast
kids to school with the radio on. Most of these pro- being exposed to 800 million people during CBS’s
grammers held their ground against such groups, 2003 Super Bowl halftime broadcast. Shortly thereaf-
claiming First Amendment protection of the “infor- ter, the FCC began to strengthen its public stance
mation” being broadcast. The truth for many, how- against indecency. Congress, too, began to give the
ever, was that regardless of the programmers’ FCC a bigger club to swing at station owners who
opinions about the Bill of Rights, many of the per- allowed their personalities to be overly prurient: The
sonalities who caused such an outcry with their titil- legislators increased indecency fines from a measly
lation were also generating huge ratings numbers $27,500 to as much as $500,000. This greatly
and advertiser revenue. increased the motivation of station owners to keep
In early 2004, however, things began to change. their personalities on a shorter leash. In the past,
Some content aired on broadcast stations seemed to many had decided that the small fines were a price
go too far. One was a radio stunt created by Opie & they were willing to pay for ratings success (see 12.5).

12.5 Indecency Eventually Costs Infinity

W hen does programming result in a broadcaster

making a million-dollar “voluntary contribution” to
the United States Treasury? When it’s indecent. Since the
After Karmazin failed to persuade the commissioners to
lighten Infinity’s penalty, he then agreed to the $1.7 million
“contribution” while claiming his intention was to “conserve
late 1980s, the FCC had been frequently issuing notices of the time, expenses and human resources of the parties”
apparent liability (fines) against Infinity Broadcasting for involved. Howard Stern called the settlement “extortion”
Howard Stern’s allegedly indecent broadcasts. Infinity’s and the “biggest shakedown in history.”
president, Mel Karmazin, first reacted by saying the com- The actual amount paid, negotiated down to
pany would refuse to pay the fines, claiming that Stern’s $1,175,000, was the largest fine ever paid by a broad-
program content was protected by the First Amendment. But caster. Of course, it pales when compared with the value
in 1995, Infinity Broadcasting finally agreed to pay (and as of the stations Infinity acquired as a result of the settlement
a reward, got its record of indecent broadcasts expunged). ($375 million) or Infinity’s $3 billion value. If you won’t
Two developments brought about the Infinity settlement. laugh, I’ll tell you that Infinity also agreed to establish a
First, in 1995 the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, program to educate its on-air personnel about the FCC’s
DC, upheld the FCC’s ban on indecent broadcasts in the indecency actions. Educate Howard Stern?
daytime and evening (between 6 A.M. and 10 P.M.). Sec- And Infinity has morphed into CBS Radio to clean up its
ond, and much more important, Infinity was trying to buy name.
nine radio stations (in addition to the 22 it already owned).
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of Lindsy E. Pack, Ph.D.
view), the purchase would require the FCC’s approval. Frostburg State University
 CHAPTER 12 Information Radio Programming 439

Increased reaction against vulgar conversation strong, one-sided political opinions or sexual innu-
led radio ownership giant Clear Channel Communi- endo rarely before heard. By the mid-1980s, with a
cations to drop The Howard Stern Show from several nothing-left-to-lose philosophy, AM stations, even in
markets and to fire long-time morning host Bubba large markets, were willing to gamble on unknown
the Love Sponge in early 2004. These moves have syndicated talk personalities. Visionary talk syndica-
forced even the milder talkers who rely on innuendo tors initially offered the programming for free (in
rather than blatantly sexual topics to rein in their exchange for clearance of the commercials), and
content. For example, Tom Griswold, one-half of local AM station owners were thus able to cut the
the Bob & Tom Show, said that the show is “not expense of paying a local personality. Although
going to take the chance of being anywhere near the almost no one in the industry believed daytime talk
line. We’ve pulled way, way back.” The current goal, programming on AM could succeed, much less draw
according to Griswold, is to produce a show “that a audiences back from FM, there really were no other
soccer mom can listen to with her kids in the car.”10 viable programming options.
The pendulum may have swung back to caution While information programming gave AM
when it comes to bad taste on information stations. radio a new lease on life, new dynamics are shifting
However, public taste is fickle, and daring program- talk radio onto the FM band. Just as AM radio
mers have made names for themselves and their sta- found it could not compete with music formats
tions by pushing the envelope. That may be the against FM stations, FM now must compete with
reason why Stern’s show was immediately picked digital platforms that allow consumers to listen to
up by competitors in four of the markets where all of their favorite music on cells, MP3s and tablets.
Clear Channel removed him from the airwaves. Even- Internet music services like Pandora allow listeners
tually, however, the three big-mouths—Stern, Bubba to customize their music listening experience, and
the Love Sponge, and Opie & Anthony—moved to webcasters now offer a variety of streaming music
satellite radio, safe from all FCC restrictions. on the internet that is easily accessible through wire-
less portable devices. Listeners, particularly younger
people, have stopped letting radio stations decide
Migration to FM which songs they should hear. FM then has to go
Another important factor in the rise of the informa- after whoever will best please its advertisers.
tion format was the drastic migration of listeners While FM stations are facing the reality that
from the AM to FM bands. In the largest markets, they are no longer the preferred platform for music
audiences began abandoning AM stations for FM delivery, AM stations are coping with a listening
stations in the early 1970s. Those music formats audience that is aging and technical problems that
that had proved successful on an AM station were can make hearing AM stations sometimes difficult.
rapidly duplicated by FM stations with higher qual- The population of older people who are accustomed
ity sound and then got higher ratings. By the late to listening to AM radio is shrinking, yet they are
1980s, it was clear no all-music format could survive not being replaced by younger people because most
on the AM band. As Chapter 11 points out, pro- don’t listen to AM radio. This is a particularly diffi-
gram directors of AM music stations were quick to cult problem for AM because advertisers most want
find that when AM and FM stations offer similar to reach younger listeners.
music programming, the bulk of the audience will AM signals are more susceptible to interference
choose to listen to the FM stations, leaving the AM and static than FM from things like thunderstorms
stations struggling for advertisers and revenue. and various kinds of machinery. AM signals also
At roughly the same time as the Fairness Doctrine have a harder time penetrating the steel structures of
was abandoned by the FCC, many AM stations faced big-city skyscrapers where thousands of potential lis-
financial pressures unseen since the advent of televi- teners work. Finally, many AM stations must reduce
sion, leading radio personalities to start supplying their power or sign-off at night when AM radio
440 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

waves travel farther to avoid interfering with other tune out during commercial breaks. Music stations,
stations on their frequencies that have been given a on the other hand, often have many competitors
higher priority by the FCC. As you can imagine, this both within and between their formats. Even more
is a major problem when those stations carry sporting detrimental to advertisers are those music stations
events that last into the evening hours! These AM that promote a “more music, less talk” format. This,
reception problems, the need for news/talk formats in effect, equates talk (that is, the information that
to grow younger audiences, and the migration of happens between music, such as commercials!) with
FM’s music formats to digital platforms are triggering negative emotions and invites listeners to tune out
the shift of news/talk formats to FM. once a commercial set starts.
On information stations, however, commercials
seem less of an interruption and are merely more
Mobile Phones information that the station wants to impart to its
Most talk shows depend on call-in listeners. Until the audience. Thus, given equally-sized audiences on
1990s, talk shows had low levels of participation, espe- both a talk station and a music station, advertisers
cially during the peak periods of the morning and after- are willing to pay a higher price to place their com-
noon drivetimes. To people who have always owned a mercials on the news/talk/sports station—because
cellular telephone, this may seem illogical, but keep in more of the listeners will stay tuned during the com-
mind that mobile phone technology was not widely mercial breaks.
used until the 1990s. Luckily for the format, just as Although the synergies between programming
the content of talk on radio was becoming more inter- and commercial content have undoubtedly contrib-
esting, cell technology emerged to allow easier partici- uted to the talk format’s rise in popularity, changes
pation by listeners...wherever they were. The ability of in the media environment mean that information
broadcasters to offer free cell-phone calls to the sta- programmers may need to reevaluate their strategies
tion’s phone numbers (in return for running advertis- on commercial spot loads. First, more minutes of
ing for the cellular service) made it easy for listeners call commercials are broadcast per hour on information
in any time of day—but especially during their morn- stations than on any other format. While originally
ing and afternoon commutes. viewed as a benefit to station owners, commercial
Moreover, it quickly became standard procedure clutter has reached an all-time high: Marketing mes-
for the hosts of many talk shows to move callers on sages appear in more and more places all the time,
cell phones to “the top of the list,” thereby giving the and consumer fatigue may not be far behind. Infor-
impression that the opinions of cell-phone callers had mation listeners may eventually become less forgiv-
a greater chance of being aired—and leading more ing of an overload of commerce.
and more commuters to chime in. The proliferation Furthermore, the popularity of the format has
of cell phones has been a boon for information pro- brought competition from other sources hoping to
grammers because research shows listeners are more capitalize on the public’s desire for information. Lis-
likely to tune in when they can call in, even if most teners can now find information programming in the
are unlikely to actually call. form of news, talk or sports talk from multiple radio
stations in a single market, not to mention web-
based talk networks, satellite-delivered radio, cable
Synergistic Advertising Environment television networks and podcasts. Loyalty to a par-
Information radio provides an environment uniquely ticular source is likely to go down in this competitive
attractive to radio advertisers. For one thing, the audi- environment. The wise information programmer
ences tend to be more loyal to the format than audi- will try to convince upper management that ultimate
ences of other formats. This, coupled with the fact station success may be as much a factor of keeping
that in many smaller markets only one information listener loyalty as maximizing the number of com-
station exists, means that listeners are less likely to mercials played per hour.
 CHAPTER 12 Information Radio Programming 441

Information Programming Premiere Radio Networks, but also have their

shows distributed directly to listeners on the Patriot
Formats channel of Sirius/XM satellite radio.
This satellite radio presence, along with web-
Before discussing individual formats specifically, a based delivery, podcasting and the growth of syndi-
reminder of how syndication delivery works in the cated radio, has all but obliterated a clear line of
media industries may be helpful. (For a more in- distinction between traditional network radio and
depth discussion, see Chapter 3.) Although many syndicators. Premiere and Westwood One are syndi-
programmers initially think of television when they cation companies, while ESPN Radio is a traditional
hear the word syndication, a vast number of highly- network. According to some, there is no difference
rated syndicated radio shows exist as well. Any of between such entities, especially in radio. When a
the formats described in the following sections could single personality such as sports talk host Jim
either originate in the local station’s studio hosted by Rome appears on hundreds of stations via syndica-
local personalities or, instead, be delivered by a tion, the impact for advertisers on a show is the
national personality via satellite by such companies same as the impact of Colin Cowherd, whose pro-
as Premiere Radio Networks, Westwood One and gram is available only to ESPN Radio affiliates. Few
Citadel Media. of the tens of thousands of people listening across
Many syndicated shows that once relied on only the nation care whether a show is coming from a
terrestrial broadcast signals for distribution struck network or a syndicator or appears online (see
deals with satellite radio services. For example, 12.6). The distinction may continue to remain
Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck are syndicated to important to some programmers, however, because
AM and FM broadcast stations via satellite by of the prestige and branding associated with being

12.6 Wi-Fi Radio

T housands and thousands of audio services are

streamed over the internet—simulcasts of many AM/
FM broadcast stations, internet-only webcasters, and radio
address of any audio service you want and then connect
itself to that service’s own computer (called a “server”). You
must then wait several seconds to establish the digital audio
stations from foreign countries. You can listen to these stream, so it’s not practical to browse internet audio offer-
internet audio streams over a computer, tablet or smart- ings on a Wi-Fi radio.
phone that has access to the internet. To help listeners search through the thousands of audio
Wi-Fi radios look and act more like traditional AM/ services available on the internet and quickly access their
FM tabletop or clock radios but link to internet radio sta- favorites, Wi-Fi radios usually interact with a portal or
tions through a wireless access point using Wi-Fi technol- aggregator web site such as Reciva Internet Radio (www.
ogy. Unlike a wireless carrier’s wide area network (WAN) reciva.com), or vTuner Internet Radio (www.vtuner.com).
that covers several miles around each of its tower sites, a These sites catalogue and organize internet audio services
Wi-Fi “hotspot” is a local area network (LAN) with a range by location, language and genre. Listeners visit the sites to
of only a few hundred feet that is intended to be an browse through audio services and designate their favor-
extension of a nearby wired internet connection. So Wi-Fi ites. Those favorites then appear as “presets” on their Wi-Fi
radios will only work if they are within range of a Wi-Fi radios much like favorite radio stations are assigned to
hotspot. buttons on car radios.
With a broadcast radio, listeners can quickly tune up Internet connection ° Modem ° Wireless router °
and down the AM or FM band looking for programs that Wi-Fi radio waves ))))))) Wi-Fi radio
interest them. A Wi-Fi radio must know the specific web
442 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

an affiliate of a highly regarded and widely recog- such enormous fees to syndicated personalities is
nized network such as ESPN Radio. that they generate huge advertising revenue. Talk
As a result of the vastness of the national audi- show hosts like Limbaugh have fiercely loyal audi-
ence, radio remains a gold mine for talented syndi- ences (see 12.7) who are very responsive to adverti-
cated entertainers. For example, in 2008, Premiere sers who support the programs.
signed Limbaugh to an eight-year contract extension One worry is that paying such big bucks for
reported to pay him $38 million per year plus a superstars in national syndication deals will leave
$100 million signing bonus. That same year, Sean talented newcomers no place to develop their skills
Hannity signed a five-year contract reported to be on local radio. Michael Harrison, publisher of Talk-
worth around $100 million. The reason for paying ers Magazine, said, “It’s really sad that so much

12.7 Rush Stumbles But Doesn’t Fall

R ush Limbaugh started his radio career at the young

age of 16, working as an afternoon drivetime disc
jockey in his hometown of Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
ESPN producers, either during that segment or after the sub-
sequent commercial break. Although Berman and other
sportscasters on the show later made public statements
After a relatively nondescript career in music radio and a denouncing Limbaugh’s comment, ESPN executives did not.
short stint in the advertising office of the Kansas City Royals’ Less than one week later, however, Limbaugh resigned.
baseball team, he found his voice as the host of a political Personal troubles continued that year for the man who
talk show in Sacramento, where he tripled the ratings for often says his “talent is on loan from God.” In October the
his time slot. Eventually, The Rush Limbaugh Show, with its newspaper tabloid The National Enquirer published a story
decidedly conservative political stance, found an audience claiming Limbaugh’s former housekeeper had provided his
at stations across the nation. Today more than 20 million employer with thousands of prescription pills over the
listeners tune in each day to hear Limbaugh pontificate on course of four years. A short time later, Limbaugh
his self-proclaimed E.I.B. (Excellence in Broadcasting) Net- announced on his radio program that he was addicted to
work. Limbaugh’s success in the 1990s spread to other prescription painkillers and was checking himself into a
media, too; he authored two books that were bestsellers rehabilitation program. According to Limbaugh, the drugs
and hosted a syndicated television program for a while. had first been prescribed to him by his doctor following
Although his politically-focused TV show was eventually spinal surgery six years earlier. This prompted a state
canceled, in 2003, he had another shot at TV stardom— investigation and attempts to unseal his medical records to
this time as a commentator for ESPN’s Sunday NFL Count- determine whether he used his public personality to “shop”
down. Limbaugh said he wanted his role to be providing for physicians who would provide him with the drugs.
the “fan’s perspective” on what long-time ESPN sportscas- After 30 days in rehab, though, Limbaugh was back
ters Chris Berman, Chris Mortensen and other announcers and as bombastic as ever. What is remarkable is the extent
said during the show. It was understood among cable to which Limbaugh’s audience remained loyal. Survey
programming insiders, however, that ESPN had hired the research found that more than 90 percent of his regular
talk host to do what he did best: generate controversy. listeners said they listened to him as much now as they had
After only five appearances, Limbaugh did just that. Dur- before the scandal. According to the researcher who con-
ing a preview of a Philadelphia Eagles game, Limbaugh ducted the study, there was “no increase in defections or
commented that Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb’s negative comments even at the height of the most negative
abilities had been overrated by the media because he was publicity. The majority of his regular listeners are still rock-
an African-American. In hindsight, what may have been solid behind him.”11
more shocking than the claim itself was that none of the other
hosts (two of whom were African-Americans) challenged Robert F. Potter
Limbaugh on it. Nor were they instructed to do so by the Indiana University
 CHAPTER 12 Information Radio Programming 443

money will go to the superstars and so little to the are normally found just in larger markets with big
new talent.”12 However, some predict the next crop enough population bases to generate the needed
of talented talk personalities will come from digital audience flow.
platforms, not the traditional route of working their Given that listeners are constantly tuning in and
way to national syndication from smaller market out of all-news stations, commercials, program ele-
broadcast stations. Personalities who can prove ments and promos must be scheduled much more fre-
their talent by building a unique brand with a loyal quently than in other formats in order to obtain an
audience through podcasting or web streaming will effective frequency among the constantly changing
catch the attention of syndicators looking for the audience. While station managers and air talent will
next big talk personality. get “sick of hearing the same thing over and over and
over,” the program director must look out for the
typical listener, who tunes in for perhaps 20 minutes
All-News Formats a day and relies on the heavy frequency in order to be
sufficiently exposed to the information.
Amid the earlier discussion of personalities and com- Another important philosophical decision for
mentary, it is easy to forget that some radio programs an all-news programmer is to decide on an optimal
do not comment on the news but simply deliver it. ratio of different types of news: hard news, enter-
Radio did not become a primary source for news cov- tainment news, economic news, human-interest stor-
erage until World War II, when radio technology, ies and so on. Some all-news programmers insist
although still new to many, became the source of that as many stories as possible should contain a
the memorable voices of Edward R. Murrow, local angle. In other words, even if the story focuses
William Shirer and the other great war correspon- on something taking place overseas, such as the
dents who offered listeners the sounds of battle and 2011 Pacific earthquake and tsunami, in order to
bombing. Today, the use of radio to keep in touch get on the air the story must be written in such a
with what is happening in the world and in local way as to have a simple, clear answer to the ques-
communities remains popular. In such major markets tion, “How does this affect our local audience?”
as Chicago (WBBM-AM), New York (WCBS-AM) This is often accomplished by the presence of an
and Philadelphia (KYW-AM), all-news stations are “exemplar,” a local resident or expert either affected
consistently among the most highly rated. by or offering their opinions on the story.
The all-news format consists of continuous Other programmers make sure their content
newscasts, usually in 20- or 30-minute segments, contains an ample supply of news about motion pic-
for 24 hours each day. One example is WINS-AM ture celebrities, television stars, famous athletes and
(New York), whose slogan for a long time was, “At sex scandals. To them, “news” is the type of infor-
10-10 WINS, give us 22 minutes and we’ll give you mation that can be talked about in the break room
the world.” Because stations following this format at work or with a friend you meet for lunch. For
repeat news cycles over and over, they tend to these reasons, stories about international relations,
attract listeners for short periods of time—only macroeconomic policy, scientific discovery—news
long enough to hear one or two of the cycles. By that cannot easily be put directly into a human con-
the second time, most listeners recognize that the text—is seldom covered.
content is nearly identical to what they heard only
minutes before. This means the all-news format is a
high-cume, low-TSL format; in other words, it Network-Delivered Newscasts
depends on high cumulative ratings to counteract Most large-market stations are now so tightly for-
low time-spent-listening numbers. Because cume rat- matted that they want newscasts more tailored to
ings are based on the number of unduplicated listen- their format than any network can provide. In
ers who tune in, locally produced all-news stations response, the traditional radio networks have shifted
444 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

from delivering newscasts to becoming sources of commercials air, station personnel produce affida-
original sound bites. Stations then use the network vits for the networks affirming the times and dates
sound bites to craft their own custom newscasts. the network spots ran (as proof so their advertisers
Increasingly, network news material is delivered pay the bills).
not by a local anchor or as part of a traditional news-
cast but by a sidekick to the station’s drivetime per-
sonality. One model for the newscaster as sidekick is News Scheduling Priorities
Robin Quivers, who began as a newscaster but who Because the programming of all-news stations is
now is, in effect, one of the team of co-hosts of The based on repeating cycles, scheduling considerations
Howard Stern Show on satellite radio. Using mem- tend to be tighter than for talk stations. On the aver-
bers of the wacky “morning zoo” team as newscas- age, news occupies about 75 percent of airtime on
ters may make traditional journalists shudder, but the an all-news station. The basic elements of newcast-
practice has increased program consistency, reduced ing at an all-news station include the following:
audience turnover and resulted in increased ratings. ■ Hard news copy
As local stations increasingly model their formats
after Stern/Quivers or Imus/McCord, entertainment ■ Recapitulations (recaps) of major stories
environments become the primary sources of local ■ Question-and-answer material from outside
and national news on radio. reporters
Ironically, what were once the great radio net- ■ Results of public opinion polls
work news departments have assisted in killing them- ■ Telephone actualities from exemplars
selves off by passing along sound bites of everything
from presidential addresses to Hollywood stars push- Earthshaking news developments on a global or
ing their latest productions. In 2004, however, Fox national scale are not necessarily uppermost in the
News surfaced as a radio power on stations owned audience’s notion of what is news. During morning
by Clear Channel Radio, reviving network-delivered drivetime, weather and traffic reports should be
newscasts in about 400 markets. Bringing its uniquely emphasized as they will determine how listeners
conservative slant, Fox builds radio interview shows start their day. A typical urban schedule runs in
around current and former cable news hosts such as this way: time announcements at least every 2 min-
Brian Kilmeade and Alan Colmes. utes; weather information (current and forecast) no
In smaller markets and on less successful sta- more than 10 minutes apart; traffic information
tions in larger markets, network newscasts can still every 10 minutes; plus, interspersed, related infor-
be heard in their entirety. Because these stations mation such as school closings, major area sports
have much smaller audience sizes, the radio net- events and so on. In other words, the top priority
works could not survive financially if these were in any all-news format is local, personal, service pro-
the only audiences their national advertisers could gramming. Item repetition slows during midday as
reach. Stations that choose not to carry the news- average listener TSL increases, and is stepped up
casts in full (mostly major-market affiliates) are again during afternoon drivetime (4 to 6 P.M.).
required by network affiliation contracts to at least Predictability is important in news programming
broadcast the commercials that were included because the audience will get used to coming to the
within the newscast. Stations receive private feeds station at specific times for program elements such as
of the commercials from the networks for local weather, traffic and sports. During drivetimes, in fact,
recording and insertion into local programs. They many all-news stations develop on-air slogans that
also receive schedule information from the network. emphasize when listeners can count on hearing what
They must then schedule the network’s commercials matters to them most during their commute to work.
in time periods equivalent to when they would have For example, WWJ-AM (Detroit) gives its listeners
aired in the newscasts. After these replacement “traffic and weather together on the 8s,” meaning
 CHAPTER 12 Information Radio Programming 445

listeners know that they can tune into the station at 8, with a mix of news, talk, sports and midday music.
18, 28, 38, 48 and 58 minutes past each hour and be Increasingly, these stations have moved to all-
sure to get the information they need. information formats with emphasis on local news,
weather, traffic, sports and local talk. They are also
able to attract the highest rated of the nationally syn-
Talk Formats dicated talk programming, primarily because of the
wide signal coverage they have at night. These stations
Just as there is format fragmentation in music radio typically carry heavy commercial loads, often up to
(discussed in Chapter 11), traditional talk has frag- 20 minutes an hour.
mented to include hot talk, advice talk, business
talk, sports talk, success talk and other niche formats. Politics/Issues Talk
Such variations of talk radio differ in approach,
Political talk occupies a formidable spot on any list
sound, and “attitude” and appeal to quite different
of information radio formats. Rush Limbaugh is cer-
audiences. Most consultants now identify at least ten
tainly the king of the genre, but there are many other
major talk formats, shown in 12.8 and described in
well-known syndicated personalities out there, such
more detail in this section.
as Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck and
Ed Schultz. Politics/issues talk is sometimes
Heritage Talk described as programming hosted and listened to
Heritage talk stations typically are 50,000-watt clear by “angry white men”—leaning to either the left or
channel stations that have included at least some talk the right politically. However, that characterization
programming for 40 years or more (see 12.9). Twenty is not altogether accurate. There are examples of
years ago, these were classified as full-service stations successful hosts of color in this format, such as

12.8 Ten Top Talk-Radio Formats

1. Heritage talk: Traditional news/talk formats, mostly 6. Urban talk: Similar to heritage talk but with African-
on the AM band. Broad appeal with mix of news, American appeal. Tends to be in urban areas.
sports, talk, health and financial features. 7. Faith talk: Also called “religious radio.” Used to be
2. Politics/issues talk: Discussion of the latest issues exclusively Christian, but now characterized by a
coming from Washington, DC, around the world, or growing multitude of faiths.
from the local city and state. 8. Spanish/foreign-language talk: Similar to heritage
3. Sports talk: Discussion of the issues surrounding talk but appealing to the needs of the demographic
major team sports of interest to men: football, base- audience that speaks the programmed language.
ball and basketball. Often also supplemented with One of the fastest-growing formats.
play-by-play and “guy talk.” 9. Health and help talk: Advice given to callers
4. Success talk: Formerly, money talk or business radio. about anything from health to finances to home
A mix of investment and personal advice for financial improvement. Includes many syndicated weekend
success. May include talk about upscale travel, programs.
recreation and relaxation. 10. Technology talk: Initially limited to discussion
5. Hot talk: Younger demographic appeal with of computer and networking issues, but expanding
sexually-oriented content. Found on FM stations, but to include discussions of all types of electronic
mostly on satellite radio and digital platforms. gadgets.
446 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

12.9 Heritage News and Talk

I n the mid-1960s, the foundation for all-news radio was

laid by two major broadcasting groups. The first was
Group W, the Westinghouse Broadcasting Company,
and nonaffiliated stations with news services and
programs.
The term talk station was generally adopted when
which converted three AM stations—WINS (New York) KABC in Los Angeles and a few other major-market stations
and KYW (Philadelphia) in 1965 and KFWB (Los Angeles) discarded their music formats around 1960 and began
in 1968—to an all-news format. CBS followed suit with airing information programming featuring the human voice.
several of its owned-and-operated AM stations, first at KABC started with a key four-hour news and conversation
WCBS (New York), KCBS (San Francisco) and KNX (Los program, News/Talk, from 5 to 9 A.M. KGO in San Fran-
Angeles), and later at WBBM (Chicago), WEEI (Boston) cisco later adopted the name of that program to describe its
and finally WCAU (Philadelphia). overall format. KGO used news blocks in both morning
By the mid-1990s, hundreds of stations, mostly AM, and evening drivetime and conversation programs
were identifying themselves as all-news or news/talk sta- throughout the balance of the day. KABC focused on live
tions, and the format was spreading beyond major cities call-in programs, interviews and feature material combined
into smaller markets. Although the all-news format is with informal and formal news coverage. KABC first pro-
dependent on local programming, network affiliation pro- moted itself as “The Conversation Station,” but news/talk
vides coverage most local stations cannot supply. In addi- stuck as the generic industry term for stations that program
tion, a growing number of syndicators supply both affiliated conversation leavened with news during drivetimes.

Lincoln Ware on WDBZ in Cincinnati and Jo community among its audience members. Many
Madison, “The Black Eagle,” on WOL-AM in believe the format provides “a venue for a public
Washington, DC, who can also be heard on SiriusXM that feels ignored, isolated, alienated, and powerless
satellite radio. At the local market level, Ray Talia- to channel their anger concerning…actions by polit-
ferro was the first black talk-show host in a major ical elites… .”14 Politics/issues talk stations can also
market. He started in talk radio in 1967 and joined take the lead in affecting political attitudes and
KGO-AM (San Francisco) in 1977 where he has been social change. Some believe that the impeachment
talking politics in the Bay Area ever since. hearings of President Clinton would never have
Many programmers find success by scheduling come about had it not been for hosts of political
female hosts who can intelligently communicate a talk radio keeping listeners focused on the Clinton/
political viewpoint to an audience. Progressive talker Monica Lewinsky scandal. Others believe the his-
Randi Rhodes broadcasts live from Washington, DC, toric recall election of California governor Gray
during afternoon drivetime and is syndicated nation- Davis would not have occurred had it not been for
ally by Premiere Radio Networks. Diane Rehm of the efforts of such political talk stations such as
National Public Radio (NPR) and WAMU-FM KSFO (San Francisco), KTZK (Sacramento) and
(Washington, DC) has been effectively discussing KFI (Los Angeles). These stations not only consis-
political issues on the air for more than 30 years. tently raised the topic of public dissatisfaction with
The Laura Ingraham Show is syndicated by Talk Davis, but also actively collected listener signatures
Radio Network, and its host was described by Talk- on petitions that led to the eventual recall.
ers Magazine as the “leading nationally-syndicated
female political talker [with a] razor wit.”13
Scholars have recognized that political talk Sports Talk
radio is more effective than many other forms of Sports talk radio is a rising star in information radio.
mass media at generating a sense of solidarity and Growing from only a handful of stations dedicated
 CHAPTER 12 Information Radio Programming 447

to sports programming, there are now more than the show: “states his opinion to his listeners”) is
one thousand commercial sports talk stations on viewed as more attractive to the 18 to 34 male
the air, with some major markets supporting at demographic. Similarly, The Herd with Colin Cow-
least two sports talk stations. The vast majority of herd was picked up because it is a faster-paced show
these stations are AM, but a few FM sports talk sta- skewing to younger males.
tions exist as well. Some of the leading stations Sports programmers agree that a successful
in this genre include WFAN-AM (New York), sports talk station is more than just discussion of
WSCR-AM (Chicago) and WIP-AM (Philadelphia). sports. In fact, some consultants prefer to call the
The growth of sports talk has been fueled not format “guy talk” because what makes the format
only by the overall success of information radio but work is a combination of the games themselves and
also by the sports format’s appeal to men in the 25 a celebration of the lifestyle that goes with them. The
to 54 and 18 to 34 age groups, two elusive demo- fun surrounding a football game is far more than
graphic groups much sought by advertisers. Another just going to the game. The game becomes an excuse
huge factor in sports talk’s success was the develop- for a day-long or weekend-long party with tailgat-
ment of a syndicated radio network as a brand ing, road trips and barbecuing. In sports radio, cap-
extension of the cable television network ESPN. turing on the air the lifestyle of the sports fans is
ESPN Radio is carried on hundreds of affiliates in what really makes this format work. Sports talk per-
the United States, with many of them airing the sonalities commonly discuss movies, celebrities, pol-
feed around the clock. Beyond getting the allure of itics, music and much more—as well as sports. In
the ESPN brand, affiliate programmers acquire some fact, ESPN Radio’s morning drivetime show—Mike
of the hot personalities that viewers are familiar & Mike in the Morning—even has a daily stock
with, such as Mike and Mike (Mike Greenberg and report because the programmers at the network rec-
Mike Golic), Doug Gottlieb, and Brian Kenny. ognize that many of the males in their target market
ESPN Radio is not the only full-time syndicated are interested not only in sports but also in business
sports talk source: Sporting News Radio and Fox and investing.
Sports Radio also reach millions of listeners each
on hundreds of affiliates in North America.
Often, programmers who affiliate with these Success Talk
networks choose not to schedule all of the available This format, also known as money talk or business
programming, electing instead to schedule local radio, offers listeners a mix of investment and per-
hosts to discuss professional, minor league, colle- sonal advice for financial success. Segments include
giate and even high school sports of interest to the discussion of stock trading, retirement planning,
local market. Of course, play-by-play coverage of insurance issues and taxes. Some programmers of
pro and college games is an important element, but success talk also include programs that focus on
other popular sports talk staples include scoreboard health and recreation, chic travel and vacations,
shows, interview shows and talk programs with a and upscale entertainment. Just like the sports talk
sports slant. Ultimately, decisions in this format, format, some stations choose to sign on to a 24-hour
just like any other, must be made according to the syndicated network such as Bloomberg Radio.
desired target market of the programmer. For exam- Others, however, use a mixture of nationally syndi-
ple, some ESPN Radio affiliates felt that the net- cated personalities (Clark Howard and Dave
work’s The Tony Kornheiser Show skewed too old Ramsey) and locally known financial gurus.
for their programming strategies and opted instead Although stations in this format rarely deliver large
to go after The Jim Rome Show, a stand-alone talk ratings, those that succeed do so because they con-
show syndicated by Premiere Radio Networks. vince advertisers that the listeners are very loyal and
Rome’s in-your-face style as he “gives his take to upwardly mobile. One of the best known of these
the clones” (translation for those unfamiliar with shows appears only on the weekends: Bob Brinker’s
448 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

Moneytalk, which focuses on financial advice. success as a podcaster (www.adamcarolla.com).

Examples of stations that program the success for- Tom Leykis, a legendary name in the hot talk for-
mat include WBIX-AM (Boston) and KBNP-AM mat, was also a casualty at KLSX. Steve Dahl, who
(Portland, Oregon). was a hot talker at WCKG-FM (Chicago), also now
hosts a podcast (www.dahlcast.org).

Hot Talk
This format focuses on discussions of sexual issues Urban Talk
that are presented in a titillating way to appeal to the Stations programming this format tend to be in
male audience. Hot Talk programmers are trying to metro areas where the available listening audience
develop a sound that expresses a “rock and roll” includes a large number of middle to upper-
attitude without the music. However, the format middle-class African-Americans. The approach usu-
has mostly retreated to satellite radio and digital ally follows that of heritage or political talk, but the
platforms after the government’s crackdown on issues are those with a strong appeal to black listen-
indecent content on broadcast stations. ers. A syndicated leader is The Tom Joyner Morning
It will come as no surprise that Howard Stern is Show, which is delivered by Joyner’s Reach Media
one of the most successful hosts of talk radio with a to over 8 million listeners on more than 100 stations
“rock and roll” attitude. His move to satellite radio (see 12.10). Although music takes up a substantial
in 2006 left opportunities for others to grow even portion of Joyner’s show, the key programming ele-
larger in their broadcast popularity, although the ment is the information he and his co-hosts provide
window of opportunity seems to be closing. The to their audience. Local stations programmed to
Adam Carolla Show With Teresa Strasser replaced focus on the urban issues of their communities are
Stern on KLSX (Los Angeles) when he moved to sat- also highly popular in major urban areas. In addi-
ellite. However, Carolla lost his job in 2009 when tion to WVON-AM (Chicago), others in this format
CBS radio converted the station from Hot Talk to a include WOL-AM (Washington, DC) and satellite
Top 40 music format. Corolla is now showing radio’s “The Power.”

12.10 African-American Talk on Radio

T he Tom Joyner Morning Show has made a big place

for itself in the radio syndication history books. Begun
in 1994, the show is one of the first nationally syndicated
and multiple local tags or promos to give the show a
“hometown feel.”
Tom Joyner, the self-proclaimed “hardest working man
radio programs hosted and produced by an African- in radio,” made his name a household word with African-
American and distributed by a nonblack network. It Americans while raising money for black colleges and
reaches about 8 million listeners on some 115 stations. other political causes. A daily segment called “It’s Your
Moreover, in 2003, Joyner (majority shareholder and World” is one of the few present-day radio soap operas.
chairman of Reach Media) assumed control and syndica- Listeners say following the on-again, off-again relationships
tion of his own show, making this a rarity in syndication—a of various characters keeps them on the edge of their seats,
black-owned program. and the rating books show that the segment certainly keeps
Distributed as a four-hour morning-drive radio program, them tuned in.
The Tom Joyner Morning Show appeals to an urban con-
temporary audience of affluent adults. It schedules a mix of George L. Daniels, Ph.D.
oldies urban music, guests from politics and entertainment, University of Alabama
 CHAPTER 12 Information Radio Programming 449

Faith Talk Radio, an around-the-clock national Spanish-

language sports radio network that serves Hispanic
This format has long consisted primarily of talk pro-
sports fans in the United States. The network has 44
gramming that focuses on Christian topics. Stations
affiliates throughout the country, reaching nearly
typically have a combination of syndicated program
60 percent of the Hispanic population in the U.S.
elements from such nationally known clergy as Max
The network is also available via SiriusXM Satellite
Lucado, T. D. Jakes and Joyce Meyer; they are
Radio. Of course, regardless of the language, many
accompanied by national and local political talk
information stations now stream their signals over
hosts offering their positions on topics from a Chris-
the web, giving non-English speakers easy access to
tian worldview. The faith talk format is expanding,
foreign-language talk stations from around the globe
however, with many more beliefs now represented.
with the click of a mouse.
Some broadcast stations program exclusively Jewish
talk and Catholic talk, supported by national
Jewish and Catholic network programming. Jewish Health and Help Talk
Moments in the Morning has been on New York/
Although it is rare to find a station that programs this
New Jersey’s community radio WFMU since 1977
format exclusively, many programmers find that a
(www.jmintheam.org), and online sources include
regular offering of some type of advice to listeners is
www.jewishradio.com. Those of the Muslim faith
a good addition to their broadcast schedule. The type
can also find a talk-radio outlet on the web at
of advice varies widely and is usually limited only by
www.radioislam.com, and Bahais can listen to
the host’s expertise. Advice programming contains
www.bahairadio.org. Moreover, podcasting pro-
information on nutrition, health, relationships, home
vides for listeners a wealth of information across a
improvement, sexuality, the law—the list is almost
wide range of religious and spiritual topics.
endless. Some syndicated weekday leaders in this
area include Duke and the Doctor (for health-
Spanish/Foreign-Language Talk related concerns) and Dr. Joy Browne (for relation-
This format, similar to the urban talk format, is one ship issues). Also in this category falls the network
where the information being provided focuses on the devoted to serving the nation’s truckers who are
needs of those whose native language is not English. often on the road during the overnight hours. The
Although the largest markets may have low- Midnight Trucking Radio Network reaches all of
powered AM stations programming information in the United States and over 75 percent of Canada
almost any native tongue, by far the dominant and and Mexico, thanks to overnight broadcasts on many
fastest-growing foreign-language talk format is 50,000-watt stations in the United States (see 12.11).
Spanish. The popularity of this format has grown Often, shows falling in the health/help talk cate-
rapidly along with the number of Spanish-speaking gory air only once a week—usually on the weekend.
people in the United States and has been recognized Well-known nationally syndicated examples include
by national networks. At Home With Gary Sullivan, a show about home
Univision Radio owns or operates 70 radio sta- improvement, and On the Garden Line. Many such
tions in top markets across the country. Its strategy weekend shows also produce “daily minutes” offer-
is to acquire English-language stations in markets ing tidbits of advice to listeners while also promoting
with the largest Hispanic populations and re- their long-form weekend programming.
launch them with Spanish language formats. Univi-
sion also syndicates its popular KSCA-FM (Los
Angeles) program Piolin por la Manana (Piolin in Technology Talk
the Morning) hosted by Eddie “Piolin” Sotelo. Originally referred to as “internet talk,” this format
ESPN recognized the importance of this grow- has now expanded to include discussions of anything
ing demographic when it launched ESPN Deportes to do with computers and technology. Although it is
450 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

12.11 Midnight Trucking Radio Network

C alling itself the “national clearinghouse of informa-

tion, thoughts, and opinions of the American Truck
Driver,” the Midnight Trucking Radio Network (MTRN)
MTRN hosts Eric Harley and Gary McNamara take
calls from truckers and deliver information precisely tar-
geted toward their specific audience, including hourly
airs nightly from midnight until 5 A.M. on 60 affiliates. The reports of weather along the nation’s highways,
number of MTRN affiliates may seem miniscule com- announcements of road closings and construction delays,
pared to the hundreds of stations carrying The Rush Lim- news about legislation affecting the trucking industry, and
baugh Show. However, the network can actually be daily maintenance tips. They also take calls from truckers
heard in almost every market of the country because ten behind the wheel during segments focusing on everything
of its affiliates broadcast on 50,000-watt clear channel from semi-truck insurance issues to the latest in truck tech-
transmitters that have tremendous geographic reach dur- nologies. So, as the network’s website (www.midnight-
ing the overnight hours. This national reach is also trucking.com) says, “Whether you’re behind the wheel or
expanded by MTRN’s availability on mobile devices and just can’t sleep, you’re never alone … when you’ve got The
the web. Midnight Trucking Radio Network.”

unlikely that a programmer will choose to focus on programmer must also consider the gratifications
this topic 24 hours a day, weekly programs focusing desired by various kinds of talk listeners. Some are
on computers have been highly successful. The Kim attracted by the personality of such hosts as Schles-
Komando Show is a weekly syndicated show remark- singer or Limbaugh. Others use talk radio primarily
able not only for explaining technical issues about as a way to gather information. While some listen to
computers in very simple terms to callers but also hear viewpoints that differ from their own, many
for being hosted by a very knowledgeable female per- appreciate hearing their own opinions validated by
sonality in a stereotypically male-dominated genre. the program host.
The programming infrastructures for both news
and talk formats, however, are usually created on
The Content Infrastructure computers and form the skeletons on which hang
the sections of hard news, features, talk programs,
Most information radio formats are constructed to game coverage, sports commentaries, editorials and
showcase different types of content during different so on. At all-news stations, newscasts are repeated in
dayparts. Heritage talk stations, for example, sched- 20-, 30-, 45- or 60-minute sequences, although most
ule a heavy load of news during morning drivetime stations prefer the shorter 20-minute cycles. Cycle
(from 5 to 9 A.M. or 6 to 10 A.M.) and again during length affects spot and headline placement; time,
afternoon drivetime (from about 4 to 6 P.M. depend- traffic, weather and sports scheduling; major news
ing on the market). The rest of their program days story development; and feature scheduling. Advan-
are devoted to various kinds of talk programs and tages and disadvantages are inherent in all lengths;
often include some type of sports programming. which cycle pattern a programmer chooses depends
Although news and talk stations are often seen on local market conditions, staff capability, editorial
as similar because their spoken-word formats are so supervision, program content and commercial load.
distinct from music stations, they are in fact very As mentioned earlier, information formats usu-
different from one another. The all-news program- ally program a larger commercial load than music
mer oversees the equivalent of a single program that stations because the spots seem less intrusive. Typi-
recycles for 24 hours throughout each day, whereas cally, each hour on an information station contains
talk programmers fill most of their days with diverse 12 to 18 minutes of spot announcements. Talk sta-
shows lasting from one to six hours. The talk tions tend to have fewer breaks per hour, and often
 CHAPTER 12 Information Radio Programming 451

the number and location are dictated by the pro- something that may hit a nerve with the host or
grams’ syndicators. All-news stations, especially other listeners. Programmers should keep in mind
those with frequent news and traffic updates, may that, although the audience may like listening to this
run as few as one or two spots in breaks coming controversy, most people will not hold such extreme
every five minutes or less. viewpoints. Callers do not provide an accurate profile
of listeners, but station personnel frequently become
so focused on calls that they forget about the larger
Hosts audience—which should be their prime concern.
In the all-news format, many of the on-air talent are Switching the emphasis to the listening audience usu-
experienced journalists. Some have spent years in tele- ally makes ratings go up. What is known about the
vision or print news prior to joining a radio staff. talk-radio listener appears in 12.12.
Sometimes, radio hosts have many information careers
going at once. Mitch Albom hosts a syndicated talk
show and writes for the Detroit Free Press. Brian Commercial Interests
Kilmeade hosts a three-hour talk show on Fox News Of all radio formats, talk is the most vulnerable to
Radio just after completing duties as a co-host of Fox the appearance of what is really unscheduled com-
and Friends on the Fox News cable network. Talk mercial matter. Payola and plugola have long been
hosts are sometimes experts in their particular field associated with the music industry, but the talk for-
(for example, the doctors or scientists in the health/ mat offers greater opportunities for such abuses. An
help talk format), but usually could best be described hour of friendly conversation presents frequent
as generalists. They have developed the ability to grasp chances for the on-air host to mention a favorite
a subject’s essence. The host of a general-interest issues resort or restaurant or to comment on a newly
talk program will discuss world and local affairs, poli- acquired automobile. Moreover, the program host
tics, medicine, economics, science, history, literature, is often in the position of booking favored business
music, art, sports and entertainment trivia—often on acquaintances as guests. The on-air personality
a single show. It thus becomes a vital part of the host’s receives many offers from potential guests and
daily preparation to keep abreast of current events and local businesses, ranging from free dinners to dis-
to have at least some familiarity with a wide range of counts on major purchases. Policies aimed at pre-
topics. Hosts can subscribe to “show prep” services to venting regulatory violations must emphasize that
receive background information and summaries of
news events and political happenings. 12.12 Demographic Profile of News/
Talk/InformationRadioListeners
Callers and Listeners
It is important for an information programmer (any 1. Almost 60 percent of the audience is male.
radio programmer, really) to remember that people 2. More than three-fourths are age 45 or older.
who are motivated enough to call the station and try
3. Three-fourths have attended college, with 44 per-
to get on the air represent only a small fraction of the
cent holding college degrees.
audience. According to surveys by the Times Mirror
Center for the People and the Press, only 11 percent of 4. Almost two-thirds live in households earning more
Americans say they have attempted to call a talk-radio than $50,000.
program; of these, only 6 percent report that they 5. More than two-thirds own their homes.
made it on the air. It is common for show producers
Radio Today 2010: How America Listens to Radio, Arbitron
and screeners to choose callers to put on the air Marketing Communications, 2010, retrieved from
according to their likelihood of offering an interesting http://www.arbitron.com/home/radiotoday.htm.
perspective on the topic being discussed or saying
452 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

management will severely penalize culprits. Stations view airing “cold” or unscreened calls as a danger-
often require their on-air talent and producers to ous practice. Jim Bohannon of Westwood One, on
sign affidavits showing that they understand the the other hand, prefers the spontaneity of
law on these points, and some hire independent unscreened calls, saying to his listeners, “If you get
agencies to monitor their talk programs for abuses. in, you get on.”
More than one station has reinforced this message The screener for a talk program functions as a
by billing on-air performers for the time when their gatekeeper, exercising significant control over the
casual conversations became “commercials.” information that reaches the air. Screeners con-
However, guests representing commercial enter- stantly manipulate the lineup of incoming calls, giv-
prises may certainly appear on the station. It is ing priority to more appropriate callers and delaying
appropriate, for instance, for a local travel agent to or eliminating callers of presumably lesser interest.
discuss travel in mainland China or for the proprie- The screener asks each caller a series of questions
tor of a health food store to present opinions on to determine whether the call will be used: “What
nutrition. And, obviously, many personalities on the topic do you want to talk about? How do you feel
talk-show circuit have something to sell—a book, a about it? Why do you want to speak on the air?” At
movie, a sporting event, a philosophy and so on. the same time, the screener determines whether call-
Some mention of the individual’s reason for appear- ers are articulate, whether their comments are likely
ing is appropriate because it establishes the guest’s to promote the flow of the program, and whether
credentials. An apt reference might be, “Our subject they possess some unique quality that the host and
today is the popularity of computer games, and our audience will find appealing (see 12.13). In the case
guest is Dr. Ted Castronova, author of a new book of The Dr. Laura Show, for example, the screener
entitled Synthetic Worlds.” A gray area arises on prompts callers to begin by thanking the host and
those occasions when the host seems to be strongly tries to get each one focused on a specific question to
encouraging listeners to buy the book. If the host has ask.
no financial interest in the publication, however, a The screener also asks for the caller’s name.
claim of violating FCC regulations is unlikely. Most stations prohibit the use of full names to fore-
stall imposters from identifying themselves as prom-
inent people in a community and then airing false
On-Air Talk Techniques statements to embarrass the individuals they claim
to be. Another job for the screener is to filter out
Call-in programs are the backbone of talk radio. the “regulars” who call the station too frequently
They can also be complicated to produce, especially as well as those unable or unlikely to make a coher-
if a program has a dozen phone lines to deal with. ent contribution. When screeners must dump a cal-
To help the on-air personality run a smooth show, ler, they say something like, “Thank you for calling,
the call screener or producer has become a vital part but I don’t think we’ll be able to get you on the air
of the talk-radio staff. The screener is partly a today.” Callers thus dismissed and those asked to
“warm-up artist” for the host—building up the call- hold for long periods often complain of unfair treat-
er’s enthusiasm and excitement so that it comes ment, but the screener must prevail, insisting on the
through in the caller’s interaction with the host— right to structure the best possible conversational
and partly serves as a traffic cop. sequence. The most effective screeners perform
their jobs with tact and graciousness, but a few call-
ers always go away mad.
Telephone Screeners When a program depends on callers, what hap-
Screeners add substantially to station budgets, but a pens in those nightmare moments when there are
station can control its programming only through none? For just this emergency, most talk-show
careful screening. Many hosts and programmers hosts maintain a clipping file containing newspaper
 CHAPTER 12 Information Radio Programming 453

12.13 Host Displays

V arious systems are used for the screener to signal to

the on-air host which incoming call is to be aired next.
Most talk stations now utilize computer software they have
music station. Thus, hosts must control the on-air subject
matter and the flow of program material rather than let
callers dictate the programming. The point is to move the
developed themselves or a commercial product. Using show along rather than get bogged down making sure
computers shifts greater program control to the on-air host. each caller gets his or her “full” say.
The computer display indicates the number and nature of Almost all talk stations use an electronic unit that delays
the calls prepared for airing as well as the first name, the programming about seven seconds to allow the host or
gender and approximate age of each caller, and it may audio board operator to censor profanity, personal attacks
specify the point the caller wishes to discuss. The host can and other questionable utterances. The on-air host generally
then alter the complexion of the program by orchestrating controls a “cut button” that diverts offensive program mate-
call order. rial, although the engineer should have a backup switch.
The display also frequently includes material of practical Because the program is delayed, the screener instructs all
conversational value, such as the current weather forecast callers to turn off their radios before talking on the air. If they
and news headlines. Hosts often use a timer to monitor call fail to do this, callers hear their voices coming back at them
length, and many hosts cut a caller off, as politely as pos- on a delayed basis and cannot carry on a conversation,
sible, after 90 seconds to two minutes to keep the pace of causing the host to exclaim, “Turn your radio down!” Lis-
the program moving. Listeners will tune out a poor phone tening only on the telephone, callers hear the real-time
call on a talk station just as they would a weak song on a program material and can talk normally with the host.

and magazine articles saved from their general read- keep archived recordings of previous broadcasts in
ing to provide a background for monologues when order to respond to complaints made by the public.
no calls come in. Another strategy is the expert Talk stations frequently find themselves the tar-
phone list, a list of 10 or 20 professionals with gets of pressure groups, activist organizations and
expertise in subjects of broad appeal. Resorting to political parties trying to gain free access to the sta-
the list should yield at least one or two able to tion’s airtime. Although most partisans deserve some
speak by phone when the host needs to fill time in airtime in the interest of fairness and balance, man-
order to sustain a program. agement must turn away those seeking inordinate
amounts of airtime. Because of this, and the fact
that an effective talk station frequently deals with
Controversy, Balance, and Pressure controversial issues, management can expect threats
Although information radio programmers get many of all kinds from irate audience members. A pro-
opportunities for creative expression, they also must voked listener will demand anything from a retrac-
devote considerable time to administration. Because tion to equal time, and on occasion, someone will
the station deals almost constantly with public- threaten legal action.
affairs issues, its programmers spot-monitor the sta- Potential lawsuits usually vanish, however,
tion’s programs for compliance with FCC rules, and when management explains the relevant broadcast
to avoid legal problems such as slander. A program- law to the complainant. Review of the archived pro-
mer, however, having many other duties as well, gram proves very handy in these situations. When
rarely knows as much about the minute-by-minute the station is even slightly in the wrong, it is good
program as heavy listeners do. Therefore, digital policy to provide rebuttal time for an overlooked
backup systems must be established. Many stations point of view.
454 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

A primary ingredient in the recipe for success in underwriting by businesses and from listener donations
any talk format is commitment at the top—at the during periodic pledge drives. The three major net-
station management level. A timely and innovative works, National Public Radio (NPR), Public Radio
music format can catapult a station from obscurity International (PRI) and American Public Media
to the number-one ranking during a single rating (APM), also look for underwriting from national com-
period. Talk stations and all-news stations, on the panies and foundations in order to fund their produc-
other hand, generally take years to reach their tion operations and keep the program acquisition fees
potential. Once success is achieved, however, the charged to affiliates as low as possible.
talk station enjoys a listener loyalty that endures Sometimes, donations to the national public net-
long after the more fickle music audience shifts works can create a catch-22 situation. This was
from station to station in search of the hits. High experienced in a grand way in 2003. In January of
figures for time-spent-listening and long-term stabil- that year, NPR received a $14 million grant from the
ity in cumulative ratings demonstrate audience loy- John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
alty in the information format. At the time it was the largest grant the public radio
network had ever received. Only a few months later,
it was announced that Joan B. Kroc—late million-
aire widow of the founder of the McDonald’s restau-
Information Formats on rant chain—had bequeathed more than $200 million
Public Radio to NPR; it was one of the largest individual gifts to
any cultural organization in history and far oversha-
Until now this chapter has focused on programming dowed the extraordinary MacArthur gift. Referring
commercial information stations—a task that is ulti- to Kroc’s gift, NPR’s President Kevin Klose said,
mately guided by the specific goal of gathering either “This remarkable act of generosity will help secure
a large audience or one with an extremely desirable the future of NPR as a trusted and independent
demographic and psychographic profile that can then source of news,” but he also worried that news of
be sold to advertisers. The discussion now turns the gift would keep listeners of local stations from
toward another type of information radio, the public making individual contributions, something that
stations, usually guided more by delivering what the would severely hurt the local affiliates because
programmers believe is important information than none of the gift would go directly to the local level.15
by the struggle to gain high ratings. Unlike affiliates of traditional commercial net-
Information programming is among the most pop- works, public radio stations are free to choose pro-
ular formats on public radio stations—at least during grams from any source, including from the three
large blocks of the day. Talk shows such as Car Talk major national competitors, PRI, NPR and APM. Indi-
and A Prairie Home Companion attract large, loyal vidual public radio programmers often decide that
audiences (see 12.14). Similarly, news programs such their local audiences are best served by airing NPR’s
as All Things Considered and Morning Edition are Morning Edition followed immediately by APM’s
popular and trusted sources for millions of Americans. business news program Marketplace Morning Report.
Because of their popularity, the potential for earning More important than allegiance to one network are a
commercial revenue from these shows is great. How- station’s philosophy toward its audience and its fund-
ever, public stations are prohibited from airing adver- raising capability, degree of localism, and integrity.
tisements and explicitly committed to serving as an As in public television, the nature of the licensee
alternative to commercial broadcasting by providing determines many of the station’s goals. About
programs for specialized, small-audience needs. Instead 60 percent of public radio stations have colleges
of selling commercial spots, the major public radio net- and universities as their licensees, while about one-
works sell their programs to affiliates (the member sta- third are licensed to independent community organi-
tions), who must in turn find funds from local zations, 6 percent to local school districts or local
 CHAPTER 12 Information Radio Programming 455

12.14 A Companion to Prairie Home Companion

“
I t’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota,
my home town.” For almost 30 years, those words
have introduced listeners to the lives of the most famous
Andy Stein, Richard Dworsky, Arnie Kinsella and Gary
Raynor (making up Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band), and Tom
Keith and Fred Newman handling sound effects. Tim
nonexistent residents of Minnesota’s most famous nonexis- Russell, Sue Scott and Erica Rhodes contribute as actors.
tent town. Those are also the words associated with These people, along with a seemingly endless list of guest
Garrison Keillor, one of the world’s greatest living storytel- stars (the show is considered one of the most significant
lers. But few could have seen his genius in the beginning. outlets for all genres of folk music) keep the only regularly
The name A Prairie Home Companion was borrowed scheduled live radio variety show in the United States fresh
from the Prairie Home Cemetery in Moorhead, Minnesota, and innovative every week.
back in 1969 when Keillor was doing a morning show on People everywhere now know about “The Catchup
Minnesota Public Radio. While researching the Grand Ole Advisory Board” (a compromise between the two spellings
Opry for an article, Keillor had one of those incredibly of catsup and ketchup) and “natural mellowing agents,”
brilliant moments that most others would have considered The Professional Organization of English Majors, Be-
insane. His idea was to produce an old-fashioned radio Bop-A-Re-Bop Rhubarb Pie, the Café Boeuf, and Ralph’s
variety show. Never mind that live radio plays had been Pretty Good Grocery (where “if you can’t find it, you can
declared dead for more than 20 years. NPR wasn’t inter- probably get along without it”). Guy Noir and Dusty and
ested, but about five years later, with the help of the more Lefty have become household names; Dusty and Lefty even
adventurous Minnesota Public Radio, Garrison Keiller’s first have their own sponsor (Prairie Dog Granola Bars—“health-
variety broadcast occurred on the campus of Macalester ier than chewing tobacco and you don’t have to spit”). Per-
College in St. Paul. There were 12 people in the audience. haps the reason the program seems to speak to so many
As they say, the rest is history. people, and has lasted so long, are its regular looks into the
News of the seemingly innovative program quickly ordinary lives of the citizens of the fictional Lake Wobegon.
spread by word of mouth, audiences grew, and a decade Carried by about 500 radio stations and listened to by
later the show moved into a larger St. Paul theater (later nearly 4 million people in the United States, A Prairie Home
renamed the Fitzgerald Theater) where it has been—with Companion has become a worldwide broadcasting phe-
brief interruptions—ever since. Those interruptions included nomenon, aired in different versions by New Zealand’s
renovations in 1986, Keillor’s retirement from radio in National Radio, WRN in Europe, BBC 7 in England and
1987 to marry and move to Europe, and the period from RTE in Ireland, among other places. It has also become the
1989 to 1993 when the show was broadcast from New flagship program for its distributor, American Public Media,
York under the name Garrison Keillor’s American Radio which challenges NPR for the public broadcasting crown.
Company.
Today, alongside Garrison Keillor, a small group of William J. Adams, Ph.D.
people keep the show going. These include Pat Donohue, Kansas State University

governments, and 4 percent to state governments. noncommercial radio programmers. WFMT’s

Because most public stations rely on NPR, PRI and Beethoven Satellite Network, the Association of
APM for much of their information programming, a Independents in Radio (AIR) and a variety of station
brief look at each appears in 12.15, 12.16 and programming consortia that have emerged to pro-
12.17. Pacifica, one of the most influential of public vide program elements. The appetite is strong for
station groups, is described in 12.18. more information programming than NPR, PRI,
A myriad of other sources for programming— APM or any commercial outlet, for that matter, can
informational and otherwise—are available to supply.
456 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

12.15 National Public Radio

A private, nonprofit corporation, NPR contributes pro-

gramming to more than 900 nonprofit radio stations
that broadcast to communities in all 50 states, Puerto Rico,
Things Considered and Weekend Edition are its most
distinguished trademarks and the core of its program ser-
vice. NPR also successfully programs talk about politics
the District of Columbia and even the Virgin Islands. It and social issues with shows such as Talk of the Nation
programs two channels on SiriusXM Satellite Radio, pro- and Fresh Air. NPR also has provided leadership in music
duces multiple international services heard in more than and arts programming for the public radio system with
150 countries, provides programming for Armed Services such shows as From the Top, JazzSet, Radiolab and live
Radio and operates NPR FM 104.1 in Berlin, Germany. broadcasts of musical events from Europe and around the
The considerable international reach of NPR’s informa- United States. It has provided stations with in-depth
tion programming through satellite delivery is now extended reporting on education, bilingual Spanish news features,
through digital media platforms. NPR.org presents con- and live coverage of Senate and House committee
stantly updated news, streaming audio, downloadable hearings.
multimedia content (including video and photojournalism) However, not everyone applauds NPR programs. Con-
and podcasts. NPR has launched several apps for smart- servative members of Congress complain that NPR’s pro-
phones and tablet computers. grams have a liberal bias (denied by NPR) and have
In the United States, each NPR station is itself a pro- proposed prohibiting any federal funds from being used to
duction center, capable of producing and distributing pro- pay for NPR programs. While NPR does not receive fund-
gramming to the entire system. Each station mixes locally ing directly from Congress for its operations, its member
produced programs with those transmitted from the national stations rely on grants from the taxpayer-funded Corpora-
production center. A combined satellite and internet content tion for Public Broadcasting (CPB) to help pay NPR pro-
distribution service allows better-quality transmission of gramming fees. Threats to NPR funding rise and fall
existing programs. The high quality of national programs depending upon which political party controls Congress.
frequently entices stations to use NPR’s offerings. Efforts to cut-off funds and growing pressure to reduce
NPR schedules news, public affairs, arts, music and government spending mean NPR and public radio stations
drama programs to fit into whatever formats member sta- across the country need to rally listeners periodically to
tions choose. The news programs Morning Edition, All contact Congress in support of public broadcasting.

12.16 Public Radio International

I n 1983 a group of five stations formed a second public

national radio network called American Public Radio
(APR). Minnesota Public Radio, KUSC-FM in Los Angeles,
Today, PRI programming is carried by over 880 affiliated
stations. Its content is also available on pri.org through a
smartphone app and podcasts. Its stated mission is “to serve
KQED-FM in San Francisco, WNYC AM/FM in New audiences as a distinctive content source for information,
York and WGUC in Cincinnati initially joined together to insights and cultural experiences essential to living in our
market and distribute programs they produced and to diverse, interconnected world.”16 Although well-known for its
acquire other programming to distribute to affiliates. The music programs, it is telling that the first goal PRI claims is to
name was changed to Public Radio International (PRI) in provide information. PRI distributes news programs such as
1994 to help end confusion between APR and NPR and BBC World Service, The World and America Abroad. It
also to underline the network’s interest in importing and also has the urban-talk program The Tavis Smiley Show, the
exporting radio programs in the international popular storytelling program This American Life and health
marketplace. information shows such as Zorba Paster on Your Health.
 CHAPTER 12 Information Radio Programming 457

Finally, the government is, itself, in the noncom-

12.17 American Public Media mercial information radio business. The National

A
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
broadcasts local weather information over 1,000
merican Public Media (APM), the parent organi-
zation for Minnesota Public Radio, Southern Cali-
NOAA stations in the 160-megahertz band, and
fornia Public Radio and Classical South Florida, is the state governments operate numerous Highway Advi-
largest owner and operator of public radio stations and sory Radio (HAR) stations within the AM broadcast
produces more than 20 public radio programs that are band (see 12.19 and 12.20).
heard on nearly 800 stations. APM is the largest pro-
ducer and distributor of classical music programming in
the United States. It is home to the immensely popular What Lies Ahead
variety show A Prairie Home Companion, as well as the
weekday business show Marketplace. Other talk/infor-
When it comes to the future of information radio,
mation programs produced and distributed by APM
perhaps the most obvious statement is that the for-
include American RadioWorks, The Story and Being
mat is not going to disappear any time soon. Our
(featuring “conversations about life’s deepest
society has developed a high level of urgency about
questions”).
obtaining relevant news and information. How-
ever, programmers might wonder whether tradi-
That was certainly part of the logic behind the tional terrestrial radio is going to disappear now
1999 FCC rules that introduced noncommercial that content can be delivered on multiple digital
low-power FM (LPFM) radio service. LPFM consists platforms.
of stations with either maximum power levels of In simpler times, programmers only worried
just 10 watts (reaching areas with a radius of 1 to about competition from the radio stations in their
2 miles) or 100 watts (reaching areas with a radius markets and had the straightforward task of attract-
of approximately 3.5 miles). Despite vigorous lobby- ing listeners to their stations’ frequencies and keep-
ing against the idea by National Association of ing them listening for as long as possible. Now that
Broadcasters (NAB)—who were concerned that the cell phones and computers have evolved into wire-
presence of even low-power transmission towers less multimedia devices, consumers can access audio,
would interfere with existing commercial broadcast video, text and more from around the world in the
station signals—today hundreds of LPFM stations palm of their hands and listen, watch or read on
broadcast information programming to local com- their own terms. Programmers must now export
munities. Most are programmed by educational content to listeners rather than just importing listen-
facilities, local church groups or city governments. ers to the content on radio stations.

12.18 The Pacifica Group

T he Pacifica stations—WBAI-FM (New York), WPFW-

FM (Washington, DC), KPFT-FM (Houston), KPFA-FM
(Berkeley) and KPFK-FM (Los Angeles)—pioneered the
through communication between all races, nationalities
and cultures.”17
These stations were especially successful during the late
news and public-affairs format for noncommercial public 1960s and early 1970s when the nation was highly politi-
radio. The Pacifica Foundation, licensee of the stations in cized over Vietnam and Watergate. In their reporting of that
this group, has a specific social and political purpose that war and the surrounding issues they demonstrated the vital role
influences its approach to news and public affairs. Listeners played by broadcasting that is free from commercial restraints.
have little difficulty recognizing the far left-wing political Pacifica stations played a similar role during the brief Persian
predisposition, and Pacifica is open about its philosophy. Gulf War and continued with vocal criticism of the United
Its network’s mission is “to promote peace and justice States’ invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.
458 PART FIVE Audio Programming Practices

12.19 NOAA Weather Radio

N OAA Weather Radio is a nationwide network of

radio stations broadcasting continuous weather
information direct from a nearby National Weather
and technological (such as chemical releases or oil spills)
hazards.
Known as the “Voice of the National Weather Service,”
Service office. NOAA Weather Radio broadcasts NOAA Weather Radio is provided as a public service by the
National Weather Service warnings, watches, Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmo-
forecasts and other hazard information 24 hours a day. spheric Administration. The NOAA Weather Radio network
Under the FCC’s new Emergency Alert System, has more than 1,000 transmitters that cover the 50 states,
NOAA Weather Radio has become an “all hazards” adjacent coastal waters, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands
radio network, making it the single source for the most and the U.S. Pacific Territories. NOAA Weather Radio requires
comprehensive weather and emergency information a special radio receiver or scanner capable of picking up the
available to the public. NOAA Weather Radio signal. Broadcasts are found in the public service band at these
broadcasts warning and post-event information for seven frequencies (MHz): 162.400, 162.425, 162.450,
both natural (such as earthquakes and volcano activity) 162.475, 162.500, 162.525 and 162.550.

12.20 Highway Advisory Radio

A long highways people see bright orange signs with

flashing lights along the side of the road. Such signs
read, “Motorist Advisory When Flashing: Tune Radio to
These broadcasts are possible as the result of an FCC
authorization for “Travelers’ Information Stations.” Accord-
ing to FCC regulations, radio frequencies 530 through
1610 AM” (or some similar frequency). This is an invita- 1700 kHz may be used by governmental entities and parks
tion to listen to Highway Advisory Radio (HAR) stations. districts to inform the public about traveler safety informa-
HAR stations give motorists a wide variety of information, tion. There are some limitations, however, such as the out-
such as details about the latest highway construction put power of HAR stations cannot exceed 10 watts, and
and maintenance projects, details on local traffic and transmissions may not interfere with any existing commer-
weather conditions that may impede travel, locations cial stations (which is why HAR stations are usually at the
of upcoming rest stops and descriptions of local points of very far ends of the AM band). In addition, identifying the
interest. commercial names of businesses is prohibited.

Broadcasters will hang onto the traditional Programmers will also be wondering where they
radio advertising business model as long as possible will find the talent necessary to attract a loyal audi-
while they struggle with learning how to best make ence and build a brand that can be marketed on
money from digital platforms like podcasting, web multiple platforms. No matter how content is deliv-
streaming and smartphone apps. Some form of mul- ered, it will always be essential to have compelling
tiplatform strategy has become crucial, but at pres- personalities who can attract listeners. And those
ent, user payments for apps get divided among new talk-radio personalities will likely be found
several parties, leaving only a trickle for stations. with loyal followings on digital platforms rather
However, advertisers are likely to be less than than working their way up from small market
pleased if listeners prefer commercial-free digital broadcast stations. Some may see a brighter future
downloads over listening in real time to the building their own empires on digital platforms
advertiser-supported version on the radio. Broadcast rather than sharing profits with station owners and
programmers need to work closely with sales man- syndicators.
agers and general managers to develop business Finally, talk radio programmers will continue
models that maximize both audiences and revenue. seeking ways to attract younger audiences that
 CHAPTER 12 Information Radio Programming 459

advertisers say they prefer. As the baby boom ages and 6. As quoted in “The Big Questions: A special report on
AM radio station audiences get older, look for more the state of news/talk radio,” Radio Ink, 16 May 2011.
talk radio formats to migrate to the FM band. With 7. Marcucci,Carl, “Numero Uno: Rush!” Retrieved 25
more people preferring to listen to music on MP3 July 2004 from www.rbr.com/interviews/rushrlimbaugh.
asp.
players and through web streaming services, FM
8. “Green Brothers Close Deal to Buy Liberal Talk Radio
broadcast stations will have to reinvent themselves
Network Air America,” Associated Press Worldstream, 6
just as AM radio did when music formats migrated to March 2007. Retrieved from Lexis-Nexis.
FM. 9. Stelter, Brian, “Liberal Radio, Even Without Air
It would be easy to count radio out, but it has faced America,” The New York Times, 25 January 2010, p. C1.
challenges before and adjusted to continue being a via- 10. As quoted in “‘Bob & Tom Show’ Pulls Back from
ble medium. “I believe there is a future for traditional Edgy Content,” Associated Press wire story, 26 February
radio, but we also have to remember we’re in the com- 2004. Retrieved from Lexis-Nexis.
munications business, not the radio business,” says 11. The quote is from Dr. Rob Balon, CEO of The
Jerry Bader, the news/talk program director for Mid- Benchmark Company, in “Study: Rush Limbaugh’s Audi-
west Communications. “The challenge for radio is to ence Remains Solid,” Radio & Records Online, 3 Febru-
ary 2004. www.radioandrecordsonline.com.
use print and video formats to grow the on-air product
12. Personal communication from Michael Harrison to
to the new platforms, not just move them over.”18
Joseph G. Buchman, 27 April 2000. Quoted from Buch-
man’s chapter, “Information Radio Programming,” in the
sixth edition of this book.
Notes 13. “The 100 Most Important Radio Talk Show Hosts in
America—Class of 2004.” Retrieved 26 July 2004 from
www.talkers.com.heavy.html.
1. Credit goes to former authors Robert F. Potter and
Joseph G. Buchman for much of this discussion of infor- 14. Hoffstetter,C. Richard, “The Skills and Motivations
mation’s multiple meanings and other portions of this of Interactive Media Participants: The Case of Political
chapter. Talk Radio.” In Erik P. Bucy and John E. -Newhagen
(eds.), Media Access: Social and Psychological Dimensions
2. Kipper McGee, Kipper McGee, LLC, introduction to
of New Technology Use. Mahawah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2004,
“Digital Media Workshop” at the 13th annual New
p. 211.
Media Seminar, March 19, 2010. Retrieved 26 May 2011
from http://www.podjockey.com/2010/04/08/2010-new- 15. Kaltenbach,C., and McCauley,M. C., “Public Radio
media-seminar-videos/. Gets Bequest of More Than $200 Million; Donation Is
from Widow of McDonald’s Founder,” The Baltimore
3. Smith, Andy, “A Whole New Wavelength,” Providence
Sun, 7 November 2003, p. 1A.
Journal-Bulletin, 13 July 2003, p. E-1.
16. Quoted from the Public Radio International (PRI)
4. Personal communication from Rollye James, talk-show
website. Retrieved 1 June 2011 from http://www.pri.org/
host and radio consultant, to Joseph G. Buchman, Phila-
pri-facts.html.
delphia, PA, May 2000. Quoted from Buchman’s chapter,
“Information Radio Programming,” in the sixth edition of 17. Quoted from the Pacifica Network website. Retrieved
this book. 1 June 2011 from http://www.pacificanetwork.org/radio/
content/section/4/40/.
5. Squires, C. R., “Black Talk Radio: Defining Commu-
nity Needs and Identity,” Harvard International Journal 18. As quoted in “The Big Questions: A special report on
of Press/Politics 5(2), 2000, pp. 73–95. the state of news/talk radio,” Radio Ink, 16 May 2011.
 Annotated Bibliography

This is a selective, annotated listing of recent books, arti- New York: New York University Press, 2007. Com-
cles, guides, reports and trade magazines on broadcast and prehensive survey of the limits and opportunities in the
cable programs and online programming published since new video media.
2006. Additional citations of books, articles and websites Baym, Geoffrey. From Cronkite to Colbert: The Evolution
appear at each chapter’s end under Notes. See also Internet of Broadcast News. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers,
Media Sites. For publications relevant to programming 2010. Analysis of the changing news culture at CBS
prior to 2006, consult the bibliographies to the previous television and its effects.
editions of this book. Beaty, Bart, and Sullivan, Rebecca. Canadian Television
Today. Alberta, Canada: University of Calgary Press,
Abbott, Jon. Stephen J. Cannell Television Productions: 2006. Discussion of challenges facing the Canadian televi-
A History of All Series and Plots. Jefferson, NC: sion industry and government in the face of cable impor-
McFarland, 2009. Compilation of Cannell’s work in tation, high-speed internet access and mobile media.
television with brief discussion of its impact. Bennett, James. Television Personalities: Stardom and the
Albarran, Alan B. Management of Electronic Media, 3rd Small Screen. New York: Routledge, 2011. Insightful
ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2006. Textbook for view of television celebrities, their rise to stardom and
teaching management of new and mature media their impacts.
businesses. Berman, Margo. Street-Smart Advertising: How to Win
Albarran, Alan B., Chan-Olmstead, Sylvia M., and Wirth, the Battle of the Buzz. New York: Rowman &
Michael O. (eds.). Handbook of Media Management Littlefield, 2006. Advice on the creative side of
and Economics. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2006. A syn- marketing strategy.
thesis of current research and industry practice relating Billboard: The International Newsweekly of Music and
to media management. Home Entertainment. New York, 1894 to date,
Alten, Stanley. Audio in Media, 8th ed. Belmont, CA: weekly. Trade magazine of the radio industry. www.
Wadsworth, 2008. Techniques and principles of audio billboard.com.
production from planning to post-production. Bissell, Tom. Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter. New
Arbitron Cable Television Study: Exploring the Consu- York: Pantheon, 2010. Academic essays on the mean-
mer’s Relationship with Cable TV. Columbia, MD: ing and experiences of video game playing.
Arbitron, Inc., 2006. Report of a telephone survey Blakeman, Robyn. Integrated Marketing Communication:
taken in 2006 describing use and distribution of new Creative Strategy from Idea to Implementation. New
media and cable in subscribers’ homes. York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007. Textbook on
Aylesworth, John. The Corn Was Green: The Inside Story building brand equity.
of Hee Haw. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010. History Broadcaster Magazine. Toronto, Canada, 1942 to date.
and impact of the television comedy Hee Haw. Canadian trade magazine covering the radio, television
Banet-Weiser, Sarah, Chris, Cynthia, and Freitas, Anthony and cable industries, with special emphasis on current
(eds.). Cable Visions: Television Beyond Broadcasting. news.

460
 Annotated Bibliography 461

Broadcasting & Cable Market Place (replaced Broadcast- Update on radio stations and programs targeting the
ing Yearbook in 1992). Washington, DC: Broadcasting Hispanic market.
Publications, 1935 to date, annually. Basic trade Chan-Olmstead, Sylvia M. Competitive Strategy for Media
directory of radio and television stations and support Firms: Strategic and Brand Management in Changing
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Broadcasting & Cable: The Business of Television. New the analytic frameworks behind current industry practices
York: Reed Business Information, 1931 to date, with application to the products of the electronic media.
weekly. (Cable added in 1972; radio and Washington Children’s Educational Television, FCC Consumer Facts.
politics dropped in 1992.) Major trade magazine of the Federal Communications Commission, 11 December
broadcasting industry; see especially Special Reports on 2006. www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/childtv.html.
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corporations, radio, reps, satellites, sports, syndication Cohen, Noam. “ Bloggers Take on Talk Radio Hosts.”
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tions, 1972 to date, twice monthly. Newsletter and based on blogged messages.
supplements explaining findings of the Federal Com- Collins, Kathleen. Watching What We Eat: The Evolution of
munications Commission, courts, and Congress affect- Television Cooking Shows. New York: Continuum, 2009.
ing broadcast operations. An exploration of cooking programs’ shift from education
Burgess, Jean, and Green, Joshua. YouTube: Online Video to entertainment and their impact on social attitudes.
and Participatory Culture. Polity Press, Cambridge, Comm/Ent: A Journal of Communications and Entertain-
Mass., 2009. Scholarly assessment of the societal ment Law. San Francisco: Hastings College of the Law,
functions and politics of YouTube from a social science 1978 to date, quarterly. Law journal containing articles
perspective. summarizing the law on specific issues, including
Butler, Jeremy G. Television: Critical Methods and Appli- broadcasting and new technologies.
cations, 3rd ed. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2007. Intro- Communications & Convergence Review. Published by
ductory textbook about the production of television Korea Information Society Development Institute,
programs and commercials from a critical and cultural Gwacheon, Korea, since 2009. A journal of multidis-
media perspective. ciplinary research about convergence of technologies,
By the Numbers: Street & Smith’s SportsBusiness Journal users, applications and regulations relating to mobile
(weekly). Street & Smith since 1998. Ongoing updating and online media and other forms of electronic
of events and facts about sports, especially televised communication.
sports. Community Television Review. Washington, DC:
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Journal of Radio Studies 13 (Winter 2006), pp. 34–50. programming.
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Darnell, Simon C., and Wilson, Brian. “ Macho Media: Farhi, Paul. “ Tomlinson Cited for Abuses at Broadcast
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analysis of on-air programming of MOJO Radio. Report: In the Matter of Annual Assessment of Com-
David, Nina. TV Season. Phoenix, AZ: Oryx, 1976 to petition in the Market for the Delivery of Video Pro-
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DBS News. Washington, DC: Phillips Publishing, 1983 to Public Interest, and the Law, 2nd ed. Edinburgh, UK:
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De Vito, John, and Frank Tropea. Epic Television Mini- versity of California Press, 2005. Overview of the history
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Fritz. Broadcasting, Cable, the Internet, and Beyond: the newest media technologies, written by academics
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New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007. Up-to-date edition of Green, Andrew. From Prime Time to My Time: Audience
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———. Duncan’s Radio Market Guide. Cincinnati, OH: Greven, David. Gender and Sexuality in Star Trek: Alle-
Duncan’s American Radio, 1976 to date, annually. gories of Desire in the Television Series and Films.
Companion reference volume on the revenue ratings Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009. Analysis of gendered
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Strategic planning for marketing networks, stations, media in international markets.
cable systems and websites to audiences and Ha, Louisa S., and Ganahi, III, Richard J. Webcasting
advertisers, Worldwide: Business Models of an Emerging Global
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HBO Reader. Lexington, KY: University Press of Ken- of the business practices of webcasters around the
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HBO and assessments of their importance and impacts. Halper, Donna H. Icons of Talk: The Media Mouths That
Erickson, Hal. Encyclopedia of Television Law Shows: Changed America. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press,
Factual and Fictional Series About Judges, Lawyers 2009. Analyses of the major talk radio and television
and the Courtroom, 1948–2008. Comprehensive list- figures and their individual and collective impact.
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Production, Programming, and Performance, 7th ed. Lochte, Bob. Christian Radio: The Growth of a Main-
Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2007. Handbook for intro- stream Broadcasting Force. Jefferson, NC: McFarland
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including programming aspects. Christian-oriented radio talk.
Holmes, Su. The Quiz Show. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Uni- Lotz, Amanda D. The Television Will Be Revolutionized. New
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Howard, Herbert H. Ownership Trends in Cable Televi- The LPTV Report. Butler, WI: Kompas/Biel & Associates,
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comparative series on the 50 largest cable multiple- casters Association, an organization of low-power
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NJ: Erlbaum and the University of St. Gallen, the Small Screen.” MediaPost Publications, www.
Switzerland (Institute for Media and Communications tvboard@mediapost.com. Near daily blogs from Jack
Management), 1999 to date. Scholarly articles on Myers and others about advances and problems in
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new media. American Idol. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University
Jermyn, Deborah. Sex and the City. Detroit, MI: Wayne Press, 2011. Analysis of the production techniques of
State University Press, 2008. Analysis of the classic this blockbuster television show and its impact on
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Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media. Washington, Multichannel News: The Newspaper for the New Elec-
DC: Broadcast Education Association, 1955 to date. tronic Media. New York: Reed Business Information,
Scholarly journal covering research in all aspects of 1980 to date, weekly. Trade newspaper of regulatory,
television and radio broadcasting, especially emphasiz- programming, financial and technical events affecting
ing those topics with industry impact. electronic media.
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reporting empirical studies and humanistic analyses the 1989 to 1990 period on developments in federal
that describe and explain consumer behavior. regulation, ratings research and other matters affecting
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on historical and contemporary radio, including franchise regulation and technology, including legisla-
programming. tive updates.
Keith, Michael C. The Radio Station: Broadcast, Satellite, NATPE International Newsletter (formerly NATPE Pro-
and Internet, 7th ed. Boston, MA: Focal Press, 2007. grammer). Washington, DC: National Association of
Newest edition of this classic guide to the business of Television Program Executives, 1990 to date, monthly.
running radio stations. Emphasizes station operations Trade newsletter of the national programmers’
and marketing, satellite radio, web radio and association.
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464 Annotated Bibliography

year. Magazine emphasizing evangelical broadcasting and physical characteristics that feed into harmful
on radio and television, with informal style. stereotyping by children.
Palmer, Shelly. Television Disrupted: The Transition from RTNDA Communicator. 1946 to date, monthly. News-
Network to Networked Television. 2nd ed. Boston, letter of the Radio-Television News Directors
MA: Focal Press, 2008. Examines the changing tech- Association.
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directed toward professionals and business executives. the satellite industry. Golden, CO, 1994 to date.
The Pay TV Newsletter. Carmel, CA: Paul Kagan Associ- Sterling, Christopher H., Bernt, Phyllis W., and Weiss,
ates, 1983 to date, weekly. Trade summaries of analy- Martin B. H. Shaping American Telecommunications:
ses and events affecting premium cable television. A History of Technology, Policy, and Economics.
Pondillo, Robert. America’s First Network TV Censor: Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2006. An authoritative expla-
The Work of NBC’s Stockton Helffrich. Carbondale, nation of the stages of telecommunications develop-
IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2010. Explication ment. Covers policy decisions, innovations and
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Producers Quarterly. Port Washington, NY: Producers Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press,
Quarterly Publications, 1991 to date. Trade magazine 2008. Definite chronicle of FM radio, its influence on
for executives in the movie and television production government regulation, politics and society, and its
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stories, and interviews with producers. Video Blogging and Podcasting. Boston, MA: Focal
Radio Ink. Biweekly magazine for radio managers, 1998 Press, 2006. Covers technology, production techniques,
to date. licensing and launch instructions for podcasts and
Radio and Internet Newsletter (RAIN). Free, daily web- video blogs, including uses in business, education and
based commentary on issues, published by Kurt Han- entertainment.
son, 1999 to date. www.kurthanson.com. Strangelove, Michael. Watching YouTube: Extraordinary
Radio & Records: The Industry’s Newspaper. Los Videos by Ordinary People. Toronto, Canada: Uni-
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Broadcasters, 1960 to date, weekly. Newsletter on impact and symbolism, as well as its implications for
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Robinson, Tom, and Anderson, Caitlin. “ Older Charac- Crain Communications, 1982 to date, weekly. Trade
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Content Analysis of Their Portrayal.” Journal of and new media technologies. Available online at www.
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 Annotated Bibliography 465

media news on the internet derived from the major Practice of Audience Research, 3rd ed. Mahwah, NJ:
international news service. Print and online at www. Erlbaum, 2006. Authoritative description and analysis
tviNews.net. of audience ratings data for industry and scholarly
TV Today. Washington, DC: National Association of users of ratings. Covering applications, collection
Broadcasters, 1970 to date, weekly. Newsletter methods, and models for data analysis—especially for
addressing matters of interest to broadcast station electronic media.
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Variety. New York and Hollywood, 1925 to date, weekly. Wadsworth, 2011. Updated version of this classic text
Trade newspaper covering the stage and the film, on applied research methods in mass media, empha-
television and recording industries. sizing broadcasting; includes survey methods and peo-
Vorderer, Peter, and Bryant, Jennings. Playing Video ple meter ratings.
Games: Motives, Responses, and Consequences. Yuan, Elaine J., and Webster, James G. “ Channel Reper-
Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2006. Psychology of mediated toires: Using Peoplemeter Data in Beijing.” Journal of
game playing as entertainment; includes simulations, Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 50 (Summer 2006),
gambling and role-playing games. pp. 524–536. Report of regression analysis of minute-
Webster, James G. “ Audience Flow Past and Present: by-minute viewing in China, showing that total time
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of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 50 (Spring 2006), 65 percent of variance.
pp. 323–337. Scholarly replication of an earlier study Zettl, Herbert. Television Production Handbook, 9th ed.
of audience flow between back-to-back programs; Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2006. Update of the
finds the same predictors and strength of influence widely-used classic text that introduces students to the
20 years later. skills and techniques of producing television programs
Webster, James G., Phalen, Patricia F., and Lichty, (including high-definition video) in the studio and
Lawrence W. Ratings Analysis: The Theory and field.
 Internet Media Sites

This list was current for 2012 and is continually updated on www.ctam.com
the home page link for this textbook, searchable from http:// www.dsl-forum.org
media-programming.com. If you encounter difficulties with www.kagan.com
any of the addresses below, try entering the minimal URL www.mediapost.com/publications/
address by preceding it with http:// and then deleting any www.multichannel.com
material after the .com portion. www.newschannels.org
www.soapcentral.com
General Interest Sites www.sportsbusinessjournal.com
www.zap2it.com/tv/ www.tvguide.com/
www.broadcastingcable.com www.tvnewscheck.com
www.disney.com www.tvweek.com
www.fcc.gov www.variety.com
www.hollywoodreporter.com www.zap2it.com/tv
www.mediaweek.com
www.nab.org (broadcast industry) Schedules
www.natpe.org (programming industry) tvlistings.zap2it.com
www.ncta.com (cable industry) www.allmytv.com
www.sbca.com (satellite industry) www.allyourtv.com
www.sia.org (satellite industry) www.clicktv.com
www.tvb.org (TV broadcast industry) www.tvguide.com/Listings/
www.newscorp.com www.tviv.org/Category:ProgrammingGrids (best source of
www.timewarner.com current and historical program grids)
www.viacom.com
www.warnerbros.com Ratings Research
tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/
For other media organizations and associations, see the list in www.adage.com (Ad Age online)
1.22 on page 36 of this textbook. www.arbitron.com
www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/charts/currentsingles
Updates and News Summaries www.katz-media.com
tv.yahoo.com www.krgspec.com/ (Katz Media)
tv.zap2it.com www.MediaMetrix.com (comScore)
www.adweek.com www.ncta.com
www.allcommunitymedia.org (Alliance for Community www.nielsenmedia.com
Media) www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/top10s/television.html
www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/industry www.nielsen.com/us/en/measurement/online-
www.bitpipe.com measurement.html
www.broadcastingcable.com www.tvweek.com
www.cable360.net/ www.zap2it.com/tv/ratings/

466
 Internet Media Sites 467

Broadcast Networks www.tbn.org

www.abc.com www.tnt.tv.com
www.cbs.com www.turnerclassicmovies.com
www.cwtv.com www.travelchannel.com
www.fox.com www.trutv.com
www.iontelevision.com www.usanetwork.com
www.mntv.com www.vh1.com
www.nbc.com www.vvtv.com
www.pbs.org www.weather.com
www.telefutura.com www.wewomensentertainment.com
www.telemundo.com
www.thecw.com Public Broadcasting
www.univision.com www.aptonline.org
www.cpb.org
www.current.org
Cable www.npr.org
abcfamily.go.com www.pbskids.org
dsc.discovery.com www.pbs.org
espn.go.com www.pri.org
soapnet.go.com
www.aetv.com Satellite
www.amctv.com www.directv.com
www.bet.com www.dishnetwork.com
www.bravotv.com www.newschannels.org
www.cartoonnetwork.com www.sbca.com
www.cbn.org
www.cinemax.com
www.cnbc.com Radio
www.cnn.com www.allaccess.com
www.comedycentral.com www.billboard.com
www.disneychannel.com www.citadelmedianetworks.com
www.eonline.com www.clearchannel.com
www.foodtv.com www.cumulus.com
www.foxnews.com www.npr.org
www.fxnetworks.com www.radio-info.com
www.galavision.com www.siriusxm.com
www.hbo.com
www.hgtv.com Online
www.historychannel.com video.aol.com
www.lifetimetv.com www.amazon.com/gp/video/ontv/ontv
www.money.cnn.com www.atom.com
www.msnbc.com www.blockbuster.com/download
www.mtv.com www.chooseandwatch.com
www.nationalgeographic.com/tv/channel www.crackle.com
www.oxygen.com www.funnyordie.com
www.playboy.com/pbtv www.hulu.com
www.ppv.com or www.indemand.com www.itvt.com
www.scifi.com www.movielink.com
www.showtimeonline.com www.netflix.com
www.soapcentral.com www.streamingmedia.com
www.sportsbusinessjournal.com www.vodpod.com
www.spiketv.com www.vudu.com
www.superstation.com www.youtube.com
 About the
Contributing Authors

William J. Adams, professor of Communication in the Washington, DC. Drawn to the business of television, he
School of Journalism & Mass Communication at Kansas subsequently helped to launch or rebrand stations in sev-
State University, has a B.A. from Brigham Young Univer- eral major markets. While in Florida, Professor Affe
sity, an M.A. from Ball State University, and a Ph.D. from taught courses in communications law and media man-
Indiana University. He teaches, researches and writes agement at the University of South Florida and recently
about programming, and especially focuses on network lectured at several leading Chinese universities, including
television programming for prime time and on motion Peking University. He has published chapters in several
pictures. Professor Adams has published extensively as a telecommunications texts, including six editions of Media
journalist and scholar. His work includes chapters in the Programming: Strategies and Practices (1993 to 2013). He
area of television and movie programming in eight editions can be reached at raffe@indiana.edu.
of Media Programming: Strategies and Practices (Wads-
worth, 1985 to 2013); on promotion in Promotion & Glenda R. Balas is associate professor and chair of the
Marketing for Broadcasting & Cable (Focal Press, 2006); Department of Communication and Journalism at the Uni-
and on movies in Research in Media Promotion (Erlbaum, versity of New Mexico. She holds a B.A. in Mass Commu-
2000). He has also published articles in the Journal of nication and an M.B.A. from Eastern New Mexico
Broadcasting & Electronic Media, the Journal of Com- University and received her Ph.D. from the University of
munication and the Journal of Media Economics. Profes- Iowa. Prior to a career in academics, Dr. Balas worked in the
sor Adams brings considerable historical expertise in non-profit and public broadcasting sectors, spending more
television programming to his analysis of present-day than a decade in public information, programming and
prime-time strategies at the major networks. He can be development at public television stations KCTS-Seattle and
reached at wadams@ksu.edu. KENW-Portales, NM. Her research interests include the
history, theories and practices of mass communication,
Robert B. Affe, senior lecturer in Telecommunications and focusing particularly on U.S. public broadcasting. Work in
International Studies at Indiana University, also directs the this area includes journal articles in Critical Studies in Media
Telecommunications Management Institute. His teaching Communication, Journal of Communication Inquiry and
and research center on advertising, management and Democratic Communique, as well as a book entitled
international media issues. A former television executive Recovering a Public Vision for Public Television. Professor
and attorney, he was educated at Georgetown University Balas presented the Leah Vande Berg 2007 Lecture on Media
(A.B.) and the New York University School of Law (J.D.). at the University of Iowa. In Spring 2009, she was a Fulb-
After admission to practice before the New York State right Scholar at Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, Canada,
Supreme Court and the District of Columbia Court where she focused on the study of public broadcasting in
of Appeals, he practiced communications law in Canada. Dr. Balas can be reached at gbalas@unm.edu.

468
 About the Contributing Authors 469

Robert V. Bellamy, professor in the Department of Jour- and cable. She has served on several editorial boards, and
nalism & Multimedia Arts at Duquesne University in Pitts- her articles have appeared in such journals as the Journal
burgh, has his B.A. from Morehead State University, his of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, Critical Studies in
M.A. from the University of Kentucky, and his Ph.D. from Mass Communication, the Journal of Communication, the
the University of Iowa. His teaching and research interests Journal of Applied Communication Research, the Howard
include television programming and promotion, media Journal of Communication, the Sociology of Sport
globalization, media and sports, and the impact of techno- Journal, the Journal of Sport & Social Issues and
logical change on media industries. He has professional Communication Yearbook. She can be reached at
experience as a NATPE Fellow and program consultant to eastman@indiana.edu.
KLRT in Little Rock, Arkansas, and as a newscast pro-
ducer, air talent and engineer for stations in Lexington and Douglas A. Ferguson is a professor in the Department of
Morehead, Kentucky. Professor Bellamy has published Communication at the College of Charleston, South Caro-
widely about sports and television, network branding, U.S. lina, where he served as the inaugural chair. His B.A. and
media economics and institutions and international media M.A. are from the Ohio State University and his Ph.D. from
communication, including chapters in such books as Sport, Bowling Green State University. Early in his career, he was
Public Broadcasting and Cultural Citizenship (Routledge, program director of NBC-affiliated WLIO (TV) and a sta-
2012), The Twenty-First Century Media Industry (Lexing- tion manager. In addition, he was program director for a
ton, 2010), the Handbook of Media and Sports (Erlbaum, local origination cable channel in Bay City, Michigan, that
2005), Artificial Ice (Garamond, 2006), Promotion & carried local game shows, children’s shows, sporting events,
Marketing for Broadcasting & Cable (Focal Press, 2006), movies and off-network syndication. He teaches, researches
Research in Media Promotion (Erlbaum, 2000), Television and writes about programming and promotion on the
and the American Family (Erlbaum, 2000), Media-Sport internet and other new media technologies and has authored
(Routledge, 1998) and the last four editions of Media Pro- several chapters on aspects of information technology, eco-
gramming: Strategies and Practices (Wadsworth, 2002 to nomics and media programming. He coauthored The
2013). His research appears in such publications as the Broadcast Television Industry (Allyn & Bacon, 1998) and
Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, the Journal of coedited three editions of Promotion & Marketing for
Communication, the Journal of Sport & Social Issues and Broadcasting & Cable (Focal Press, 1999 to 2006) and five
Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly. Professor editions of Media Programming: Strategies and Practices
Bellamy is coauthor of Centerfield Shot: A History of (Wadsworth, 1997 to 2013). Professor Ferguson’s scholarly
Baseball and Television (University of Nebraska Press, work has been published in the Journal of Broadcasting &
2008) and Television and the Remote Control: Grazing on Electronic Media, Communication Research, Journalism
a Vast Wasteland (Guilford, 1996), and coeditor of The Quarterly and Communication Research Reports. He can
Remote Control in the New Age of Television (Praeger, be reached at fergusond@cofc.edu.
1993). He is a member of the Editorial Board of NINE: A
Journal of Baseball History and Culture. He can be reached Matthew T. Kaiser holds a B.A. from the University of
at bellamy@duq.edu. North Carolina at Greensboro and an M.A. from Ohio
University, where his research focused on interrelationships
Susan Tyler Eastman, professor emerita of Telecommuni- among radio programming, telecommunication law and
cations at Indiana University in Bloomington, has her B.A. regulations, and management. He is presently an on-air
from the University of California at Berkeley, her M.A. talent for market leader WQBE-FM, owned by Bristol
from San Francisco State University, and her Ph.D. from Broadcasting Company, and an account executive for their
Bowling Green State University. She is senior author/editor five station cluster in Charleston, WV. Additionally, he
of nine editions of Media Programming: Strategies and serves weekends as on-air talent for Golden Isles Broad-
Practices (Wadsworth, 1981 to 2013), five editions of casting in Brunswick, GA. He is both a Certified Radio
Promotion & Marketing for Broadcasting & Cable (Focal Marketing Consultant (CRMC) and Certified Digital Mar-
Press, 1982 to 2006) and Research in Media Promotion keting Consultant (CDMC) through the Radio Advertising
(Erlbaum, 2000). Professor Eastman has published over a Bureau. He combines an interest in digital and social media
hundred book chapters and scholarly articles, most of with a strong reverence for terrestrial broadcasting, accom-
which focus on the structural, content and industry factors panied by familiarity with marketing and consumer behav-
affecting programming and promotion in television, radio ior. He can be reached at matt@kaiseraudio.com.
470 About the Contributing Authors

Timothy P. Meyer, professor, holds the John P. Blair a member of the Bloomington, Indiana, City Council and
Endowed Chair in Communication and is Chair of the then as chief of staff for Congressman Baron Hill (9th
Communication Program at the University of Wisconsin- District-Indiana), he was first elected to the Indiana House
Green Bay. He received his B.A. from the University of of Representatives in 2002 and has been reelected every
Wisconsin and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Ohio University. two years since then. Representative Pierce also serves on
Before joining the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, he the board of directors of Bloomington’s community radio
taught at the University of Texas at Austin and the Uni- station, WFHB. His teaching centers on media industries
versity of Massachusetts, Amherst. He actively consults in and management and the history of media development.
marketing and advertising research and works in organi- He can be reached at mspierce@indiana.edu.
zational and management communications. Professor
Meyer is coauthor of Mediated Communications: A Social Robert F. Potter is an associate professor in the Depart-
Action Perspective (Sage, 1988). He has published ment of Telecommunications at Indiana University, fol-
numerous chapters and articles on programming and lowing several years on the Telecommunication & Film
marketing in edited books and such major scholarly jour- faculty at University of Alabama. He teaches in the area of
nals as the Journal of Communication, the Journal of telecommunication programming, advertising, marketing
Broadcasting & Electronic Media, the Journal of Market- and management. His primary research interest lies in
ing and the Journal of Advertising. He has contributed to cognitive processing of audio in media messages. He was
seven editions of Media Programming: Strategies and also a radio professional for a decade, primarily in the
Practices (Wadsworth, 1989 to 2013). He can be reached programming and promotion departments at a CHR sta-
at meyert@uwgb.edu. tion in the Pacific Northwest. His B.A. and M.S. degrees
are from Eastern Washington University and his Ph.D. is
Gregory D. Newton is associate director of graduate studies from Indiana University. Professor Potter has contributed
in the School of Media Arts & Studies at Ohio University. to the last three editions of Media Programming: Strategies
In addition to conducting research in media programming and Practices (Wadsworth, 2006–2013). His research is
and television law, he teaches courses in programming, published in Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media,
management, and law and regulation in the Department of Communication Research, Media Psychology, the Journal
Telecommunications. He is the faculty advisor for Ohio of Advertising, and the Journal of Interactive Marketing.
University’s online student radio station, cern.com, and has He can be reached at rfpotter@indiana.edu.
several years of radio station experience, serving as opera-
tions manager, program director and production director as John von Soosten is program director and air personality
well as air talent for several stations with AC, CHR, oldies, for SiriusXM Satellite Radio’s “On Broadway” music
country, big band, jazz and news/talk formats. He holds a channel, based in New York City. He was for many years
B.A. from Northern Illinois University, an M.A. from the senior vice president and director of programming for
Northwestern University, and a Ph.D. from Indiana Uni- Katz National Television, part of the nation’s largest tele-
versity. Professor Newton has published in the Journal of vision representative firm, dealing with syndicated pro-
Broadcasting & Electronic Media, the Journal of Commu- gramming. Before joining Katz in 1984, Mr. von Soosten
nication, the Journal of Radio Studies, the Journal of Media was vice president and program manager of Metromedia’s
Business Studies, the Journal of Promotion and Marketing WNEW-TV, New York (now WNYW-TV), and before
and the Journal of Applied Communication Research. He that, he was production manager at the same station and
has contributed to four editions of Media Programming: production technician at WOR-TV, New York (now
Strategies and Practices (Wadsworth, 2002 to 2013). He WWOR-TV). He also has consulted for program syndica-
can be reached at newtong@ohio.edu. tors and software companies and authored numerous
magazine articles about the business of television and
Matthew S. Pierce lectures in the Department of Telecom- radio. His B.S. is from Ithaca College and his M.S. from
munications at Indiana University while also serving as a Brooklyn College, and he taught television production for
member of the Indiana House of Representatives. He has a many years at the college level. He brings a wide experi-
B.A. and J.D. from Indiana University. He is licensed to ence with syndicated television programming from the
practice law in Colorado, the District of Columbia, perspective of hundreds of U.S. stations and their foreign
Indiana and Pennsylvania. After serving in a variety of counterparts to his chapters in seven editions of Media
staff positions for the Indiana House of Representatives, as Programming: Strategies and Practices (Wadsworth, 1989
 About the Contributing Authors 471

to 2013). Mr. von Soosten has been president of the Michael O. Wirth is dean of the College of Communica-
National Association of Television Program Executives tion and Information at the University of Tennessee,
(NATPE), a director of the International Radio Television after many years as director of the School of Communi-
Society (IRTS), a vice president of the International Radio cation and professor and chair of the Department of
Television Foundation (IRTF), and chairman of the Mass Communications and Journalism Studies at the
NATPE Educational Foundation. He can be reached at University of Denver. He was also a Senior Fellow of the
johnvons@msn.com. Magness Institute for cable telecommunications. He has
been a visiting professor at Renmin University in Beijing,
James R. Walker, professor in the Department of Com- Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, and Curtin University
munication at Saint Xavier University in Chicago, has his of Technology in Perth, Australia. Professor Wirth is an
B.A. and M.A. from Penn State University and his Ph.D. internationally known expert who teaches and does
from the University of Iowa. He has many years of expe- research in the areas of cable telecommunication and
rience as a producer and host of a daily consumer affairs broadcast economics, management and regulation. He
program aired on public television. His teaching and has provided consulting services for a number of multi-
research have focused on television programming prac- channel television distributors, television networks and
tices, the effectiveness of television program promotion, station groups. For five years, he hosted a public affairs
televised sports, and the impact of remote control devices program on Denver television for KWGN-TV. His B.S.
on television viewing behaviors and the television industry. came from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and his
His most recent book is Centerfield Shot: A History of M.A. and Ph.D. from Michigan State University. He is
Baseball on Television (University of Nebraska Press, coeditor of the Handbook of Media Management and
2008) with Robert V. Bellamy, Jr. Professor Walker Economics (Laurence Erlbaum, 2006), coauthor of
coauthored The Broadcast Television Industry (Allyn & Costs, Benefits, and Long-Term Sustainability of
Bacon, 1998) and Television and the Remote Control: Municipal Cable Television Overbuilds (GSA Press,
Grazing on a Vast Wasteland (Guilford, 1996), and 1998), and he has published numerous research articles
coedited The Remote Control in the New Age of Televi- in such periodicals as the Journal of Broadcasting &
sion (Praeger, 1993). In addition, he has published more Electronic Media, the Journal of Media Economics,
than 30 articles in national and regional journals, includ- Journal of Regulatory Economics, Information Economics
ing the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, and Policy, Quarterly Review of Economics and Business
Journalism Quarterly, Nine: A Journal of Baseball History and the Journal of Economics and Business, as well as in
and Culture and the Journal of Popular Culture. He has scholarly books. He has contributed to three editions of
contributed to the last four editions of Media Program- Media Programming: Strategies and Practices (Wads-
ming: Strategies and Practices (Wadsworth, 2002 to worth, 2006 to 2013). Dr. Wirth can be reached at
2013). He can be reached at walker@sxu.edu. mwirth@utk.edu.
 Index to Program Titles

Note: This is a guide to specific television, Arrested Development, 59 Celebrity Poker Challenge, 315
radio, cable, and online programs and movies Arthur, 352, j372 Charmed, 323
mentioned in the text. (Television, radio, and The Ascent of Man, 363 Cheers, 223
cable networks appear in the General Index.) AssaultCube, 142 The Chevy Chase Show, 266, 268
As the World Turns, 255 The Chew, 250
ABC World News, 260, 261 Chuck, 76
ABC World News Now, 262, 298 The Bachelor, 59, 65 CityVille, 140, 141, 148
Academy Awards, 81 Baking with Julia, 345 The Civil War, 363, 364–365
Access Hollywood, 209, 295 Barney & Friends, 352, 372 Civ World, 140
According to Jim, 59 Baseball, 363 Clifford the Big Red Dog, 352
The Adams Chronicles, 363 Battlestar Galactica, 317 The Closer, 117, 316, 317, 323
African-American Lives, 367 Battleswarm, 142 Colbert Report, 268
Agatha Christie’s Poirot, 345 Becker, 58, 81 Cold Case Files, 59, 60, 66, 240
Alias, 209 Being Human, 316 Combat Arms, 142
Alice in Wonderland, 86 Ben Casey, 82 Coming Out Stories, 332
All in The Family, 65 Beverly Hills 90210, 238 Conan, 268, 316
All My Children, 255 Beyond Protocol, 142 Cookie Jar TV, 263
All Things Considered, 430, 454 The Big Bang Theory, 80 Cops, 59
Alphas, 316 Big Brother, 65, 70, 72 Cops & Coyotes, 319
Amateur Hour, 75 Bill O’Reilly, 50 Cosby, 13, 79
Amazing Grace, 29 Bionic Woman, 76 The Cosby Show, 88, 240
The Amazing Race, 69 Blue Mountain State, 319 Cosmos, 363
American Chopper, 319 Bob the Builder, 352 Cougar Town, 64
American Dad, 58 The Bold and the Beautiful, 27 Coupling, 66
American Idol, 6, 11, 12, 48, 50, 53, 54, 57, Bones, 65, 81 Criminal Minds, 209, 277
59, 62, 68, 69, 72, 73, 75, 84, 117, 150 The Brady Bunch, 240 Cristina’s Court, 293
American Idol Rewind, 108 Bridging, 59 CrossFire, 142
American Masters, 349 The Brotherhood of Poland, N.H., 58 CSI, 12, 50, 57, 75, 78, 80, 81, 84, 209, 210,
American Pickers, 315 Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 54 240, 241
America’s Best Dance Crew, 317 Burn Notice, 75 CSI: Miami, 207, 316
America’s Dumbest Criminals, 209 CSI: New York, 60
America’s Funniest Home Videos, 13 Café World, 148 Curb Appeal: The Block, 215
America’s Most Wanted, 59 Call of Duty, 142, 148 Curious George, 352
America This Morning, 262 Candid Camera, 84
Amos ‘n’ Andy, 19 Cape, 62 Daily Show, 268
Andromeda, 73, 317 Car Talk, 430, 454 The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, 12, 317
The Andy Griffith Show, 108 Cash Cab, 319 Dancing with the Stars, 11, 59, 65, 68, 84
Angelina Ballerina, 352 The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!, The Dating Game, 293
Antiques Roadshow, 315, 349, 369 349 Dawson’s Creek, 88, 209
The Apprentice, 58 CBS Evening News, 260, 261 Days of Our lives, 290, 291
Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?, CBS Morning News, 262 Deadliest Catch, 50
59, 84 CBS Up to the Minute, 262, 298 Deal or No Deal, 11, 59, 65, 255, 367
Army Wives, 317 Celebrity Apprentice, 69 Desperate Housewives, 59, 60, 78, 88

472
 Index to Program Titles 473

Dinosaur Train, 349 Fringe, 269 Jericho, 87

Divorce Court, 209, 293 FrontierVille, 141 The Jerry Springer Show, 209, 213, 257
The Doctors, 209 Frontline, 85, 369 Jersey Shore, 50
Dog the Bounty Hunter, 209 Full Tilt Poker, 142 Jesse, 29
Donahue, 257 Jimmy Kimmel Live, 266, 268, 297
Dr. Kildare, 82 Game of Thrones, 319 Joe Millionaire, 84
Dr. Oz, 209, 210, 249, 294 General Hospital, 290, 291 Journeyman, 76
Dr. Phil, 209, 210, 249, 257, 270, 294 George Lopez, 81, 268 Judge Alex, 291, 293
The Dr. Laura Show, 452 Geraldo, 257 Judge David Young, 291
Dragnet, 80 Ghost Adventurers, 319 Judge Jeanine Pirro, 293
Dragon Tales, 352, 372 Ghost Hunters, 318 Judge Joe Brown, 209, 291, 293
Drake and Josh, 331 Ghost Whisperer, 277 Judge Judy, 181, 207, 209, 291, 293, j294
Drop Dead Diva, 317 Glee, 53, 54, 57, 60, 63, 81, 88, 150, 167 Judge Karen’s Court, 293
Globe Trekker, 345 Judge Mathis, 293
Good Morning America, 256, 257, 262, 288, Judging Amy, 75, 81, 323
The Early Show, 256, 257, 258, 262, 288, 289
Early Today, 262 289
Eat St., 319 The Good Wife, 52 Kart Racer, 142
Ed, 75 Grammy Awards, 81 Kidsworld Sports, 352, 359
The Ed Sullivan Show, 71 Grand Theft Auto, 142 King Kong, 323
Ellen, 207 Great Performances, 347, 356 King of Queens, 58, 79, 294
The Ellen DeGeneres Show, 257, 291 Grey’s Anatomy, 60, 78, 82, 84, 167, 240 King of the Hill, 60
Emergency, 82 The Guiding Light, 255
Emeril Live, 319 Gunsmoke, 71
La Fea Mas Bewlla, 60
Emmanuelle, 325 Gut Busters, 319
The Last Airbender, 323
The Enclave, 317 Last Call with Carson Daly, 266
Entertainment Tonight (ET), 16, 28, 71, 207, Have Cake, Will Travel, 319 The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson,
209, 214, 295 Haven, 316 266, 297
Entourage, 319 Hawaii 5-0, 65 Late Night with Conan O’Brien, 197
ER, 58, 60, 79, 82, 88, 323 Heridas de Amor, 60 Late Night with David Letterman, 257
Eureka, 62, 97, 316, 317 Heroes, 65, 75 Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, 197, 266,
Everybody Hates Chris, 291, 294 Hill Street Blues, 88 297
Everybody Loves Raymond, 207, 209, 210, Hoarding, 315 The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers, 266,
211, 286, 316 Hollywood Treasures, 318 268
The Exceptions, 317 Holmes on Homes, 319 Late Show with David Letterman, 266
Extra, 209, 295 Holocaust series, 367 The Late Show with David Letterman, 197,
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, 59, 315, Home Improvement, 74, 79 297
5454 House, 57, 59 Law & Order, 54, 59, 71, 75, 78, 81, 210,
Extreme Makeover: Households, 67 House Hunters, 315 241, 323, 327
House of Cards, 316 Law & Order: Criminal Intent, 75
How I Met Your Mother, 81 Law & Order: SVU, 59, 75, 81, 234, 316,
Face Off, 316
Face the Nation, 262 317, 323
Fairly Legal, 317 iCarly, 263, 331 Leave It to Beaver, 323
Family Guy, 58, 207, 209, 211 I Love Lucy, 240 Legend of the Seeker, 73
Family Law, 73 I Love the 70s, 323 Leprechauns, 86
FarmVille, 6, 140, 141 I Love the 80s, 323 Let’s Make a Deal, 256
Fear Factor, 11 I Married a Mobster, 319 The Life of Riley, 80
Firefly, 63 Industrial Wonders, 319 Life on Earth, 363
FishVille, 148 Inside Edition!, 295 The Lion King, 263
The Flintstones, 240 Intervention, 316 Live with Regis and Kathie Lee, 291
Football Night in America, 250 The Invisible Man, 234 Lost, 59
For Rent, 319 Issues and Answers, 262 Love Connection, 293
48 Hours Mystery, 259 It’s Elementary, 351 The L Word, 332
Frasier, 61, 108, 294 I Used to Be Fat, 317
Fresh Air with Terry Gross, 430 The MacNeil/Lehrer Report, 355
Friday Night Lights, 65, 87 Jackass, 317 MADtv, 269
Friday Night Smackdown, 367 Jack Benny Show, 62 Mafia Wars, 140, 148
Friday Night Videos, 253 JAG, 75, 317 Magnum P.I., 81
Fridays, 269 Jean-Michel Cousteau: Ocean Adventures, 367 Malcom in the Middle, 88
Friends, 29, 53, 58, 81, 88, 209, 221–223, Jeopardy!, 11, 141, 184, 209, 210, 213, 255, The Man show, 268
294 295 Man Up Stand Up, 209
474 Index to Program Titles

Man v. Food, 318 Poker After Dark, 298 Sister Wives, 319
Marketplace Morning Report, 454 Pokerstars, 142 Six Feet Under, 75, 325
Married … with Children, 88, 240 Politically Incorrect, 267–268, 311 60 Minutes, 12, 47, 60, 84, 85, 250, 259
Martha, 291 Power Rangers, 265 Slavery and the Making of America, 372
M*A*S*H, 81 The Practice, 81 Smallville, 50, 54, 57, 64, 71, 76, 81
Masterpiece Theatre, 86, 360, 369, 370 A Prairie Home Companion, 430, 454, The Sopranos, 316, 319
Mathline, 351 455 South Park, 167
Maya & Miguel, 352 The Price is Right, 256, 289, 290 Soy Tu Duena (Women of Steel), 50
Medium, 60 Primetime, 60, 84 SpongeBob SquarePants, 263, 265, 331
Meet the Press, 262 Prime Time Live, 259 SportsCenter, 317
The Mentalist, 12, 52, 75, 84, 88 Prison Break, 57, 59, 65 Sports Illustrated for Kids, 263
Merlin, 62, 86 Project Runway, 317, 319 St. Elsewhere, 82
Mob Wives, 319 Property Virgins, 315, 319 Stargate Atlantis, 317
The Mole, 70 Providence, 75 Stargate SG1, 73, 209, 317
Monday Night Football, 60, 83, 250 Punk’d, 317 Star Gate Universe, 97
Monk, 65, 209, 234, 316, 317 Pushing Daisies, 235 Stargate Universe, 317
Morning Edition, 430, 454 Star Trek, 14
Mundo de Fieras, 60 Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, 332 Star Trek: The Next Generation, 317
Murder, She Wrote, 79 Star Trek: Voyager, 209
Mutant X, 73 Sunday Morning, 262
Real World, 317
My First Place, 315, 319 Sunday Night Football, 60, 250
Reba, 59, 68, 78, 317
My Mother the Car, 80 Sun of Gun, 317
Repo Games, 315
Mystery!, 347, 360 Supernatural, 71
Report on Syndicated Programs, 184
Super Why, 349
The Revolution, 250
Nanny 911, 68 Survivor, 6, 11, 13, 59, 60, 62, 65, 68, 69,
Rick & Steve: The Happiest Gay Couple in
Nature, 353, 370 70, 73, 84, 150, 257
All the World, 332
NBA Inside Stuff, 253 Survivor: Vanuatu, 84
The Ring of Truth, 368
NBC Dateline, 68, 84, 85, 257, 259, 327 Swift Justice with Nancy Grace, 293
Roar, 70
NBC Nightly News, 129, 184, 260, 261 Roseanne, 79, 88
NCIS: Los Angeles, 12, 63, 71, 75, 129, RuPaul’s Drag Race, 332 The Talk, 259
327
Talk of the Nation, 430
The Newlywed Game, 293
Sabado Gigante, 15, 50, 81, 247, 278 Talkshow with Spike Feresten, 269
News Flash Five, 359
Sanctuary, 317 The Tavis Smiley Show, 430
News Sunday, 262
Saturday Early Show, 262 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, 265
Next Top Model, 68
Saturday Night Live (SNL), 81, 124, 253, Teen Mom, 317
Night Calls, 321
268–269, 287 Teletubbies, 352, 372
Nightline, 261, 266, 267, 297
Saved by the Bell, 263 Temptation Island, 70
Nip/Tuck, 75, 235
Say Yes to the Dress, 315, 319 10 Things I hate About You, 81
Noah’s Arc, 332
Scooby Doo, 265 Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles,
NOVA, 353, 369
Scrubs, 59, 68 235
NYPD Blue, 81
The Season Traveler, 345 Terra Nova, 59
Secret Agent Man, 65 Texas Ranch House, 367
Obsessed, 316 Seinfeld, 53, 61, 74, 79, 81, 134, 209, 211, TGIM, 317
The Office, 64, 81, 84, 167, 296 236, 294, 296 That 70’s Show, 59, 68, 81, 184
Oliver Beene, 60 Selling LA, 319 The Daily Show, 129
One Life to Live, 255 Selling New York, 319 30 Seconds to Fame, 269
On We Go, 316 Sesame Street, 352, 356, 363, 366, 369 This Old House, 370
Oprah, 9, 16, 27, 249, 257, 294 7 Bridges for 7 Brothers, 75 This Week, 262
The Originals with Emeril, 319 7th Heaven, 71 Thomas & Friends, 352
The Other Side, 249 Sex and the City, 209 Til Death, 68
The Shakespeare Plays, 363 TMZ, 209
The Passion of the Christ, 87 Shark, 60 The Today Show, 12, 256, 257, 259, 262,
Pawn Queens, 315, 319 Shoah, 367 288, 289
Pawn Stars, 315 Silent Partners, 316 The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, 266, 267,
PBS Newshour, 349, 353, 355 The Simple Life, 63 297
PBS Online, 351 Simply Ming, 345 Top Chef, 319
People, 71 The Simpsons, 58, 71, 181, 183, 184, 207, Top Design, 319
The People’s Court, 209, 293 238, 240, 287, 294, 367 Touched by an Angel, 78
Perspectives on Lifetime, 316 The Sims Online, 142 Tough Cookies, 318
Pokémon, 265 The Single Guy, 29 Toy Story, 263
 Index to Program Titles 475

Trapper John, 82 Wait, Wait … Don’t Tell Me!, 430 Wide World of Sports, 251, 252
Treme, 319 Wall Street Week, 356 Will & Grace, 332
Triple Rush, 318 The Wanda Sykes Show, 269 The Wilton North Report, 266, 268
True Blood, 50, 319 The War, 367, 368 Wishbone, 352
24, 108, 209 War at Home, 58 Without a Trace, 81, 210, 240, 277, 316,
21 Hottest Stars, 68 Warehouse 13, 62, 75, 316 327
20/20, 12, 84, 85, 257, 259 Warstorm, 148 Wizards of Waverly Place, 331
Two and a Half Men, 50, 53, 67, 73, 81, 88, Washington Week in Review, 349, 368 The Wonderful World of Disney, 71
208 Weeds, 325 The Woodwright’s Shop, 356
Tyler Perry’s House of Payne, 291 Wendy Williams, 294 World Poker Tour, 315, 318
Tyra, 294 The West Wing, 65, 79 WWE Smackdown, 97
We the Jury, 316, 317
Ugly Betty, 60, 209, 240 What is My Car Worth?, 315 X-Files, 14
Unique Sweets, 319 What Not to Wear, 315, 319 The X-Files, 209
The Unit, 327 What’s My Line?, 71
Wheel of Fortune, 16, 209, 210, 238–239,
The Young and the Restless, 254, 255, 291
Veronica Mars, 235 255, 295
The Victory Garden, 345 Wheel of Fortune 2000, 263
The View, 257, 289 Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, 11, 13, 59, Zoboomafoo, 352
Voice, 65 65, 68, 88, 238, 255 Zoey 101, 263
 General Index

Note: Reference to topics and subjects as well American Public Media (APM), 389–390, Backselling, 425
as proper names of importance to program- 454, 455, 457 Bader, Jerry, 459
ming are listed below, but some redundant America One, 274 Banner ads, 151
references to the major broadcast networks Amortization, 230 Banners, 194
and the Federal Communications Commis- declining-value, 231 Barter payment method, 232–233
sion were not included. Consult the appro- schedules, 231–232 Basic cable networks, 304
priate chapters and chapter content outlines. straight-line, 231 Beck, Glenn, 441, 445
Anchoring strategy, 57 Beethoeven Satellite Network, 455
A&E (Arts & Entertainment), 16, 19, 22 Animation, development process for, 265 Berlin, Irving, 9
ABC, 7, 8, 9, 14, 15, 17, 24, 46, 49, 53, 55, Antennas, 108–109 Betram, Scott, 434
276–277 AOL Media Network, 134 Bible, 76
Access, defined, 124 Apple TV, 131 Bidding, 229–230
Access centers, 124–126 Appointment viewing, 62–64 Bidding price, 229–230
Active/passive (A/P) people meters, 159, 190 Apps, TV, 139–140 Big Seven Studios, 31
Adjacencies, 279 Arbitron, 171, 174, 185, 201, 390 Big Sky, 401
Adult album format (AAA), 380 Areas of Dominant Influence (ADIs), 174, 393 Billboard Magazine, 390
Adult Learning Service (ALS), 352 Arledge, Roone, 82, 83 BitTorrent, 105
Advances, 76–78 ASCAP, 402 Black Entertainment Television, 8
Advertiser-supported basic cable networks, 322 ASI Entertainment, 161–162 Blip.tv, 15, 136
Advertising, 312–313 Association of Independents in Radio (AIR), Block, Dick, 13
paid, 79 455 Blocking strategy, 58–59, 323
prime-time game of, 50–55 Associations, 36 Blogs/bloggers
programming and, 9 AT&T, 29, 92, 126 talk radio and, 437
Advertising interconnects, 117 Audience Analysis, Inc. (AAI), 185 tracking, 160
Advertising-supported channels, genres on, Audience churn, 113–114 Bloomberg Radio, 447
317–319 Audience flow, 147, 214 Blunting strategy, 60
Affiliates, 274 Audience loyalty, 370 BMI, 402
network-affiliate agreement, 279–280 Audiences Bohannon, Jim, 452
network programming for, 275–279 appealing to interests of, 22–23 Boldfacing, 400
preemptions and, 280 diminishing, 50 Bookmarking, 147
Affiliation agreement, 279 flow, 20–21, 57 Books. See Market reports (books)
African-American talk radio, 448 network, aging of, 55 Bounce TV, 279
Agency for Instructional Technology (ATI), qualitative research of, 163–166 Branded subniche networks, 307
362 targeting, 55–64 Brandimetrics, 160
Air America Radio, 436–437 wants of, 10–13 Branding, 18, 80
Albom, Mitch, 451 Audio services, on cable, 337–338 Bridging strategy, 59–60
Album-oriented rock (AOR) format, 379 Auditorium research, 165 British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), 15
Al Jazeera, 334 Auditorium testing, 408 Broadcasting, mutation of, 301
All-news formats, 443–445 Aux marks, 417 Broadcasting & Cable, 46
Amazon Instant Video, 133 Avatars, 142 Broadcast networks, 304
American Federation of Radio and Television Average audience ratings, 370 Broadcast windows, 325
Artists (AFTRA), 435 Average quarter-hour (AQH) audiences, 179 Brooks, Tim, 79
American Movie Classics, 315 Azteca America, 278 Browne, Joy, 449

476
 General Index 477

Bubba the Love Sponge, 411, 439 Click fraud, 195 Coverage Map, 393
Bühler, Karl, 163 Click-through measurement, 194 Cowherd, Colin, 441
Burns, Ken, 364–365 Clip culture, 136–137, 316 CPT (Household and Persons Cost Per 1000
Business radio, 447–448 Clocks, radio, 405 Report), 220
Clones, 70 Crackle, 134
Cable Act (1984), 39 Clusters/clustering, 109 Crime dramas, 80, 81
Cable Act (1992), 38, 112, 114 CNN, 8–9, 306, 313 Cross-channel promotion, 337
Cable compensation, 38 CNN Headline News, 15 Cross-media, 7
Cable network license fees, 312 The CollegeHumor Network, 134 Cross-media scheduling, 62
Cable networks, 7, 15, 304. See also Sub- Colmes, Alan, 444 Cross-promotion, 46, 47–48, 80, 147
scription content networks Combination spots, 298 c3 ratings, 160
subscribers by channel, 305–306 Comcast, 7, 8, 92, 115 Cumes, 151
Cable penetration, 327 Comcast/NBCUniversal, 46 Cumulative audience (cume) estimates,
Cable programming, 119 Comcast Network, 123 179–180
Cable radio, 382 Comedies, 12 Cumulus Media, 387–388, 426
Cable syndication, 207 Comedy Central, 8, 14 Cuomo, Mario, 436
Cable systems, 93–94 Commercial media, main function of, 4 CW, 7, 14, 16, 24, 46, 277
Cable television Common carriage, 347
audio services on, 337–338 Common channel lineup, 116 Dailymotion, 136
community access on, 124–126 Community access, on cable, 124–126 Daypart Audiences, 180
effects of consolidation and, 269–270 Community access centers, 124 Dayparting, 18, 146, 150, 379
local-origination news programming, Community licensees, 354 Dayparts, 287–298
120–124 Compatibility, programming and, 18–19 afternoon, 290–293
local origination on, 119–124 The Complete Directory of Prime Time Net- early fringe, 293–294
penetration measures, 191–192 work and Cable TV Shows (Brooks), early morning, 288–289
ratings services, 189–192 79 late fringe, 296–297
regional news services, 122 Comp (network compensation), 279 late night, 297
sports and, 82–83 ComScore, 171–172, 193–194 morning, 289–290
syndication and, 233–234 Concept testing, 161 overnight, 297–298
Cablevision, 113 Consolidation, effects of, and cable, 269–270 prime access, 294–295
Call-out research, 165, 408 Contagion of ideas, 164 prime time, 295–296
Call screeners, 452 Content time periods, 288
Capping, 130 disposable, 149 weekend programming, 298
Carey, Drew, 256 emergent, 149 Daytime talk shows, 257–259
Carlin, George, 39 evergreen, 149 Dead air, 417
Carriage agreements, public television pro- online, 148 Deal points, 215–216
gramming and, 347–348 promoting, 150–151 Decision making, network, 87
Carriage fees, 313 scheduling, 149–150 Declining-value amortization, 231–232
Cash license fees, 230 Content clustering schemes, 115 Deep Dish TV Network, 125–126
Cash payments, 230–231 Contests, 149 Delayed carriage, 280
Cash-plus-barter, 232–233 radio, 419, 420 Dershowitz, Alan, 436
Casting tape, 265 Continuous music formats, 423 Designated Market Areas (DMAs), 105, 174,
Castronova, Ted, 452 Continuous season approach, 70 220, 393
CBS, 7, 8, 9, 14, 15, 24, 30, 46, 53, 55, Converters, 102 Dial Global, 426
276–277, 388 Cooke, Holland, 431 Diaries, 168–170, 201
Cell phones. See Mobile phones Copyright, 38–39 Digital audio broadcasting (DAB), 381
Censors, 89 online music and, 383 Digital audio radio service (DARS), 383
Central Florida News 13 (CFN 13), 123 Copyright Act (1976), 112 Digital broadband delivery, 36
Channel lineups, 116 Copyright Law (1976), 38 Digital media, 4–5
Channel matching, 114 Copyright royalty fees, 111–112 Digital must carry, 40, 105
Channel repertoire, 19 Cord cutters, 132 Digital niche channels, 304
Children’s programming, 263–268 Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), Digital video recorders (DVRs), threat from,
Children’s Television Act (1990), 263, 264 358 160–161
Christensen, Bruce, 373 Cost per involvement (CPI), 194–195 Digital wave, 273
Chuck D., 437 Cost per point, 226 Digitization, 4
Churn Cost per thousand (CPM), 226–229 DirectTV, 92, 94, 100
in cable, 191 Countering strategy, 60 Discontinuous change, 143
rates, 113–114 Counterprogramming, 20, 215, 327, 367 Discovery, 305, 306
Citadel Media, 441 Country format, 379 DISH Network, 94, 100, 104–105
Clear Channel Communications, 378, 385, Court programs, 293 Disney (Walt, Corp.), 30, 31, 46, 112–113
387 Court-room dramas, 81 Disposable content, 149
478 General Index

DMA TV Trends by Season, 221 Flow, 20–21, 57, 147, 294 Group ownership, 34
Double jeopardy, 74 FM stations, 391–392 Groupthink, 164
Double-runs, 22 classes of, 392
Doubling strategy, 59 migration to, and rise of information Habit formation, programming and, 19–20,
Download-to-own, 309 radio, 439–440 147
VOD, 310 Focus group research, 163–165 Hallmark, 90
Drake, Bill, 379 The Food Network, 124, 305 Hamblin, Ken, 436
Dramas, 11, 12 Foreign language feeds, 305 Hammock strategy, 58
court-room, 81 Format programming, 238 Hannity, Sean, 436, 441, 445
crime, 81 Formats HBO/Cinemax HD, 8
medical, 82 adult album, 380 HBO/Max, 335–336
Dramatic anthology, 86 album-oriented rock, 379 HD radio, 381
Duplication, 305 all-news, 443–445 HDTV (high definition television), 5,
DVRs (digital video recorders), 5, 6 continuous music, 423 100–101, 350
country, 423 Head, Sydney W., 13
Early-morning newscasts, 256 middle-of-the-road, 379–380 Health and Help Talk, 449
Ebersol, Duncan, 253 talk-radio, 445–450 Heritage talk, 445, 446
Emergent content, 149 urban, 379 Herzog, Herzog, 163
Enhanced viewing, 138–140 Foundation networks, 306 High Advisory Radio (HAR), 458
Enhancement, 129, 138 4G, 127 High definition (HD) television. See HDTV
Enmeshed media, 7 FOX, 7, 8, 9, 14, 17, 24, 46, 49, 55, 238, (high definition television)
Entertainment channels, 119–120 276–277 Home Shopping Network, 109
Entertainment specials, 81 Fox Sports Radio, 447 Homes passed (HP), 191
Episode testing, 161 Franchise programming, 75, 80 Homogeneity of viewers, 118, 323
Equal-time rule, 35 Franchises, 106 Hooks, 165
ESPN, 8, 305, 306 Frank, Betsy, 56 Horizontal stripping, 62
ESPN Deportes Radio, 449 Franken, Al, 437 Hot talk, 448
ESPN Radio, 447 Fraud, 39 Households using television (HUTs),
Evaluation, 26–27 Free carriage, 313 176–179
strategies, 117–118 Frequency analysis, 180 House-remodeling programs, 315
Evening newscasts, 259–261 Full scripts, 76 Howard, Clark, 447
Evergreen content, 149 Funnyordie, 134 HTR (Household Tracking Report), 220
Executive producers, 210 Futures, 215 Hulu, 15, 46, 133
FVOD (Free-VOD), 308–309 Hulu Plus, 133, 145
Facebook, 4, 9, 29, 105, 134, 138 FX network, 19 HUT (Households Using Television
Fairness Doctrine, 35 Summary Report), 220
abandonment of, 436–437 Galavision, 154 Hybrid Fiber/Coax (HFC) systems, 98
Faith talk, 449 Galaxy Explorer, 219
Family sitcoms, 13 Galaxy Lightning, 219 iCloud, 133
Fan sites, 80 Galaxy Navigator, 221 Ideal demographics, 55–56
Farnsworth, Philo T., 124 Galaxy ProFile, 221 Ifel, Gwen, 349
Feature films, 16, 208 Gambling, 149 Image spots, 299
Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Games, 149 In-band-on-channel (IBOC) system, 381
29, 41, 48 Game shows, 13, 84, 255–256, 290 Indecency, 39, 438
fundamental must-carry rules, 40 Garofalo, Janeane, 437 Independent stations, 274
Net Neutrality Rules, 105–106 General managers, 4 Infinity Broadcasting, 438
Over-the-Air Reception Devices Rule, Genre, 13 Infomercials, 18, 287
108–109 GetGlue, 140 Information programming, 12
Fiber optics, 99 Gold services, 403 on public radio stations, 454–457
Film L.A., 55 Golic, Mike, 447 Information radio. See also Radio
Financial interest rules, 48 Google, 7, 17, 29 all-news formats, 443–445
FiOS, 96–97, 98, 126 Googleþ, 134 branding stations and, 433–435
First Amendment, 35, 39 Gottlieb, Doug, 447 content infrastructure, 450–452
First-run programs, 207, 208 Grazing, 21 demographic profile of listeners of, 451
Fixed spots, 298 Great Plains National (GPN), 362 embracing formerly taboo topics and,
Flat fees, 313 Green, Stephen, 437 437–439
Flay, Bobby, 124 Greenberg, Mike, 447 future of, 457–459
Flickr, 136 “Green” strategies, 6 identifiable personalities and, 432–433
Flipping, 21 Gregory, David, 262 information vs., 430–435
Flix, 336 Griswold, Tom, 439 migration to FM stations and, 439–440
Flixster, 46 Group owners, 29, 31 mobile phones and, 440
 General Index 479

on-air personalities and, 433–435 Licensees McManus, Sean, 135

on-air talk techniques of, 452–454 community, 353–354 Media
popular local hosts, 434 public school, 356 main function of commercial, 4
programming formats of, 441–443 university, 354–356 major players of, 29
rise of, 435–440 License fees, 71 Media Audit, 152, 186
synergistic advertising environment of, 440 Liddy, G. Gordon, 436 Media Metrix, 151, 193–194, 194
talk formats, 445–450 Lieberman, Gary, 152 Media Rating Council (MRC), 170
Interactive games, 129 Lifespan, program, 71 Medical dramas, 82
Interactivity, 103 Lift, 115 Megavideo, 134
International syndication, 207, 236–239 Limbaugh, Rush, 434, 435, 436, 437, 442 Meme, 137
Internet, 5–6, 14. See also Online Limited series, 68–69 Merchandising, 144
programming Linchpin strategy, 59 Metro Area, 174–175, 393
broadcast radio and, 384–387 Line producers, 210 Metro Rating Area (MRA), 174
program sources on, 15 Liners, 414 Meyer, Joyce, 449
Internet television, 101 Lineups, channel, 116 Microniche networks, 307
Interrconnect, 299 Listener fatigue, 417 Middle-of-the-road (MOR) format, 379–380
IntoNow, 140 Live action programs, development process Midnight Trucking Radio Network, 449, 450
ION, 277, 279 for, 265–266 Military History Channel, 8
Ion, 24 Livestream, 137 Miller, Stephanie, 437
iPad, 131 Living Standards Measure (LMS), 198 Miniseries, 84–86
iPod Touch, 131 Local avails, 111 short-form, 86
iTunes, 7, 133 Local books, 169 Minnesota Public Radio, 455
Local cable channels, 119 Miso, 139
Jackson, Peter, 52 Local-into-local service, 104 MNTV, 279
Jacobs Media, 390 Localism, 36–38 Mobile phones, information radio and, 440
Jakes, T. D., 449 Local news, 299 Mobile wallets, 107
JAM Creative Productions, 414 Local-origination (LO) channels, 119–124 MobiTV, 134
Jingles, 414 Local-origination (LO) news programming, Money talk, 447–448
Joachim, Franz, 346 120–124 MonitorPlus (Nielsen), 169
Jocks Local programming, 283–284 Monopoly, 35–36
dayparts and, 412–413 Local programs, 14, 16 Moonves, Leslie, 112
station sound and, 410–411 Logo channel, 332 Morning magazines, 256–257
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foun- Logs, program, 420 Morning magazine shows, 258
dation, 454 Lore, lure of, 13–14 The Movie Channel, 336
Justice Department, 29 Loss leaders, 46 Movie-of-the-week, 208
Justin.tv, 136 Lotteries, 39 MoviePlex, 336
Lottery programs, online, 149 Movies, in syndication, 287
Low-power FM (LPFM) radio service, 457 MPEG-4, 102
Karmazin, Mel, 438 Lucado, Max, 449 MPEG-21, 107
Katz Comtrac system, 221–223 MPEG-2 transmission, 102
Katz Media Group, 212 MacNeil, Robert, 355 Muller, Mancow, 411
Keillor, Garrison, 455 Maddow, Rachel, 437 Multicarriage, 105
Kenny, Brian, 447 Made-for-cable films, 208 Multichannel multipoint distribution service
Kilmeade, Brian, 444, 451 Made-for-TV films, 208 (MMDS) operators, 96
King, Larry, 315 Made-for-TV movies, 84, 86, 87 Multichannel video programming distribu-
Klein, Paul, 55–56 Madison, Jo, 446 tors (MVPDs), 29, 35, 39, 92–93, 304
Klose, Kevin, 454 Magazines series, 84, 85 economic considerations, 109–114
Komando, Kim, 434 Maher, Bill, 268, 311 evaluation strategies, 117–118
Kroc, Joan B., 454 Marathons, 322–323 future of, 126–127
KUED television station (Salt Lake City), 373 Marketing. See also Promotion legal considerations of selection strategies,
one-to-one, 152 103–109
Langschmidt, Wally, 159 of radio stations, 417–421 marketing considerations, 114
Late-night newscasts, 261 Market reports (books) on-demand programming and, 126
Late-night talk/variety shows, 266–268 Daypart Audiences section, 180 promotion strategies, 118–119
Late-night weekend entertainment, 268–269 Program Audiences section, 181 scheduling strategies, 114–117
Launches, 321–322 Time Period Averages section, 180 selection strategies, 97–103
Launch fees, 313 Mashup, 136 technical considerations, 98–103
Lead-in strategy, 57–58 Massively multiplayer online games Multi-Network Area Report (MNA), 67
Lehrer, Jim, 349, 355 (MMOG), 141, 142 Multiplatform programming, 252
Levinson, Barry, 76 McGee, Kipper, 430 Multiplatform strategy, 54–55
Libel, 39–40 McLendon, Gordon, 379, 411 Multiple system operators (MSOs), 29, 32–33
480 General Index

Murdoch, Rupert, 32–33 NHSI (Nielsen Hispanic Station Index defined, 143
Music research, 165 report), 221 economics of, 144–146
Must carry issue, 104–105 Niche networks, 306–307 geography and, 143–144
MyNetworkTV, 7, 16, 24, 46 Nickelodeon, 22, 305, 306 Online programs, 14
MyNetworkTV (MNTV), 14 global branding by, 238 promotion of, 17–18
MySpace, 136, 138 Nielsen BuzzMetrics, 160 Online promotion, 79
Nielsen Cable Activity Report (NCAR), 328 Online research services, 192–195
NAD (National Audience Demographics Nielsen Media Research, 19, 54, 151, 169, terminology, 194
Report), 220 185, 201, 217 Online syndication, 207, 234–236
Napster, 105 trap of overreliance on, 203 Online video, ratings services, 172, 173
Narrative stories, 11 Nielsen//NetRatings, 192–193, 194 Open Source, 437
NASCAR, 252 Nielsen People-Meter service (NPM), 369 Operational bandwidth, 99
National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), The Nielsen Pocketpiece, 66–67 Opie & Anthony, 412
40, 420, 457 Nielsen Scantrack, 169 Original programming, 47, 316–317
National Association of Television Program Nielsen Station Index (NSI), 220, 369 Output deals, 237
Executives (NATPE), 13, 37 Nielsen Survey Index Area (NSI Area), 174 Overbuilds, 36
pitching contests, 217 NM Incite, 160 Overnight news, 261–262
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Admin- Noncommercial syndication, 207 Overnights, 64–65, 169
istration (NOAA) Weather Radio, 457, Noncompete clauses, 435 Over-the-Air Reception Devices Rule,
458 Nonnarrative reality programs, 11 108–109
National People-Meter Service, 370 Nonprime programming Over-the-top (OTT) services, 130
National Public Radio (NPR), 389, 454, 455, genres of, 250 Owned-and-operated stations (O&Os), 31,
456 sports, 250–253 34–35, 46, 274
National sales reps, 212–213 Nonprime-time dayparts, 246–248 Oxygen network, 19, 292
local reports for, 220–221 scheduling, 248–250
national reports for, 219–220 Non-Traditional Revenue (NTR), 385 Pacifica stations, 457
rules for syndicators and, 216–217 Northwest Cable News (NWCN), 122 Page impressions, 194
specialized program analysis for, 221–223 NPower, 219–220 Page views, 194
National spot advertisers, 213 NPR (National Public Radio), 341 Paid advertising, 79
NBC, 7, 8, 9, 14, 15, 17, 24, 46, 53, 55, NSI Report on Devotional Program Audi- Paid search placement, 147
276–277 ences, 221 Palmer, Shelly, 148
NBC Live, 139 NSI Report on PBS Program Audiences, 221 Paramount, 31
NBC Universal, 7 NSS Pocketpiece (National Syndication Ser- Passive people meters, 201, 202
NBCUniversal, 8, 30, 31 vice), 220 PAX sevice, 277
Netflix, 25, 132–133, 145 NTAR (Television Activity Report), 220 Pay-cable networks, 308
Net net, 227 NTI (Nielsen Television Index), 219 “Pay-for-Play” promotion, 403
Net neutrality, 105 NTI Pocketpiece (The Neilsen Television Payola, 420
Net Neutrality Rules, 105–106 Index Pocketpiece Report), 219 Pay-per-view (PPV) services, 308, 337
Network-affiliated stations, 274 PBS, 7, 14, 15, 17
Network compensation (comp), 279 Obscenity, 39 PBS (Public Broadcasting Service), 341. See
Network programs, 14–15 Occupational comedies, 81 also Public television programming
radio, 423–427 Off-air promotion, 418 audience ratings, 369–371
Networks off-cable, 207 Ken Burns and, 364–365
decision making, 87 Off-network programs, 207, 208 fundraising assistance and, 352–353
launching, 321–322 Off-network series, 16 HD and, 350
soi-disant, 279 Off-network syndication, 285–287 model, 344–345
New England Cable News, 121, 123 Off-syndication, 207 National Program Service (NPS), 351
New Music Service, 404 Ohio News Network (ONN), 123 national promotion and, 368–3369
News, 281–283 Oldies, 407 program financing and, 357–360
Newscasts On-air promotion, 79–80, 418 program production and, 357–361
network-delivered, 443–445 On-demand services, 110 responsibilities of, 349–353
role of local, 281–283 On-demand television, 5, 101–102 satellite distribution, 351–353
NewsChannel 9 (NC8), 123 One-to-one marketing, 152 scheduling strategies, 365–368
News Corporation, 30, 32–33, 46, 49, 113, Online audience samples, 162 stations withdrawing from, 354
138 Online audio, 383–384 types of station licensees, 353–357
News 12 Networks, 122 Online content, 148 Peer-to-peer communications (P2), 105
News programming, local-origination, selecting, 148–149 People (magazine), 80
120–124 Online panels, 151 People meters, 158–159, 170, 201, 202, 328
News services, regional cable, 122 Online program guides, 140 active/passive (A/P), 159, 190
New York 1 News (NY1), 122 Online programmers, 145 passive, 201, 202
Nexstar Broadcasting Group, 112 Online programming. See also Internet portable, 190
 General Index 481

Persons Tracking Report (PTR), 220 Programming “Pay-for-Play,” 403

Persons using radio (PURs), 176, 179 children’s, 263–268 print, 80
Persons using television (PUTs), 176, 179 decision process of, 223–226 of radio stations, 417–421
Per subscriber charges, 314 defined, 4 station, 298–299
Petry Media, 212 economics and technology of, 312–314 strategies, 118–119
Phased rollout strategy, 99–100 elements of, 18–23 of subscription content networks, 337
Philo Awards, 124 format, 238 Promotion testing, 162–163
Piggybacking, 322 goal of, 8 Public Radio International (PRI), 390, 454,
Pilots, 76–78 information, 12 456
Pilot testing, 161 lore of, 13–14 Public school licensees, 356
Pitching, 229 model of, 23–27 Public television, defined, 363
Pittsburgh Cable News Channel (PCNC), multiplatform, 252 Public television programming, 341–342.
120–121 myth, 13 See also PBS (Public Broadcasting
Play MPE, 404 payment for, 230–233 Service)
Pledge drives, 352–353 process of, 8–9 carriage agreements, 347
Plugola, 420 radio, 378–379 commercial syndication, 363
Podcasting, 384 sports, 250–253 in Europe, 342
Political talk radio, 445–446 step-by-step procedure for process of, 11 future of, 371–373
Poniewozik, James, 55 structural considerations, 14–18 local production, 364–365
Portable media players, 131 syndicated, 284–287 multicasting and, 348
Portable people meters (PPM), 190 as unique product, 9–10 multiple platforms and, 348–349
Portals, 147 unscripted, 83–84 noncommercial adult education, 362–363
Preemptions, affiliates and, 280 weekend, 298 noncommercial syndicated, 362
Premiere Radio Networks, 426, 441 Program repetition, 118 PBS model, 344–345
Premieres, 70 Programs philosophy of, 343–344
Premium cable networks, 304 acquisition of, 213–217 station scheduling autonomy and, 346
scheduling for, 324–327 concepts, 76
Premium networks, 322 conservation of, 21–22
Q Television Network (QTN), 332
Encore, Starz, and MoviePlex, 336 costs and, 73–75
Qualitative research, 158
HBO/Max, 335–336 defined, 4
audience, 163–166
pay-per-view/video-on-demand, 337 development process, 77
radio, 163
Showtime/The Movie Channel/Flix, 336 extensions for, 22
Quality, defined, 11
Premium services, 308 flow, 21
Quantitative research, 158
genres on, 319–321 lifespan of, 71
Quivers, Robin, 444
Prime-access time, 285 local, 14, 16
PRIME Next, 186 multiplatform strategies for, 22
Prime-Time Access Rule (PTAR), 294–295 network, 14 Radio. See also Information radio
Prime-time access rule (PTAR), 284–285 new, selection of, 75–79 AM stations, 391–392
Prime-time advertising, 50–55 online, 14 blogs and talk, 437
Prime-time hours, 47 pivotal numbers for, 71–73 cable, 382
Prime-time programs, 47 prime-time, 47 competitors to, 381
Prime-time ratings, 64–67 production methods for, 74 contesting, 419
Prime-time sports, 81–82 promotion of, 17–18, 79–80 defining competitive market for,
Production companies, 210 renewal of, 70–75 393–394
Production methods, 74 scheduling and, 16–17 dominant players in, 387–390
Product placement, 54, 161 scripts for, 76 estimating potential revenue, 398
Product Placement Measurement, 54 signature, 15 feature syndicators, 426–427
Product tracking, 169 sources of, 273–275 FM stations, 391–392
Professional Web videos, 136–137 stripping, 19 formats, 379–380
Program content services, 311 syndicated, 14, 15–16 format selection for, 391–398
Program directors, 4, 8, 378 Program services, 274 future of, 427–428
Program guides, online, 140 competition among, 310–312 HD, 381–382
Program logs, 420 Program testing, 161–163 history of, 379–381
Programmers Promotion, 26 identifying target audiences for, 394–397
decision-making for, 158–161 content and, 150–151 implementing format for, 402–405
economic influences on, 28–29 need for, 17–18 knowing available budget for, 397
ethical influences on, 40–41 off-air, 418 marketing and promotion, 417–421
job of, 346 on-air, 79–80, 298–299, 418 network programming, 423–427
ownership influences on, 29–34 online, 79 news and, 421–423
regulatory influences on, 34–40 of online programs, 17–18 nonentertainment programming and,
technological influences on, 28 in other media, 299 421–423
482 General Index

Radio (continued) Reruns, 21 Set-top box (STB), 159–160

online strategy for, 386 Reserve prices, 229 Set-top converters, 102
programming/promotion constraints, 420 Retransmission consent, 38, 106 Share, defined, 176
ratings services, 171–172, 185–189 Retransmission consent fees, 106 Shopping services, 109
satellite, 383 Revenues, projecting, 226–230 Short-form miniseries, 86
Spanish-language formats, 380 Revver.com, 15 Showrunner, 208, 210
special music programs, 426 Rhodes, Randi, 437, 446 Showtime, 336
station groups by revenue, 391 Rip and read newswire copy, 422 Signature programs, 15, 311, 314–316
station sound, 405–417 Ripple Effect TV, 23 Silverman, Fred, 17
step-by-step format selection process for, Roadblocking, 117–118, 323 SiriusXM, 39, 383, 449
398–402 Room-makeover programs, 315 Sitcoms, 11
syndicated programming, 423–427 ROSP (Report on Syndicated Programs), family, 13
syndication, 207 220 Situation comedies, 80, 81
terrestrial, 381–382 Rotating strategy, 62 Skew graphs, 394
Wi-Fi, 441 Rotation scheduling, 324 Sklar, Rick, 379
Radio Currents, 404 Rotten Tomatoes, 46 Slingbox, 131
Radio listening, 378 Royalties, 38 SOAPnet, 22
Radio One, 378 Soap operas, 253–255, 290
Radio programming, 378–379. See also Sample composition, 201–202 Social bookmarking sites, 147
Programming Sample size, 195–197 Social media, 204
Radio’s All Dimension Audience Research Sandwich, 58 Social networking sites (SNS), ratings
(RADAR), 171 Satellite radio, 383 services, 172
Ramsey, Dave, 447 Satellite systems, 94, 95 Social networks, 138–139
Rankers, 185 Savage, Michael, 435, 445 Soi-disant networks, 279
Rating points, 226 Scarborough Research, 186 Sony, 31
Ratings Scheduling, 16–17, 25 South African Advertising Research
defined, 176 content, 149–150 Foundation (SAARF), 159
time slot, 74 prime-time practices, 67–70 South African Broadcasting Corporation
Ratings books, 168–170. See also Market strategies, 114–117 (SABC), 27
reports (books) Scheduling churn, 78–79 Spanish/foreign-language talk, 449
Ratings books, radio, 185–186 Scheduling strategies Speeding the music, 417
demographic breakouts section, 187–188 anchoring, 57 Spike TV, 315
Metro Audience Trends section, 186–187 blocking, 58–59 Spinoffs, 307
time-spent-listening (TSL) section, blunting, 60 Splinter channels, 15, 305
188–189 bridging, 59–60 Splintering, 305, 307
turnover section, 189 countering, 60 Sporting News Radio, 447
Ratings period, 168 doubling, 59 Sports
Ratings research, 159 hammock, 58 cable and, 82–83
Ratings services, 166–174 lead-in, 57–58 prime-time, 81–82
cable, 189–192 linchpin, 59 SportsCenter, 318
future challenges of, 202–205 rotating, 62 Sports programming. See also Programming
limitations, 195–202 seamless, 61–62 in multichannel environment, 250–252
measurement computations, 176–180 strip sampling, 62 non-live-event, 252–253
radio, 171–172, 185–189 stunting, 60–61 nonprime, 250–253
television, 168–170 supersizing, 61 Sports talk radio, 446–447
terminology, 174–175 Scheiffer, Bob, 262 Spots
Reach analysis, 180 Schiller, Vivian, 359 combination, 298
Regional cable news services, 122 Schlessinger, Laura, 431, 435 fixed, 298
Regulatory wave, 272–273 Schultz, Ed, 435, 437, 445 topical, 298
Rehearsal shows, 266 Schweitzer, George, 204 Spot tracking, 169
Rehm, Diane, 446 SCOLA, 124, 125 Sprint TV, 134
Reiner, Rob, 76 Screeners, telephone, 452–453 Standard error (SE), 196
Repetition, program, 118 Screening, 164 StarGuide Digital Networks, 425
Rep programmers, 212, 213 Scripts, 76 Star-studded specials, 81
bidding and, 229–230 full, 76 Start Over, 310
local reports for, 220–221 Seamless strategy, 61–62 State television agencies, 356
national reports for, 219–220 Sears, 54 Station breaks, 279
specialized program analysis for, 221–223 Selection, 24–25 Station Independence Program (SIP),
station management and, 217–219 Sellout rate, 227 352–353
Reps. See National sales reps Server-side audits, 151 Station management, rep programmers and,
Repurposing content, 21 SESAC, 402 217–219
 General Index 483

Stations Syndicated genres, 208, 209 Third-party processors, 185

affiliates, 274 Syndicated programming, 284–287 3D, 101
channel migration and, 301 radio, 423–427 Tiering, 150
competing newscasts and, 300–301 Syndicated program reports, 181–184 Time Period Averages, 180–181
digital technology and future of, 300 Syndicated programs, 14, 15–16, 207 Time slot ratings, 74
independent, 274 Syndication, 207 Time-spent-listening (TSl) section, of radio
network-affiliated, 274 cable, 207 ratings books, 188–189
owned-and-operated, 274 cable and, 233–234 Time Warner, 30, 46, 49, 112–113
promotion and, 298–299 chain, 207–213 Time zone feeds, 305
Station sound, 405–417 future of, 239–241 TNT, 16, 19
anatomy of clocks, 405 international, 207, 236–239 Toledo 5/WTO5, 120
clocks in practice for, 415–416 noncommercial, 207 Topical spots, 299
controlling, 417 off-network, 285–287 Total Service Area (TSA), 393
imaging and, 411–414 online, 207, 234–236 Tracht, Dough “Greaseman,” 412
jocks and, 410–411 radio, 207 Tracking, 180
music and, 405–407 Syndicators, 207, 210–212, 214 Treatments, 76
research and, 407–409 bidding and, 229–230 Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), 274
rotation, 409–520 local reports for, 220–221 Trip tones, 417
spots and, 414–415 national reports for, 219–220 TruTV, 194–195
tightness of, 417 negotiation and, 229 Tune-in promotion, 337
Stern, Howard, 39, 412, 435, 438, 444 rules for reps and, 216–217 Tunerfish, 139
Stewart, Jon, 317 specialized program analysis for, Tuning inertia, 20
Storz, Todd, 379 221–223 Turner, Ted, 313
Straight-line amortization, 231–232 Turner Classic Movies, 315, 316
Strategic Media Research (SMR), 162 Tablets, 106 Turnover, 189
Streaming, 130, 146, 383, 386 Talkers Magazine, 431 TvChaser, 140
Stripping, 367 Talk-radio formats, 445–450 TvChatter, 139
Stripping programs, 19, 68, 214 Talk shows, 291 TV Guide, 80, 140
Strip sampling strategy, 62 TAPSCAN, 185 Twitter, 138–139
Stunting strategy, 60–61 TAR (DMA Television Activity Report), 221
Subscription content networks, 15, 304. See TBS, 16, 305, 306 Umbrella series, 368
also Cable networks Technology Report (Neilsen), 151 UNI, 17, 24
children’s, 330, 331 Technology talk, 449–450 United Stations, 426
documentary/educational, 330 Technorati, 160 Universal access, 103–104
entertainment, 330–332 Telecommunications Act (1996), 48 Universal channel lineup, 116
foreign channels, 332–333 Telecourses, 362–363 Univision, 7, 8, 14, 15, 46, 265, 278
foundation, 330 TeleFutura, 7, 14, 15, 24, 46, 278 Univision Radio, 378, 388, 449
future and, 338–339 Telemundo, 7, 14, 24, 46, 278 Unscripted programming, 83–84
home shopping channels, 335 Telenovelas, 15, 81 UPN, 24, 277
hyping, 337 Telephone coincidental method, 199–200 Urban format, 379
lifestyle channels, 333 Telephone screeners, 452–453 Urban talk, 448
movies channels, 333 Telephone systems, 94–97 USA, 16, 19, 305
music channels, 333 Telephony, defined, 94 Us (magazine), 80
news channels, 333 TeleRep, 212 U-verse, 96–97, 116, 126
nonbroadcast audience measurement, Televisa, 15
327–328 Television Variety, 46
religion channels, 333–334 HD (high definition), 5 VCAST, 134
scheduling strategies, 322–324 industry pressures on, 41–42 Veoh, 136
sex channels, 334–335 networks, 7 Verdoia, Ken, 373
Spanish-language channels, 335 on-demand, 5 Verizon, 126
sports channels, 335 ratings services, 168–170 Vertical integration, 48–55
superstations, 335 Television programming services, 311 Vevo, 134
Success talk, 447–448 Television quotation data (TvQs), 165–166 Viacom, 30, 46, 270
Summer schedules, 69–70 Television Without Pity (TWOP), 140 Viddler, 136
Sunday news interviews, 262–263 Tennis Channel, 8 Video gaming, 140–143
Supersizing strategy, 61 Terkel, Studs, 125 ratings services, 172
SVOD (Subscription-VOD), 309–310 Terrestrial radio, 381–382 Video-on-demand (VOD), 5, 98, 308–310,
Sweepers, 413–414 Texas Cable News (TXCN), 122 337
Sweeps, 64–65, 168 Theater-style testing, 161–162 Video-on-demand (VOD) services, 308
Syfy Channel, 22, 97, 317 Theatrical feature films, 84, 86 Video online use, 137
Syndicated exclusivity rule (syndex), 38, 108 Theatricals, 208 Video programming, 93
484 General Index

Viewers, homogeneity of, 118 Washington Post Company, 274 Wimmer Research, 186
Vignettes, 314, 316 Weather Channel, 21 Window, 16
Vimeo, 136 The Weather Channel, 305, 306 Winfrey, Oprah, 9, 76, 292
VimeoPlus, 136 Web-based video-on-demand, 134–135 WTO5/Toldeo 5, 120
ViP (Viewers in Profile report), 220 Webcasting, 383
Viral video, 137 Web programs, 129–130 Xbox 360, 131
Virtual advertising, 54 providers of, 132–138
Virtual channels, 116 Weekend magazines, 262
Virtual worlds, 142 Weiss, Ellen, 359 Yap.TV, 139
Visits, 194 Western Instructional Television (WIT), 362 Yfrog, 136
Voice of Internet Protocol (VoIP), 126 Westwood One, 388–389, 426, 441 YouTube, 4, 7, 15, 105, 134–136, 137
Vudu, 134 What’s On app, 140
Wide Orbit, 404 Zap2It, 140
Wallace, Chris, 262 Wi-Fi, 40, 41, 127, 384 Zapping, 21
Wal-Mart, 134 internet content, 130–132 Zipping, 21
Walters, Barbara, 257 radio, 441 Zoning, 117, 323
Ware, Lincoln, 446 Wiki, 150 Zukerberg, Mark, 138
Warner Brothers (WB), 29, 31, 46, 277 Williams, Juan, 358, 359 Zynga, 140–141, 144, 149