Much of the focus of Thursday’s ANA TV & Everything Video Forum was on multiple screens and new cross-platform techniques to utilize them effectively. However, numerous speakers at the forum stressed that the new devices did not spell the end of network television. "TV is not broken," proclaimed Justin Evan, senior vice president, emerging media at ad network Collective. Rather, TV remains the tentpole of the multiscreen environment, accounting for most of the viewing and ad dollars placed against video content, said ANA group executive vice president Bill Duggan. Other screens are essential but supplemental. Though ANA Forums of the past have suggested otherwise, Duggan stressed that “TV is alive, well and thriving.” It's also evolving, just like the rest of the media environment. One executive suggested it’s time to stop thinking of TV as a “traditional” medium. “We should look at TV as new media,” said Mike Proulx, senior vice president, director of digital strategy at ad shop Hill Holliday, a unit of the Interpublic Group. “It’s a very different experience today,” he said, noting the 10,000 tweets per second generated by the Super Bowl on Twitter. While TV is thriving, planning for the medium needs an overhaul, said Proulx, co-author of the new book Social TV. “We need a new planning model,” that focuses on multiscreen integration “to create a rich experience for television across devices.” Case in point -- a multiscreen approach by retailer The Gap that tied into TV’s new fall season, Entertainment Weekly and Social TV app GetGlue. EW readers who checked into featured TV shows in the magazine’s Fall Preview issue via the GetGlue app could receive stickers redeemable for 40% off Gap clothing. Users could also share the offer with their friends on Facebook and Twitter. According to Proulx, 70,000 people redeemed the offer. In the overall scheme of things, “that’s not a big number,” he said. “But it’s emerging behavior.” Another TV-as-new-media example was Coke’s multiscreen Polar Bear ad strategy leading up to the Super Bowl, said Proulx. TV ads drove viewers online, where they could watch the bears reacting to events in the game in real-time. “TV spots drive awareness” of messages appearing on other screens, he said. With effective spots, viewers will migrate to the other platforms for fear of “missing out” on an opportunity.
As Canoe Ventures looks to build network and advertiser interest in its request-for-information (RFI) interactive TV product, new data shows about 20% of adults in a key demo took advantage of the offering in a test. That click-through rate via a remote control is an average for ads tested from five marketers: Honda, Fidelity, GlaxoSmithKline and State Farm. The results are from a year-long study conducted jointly on the effectiveness of interactive TV (iTV) as an ad medium by Canoe and the Association of National Advertisers. Garnering data from an online panel of 4,200, 19% on average of those exposed to an RFI ad in the 18-to-49 demo took advantage of an offer. RFI spots feature an on-screen prompt to encourage viewers to click in pursuit of more information or a special offer related to the advertised product. The Canoe/ANA data also showed RFI ads can bring added engagement, regardless of a click-through rate: unaided recall was up 86%. Unaided recall was also up 101% for brands sponsoring polling and trivia opportunities on-screen within a program. Canoe is looking to offer networks a platform to give viewers a chance to participate, where an advertiser could be attached. The year-long research, tabbed CEE MEE, looks to find the link between “Connection, Emotion and Experience” of what is broadly defined as advanced advertising with “Measurement, Efficiency and Engagement.” “Going forward, iTV is certainly going to play a significant role in the future of brand marketing,” stated Honda executive Tom Peyton. “We are beginning to see the emergence of a lot of digital metrics, and we’re getting a glimpse of what can be done to make TV more interactive from a marketing perspective, with the metrics to support those efforts.” Canoe is a joint venture of the six largest cable operators and has built a platform where iTV ads can be delivered into 25 million homes served by different operators. AMC, Bravo and Discovery are among the networks looking to sell RFI iTV ads to marketers.
People are no longer just watching television programs. They are talking about them online, often on branded social-media campaigns from program sponsors. Still, defining "social TV" could almost seem a Hobson's choice between a redundancy and an oxymoron. Each one of the three participants in a panel on social TV at the Association of National Advertisers’ (ANA) TV & Everything Video forum in New York gave their two sentences worth. The guy who wrote the book (no pun intended, but "literally," as it turns out) said "social TV" ought to be thought of more as a contraction -- the convergence of social media and TV. And Mike Proulx, SVP, and director of digital strategy at Boston-based Hill Holliday and author of the just-released Social TV, said that's how most people see it, as a broad descriptive of connected devices that link TV to the Internet. Fernando Arriola, VP, media and integration at ConAgra Foods, opined that there's nothing inherently new about social TV, or at least TV as social phenomenon. "It's been around forever. It's any of the ways consumers can share or participate at a deeper level with content." Nadine McHugh, VP, global integrated media communications at Colgate-Palmolive, was even more concise, arguing that social TV is simply TV that people want to talk about and engage with. Certainly, the Super Bowl reflected brand interest in turning TV into a mosaic of simultaneous marketing events on different screens designed to engage consumers with brands and with each other. Coca-Cola's polar bears were in the beverage giant's TV spots, but they were simultaneously online during the game, commenting on the game and, in a meta-commentary, on their own ad. Tom Cunniff, VP and director of interactive communications at Combe Incorporated, asked if such multi-screen programs risk splitting people’s attention across devices. McHugh agreed that the risk exists, but said that, if the central idea is engaging, it only deepens engagement and attention. "We have seen it; consumers are already fragmenting their attention. What social TV does is to bring the experience to life so we can capture consumer attention more." She argued that if the story is good and engaging, it will involve consumers, no matter how many screens are telling it. And Arriola cited data from NBCU that show, in fact, the more that people engage with a brand on multiple devices and levels, the more they engage with TV content. "They are the people who tend to be most loyal to a show, and watch it more." But the key is integration of campaigns well before anyone sits down to pen creative, argued McHugh. She said mapping before creating is where marketers can avoid overspending on strategies to make television a social experience. "And we won’t have a choice because consumers will take the conversation on whether we choose to [consider a social strategy] or not. It would be wise to un-silo and do marketing in an integrated way, and create assets before we create the ad.” But think about how to partner with content providers -- because there are ways to do it for free. Arriola asked, probably rhetorically, if marketers really need to pay for it. "We should think about how can we partner with content providers so we don't incur cost," he said, pointing to free promotional mileage that Web content firm Shazam got from being integral to a Pillsbury augmented reality campaign last year. Summing up, Proulx suggested it is probably best -- in terms of changing strategy and entrenched silo-focused culture at companies and agencies -- to think of TV as new media. "If you believe in that premise, then you need a new planning model for TV. Gone must be the days of TV people and digital people. We have to work together, in unison, at same time, from the get-go."
DirectTV grew healthy U.S. revenues -- but with a smaller number of new subscribers -- during the fourth quarter of 2011. U.S. revenue climbed 9% to $6.03 billion, with net consumer additions of 125,000. This was against a net gain of 289,000 for the fourth quarter of 2010. For the year, DirecTV ended with a 3% gain to 19.89 million U.S. subscribers. The company's average monthly revenue per subscriber increased to $101.38 from $96.64 in the fourth quarter of 2010. Much of this was due to higher NFL Sunday Ticket sales, as well as price increases on programming packages and leased set-top boxes, and sales of premium channels and advanced services. DirecTV made gains in Latin America and Mexico. Latin America grew 2 million in new subscribers for the year to 7.8 million. Sky Mexico had an annual net gain of 3.7 million. U.S. and Latin America customers now total 32 million. DirecTV's overall revenues for the fourth quarter of 2011 were up 13% to $7.46 billion, with net income climbing 16% to $718 million. Programming costs continue to rise at DirecTV, particularly for its pricey NFL Sunday Ticket package, which gives consumers access to all Sunday games. Overall programming costs rose to $3.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2011 from $2.9 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010. For the entire year 2011, programming costs were at $11.7 billion from $10.0 billion. DirecTV now pays the NFL over $900 million a year for the Sunday Ticket package. This is part of a $4 billion five-year deal that it signed in 2009.
Fox's "American Idol" has now landed back at its beginnings -- seeing ratings it hasn't seen since it started up 10 years ago. A two-hour "Idol" results show on Thursday was down around 15% from a week ago to a Nielsen preliminary 5.0 rating/13 share among 18-49 viewers -- which is its lowest score since the show started. Just like a week before, CBS' "Big Bang Theory" continues to best "Idol" in its common half hour -- 8 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.-- a 5.0 rating to the "Idol" 4.6 rating. But "Bang" didn't get all that much good news on a week-to-week basis, either. It was down from a 5.6 rating the week before. Fox still bested and distanced itself over CBS on the night overall -- a 5.0/13 to CBS 3.3/9. A week ago, Fox was at a 4.0/11 versus a 3.6/10 for CBS. The chief reason: Two hours worth of "Idol" this time around versus one hour a week ago. CBS's new comedy "Rob" slipped a bit, but still landed with a strong 3.2/9. The network's dramas were lower, down a tad: "Person of Interest" at a 2.9/7 and "The Mentalist" at a 2.8/7. ABC was next -- actually adding two-tenths of a rating point overall this Thursday, averaging a 2.6/7. "Wipeout" was the same at 1.5/4; "Grey's Anatomy" hit another season low, a 3.1/8; but "Private Practice" was up almost a half a rating point, a 2.6/7. NBC went lower -- now down versus Univision on the night to a 1.4/4 average. Its best -- if you can call it that -- came from "The Office" at a 2.2/6, another season low. "30 Rock" was at 1.4/4; "Parks & Recreation" at 1.7/5; 'Up All Night" at 1.5/4; and a "Grimm" rerun earned a 0.7/2. Univision was positioned better on the night overall then NBC -- fourth place among the broadcasters, hitting a nice 2.2/6. CW was the same versus a week ago at a 1.0/3.
Turner Sports, CBS Sports and the NCAA have unveiled a new tiered pricing and access model for this year’s on-demand March Madness offering. Now dubbed NCAA March Madness Live, full access to all 2012 NCAA Division 1 Men’s Basketball Championship games from March 7 to the April 2 finals will cost $3.99 across Web, mobile and tablet screens. Free streaming will still be available on NCAA.com, CBSSports.com and SI.com for select games. Turner will stream the games of its broadcasts via its standard online authentication model for current viewers. Generally, the paywall seems to affect mobile streaming most. Mobile access this year will extend to Android phones in addition to dedicated iOS apps. Sponsors for the iOS apps include Buick, Coke Zero and CapitalOne. Sponsor support for the Android app comes from AT&T, Infiniti and LG. March Madness is among the most-watched cross-platform video events of the year. Up to 3 million unique users a day have accessed the service at peak. Over the years it has been the testing ground for a number of content, social media and pricing models for multiplatform viewing. Turner and CBS last year started a 14-year $10.8 billion deal with the NCAA to broadcast games that allowed every game in the championship to be aired in full on one of four cable networks owned across the two companies. According to a Newsday report, Turner had held off using online authentication of its subscribers last year because its TV everywhere system was still new and did not cover enough of the country’s viewers. This year, it was looking for a comfortable price point for extending access to mobile. “Obviously a lot of thought and market research went into that price point,” Turner SVP Matthew Hong told Newsday. “We wanted to make it a fair price and for people to get value at that price…we wanted to incent authentication.” In its early years, March Madness On Demand did exact a $15 fee for Web access to streaming, but it reverted to free streaming in 2006.
Network competitors might soon be partners, especially considering where Netflix and other digital TV/video services have gone. CBS doesn't believe Netflix is a competitor yet, because as President/CEO Les Moonves reminds us, Netflix still doesn't program 22 hours of "premium" evening programming a week. And Netflix? It believes it is in an "arms race" -- in which I'm guessing the more entertainment weapons you have, the better. HBO Go is in its sights as the most prominent entertainment enemy. Moonves said CBS is in talks with Netflix about creating an original series. Other original series from Netflix, now described as a subscription video on demand (SVOD) service, include "Lilyhammer" (already available), "Arrested Development (still to come) and "House of Cards" (still to come). Netflix says it has two more original series are in the works. With a CBS series coming as well, by our account that would mean around seven hours worth of TV series -- just 15 hours short of the mark that, according to Moonves, would deem them as a competitor of sorts. To be fair, broadcast networks and their media holding companies have dealt with each other -- their supposed competitors -- for years. A notable recent effort was NBCUniversal selling the long-time hit drama “House,” which will end this year, to Fox. NBC would say it got millions of dollars in license fees over the past eight years. Fox would say "House," which even now still has a strong 3.5 rating among 18-49 viewers, has provided millions of dollars in national advertising. While a new CBS-produced Netflix program is interesting, a bigger deal is CBS and Warner Bros. making big program license deals with Netflix for their programs from co-owned CW. Some 90% of Netflix’s business is still in TV/film distribution. Looking forward, maybe all networks need to open up their business to new deals with supposed competitors. The formation of digital video platform Hulu by network owners Walt Disney, News Corp., and NBCUniversal was just the start. Longtime TV analyst Steve Sternberg has noted that, with still eroding ratings for the broadcast networks, it’s time for them to allow some form of cross-network marketing of their shows, similar to what cable networks do with their programming. This should be only the first step. Growing competition will make for even stranger bedfellows.
Who could have imagined one week ago that CBS’ telecast last Sunday of the 54th Annual Grammy Awards would be so historic and so highly rated for so sad and terrible a reason? The sudden death of Whitney Houston the night before resonated throughout, adding a genuine emotional undercurrent to an event that is often as distant and hollow as most Hollywood award shows. LL Cool J handled what had to be an uncommonly difficult hosting gig with grand grace and dignity, but also with good humor and outsize charm. (If I ran the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, I would already be pursuing him as my host of choice for this year’s Emmy Awards. His thoughtful energy is exactly what that often-airless ceremony needs.) Jennifer Hudson’s stirring rendition of “I Will Always Love You” as a tribute to Ms. Houston was an unforgettable television moment that will be recalled and replayed for years to come. With all due respect, as I listened throughout the Grammys to so many of her friends and peers declare their longtime love for Houston, I couldn’t help but wonder how many of them had actually rolled up their sleeves and tried to help her deal with her well-documented demons over the years. Isn’t that the greatest love of all -- being there for someone in desperate trouble and helping them as much as possible without fear of confrontation or fallout? Similarly, as the week went on, it grew increasingly difficult to hear people (many of them from the music industry) talk so lovingly on so many news and infotainment programs about Houston’s too-short life and brilliant career. I wonder to what degree any of them attempted to intercede on her behalf and assist her in seeking the medical attention that might have helped her remain healthy and perhaps saved her life. Ignorance of the depressing details of Houston’s life in recent years is not an excuse. Her issues were widely exploited by the media, from tabloid magazines to online gossip columns to television clip-shows. Indeed, there was no more explicit a presentation of Houston’s unfortunate circumstances than the revolting 2005 Bravo reality series “Being Bobby Brown,” which disturbingly and depressingly offered an ugly, unflattering look into the lives of Houston and Brown during what would be one of the final years of their marriage. Why a luminous star of Houston’s magnitude ever agreed to descend into the muck of reality television remains a mystery. The most impactful commentary I heard about Houston’s death this week came Wednesday night on Piers Morgan’s CNN talk show. Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx -- an alcoholic and drug abuser in recovery -- wondered why Houston’s friends and associates (whom he referred to as “enablers”) sat idly by while she consumed alcohol (even in limited quantities) or took drugs of any kind, given her history and her own public admissions of her substance abuse problems. “What’s scummy about the music industry is, everybody loves you when you’re dead,” he declared with a searing candor I hadn’t heard from anyone else who has commented on Houston’s passing. Sixx revealed that he finally got sober and stayed that way only when his manager bravely threatened to walk away from him. “That was the kick in the ass I needed to put myself in rehab and pull my life together,” he said. Sixx’s remarks on Wednesday were thoughtful and constructive, and they made for important television. Not so those of Nancy Grace and Dan Abrams on Thursday’s edition of “Good Morning America.” Abrams was in attack mode, determined to pull an apology out of Grace for an instantly controversial suggestion she made Monday on CNN that Houston’s death might have been a homicide. I believe she was trying to explain that one of the things that the Los Angeles coroner’s office would determine via autopsy was whether or not Houston, who reportedly died in a hotel room bathtub, was pushed under water. But greater clarity and sensitivity to the situation were called for, and it was not one of Grace’s better moments. Of course, Grace is known for her arch directness and off-putting abrasiveness, at least on camera, so nothing she says should come as a shock or surprise. Abrams, though, was similarly out of line when he interviewed her yesterday on “GMA.” He seemed more interested in putting Grace in her place and getting her to apologize than in doing what a news interviewer should do, which is to get his subject (in this case Grace) to explain herself and leave it to viewers to decide if they accept what they hear. Nothing instructive came out of the Abrams-Grace clash. Indeed, it may be that Grace’s comments received more publicity as a result of her “GMA” appearance than they did at the time she made them.
Throughout my professional life, I’ve had the privilege of riding hundreds of steep learning curves, getting thrown into the deep end in a huge variety of industries, disciplines, and markets. My relish of these moments is perhaps unusual; after all, not everyone likes being completely ignorant when tasked with something new. As such, I thought it might be useful to share what I’ve learned this past year in one particular area: television advertising and, particularly, media buying. Most of my experience in TV advertising is from the U.K., with a little bit of Google TV thrown in. I’ll cover both here; AFAIK, the U.K. stuff is pretty relevant to U.S. advertisers anyway. TV airtime is purchased in “CPMs” (cost per thousand impacts). An impact is one view of a commercial, so as soon as your ad runs more than once, you might get overlap in your impacts. The number of total impacts tells you neither how many people viewed your ad nor how many times they viewed it. The CPM system makes it easier to compare apples to apples across TV channels and times of day or week. I had always thought that they just charge an amount for a commercial, but really you know with reasonable precision how many people you’re going to reach. If you’re advertising something with a reasonably measurable response, you can get a pretty good sense of how TV advertising compares to, say, Adwords. The CPM thing means you can advertise on a smaller channel for very little, but it also means you’ll reach very few people. In the U.K. (and possibly the U.S.? Anyone?) the standard benchmark for CPM pricing is based on a 30-second ad. 20-second ads are billed at a fraction that is cheaper than a full 30-second ad but more than 2/3. 10-second ads are billed at ½ the cost of a 30-second ad. So in absolute terms it’s cheaper to run a 10-second ad, but in terms of total time on the air it’s more expensive. That’s why it’s good to have a mix of ad lengths; people get to see you more frequently, but you maximize the total value of your spend. In the U.S., ads are edited to 15-second increments. CPMs fluctuate from channel to channel and month to month, and sometimes within a month, depending on inventory and demand (how many thousands of people are watching TV vs. how badly companies want to advertise during that time period). In December, the first third has high CPMs, the middle lower, and the last third very low, as advertisers have already spent their budgets trying to maximize Christmas sales -- but people are still on holiday and, therefore, watching TV. It’s tempting to only go for the channel with the lowest CPM, but not always effective. You’ll want to consider “reach” and “frequency” -- how many people your ad reaches and how many times it reaches each person. You’ll also want to consider the buzz factor (the more people talking about your product, the more they’ll generate additional interest), the brand associations of the TV channel and program, and the target demographic. Obviously, you’re better off spending $2 to convert four viewers than $1 to convert one viewer. The other thing is that, since there’s no way to know exactly how many people will watch TV next month, channels have to manage inventories throughout the month to suit actual results. They do this through a system of overdelivery and underdelivery. If lots more folks are watching TV than expected, you might get more exposure than you paid for at no additional cost. Of course, this also means you might get a bit of underdelivery in subsequent months as they try to balance it out. A good media buyer should aim to have a bit of overdelivery each month. All ads in the U.K. have to be cleared for broadcast by Clearcast, which monitors for compliance with the BCAP advertising guidelines. In the U.S. it’s a self-regulatory process. In both countries there are also specific guidelines and obligations if you’re targeting ads to children. “Trafficking” is the delivery of each ad to the broadcast house. In the U.S., you can use Google TV Ads to advertise on TV. Despite the confusing name, this is a way to use the Google auction system to buy remnant airtime on networks throughout the States. It gives you a high level of specificity about dayparts (segments of the day in which you want to advertise), channels, and programs, and lets you crank your advertising up or down with just a few days’ notice. Hope that’s helpful! Feel free to comment with questions or if you’ve got additional insight into the U.S. system.
Detailed research into sports or television is never a perfect indicator of success. So you might depend on gut instincts. But what about athletes and TV shows that have neither? By looking at the numbers, few NBA general managers thought that previously unknown Harvard graduate Jeremy Lin would average well over 25 points a game and lead his New York Knicks to six straight victories -- five of them without the team’s two big marquee stars. What can TV programmers learn from this? While we all know the value of media research, scheduling research, and the testing of TV shows, success means more than just looking at numbers. Not all well-tested shows achieve positive results. (Hello, Fox's "Lone Star.") Billy Beane, the baseball general manager of "Moneyball" fame, used cold-hearted research to grab under-valued, under-appreciated players and make the Oakland As into a better team. Would Jeremy Lin have made the list had Beane been an NBA GM? Playing for low-profile (but still NCAA Division 1) Harvard, little in Lin’s background could have predicted his recent rise to fame. In TV, could have anyone predicted that MTV's "Jersey Shore" would not only get the most viewers for any regularly scheduled non-sports cable show, but regularly beat many broadcast network shows on Thursday nights? But we perhaps should have guessed better about the success of another high-profile singing competition show on the order of an aging "American Idol." NBC's "The Voice" is doing very well. NBC might tell you that Mark Burnett’s previous singing competition show -- CBS' summer series "Rock Star" -- was used, in part, as a lesson to figure out what would or wouldn't work in "The Voice." And then there are those shows not built up with big marketing dollars that achieve truly unexpected results -- like ABC's "Once Upon a Time" this season. Maybe such results also have to do with just being somewhat lazy. Looking at the 2010 NBA draft, a lone basketball statistician surmised – based on Lin's field goal percentage and other stats at Harvard -- that he would be a good grab for a team looking for a point guard. Even then some GMs probably probably thought he didn't seem all that "athletic" or that he didn't play against strong competition or go to a big basketball school like Duke, North Carolina, Ohio State, Kentucky or Kansas That's right. Not all television shows have producers like Steven Spielberg or J.J. Abrams attached to them, nor big research pedigrees. But it turns out that even those shows can fail.
CIMM is taking a pro-active role in advancing new media nomenclature and processes with both its Lexicon(terms and definitions associated with Set-Top-Box data measurement) and Asset Identification Primer (glossary of asset terms). These documents form the basis of this column, which offers a common language for Set-Top-Box nomenclature that can expedite the rollout of the data for its many industry applications. Continuing on the commercial pod theme from the past weeks, let us now consider the common elements associated with pods. These constants help in the measurement of commercials within the pods and the measurement of full pods within a program or piece of content. There has been considerable research conducted to ascertain optimal pod length, configuration and positioning. While much of this depends on the type of programming and audience skew of the examined network, certain truisms such as the primacy of the “A” position (first position in the pod) are still generally accepted in the industry. As pod formations and lengths evolve through the Internet and connected TV, we may see different viewing / usage patterns emerge. So, too, as we are able to examine commercial pods on a second-by-second basis via STB data, we may be better able to discern optimal ad patterns between “sub-minute” commercials - 5 seconds, 15 seconds, 20 seconds and 30 seconds - in relation to each other, and to the programming surrounding them. Pod LengthSee also: Pod CIMM DEFINITION: The duration of non-programming content that airs during a program break. (Source: Nielsen) Pod NumberSee also: Pod CIMM DEFINITION: Where the commercial pod is located within an episode, program or time period. 2: The relative position of a pod within a given telecast. (Source: Nielsen) Pod PositionSee also: Pod CIMM DEFINITION: The position of an individual advertisement within a certain commercial pod. 2: The sequential location of an individual commercial within a pod. (Source: Nielsen) Please refer to the CIMM Lexicon online at http://www.cimm-us.org/lexicon.htm for additional information on these and other terms.