More evidence grows over multitasking multiscreen viewing. Almost two-thirds of tablet owners -- 63% -- watch TV while using their tablets, per a study from GfK MRI.The research says this is significantly more than any other activity done concurrently with tablet usage. Overall, 41% of tablet owners’ total TV viewing time comes from this type of two-screen viewing.What kind of attention? Thirty-six percent of concurrent TV/tablet users said their primary focus was on their tablet, 36% say the focus was equal between the TV and tablet; and 28% said their primary focus was on the TV screen.Most activity on a tablet during TV time? Social media. Thirty-four percent posted comments on Facebook, Twitter, a blog or another site regarding a show. Other TV-related stuff: 25% visited a network or show’s Web site, fan site or app; 21% looked for information of a TV show being watched; 16% watched a video clip about a show; 11% voted in a contest/event for a TV show; and 9% chatted live about a TV show.Good news for advertisers: 28% of two-screen viewers used their tablet to look up more information about a product advertised during a show they watched and 12% purchased a product advertised during a show.Risa Becker, senior vice president of research operations at GfK MRI, stated: "This is particularly good news for marketers; having a tablet at hand makes it much easier for consumers to respond instantly to commercial offers while they are top of mind.”
A day after CEO Leslie Moonves said CBS will not make programming available to Dish Network unless it drops a DVR service that can automatically skip commercials, the satellite operator’s CEO fought back. Dish CEO Joe Clayton charged CBS with being out of touch, while indicating that Auto Hop won’t be going away. “Let me say this to Mr. Moonves and the broadcasters,” he said. “They would be well-advised to tune into the consumer. Give the customer choice and control. Give the customer a better experience and everybody wins.” Livid at Dish for offering the service that records their prime-time fare and allows a consumer to swiftly knock out all ads, the Big Four networks have gone to court to thwart Auto Hop. It could be quite a standoff if Auto Hop continues and Moonves and Clayton find themselves at the negotiating table. Dish would stand to lose CBS programming in huge markets such as New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, while CBS would lose reach that could impact ad dollars. Dish serves 14 million homes, although not all are in markets where CBS owns stations that Moonves could block unilaterally. The folksy Clayton seemed to enjoy jabbing Moonves at an event tabbed the “War of the Words” -- a stunt to promote Glenn Beck’s new show on Dish. “The fast-forward button didn’t kill the television business, Hulu didn’t kill the television business, nor did the VCR kill TV, in fact the industry has thrived,” Clayton said. “Will innovation like the Auto Hop improve the user experience? Of course it will. So will Hulu, Netflix and new innovative programming like (Beck’s network and liberal-leaning Current TV). We at Dish embrace the consumer, embrace change and embrace technology. We believe that giving the customer what he or she wants is always a formula for success.” Beck and Current talk show host Eliot Spitzer will hold a debate televised on Dish the night before the first presidential debate. Dish’s home page has a “Skip Commercials, Jump For Joy!” promo for a special offer for the Hopper DVR with Auto Hop. “If they want to eliminate our commercials, we will not be in business with them -- it’s pure and simple,” Moonves told investors Wednesday. “We cannot produce an episode of a show for $3.5 million and have the people at Dish say: ‘We can pull out the commercials.’”
In the first battle between the two heavyweight singing competition shows, NBC's "The Voice" easily bested Fox's "X Factor" in a head-to-head battle on Wednesday night -- but both suffered from lower ratings versus comparable original episodes."The Voice," running from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., pulled a Nielsen preliminary 3.3 rating/11 share among 18-49 viewers and 10.7 million overall average viewers. It earned a 2.7 rating/10 share and 7.5 million viewers for the first hour of its season two-hour 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. premiere.Despite the presence of new celebrity judges Britney Spears and Demi Lovato, "X Factor" dropped 25% lower to a 3.3 rating/10 share versus its premiere of a year ago. But "The Voice" didn't come away unscathed -- its results were 18% lower than its 4 rating on Tuesday.After the one-hour "Voice" left the airwaves, "X Factor" had some clear sailing and rose to a 3.9 rating in the 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. hour.The heavy competition did not seem to affect CBS' near-end-of-the-season "Big Brother," which pulled in a 2.0/6 -- down just one-tenth of a rating point from a week ago. The network aired reruns in the rest of its Wednesday night schedule.NBC had other decent results for the entire night. Its summer reality competition effort "America's Got Talent" took in a 2.9/8 between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m., and the debut of its new sitcom at 10 p.m., "Guys with Kids," registered a strong 2.2/6.ABC ran a full night of reruns.For the night, Fox was tops in the demographic group that still matters most to prime-time advertising: 18-49 viewers. It had a 3.3/10; NBC, a 2.7/8; CBS, 1.5/5; Univision, 1.5/5; ABC, 0.9/3; and CW, a 0.3/1.
It’s no secret that the continuing decline of network TV reach is creating bigger challenges for media planners and their clients. We’re so familiar with this decades-long problem — and the limited range of potential solutions — we tend to gloss over the magnitude of the issue and its significant negative impact on overall media effectiveness. Case in point: the current state of audience fragmentation. According to Nielsen, 50% of TV viewership can be found on networks that each have less than one percent share. That’s an astonishing degree of diffused viewing, and it’s only going to get worse. All this fragmentation has resulted in media plans designed to deliver high reach and average frequency, but which actually deliver highly polarized frequency of impressions. Nielsen and Simulmedia have found that 20% of heavy TV viewers now account for up to 80% of most national TV campaign impressions. In other words, there is no “average.” It’s the classic 20/80 phenomenon: 20% of reach is delivered with excessive frequency to high-index TV viewers; 80% of reach is delivered with inadequate frequency against low-index TV viewers — consumers who are most desirable and influential for the vast majority of brands. Without the high-reach programming of the past, advertisers struggle to find big audiences. Network TV’s decline is generally blamed for this polarity. However, the strategies commonly used to solve for lost reach, such as cable TV and online video, actually exacerbate the problem. How? They each deliver small reach with high levels of frequency – in other words, tonnage. Media planners simply can’t get the reach without the excessive frequency. Thus, as network TV reach shrinks, excessive frequency grows. The search for reach has also led planners to place-based digital vendors. But, place-based digital isn’t television, based on the factors that matter most: viewing experience and impact. “Viewers” do not seek out these screens for their content. As a result, agencies purchase heavy-frequency schedules to compensate for distracted viewing: Ads that are ancillary to people who are preoccupied with everyday tasks. The only thing place-based digital has in common with television is the video screen. Thus, many planners now assume they must deliver an average frequency of 7-8x, at a minimum, to pound their client’s message into the viewer’s brain. The good old days of 3x average frequency as the benchmark for effective television plans have gone the way of TV dials and rabbit ear antennae. What does this say for the future? To quote the Bard, “what’s past is prologue. With network TV continuing its inexorable fragmentation, will 15x frequency be the standard by 2020? If so, expect the “20%” to vomit with a Pavlovian-like response to infinite viewings of what was originally a mildly entertaining commercial, while the “80%” continue to be underexposed, or missed altogether. Effective media solutions will be those that deliver “network/prime-time TV” programming: big reach with engaged viewers, at effective frequency. Where can that be found? With the exception of the best prime-time programs and events such as the Oscars and Super Bowl, not in television as we know it. The solution can be found in the creation of compelling out-of-home, prime-time TV-like experiences. Digital, big-screen exposure at cinemas, concert venues and professional and college sports stadiums provide new and effective – and yet often overlooked – means of reaching consumers. Nielsen, Telmar and MRI, having expanded their capabilities and coverage in this area, confirm the effectiveness of out-of-home TV in achieving low-frequency, high-impact reach. In some cases, the results have included double-digit increases in purchase intent, brand favorability and message recall. Chasing prime-time TV-like reach requires looking beyond traditional television options to find effective “television” solutions. Those that can deliver “can’t-miss” content to engaged, live audiences, at an effective frequency of 2-3x per schedule, will earn a greater share of media budgets in the future — and with good, measurable reason.
Many Internet entrepreneurs love the idea that consumers can pay for the exact content they want without dealing with the vagaries of advertising. But after a while these same business professionals think, "Wait. Maybe I can monetize a little more." Ex-Fox News host Glenn Beck took his efforts to the Internet about a year ago, just after his ouster from the cable network. For a while, his Internet-based programming service TheBlaze (formerly GBTV) claimed some 300,000 monthly subscribers. At around $100 a year (or $9.95 a month), this would bring Beck and his company Mercury Arts a tidy sum of $30 million a year. By any stretch of the imagination, that’s far more money -- less production expenses -- than Beck earned through his annual Fox News contract. It also lessens the need for national advertisers – the one thorn for any controversial, perhaps fringe, political host. At his best, Beck pulled in around 3 million prime-time viewers on Fox. Now, he claims 300,000 Internet subscribers, additional audience from his radio show, and 9 million monthly uniques from TheBlaze website. But as any good business entrepreneur dreams, more is better. Dish Network has agreed to carry TheBlaze as a 24/7 network. Mercury will get a small, undisclosed monthly subscriber fee. Dish has around 14 million overall subscribers. But the bigger question is, “How much, if at all, will national advertisers be part of this new effort?” To get TheBlaze, TV customers will have a choice. They can get it by subscribing to Dish's big 250-channel monthly service. Or, if they have a lesser-priced Dish service, they can pay an extra fee (around $5) like they do for HBO or some regional sports networks. So it seems TheBlaze has some solid financial backing and now wants to look for national marketers like every other cable network. The Dish/Beck announcement made no mention of business specifics in this regard. (One current marketer on TheBlaze website includes the Tax Resolution Services Company). Lowered ratings -- and the usual result of such metrics, lower advertising revenues -- contributed to Beck’s downfall at Fox News. Some controversial statements by Beck also sent marketers running. How big a picture will advertisers play in Beck's new TV venture? For many, it's a non-story in the Beck 2.0 TV adventure.
As soon as the habit of tablet use during TV prime time first emerged two years ago, marketers and TV programmers have wondered and debated whether this was a plus or a minus. Was TV a competing screen in the living room that dilutes the experience? Or was it a direct-response vehicle for both content and advertising on that “first screen?” Gfk MRI weighs in with research leaning to the latter rather than the former. TV watching is by far the most popular activity done in tandem with tablet use, the company finds. Of 1,382 tablet owners surveyed, 63% used the device while the TV was on in the last week. Interestingly, the tablet owners divided almost in thirds when recording their own level of attentiveness across the three screens. More than a third (36%) said their primary focus was on the tablet, while 28% said it was on the TV. But another 36% said they felt their attention was “equally focused” on both screens at once. The distraction issue is not entirely settled. Arguably, magazines, newspaper and living room conversation have always been distractions during prime time, so the tablet is really just joining other familiar behaviors. But clearly, more than a third acknowledge the deeply engaging nature of the “second screen” even when a much larger one is present. When it comes to TV-related activities, however, the social TV programmers have some reason to take heart. Among two-screeners, 34% said they used the tablet to post comments regarding the show they are watching. A quarter of them went to the show’s site, app or fan site. More than a fifth (21%) sought information related to the show. The good news for advertisers is that whatever the overall distraction factor is involved with second screening, they likely are getting a benefit from the practice. Gfk finds 28% of two-screeners used the tablet to look up more information about an advertised product during the show. And unlike some other smartphone research that tends to find episodic look-ups during a TV viewing session, the tablet use is often persistent. Gfk saw 41% of owners using the tablet device throughout their TV viewing time. If that is the case, then tablet tapping and swiping is becoming something akin to a ritual behavior. For a good number of tablet users, the TV goes on and grabbing the tablet is a reflex. That means that the living room is reliably target-able as a two-screen experience. The more that I talk to executives across the marketing, media and retails spectrum about their mobile, the more I see the interdependence of the screens. Some are seeing people juggle the mobile, tablet, desktop Web and TV experiences in fascinating ways that no one anticipated. Understanding these evolving multi-screen behaviors is the next big challenge. For those of you in L.A. on October 23, by the way, we are going head-on into the topic of video content especially as people consume and interact with it across displays. OMMA Video on Devices will be looking at the latest research on the moving target of media usage as well as the ways in which content, marketing and monetization strategies have to adjust as user move from screen to screen.
Remember when the audition shows on Fox’s “American Idol” became must-see television specifically because Simon Cowell was so unforgiving with his withering condemnations of sub-par singers? The opposite is true of NBC’s “The Voice” and Fox’s “The X Factor.” On those shows, the auditions are all about playing to the viewers’ emotions and instantly investing them in the outcomes of certain performances. It’s not about waiting for people to make fools of themselves; it’s about hearing the next moving or inspirational story and then anxiously waiting to see or hear how the judges react to the performance that follows. All that emotional engagement, edited or otherwise, seems to be working wonders for these shows. “The Voice” was starting to feel somewhat played out last spring by the end of its second season and “The X Factor” had been an increasingly empty exercise as its first hideously over-produced season rolled along one year ago. But they both returned this week in surprisingly fine and effective form. The producers of both shows this season have outdone themselves in casting contestants with amazing personal stories. There’s great joy to be had in watching so many of them “triumph,” while it’s heart-wrenching to watch some of them fail. I’ve been complaining a lot lately about the many unimpressive new shows coming to the broadcast networks in the weeks ahead, and I’ve been suggesting that my problem with them is that they aren’t as thoughtfully conceived or emotionally engaging as so many scripted cable shows. But now I have to wonder if the power of certain reality competition shows is also part of the problem. More so even than on “Idol,” the contestants’ stories on “The Voice” and “The X Factor” often resonate in ways that characters’ personal dramas on scripted series rarely do. In many instances it takes all of 60 seconds to make a viewer care about the outcome of a singer’s time on “The Voice” or “X Factor” stage. Music is everywhere in these shows, but they’re about so much more than the songs. Like many other people, I’ll probably drift away from “The Voice” once its blind audition shows are over and its less dynamic mentoring and competition cycles begin (unless the producers have found a way to fix them). Until then, I won’t miss a minute. Every component this season is firing on all levels, and the emotional connectivity of it all is a marvel of modern television production and presentation. As elaborate as “The Voice” can be, there is an unshakable intimacy about it that never allows it to become a gaudy spectacle or to feel overproduced. Much of the credit for that has to go to judges Blake Shelton, Adam Levine, Christina Aguilera and Cee Lo Green, whose four-way chemistry and cheeky combativeness has happily intensified with time. They have become the most engaging collection of judges on any talent show anywhere. As for “The X Factor,” it is poised to become even bigger and more ove-loaded than it was last year, largely due to the addition of Britney Spears, a performer who can tantalize tabloid editors and gossip bloggers like few others, and Demi Lovato, who is herself no stranger to controversy. That said, something fascinating happened during this week’s season premiere: Two contestants stole the spotlight from everyone and everything around them, one for the right reason, and one for reasons best described as unfortunate. The latter was Don Philip, a singer of questionable talent who had recorded a duet with Spears in 1999 but had not seen her since. He choked up on stage, claiming not to have felt “worthy” when he worked with Spears all those years ago, then asserting that he now wanted “his shot.” Then, in one of the most awkward segments of any talent show ever, he sang and was average at best, leaving Spears at a near loss for words. Four polite rejections later, Philip completely broke down backstage. According to reports, Philip actually came out while on stage, claiming that his career has never taken off because he was struggling with being gay. But all of that was edited out of the telecast. We may never again be able to trust what we’re watching on “The X Factor,” but Philip’s time on stage was riveting. So was the segment with 19-year-old Jillian Jensen, who tearfully revealed that she had been “severely” bullied for many years and had found some comfort when Demi Lovato famously revealed that she, too, had once been bullied in school. It seemed that all of the pain Jensen had absorbed over the years was released in her knockout performance, after which she wept in Lovato’s arms. There wasn’t a dry eye in the arena. Even the notoriously icy Simon Cowell admitted to being very deeply moved. Altogether, Jensen’s time on the show made for truly unforgettable television. What a shame that the producers of “The X Factor” feel compelled to make their show as big and loud and boisterous as possible when its strongest moments are so profoundly intimate.
Dish Network wants viewers to have a choice in how they skip TV commericials, with its new AutoHop feature allowing consumers to skip prime-time ads in bulk. I believe TV networks should also offer a choice to some business partners. For instance, instead of charging 50 cents per subscriber per month, a network could treat Dish’s heavy fast-forwarding consumers like video-on-demand subscribers –- and charge $5 per month for each of them. Business dynamics of traditional TV sellers keep changing as they look for choices and answers. The NBC Televison Network is a bit behind other media companies in some key business metrics. Steve Burke, president/chief executive officer of NBCUniversal, says NBC makes "a little money, but not very much" while network competitors generate between $700 million and $1.5 billion in operating cash flow. But if you think it is just NBC TV behind the eight ball, you'd be wrong. Some of NBCU's cable networks are also a bit under-market. Though USA Network, for example, still leads in many primetime ratings measures, Burke says "its affiliate fees are substantially lower than other general entertainment cable channels like TBS or TNT." And advertising revenues? Much the same, especially for the likes of USA. "If you're looking at advertising, our CPMs for our big cable channels we think in some instances are 25% or 30% below others." Retransmission consent fees? Burke says NBC makes hardly any money in that area. So there is much ground to make up -- all while big media companies continue to offer "choice" and consumers continue to have seemingly thousands of new and old media choices across the entire entertainment landscape. NBCUniversal and other programmers perhaps need to make more complex deals with their business partners, or just do some skipping of their own -- to deals with other companies.
The past 15 years have brought an extraordinary fragmentation of audiences due to a fast-expanding array and diversity of new-media products, channels and platforms. Just within television -- the largest consumer media platform by far in the U.S. in terms of both audience time and advertising expenditures -- over that time we’ve seen a tenfold increase in the number of channels and a hundred-fold increase in the number of programs and episodes. What was once a “take it or leave it” daily special menu of meatloaf, mashed potatoes and overcooked peas is now an on-demand restaurant row of everything from three-star Michelin gourmet cooking to ethnic delights to comfort food. No wonder more Americans watch more live TV today than they did fifteen years ago. According to Nielsen, total TV viewing time and viewing time per person is up more than 10% over that time, an extraordinary statistic given that the Internet, a big part of media habits today, wasn’t even competing for audience attention back then. While all this new choice is without question a great thing for consumers, it has a distinct downside for marketers trying to reach their target audiences. Audience fragmentation makes buying media harder and more complex. You need to evaluate more media choices. You need to maintain more relationships. You need to traffic more ad spots to more partners. You have more competition for larger properties. Per-campaign reach goes down. It’s harder to avoid concentrating message frequency on the “heaviest” TV viewers. Fragmentation also impacts the quality of the media product a buyer can deliver for his or her clients, as the ability to guarantee “perfect” content environments diminishes significantly. Unfortunately for the industry, TV content and TV audiences will never be as homogenous as they were in the ‘70s and ‘80s. That’s reality and not going to change. The only way to deal with -- or overcome -- the challenges of fragmentation is to adjust our approach to TV media buying, selling and measurement. Here’s what I mean: Recognize that audience heterogeneity can be a good thing for targeting. Today, TV advertisers can reach precise audiences in highly contextual content. Fifteen years ago we didn’t have vehicles like HGTV and Food Network to reach fixer-uppers and folks who love to cook. Data is helping mass marketers develop tighter and tighter segmentations of their target consumers. Isn’t it time we helped them leverage those insights in TV advertising? Challenge the outdated, anecdotal truisms that drive so much of our industry. Fragmentation of audiences not just by program and channel, but by daypart, now means that significant concentrations of target audiences can now be found in non-intuitive places. Data from Nielsen shows us that both billiards on ESPN and FOX News in certain dayparts draw Hispanic viewers in extraordinarily high concentration and volumes. Maybe it’s time to throw out some of our outdated anecdotal truisms about audiences and their behaviors, and lean into empiricism? Recognize that delivering scaled reach, and buying shows with low average ratings, are not mutually exclusive. Buying spots on lower-rated shows doesn’t mean you can’t deliver campaigns with massive scale and reach; quite the opposite, in fact. As noted media planner and researcher Erwin Ephron preached to us years ago, it’s actually much easier to build reach on TV by intelligently assembling spots on lots of lower-rated shows than by buying a few big shows in prime time, since high-rated prime time also tends to deliver an inordinate amount of duplication among heavy TV viewers. Yes, fragmentation means that effective TV campaigns will require many more spots than they used to do. There isn’t an alternative without sacrificing advertisers’ best interests. Stop focusing on bulk GRPs. The gross rating point is a very valuable and resilient metric that will not only be with us for a very long time, but will find lots of value and applicability as it is extended into online ad campaigns as well. However, the GRP alone, when it is not qualified by target rating points and incremental reach points, is as meaningless as only counting empty calories when trying to measure nutrition in a diet. Delivering 100 ads per person to 5% of a target audience watching TV in a two-week campaign should never be valued the same as delivering 10 ads each to 50% of the target audience on TV. Same GRPs, massively different value and results for an advertiser. Think I’ve made up an extreme and ludicrous example? Analyze TV campaigns for some recent movie releases using Nielsen’s AudienceWatch. We must learn to embrace, leverage and exploit the reality of a fragmented TV media world. It is essential to the long-term health of television advertising, and it won’t be painless. But, like other markets in transition, those who move early and do it well will have an advantage. Those who don’t, won’t. What do you think?