• by Wayne Friedman , November 10, 2005

Syndicated television wants to convince advertisers there are alternatives to low-rated network programming.

The Syndicated Network Television Association says that syndicated shows dominate all of television for Fridays this season so far--with four of the top five-rated shows among adult viewers 18-49. For instance, syndicated "Friends" beats out CBS' "Numbers" by 4.6 million to 3.8 million adult viewers 18-49 on Friday.

The story is even stronger for adults 18-34, with 8 of the top 10 shows. Fridays are also strong in reaching the elusive young male demographic, with syndicated programming pulling in 9 of the top 10 top-rated shows.

This comes as some program analysts have speculated that broadcast networks have all but given up on programming new shows on Friday night because of declining ratings.

"This is not hard for syndication to do with networks' Friday night rating," said Brad Adgate, senior vp and corporate media director of Horizon Media, New York. "It's not how well syndication is doing on Friday night. It's how poorly broadcast networks are doing on Fridays. Who is watching on Friday night, anyway?"

Mitch Burg, president of SNTA, says syndication is a lot more than just high ratings on Fridays: "We have three of the top ten-rated shows every day of week."

Burg notes that, for example, on Thursdays syndication has "Everybody Loves Raymond," "Seinfeld," and "Friends" in the top ten of all shows among 18-49 viewers. On Monday, syndication has four shows in the top ten: "Raymond," "Seinfeld," "Friends," and "That 70s Show."

Some media agency executives say these syndicated shows' ratings are somewhat of a misnomer. Syndicators sell off of Gross Average Audience (GAA) ratings rather than Average Audience (AA) ratings.

With GAA ratings, the syndicator sells advertising time on shows that include not just ratings on TV stations, but cable networks as well. So, for example, Warner Bros. would sell its national barter syndication advertising time for a "Friends" airing on a TV station and for an airing on TBS, which is a sister company of Warner Bros.

"We are platform agnostic. We are one TV world," said SNTA's Burg. Even discounting some of these cable ratings, Burg says many shows that only run on TV stations would still beat network fare.

Media analysts estimate the cable portion of an average GAA syndication shows comes to roughly 15 percent.