• by Randi Schmelzer , June 23, 2008

The must-see night has long been a must buy, but has the game changed?

It wasn't until 1993 that NBC branded Thursday nights "Must See TV," but almost a decade before, viewers and advertisers alike had decided that on their own, thanks to audience-attracting programming like Cheers, Night Court and The Cosby Show. Of course, that was just the beginning: Soon there would be Seinfeld, Will & Grace and Friends.

Since then, Thursday primetime across the networks has become a staple in every major advertiser's playbook. From automakers to movie studios, advertisers looking to draw affluent, educated (and, hopefully, impressionable) viewers have paid top dollar for ad space, and continue to do so.

"Thursday night's a huge night, a pivotal night," says Craig Woerz, managing partner and co-founder of Media Storm. "It's the point where all of your awareness for entertainment properties - if you're promoting something for Friday, Saturday or Sunday - needs to quickly turn over from awareness to intent."

That perceived viewer predictability doesn't come cheap. Though spending on network ads overall has already dropped 2 percent this year, to $22.4 billion, per TNS Media Intelligence, the sluggish economy and writers' strike backlash have yet to affect rates for Thursday primetime shows. A 30-second spot on NBC's The Office, for example, runs about $210,000; on cbs's CSI, $250,000. (Comparatively, NBC's Deal or No Deal, on Wednesday nights, is a downright bargain at about $150,000.)

Still, it's no great secret that "viewers are more in charge of what they watch and when they watch it" than ever before, notes Marlowe Sidney, vice president and associate director of national broadcast at Initiative. But as viewers' habits change, does this ongoing spend-a-thon defy media-buying logic?

Prime Cuts

Thanks to audience-attracting programming like NBC's Ugly Betty and ABC's Grey's Anatomy, Thursday is still loaded with top-tier ad space. "These are really great shows that are getting to the right consumers," says Trina Barta, manager of media operations at GM.

Bill Gordon, group manager of consumer insight and communications at Mazda USA, agrees. "You tend to go to where the audience is, and Thursday night is where viewership reaches its peak during the week," Gordon says. "We still like [Thursday] because it's close to the weekend."

Out of Time

"The popular shows are the ones that are DVR'd," Initiative's Sidney points out. "I don't want to say you're getting less, but you're paying more, and you're not necessarily getting the person who's viewing them on Thursday night."

Brad Adgate, senior vice president and director of research at Horizon Media, says, "I still think it's a pretty important night with regard to advertisers. But I think the paradigm's shifting." He adds, "I think that if you keep on loading up on Thursday night, instead of counterprogramming, you're just going to wind up having viewers watch the show at a different time period with the potential that they zap your ads."

According to a November 2007 study by Solutions Research Group, the numbers exist to back this up. Of respondents 18 to 49 who viewed one or more of the Top 20 primetime shows in the previous 24 hours - including Thursday primetime staples Grey's Anatomy, Ugly Betty, CSI and the CW's Smallville - 55 percent said they time-shifted. (The same survey revealed that nearly 80 million Americans - 43 percent of the online population - watched one of their favorite TV shows online.)

While Thursday's still a long way from becoming the new Friday - at least in terms of live-viewer tune-in - changes ranging from DVR penetration to the growing popularity of commercial-free on-demand are making a difference in consumers' viewing patterns. To that end, marketers are adjusting their buying mix to attract viewers who spend as much time DVR-ing and watching full-length programs online as tuning into live TV. And for advertisers - even automakers, which historically have relied on Thursday primetime - that means spreading content over multiple days and, at times, multiple platforms.

"It used to be that people would have multiple, multiple spots Thursday night, and that would be a media strategy," recalls Mazda's Gordon. "Again, you're just trying to get your message in front of a broader audience, one of the bigger audiences during the week."

Now, he says, strategies are more about integrating messages across a mix of media. One example: Mazda has experimented with integrated efforts in which network or cable advertising is paired with simultaneous online buys, so "wherever the audience is, we'll chase them and catch their attention," Gordon says.

"The way I like to look at it is, it's more about the content than it is about the day of the week," says John Lisko, executive communication director at Saatchi & Saatchi Los Angeles, which handles media planning for Toyota USA.

Whether they experience it live, via DVR or on the Web, Lisko says, "I think the customer is now finding the content so that they can enjoy it, consume it and engage with it on their own terms."

Still, many advertisers have been hesitant to change their media plans. And that may be due to simple institutional inertia.

"The consumer has so many more tools available to them now that we need to have a constant presence in front of them," Lisko says. "So there's really nothing magical about Thursday as much as it is about the content and having the right connection with the viewer when they're experiencing it."

Sticking to the Floors

This is perhaps most relevant for movie marketers; they're historically among the highest spenders on Thursday nights. Like automakers, movie studios have continued this decade-plus tradition.

Networks do a big business on Thursday nights in terms of audience and programming quality to cash in on those movie dollars, says Shari Anne Brill, senior vice president and director of programming at Carat USA. "It is still prime real estate, because movies open up on Fridays," Brill says. "(Like) any big retailer who's opening a sale," she explains, "this is your last chance to connect with an amazing amount of upscale viewers."

Particularly since the days of Seinfeld - and absolutely during Friends' 10-season run - it was practically a given that movie studios would buy space in the 8 to 9 p.m. hour on NBC. Since its debut in September 1994, in fact, Friends had a reputation in the industry as the film industry's "closer," its commercial units coveted by movie marketers as last-chance-to-seal-the-deal spots to buy the night before a film was scheduled to open. By the time its final season rolled around in 2004, studios would shell out $500,000 or more for a 30-second placement on Friends; it was not uncommon for every break to feature a movie ad.

But times were different then for movie marketers. As little as three years ago, the film industry was stuck in a well-documented slump. Box-office-wise, it needed all the help it could get. By 2007, however, it had reached an all-time high, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. Americans were back in theater seats, and movies began to routinely break the $100 million mark at the box office.

Today, that high continues. And - whether necessary or not - ad spending does too: Network spends still make up about 22 percent of film budgets, according to the MPAA, about the same as in 2006 and slightly less than in the previous four years. (Movie marketers spent $379 million on national and local TV combined in 2006, per TNS Media Intelligence.) Thursday primetime shows that cater to the 18-to-49 movie-going demographic - Lost, Survivor and CSI, for example - remain key vehicles for film promotion.

That may seem somewhat illogical to the casual observer, especially the casual observer who owns and operates a DVR or watches Lost online. But that money isn't spent idly, says Bob Liodice, president and CEO of the Association of National Advertisers. "I almost think they have to explode on network broadcast [to] make everybody aware."

Liodice says that even when films are promoted beyond the weekend ahead - slightly different than the last-minute ad blitz - it's still about "major awareness-building."

"Think about what they need to accomplish in a short span of time," Liodice explains. "They've got to get people aware of a release that's coming along, and they're not out very long these days. A couple of weeks and a movie's off the big screen and already in the [DVD] sale."

But are opening weekend commercials worth less, ultimately, when they aren't viewed until Saturday or Sunday? If "the point is to keep people thinking about movies," not at all, says Gary Carr, senior vice president and director of broadcast services at TargetCast.

"It's true, there are so many options: There's DVR, there's online, there's mobile," Carr acknowledges. "There are all these things, and everybody's thinking about them, and you take them into account. But, let's face it: Millions and millions and millions of people are still watching TV."