Network TV needs a Lance Armstrong comeback.
Older, with many big victories behind its back -- even against incremental odds some times -- TV needs to leap ahead, and regrab the
spotlight.
CBS Corp. CEO Les Moonves has harped on the fact that network
TV is still good business. Moonves has even pointed to competitors like NBC's Beijing Olympics and its record-high ratings, regrabbing a little of that luminescence.
Networks will
gladly trot out their winning ways this season:
NBC would show a decade-best ratings for "Saturday Night Live," and improvement with "30 Rock" on Thursday night.
The
CW would offer up resilience in coming back this year with "Gossip Girl" and new show "90210" -- and in fact, it's the only network to show gains versus a year ago. ABC would say it has the
best Q3 ratings of any network this year -- the only numbers advertisers really care about.advertisement
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But these aren't comebacks (except initially for The CW) -- just
incremental movements.
TV needs a Lance Armstrong-style comeback, disproving that its big performance wins are behind it. This comeback should be one where we are so focused on TV shows
that -- like a bike rider racing up a mountain road passing other athletes -- we can't turn our gaze away.
Right now, of immediate attention, is whether TV viewers will be gazing at any
shows in this November sweep period -- historically the first time in the new season where TV networks look to kick up interest in their shows.
Sure, Nielsen's growing army of local people
meters is making programming sweep stunts anachronistic. But that's not the issue.
TV networks still need to amp up their marketing efforts -- if for no other reason than to give its
network affiliates a reason to put more money into their own local promotion. TV stations need spiking periods of marketing buzz -- especially in this still-eroding TV environment.
Forget
about laying blame on last year's strike, a poor TV development season, or this year's turbulent economic times -- which are poised to pull the rug out from under TV ad sales executives.
TV
needs a Lance-Armstrong-style comeback -- coming out of nowhere, sprinting uphill past all media comers -- that'll make us all sit up and take notice. TV needs to go for its own yellow jersey, if for
no other reason than getting noticed again.