[opendtv] Re: Hypothesis-testing
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 07:26:11 -0500
At 8:51 AM -0800 1/4/07, John Willkie wrote:
SNF is about double what it was a year ago, and has seriously helped NBC in
the ratings race. Some say they might have overpaid.
That's a big increase, but it brings the numbers up to a level that
is comparable with what MNF is doing on ESPN now. So one might
question why ESPN's ratings doubled by switching from Sunday to
Monday night.
Okay, MNF was causing issues at ABC.
But, why is NBC doing so much better than ESPN with SNF?
I'd say that it STARTS with NBC's wider circulation among cable homes, with
NBC's circulation among broadcast-only homes, and how this wider circulation
can be leveraged with promotion.
NBC's circulation among cable homes is not significantly larger than
ESPN, especially among the core sports audience. But NBC does add
about 15 million OTA only homes, that cannot access ESPN. If your
explanation were correct, then one would expect that the ratings for
MNF on ESPN would have dropped to a level comparable to what they got
for SNF last year. But ESPNs ratings doubled for MNF.
So I thing that something else is at work here. For the OTA homes,
there is one less network carrying entertainment oriented fare on
Sunday nights. Obviously some of the OTA homes are going to be
watching SNF. Another possible factor is that the programming on the
other OTA stations is not very exciting, causing more OTA only homes
to tune to SNF.
What does seem relatively certain is that there is a core audience of
about 8 - 14 million for an NFL game in prime time. So the real
question is why ESPN could not get these numbers last year.
Here's an interesting piece I found in Mediaweek about NBC
http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/current/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003526177
NBC's Ebersol: SNF Key to Turnaround
Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Universal Sports & Olympics, last week
told Mediaweek the first season of Sunday Night Football on the
network "more than met corporate goals" by bringing in more male
viewers, shoring up the entire Sunday night and serving as a solid
promotional platform for freshman drama hit Heroes. Calling SNF the
"cornerstone of the prime-time turnaround at NBC," Ebersol said the
successful launch of Heroes can be attributed "more than anything
else" to the promotion the show received on SNF geared toward young
men in the first three games before Heroes premiered. SNF, through
the first 16 weeks of the regular season, averaged a 9.4 rating among
men 18-49, according to Nielsen Media Research data, 262 percent
higher than the network averaged last year in the same time period.
SNF ranked third among all prime-time programming in adults 18-49 in
fourth quarter, with an 8.9 rating. Assisted by the NFL's new
flexible scheduling system, NBC recorded ratings increases in weeks
14-16 of 39 percent, 21 percent and 32 percent, respectively, each
higher than the comparable weeks for Monday Night Football on ABC
last season, when there was no flex schedule system in effect.
Ebersol said the success of the flex schedule in December allowed the
network to charge as much as $400,000 per 30-second spot for scatter
ads..
So it looks like the average rating was not double what ESPN was
pulling until the last three weeks of the season, when NBC got to
feature some key games. However, your comments about circulation and
promotion do seem to apply, at least with respect to the promotion of
Heroes.
Mediaweek also reports that the ratings for NFL games on Fox were up
6% this year.
Just another example of how cable isn't much of a "competitor" to broadcast.
Just a gatekeeper.
You were doing fine until you dropped this bomb.
The FACT is that cable now dominates all day parts except for Prime
Time, and even in Prime Time the OTA networks have an "average" of
only 40% of the homes watching TV. Clearly the networks can pull huge
audiences for popular shows , but what we don't hear much about is
all of the prime time network slots that are drawing less audience
than cable networks. There are now MANY network shows drawing only
1-2 million viewers.
The one big advantage that the networks still have is the ability to
gather large audiences. Cable gets more viewers, but they are spread
out across a wide range of choices.
The cable networks only rarely have a show in the top twenty. Last
week one cable show got 11.1 million viewers, placing it at #6 among
ALL shows for the week. It was the Jets - Dolphins MNF game on ESPN
(no playoff implications). SNF on NBC came in third, with 13.4
million viewers (the Philadelphia/Dallas game did have playoff
implications).
Regards
Craig
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