[opendtv] Re: Hypothesis-testing
- From: "John Willkie" <johnwillkie@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 08:31:34 -0800
"Core sports audience" might be a clue here.
NBC has wide circulation outside of the core sports audience. Do you think
that maybe they've drawn some of those people into the tent?
It's less so, I suspect, here on the left coast, where the games usually end
before prime time begins.
ESPN still underperforms with MNF compared to ABC. Having two revenue
sources and no affiliates to keep pleased, they can live with lower numbers.
John Willkie
> -----Original Message-----
> From: opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> On Behalf Of Craig Birkmaier
> Sent: Friday, January 05, 2007 4:26 AM
> To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [opendtv] Re: Hypothesis-testing
>
> 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=100
> 3526177
>
> 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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