It's not really possible to intelligently debate the future of the 30-second spot (and/or TV advertising) without intelligently discussing the content in, around and through which commercials intertwine, intermingle, intermarry and inter-grate themselves to their heart's content (pun not intended)
Here's an article by Rachel Leibrock which appeared in the Sacramento Bee on Reality, Reruns and Summer viewing...with an interesting New Marketing flavor to it.
Full text below...
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Published 2:15 AM PST Monday, Aug. 08, 2005 | ||||
Come again? Reality shows replacing reruns as summer TV fare
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Summer is now seen as a testing ground for new, short-run reality TV series such as Fox's "Hell's Kitchen," starring chef Gordon Ramsay, center. |
Remember reruns? It used to be, you could count on summer to catch up on all the television shows you missed during the regular season.
But now? Not so much. This summer, networks have skipped much of the nostalgia trip and instead filled the dog days with a new batch of reality shows, making hits out of such fare as "Dancing With the Stars" and, on cable, "The Closer."
And the repeats of hit shows ("Desperate Housewives," "Lost") that did make it on the air cooled noticeably during these hotter months. So what gives? Are we really that hungry for fresh TV? The appeal of last season's hit shows was still enough that the top five shows for the week ending July 31 were all reruns of older shows, according to Nielsen Media Research. But in this era of DVDs, the Internet and TiVo, our viewing habits have started to change dramatically. Joe Jaffe, a marketing expert and the author of "Life After the 30 Second Spot," believes that such services may eventually render reruns obsolete. "With video-on-demand and digital video recorders that allow you to record three programs at once, the need for reruns will (eventually) be completely marginalized," Jaffe says. As such, Jaffe says, the networks have discovered summer to be an ideal testing ground for new, short-run reality TV series such as Fox's "Hell's Kitchen," the cooking show competition that's pulled in Top 20 ratings since its late-May debut. Viewers, juggling their own busy summer schedules, like the quick-hit, fresh TV fixes that reality shows provide, Jaffe says. "You have a transient audience during the summer," Jaffe says, a time when viewership traditionally dips. "And so you have the networks cashing in on the fact that reality TV is cheap to produce." But isn't it just cheaper to recycle TV shows? Yes and no, says Preston Beckman, Fox TV's executive vice president of strategic program planning. "We're moving toward a mix of new and repeat programming," Beckman says, talking from his Los Angeles office. "We can't afford to create 15 new hours of original programming 52 weeks a year." Beckman pointed out that sitcoms and crime shows generally do better than serial dramas during the summer months. In the summer, audiences seem to prefer "stand-alone" shows that start and conclude in one episode - rather than committing to a continuing story line week after week. This is why shows such as "Law & Order" and "Without a Trace" are winning the ratings race this summer. Still, we bet you spent the week discussing new buzz shows such as the "So You Think You Can Dance" episode with friends - not the highly rated "CSI: Miami" repeat. The shift toward new summer programming arguably began in 2000 with the surprise success of "Survivor." " 'Survivor' really changed people's minds about what summer is capable of," says Andy Dehnart, the founder of the TV news Web site RealityBlurred.com. "It started getting these gigantic numbers - that really opened up programmers to the idea that summer doesn't have to be a wasteland anymore," Dehnart says, on the phone from his home in DeLand, Fla. Since then, he adds, the Internet also has forced networks to "adapt to a constant cycle" of new shows. Now, the idea of a "fall TV season" is practically archaic - and could cost networks impatient viewers. "With (the success of) midseason replacement shows and cable constantly bringing in new stuff, it doesn't make sense for the networks to stick to a rigid schedule anymore," Dehnart says. Summer is the new fall for cable networks, says Stephen Battaglio, a senior correspondent for TV Guide. "TNT's 'The Closer' debuted after Memorial Day, and they've seen huge numbers with that," Battaglio says from his Manhattan office. "There have been more people watching TNT in June and July than were watching the WB or UPN networks combined." OK, maybe comparing TNT's ratings to those of network TV's bottom feeders doesn't provide a great example, but what remains true is that even if the networks can't afford to dish out new shows 24/7, they still have to think of ways to attract your eyeballs. And these days reality TV seems to be the proven, surefire way to get audiences to tune in. "The networks need to keep ratings as high as possible during the summer so they can promote their new (fall) shows," Battaglio says. "They're using reality TV to make that noise and (gathering) a large audience at at least one point during the week." Moreover, Battaglio says it's a myth that people turn off their sets in large numbers when the temperature rises. Despite a nominal drop in viewership, as reflected in the ratings, "people are still watching TV," he says. We're just getting pickier about what we watch, thanks to digital video recorders and DVDs, says Jaffe, the marketing expert. Who needs reruns when you've still got a dozen episodes of "24" stored on your TiVo hard drive or the "Arrested Development" Season 1 DVD in your Netflix queue? "Over time, our behavior has changed," he says. "Viewers are no longer sitting ducks waiting to be targeted." Still, he adds, the networks shouldn't can reruns altogether. "The concept of a rerun still has merit," Jaffe says. "It gives the viewer the opportunity to give a show a chance and be ready for (the next) season and not feel like they've missed out." Even the megahits benefit from reruns, he says. "Shame on the networks for not marketing the 'Desperate Housewives' and 'Lost' repeats," Jaffe says. "In this era of audience fragmentation, networks better do everything in their power to give that hit show all the life it needs to maintain longevity." |
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