TV industry wonders: Do ratings still matter?
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This past summer, NBC Universal executive Ben Silverman raised eyebrows when he told the New York Post that the company is now much more concerned with profit than with the size of its audience. ‘We’re managing for margins and not for ratings,’ Silverman was quoted as saying.
It’s easy to laugh off Silverman’s quote as a self-serving excuse. Like every other TV reporter, I sat through countless presentations earlier in this decade, when Silverman’s now-boss, NBC Universal chief Jeff Zucker, plumped the network for the ad industry by noting that its programming was No. 1 at all times of the day in the most-important demographics. Now that the network has had a few terrible seasons under its belt and is ranked No. 4 in prime time, lo and behold, ratings don’t matter! What a surprise. (Interestingly, the network still generates voluminous news releases spinning each night’s ratings.)
But Silverman and Zucker aren’t the only ones making the argument that the old standards of TV success are outdated. This week, Brad Adgate, a widely quoted analyst for Horizon Media (an ad firm that, it should be noted, has NBC as a client), tossed his hat into the debate with a research note titled ‘It’s not just ratings anymore.’ Adgate notes that network executives now look not just at numbers from Nielsen Media Research but also DVR viewing, DVD sales, online activity and more.
He also argues that networks are exhibiting more patience with low-rated shows than in the past partly because they are reluctant to turn their backs on the growing spate of product-placement deals that would be wiped out by a cancellation. Also, some networks are spending less on development than in the past -- NBC sent most of its lineup this fall ‘straight to series,’ without developing expensive pilots -- so they can afford to be a little more patient, Adgate wrote.
Adgate, a savvy and experienced observer of network TV, is absolutely right that DVDs and other so-called ancillary revenues are making the definition of programming success much hazier than it was even a few years ago. And that may indeed help explain why notoriously trigger-happy TV execs are suddenly showing patience with minuscule ratings that not so many months ago would have meant a show’s instant death.
But there are a couple of holes in Adgate’s theory. DVR viewing, for example, is accounted for in Nielsen ratings -- it just takes a couple of weeks instead of a few hours to gather the data (the delay is a source of great annoyance to the networks, but that’s another story). DVD sales are slowing and no longer look like the magic bullet the TV industry thought they were several years back. Online viewing is certainly growing, but with the ad industry slumping everywhere, it’s unlikely that purveyors like Hulu.com (a joint NBC-News Corp. endeavor) are going to make up for network shortfalls anytime soon. And let’s face it -- most media planners are going to base decisions on Nielsen numbers for many years into the future.
Meanwhile, NBC’s straight-to-series experiment is looking like a bust, with new shows like ‘Kath & Kim’ and the now-canceled ‘My Own Worst Enemy’ delivering disappointing ratings.
It may not just be about ratings anymore, but ratings remain the best single measure of a series’ popularity and reach. After all, scripted shows that do well in network telecasts tend to sell well on DVD too. And a major hit can still cast a rosy glow over the rest of a network’s schedule. Just take a look at ‘American Idol,’ which Fox has expertly used to build audiences for such diverse fare as ‘24,’ ‘House’ and ‘Moment of Truth.’
What’s interesting about Silverman’s much-noticed quote is what he didn’t say. He left out the idea that a network might actually manage with the determination to make high-quality shows. The omission is surprising given Silverman’s idolizing of the late NBC programmer Brandon Tartikoff, who lived by his boss Grant Tinker’s maxim ‘First be best, then be first.’ And make no mistake, NBC still has some high-quality shows, including ’30 Rock’ and the soon-to-end ‘ER.’
No network can manage for ratings, simply because no one knows what’s going to be popular and what isn’t. But in the absence of anything else, ratings remain the best available report card as to whether executives’ hunches about what’s worth airing and what isn’t are correct. Those hunches are the name of the game in this business. The suits have to search for what they think is best, help to put it on the air and then pray hard. When networks try to manage for ratings or profits, they may ultimately end up with neither.
-- Scott Collins
