Media Life Magazine
By Toni Fitzgerald
Dec 22, 2011
With a stronger-than-expected upfront and the most promising crop of fall shows in several years, broadcast television once again topped buyers' list of must-have media in 2011.
Though ratings continue to fall for the Big Five networks and scatter pricing was somewhat lower to end the year, 2012 looks promising as well. Plus, Philip Jay LeNoble, Ph.D., CEO of Executive Decisions Systems, Inc of Littleton,CO., a national media marketing training company and Publisher of LeNoble's Media Sales Insights says..."As owners and managers push local-direct revenues into long term contract terms, the dependency on 90% of local revenue derived from traditional, transactional business will wane."
Next year the Olympics and presidential election will bring a flood of money to broadcast at both the national and local levels.
While the Big Five admittedly have programming issues to address, their strength remains the ability to deliver a gigantic audience in a way no other medium can match, as the record-setting Super Bowls have proven the past two seasons.
"I think the overarching goal of broadcast network programming is unchanged: to produce the kind of 'event programming' that plays to the medium’s strength," says David Scardino, entertainment specialist at the Santa Monica, Calif.-based agency RPA.
"It may be that that goal is not often attained, but it surely remains paramount."
The networks did not find any new must-see event programming during the fall, but buyers agree that they had more success than in past years.
A number of shows debuted to strong numbers and continue to deliver good ratings some three months into the season, and only one of the Big Four networks, NBC, has seen its adults 18-49 rating decline versus last year.
"There really haven’t been any breakout hits—at least as we used to define the term—but rather success has been on a broader front and a greater number of new series," Scardino says.
"'X-Factor' and 'New Girl' are probably the ones that stand out, but, at least at this point, '2 Broke Girls,' 'Last Man Standing,' 'Unforgettable,' 'Suburgatory,' 'Revenge,' 'Grimm' and 'Once Upon a Time' have all received full-season pick-ups and show some potential for further growth. That’s a pretty good list compared to some recent seasons."
That list could grow in the coming year, when more than a dozen new series are slated to premiere, including several with very strong buzz like Fox's "Alcatraz," NBC's "Smash" and ABC's "GCB."
Of course these days broadcast includes more than just the traditional Big Four, and some of 2011's greatest successes were seen by Spanish-language networks Univision and Telemundo.
Univision was the only top-six network to grow during the 2010-'11 season among 18-49s, and Telemundo recently acquired rights to the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, a huge upset over longtime carrier Univision that will ensure big bumps in both ad revenue and ratings.
Still, broadcast does have some hurdles ahead.
London agency ZenithOptimedia recently predicted that broadcast ad revenue would fall 1 percent in 2012, predicting that the lack of live primetime Olympic events would result in lower ad sales than previous Summer Olympics.
And the increasing growth of cable ad revenue may cut into broadcast's share as well.
At the programming level, broadcasters are still dealing with the increasing usage of DVRs and how to schedule with that in mind. This year only 73 percent of premiere week viewing took place live among adults 18-49, down from 76 percent last year.
Finally, buyers continue to wonder when and how NBC will pull itself out of its ratings doldrums.
"I think from a pure ratings standpoint [the big concern] has to be NBC, especially with their NFL schedule about to end," Scardino says.
"That said, they have 'The Voice' coming back as well as what I thought was the most exciting new show (at least from the clips available), 'Smash,' so maybe things will look better for the network in March."
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