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- Feeding the Binge Viewer by Don Seaman
Binge viewing is not a sudden craze introduced by Netflix downloads. It’s been the delight of viewing consumers for decades to customize their libraries of video entertainment (with the use of DVR and VHS) to “binge” on their favorite TV programs – remember 24? Lost? Heroes? But lately there’s been an implication that viewing has[...]
- The 2012/2013 Television Se… by Don Seaman
When you look at the results of the past broadcast season, you might just find something interesting. It looks very much like last year. And the year before that, and the year before that, and before that, and so on. Over 90% of the top 200 A25-54 primetime programs airing during this season were on[...]
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by Steve Lanzano President and CEO, TVB Surprised? You shouldn’t be. Perhaps this is due to the annual onslaught of “Is Broadcast Dead?”-type headlines that surface around this time of the year. Assassinated by cable, done in by digital, suffocated by streaming, broadcast has finally cashed in this year. Again. Well, let’s take a quick[...]
- Can You Put a Price On Trust? by Don Seaman
From a consumer standpoint, there may be no more important measure than trust. If a brand has earned consumer confidence, those consumers are more likely to support that brand. So why do some marketers believe they are better served by national network and cable news, and ignore the most valuable, trusted and targeted programming available[...]
- Live Plus Same Day: TVB’s U… by Steve Lanzano
by Steve Lanzano President and CEO, TVB Let’s say this commentary was posted yesterday, is it still of value to you today? What if you save it to read two or three days from now? Should your page view be counted? Of course your page view should be counted. In fact, it could be argued[...]
- When Crisis Strikes Home, V… by Don Seaman
By Bill Fine President and General Manager, WCVB-TV Boston & Chairman, TVB The Boston Marathon is a major annual event, a spectacle all Bostonians know will always receive widespread local television coverage — typically uplifting stories of athletic endurance. We live for and love the third Monday in April. It is our own special holiday[...]
- Television Cameras Don’t Sh… by Don Seaman
“The highest calling of broadcasting is to keep the keystone of freedom securely in place – the freedom of speech and of the press. Abraham Lincoln once said, ‘Let the people know the facts and the country will be safe.’ Whether it is about a local election, providing critical information during a storm, or uncovering[...]
- Hold Your App-pause –… by Don Seaman
There comes a time in every great society to take a moment, take a breath, and wait for those who have fallen behind to get a chance to catch up. This generally allows for great societal changes to take root and become mainstream, for technological innovations to gain critical mass, and now, to avoid social[...]
- An Open Letter to Overexten… by Don Seaman
To our esteemed agency friends—a moment, please? When developing your media plan, you have many considerations that you will have to ruminate over—targeting, reach, frequency, positioning, messaging, flexibility, GRPs, continuity, and wearout, just to name a few. That’s on top of one of the more notable components—cost. Can you honestly say which one is the[...]
- Mars Tweets! And Fans Respo… by Don Seaman
Now that Kristen Bell, Rob Thomas, and the entire Veronica Mars universe have learned just what a mobilized fanbase can do for a TV franchise, are we looking at the gestational period of a new world order of post-television crowdsourcing? This represents an evolution for “Save Our Show” campaigns – viewers are putting their money[...]
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Hey, Ad Men! Mad Men is Bad, Man!
Mad Men is not great television.
Just ask TV viewers in markets like, Denver, Miami, Phoenix, Seattle…and LA!
Let’s be clear about something — this is not a value judgment over the dramatic quality of the show. Whether or not you feel that it’s chock-full of nuanced performances and pretty set pieces, a storytelling oeuvre that captures the subtle grittiness of a simpler yet complicated time or it’s a boring piece of tripe, that’s irrelevant.
What we’re saying is that most of the country falls squarely into Category “B”.
Mad Men simply doesn’t translate with viewers outside its advertising industry “comfort zone” of New York, Boston, Washington, DC, and Minneapolis — maybe throw in Chicago — otherwise, the show doesn’t move the ratings needle. Its peak average household rating in Los Angeles? 1.2.
Magazine covers, Emmy Awards, Banana Republic Mad Men fashion collections are great awareness drivers. But what they don’t equal ratings.
Nationally, the most premiere episode of the show delivered an anemic 1.8 household rating, #133 overall. Its 0.8 A18-49 rating would be downright unsurvivable on broadcast.
It’s probably the television equivalent of the movie “Crash” – it won the Academy Award, probably due in large part to its Los Angeles setting and themes. But it was not particularly a blockbuster; in fact, it was the lowest grossing Best Picture winner since 1987’s “The Last Emperor”. But it certainly played in its market.
As a commercial delivery system, Mad Men does not live up to its considerable hype. Don Draper himself would find it hard to defend its ability to sell any of his clients’ products with an audience that delivers only a bit over 1% of the households in the country’s #2 television market. In fact, considering the time period he comes from, Don Draper wouldn’t even acknowledge that a 1.2 household rating could even exist – many shows delivered ratings in the mid-20’s.
But we’re not living and broadcasting in the 1960’s anymore. Now, the top shows on television deliver household ratings that barely scrape 10. The simple landscape of three networks is as anachronistic as the three martini lunch and smoke-filled offices. Thanks to the digital media world, with 1,000 channels per household, DVRs, Netflix, Hulu, digital subchannels, et al, life in the margins is acceptable, as long as you can find your appropriate niche.
Mad Men has found that niche – the advertising industry hotbeds of New York, Boston, Washington, and Minneapolis.
That is, it’s delivering those who have already drunk the Kool-Aid. It’s just not reaching the multitudes of consumers that would be purchasing it.