Traditional TV Mentality

I saw this article on MediaBuyerPlanner.com about the return of the TV show Jericho. You may recall that Jericho was cancelled due to poor ratings, but brought back to life following a massive response by fans. I've never seen the show myself, but it has a substantial group of hard-core fans.

This is happening with increasing regularity, and it's great to see that broadcasters have opened their eyes (well, a little bit) to the fact that popular shows don't necessarily look that way immediately when you examine the numbers.

In the article, it explains that Jericho was brought back on a probationary basis to see if it could improve in the ratings. Unfortunately for fans, Jericho's ratings are actually worse than before.

I think this illustrates a major problem with "TV thinking". To the broadcasters and traditional advertisers, it's all about ratings and share. But Jericho fans are clearly nuts (ha ha - if you get this joke, write a comment to show how smart you are) for the program. Does it really matter if only a tiny percentage of the population watches it? Their devotion, I think, more than makes up for their relatively small numbers:

They're reliable. Advertisers know that these folks are going to be tuning in each week.

They're enthusiastic. Any group that can get thousands of people working together towards a (let's face it, quite trivial) cause must have a lot of energy and initiative.

They're distinct. Perhaps not a perfect audience for every advertisers, but surely there are some brands that are extremely relevant to this audience.

They're loyal. They've stuck with a show they love. A TV show is, essentially, a brand in itself. Isn't it logical to assume that these types of people will be loyal to other brands? Especially ones that they know have helped revive their favourite program...?


Which brings me to my second complaint about traditional TV: enough already with the 30-second spot. Just tacking on any ol' commercial to a program just because it reaches a certain vague audience (A25-54 or whatever) is just stupid. Maybe it works okay for generic programming like the news or a very broadly-targeted hit sitcom, but there's no reason to think this approach will work well with a niche show like Jericho.

Instead of trying to sell traditional advertisers on traditional ad units in the traditional way, CBS should be packaging Jericho in a special way.

How about trying to get Sony or Microsoft to sponsor the whole thing each week, and promote the heck out of the latest post-apocalyptic Playstation or XBox game? (a perfect fit with the show's subject matter and audience)

Or run each episode without commercials, but have a five minute intro and a five minute outro each episode featuring the show's creators endorsing something they love?

Or tie-in with related Web sites, with ads that drive viewers to those properties (and then try to sell to them at that point)?

Or totally support the fan's "special club" mentality with exclusive offers, etc.? Remember in "A Christmas Story" when Ralphie was anxiously awaiting his secret decoder, and then sat absolutely riveted to the radio waiting for his secret message? Imagine hundreds of thousands of grown adults doing something similar.

Obviously, these are just some crazy ideas, but my point is that we almost never see anything like these on TV. I really doubt it's because they don't work, simply because:
a.) Stuff like this was actually the norm for decades in the early days of TV
and
b.) It hasn't been done nearly enough recently to prove that it's a bad idea.


I guess my point is, Mr. TV Executive:

It's not always about how many people you can reach. Who they are, how you reach them, and what you say to them are AT LEAST as important.