New TV Series Face a Difficult Marketing Climate

Low Summer Ratings Mean Less Exposure for Networks' Fall TV Shows

Aug 24, 2009

With most viewers eschewing their summer shows, broadcast networks are turning to off-air marketing to promote new TV series.

The broadcast networks have had a dismal summer in the ratings. According to Broadcasting & Cable (August 24, 2009), ratings this summer have been networks' worst: "ABC thrice posted the lowest weekly demo rating ever recorded by the Big Four." Nielsen has compiled television ratings data since 1950, which means that ABC had the lowest weekly demo rating in almost sixty years…three times in one summer. Ouch.

Traditionally, on-air promotion – commercials and interstitials – is considered the most effective way of marketing new TV shows. But to be effective, people need to actually see the ads. That's less likely when no one watches a network's summer slate, as has been the case this year.

Promoting the New TV Season: Alternatives to Commercials

Networks have tightly-focused marketing, but they've now had to resort to off-air approaches to increase awareness of new shows. Word-of-mouth is the second most effective form of new TV show marketing, so networks have tried to create buzz and interest in varied ways. Among them:

Cable Series Dominate Summer

This tale of network marketing woe has another facet to it. While networks' summer slates failed, cable shows – especially those on premium pay cable – flourished. Royal Pains on USA is the surprise hit of the summer. True Blood continues to hit new highs week after week, posting the kinds of numbers HBO hasn't seen since The Sopranos was on the air. Warehouse 13 is the most-watched original series in SyFy's history. Mad Men, Burn Notice, In Plain Sight, among others, have all hit series highs.

Oddly, few in the media seem to consider there might be a connection between cable's success and network's failure. Network has seen near record lows at the very same time that cable has seen record highs. Yet these facts are treated as if they're independent of one another. Could it be that audiences are tuning out of network shows – reruns and reality – and tuning in to cable shows?

Perhaps the networks should leverage cable series' increasing popularity and market fall TV shows on their cable subsidiaries. Many of the largest cable networks are owned by the same media conglomerates that own the broadcast networks. For example, USA, Bravo, and SyFy are all part of parent-company, NBC Universal. Those cable networks could run ads for relevant fall series on NBC. That's merely a stop-gap, however.

Challenging the Conventional Wisdom of the Network Schedule

In the ideal world, the networks would air quality, original shows year-round, as NBC and Fox have previously claimed they would. But that approach requires a long-term retooling of the network development process, so it likely won't be the case anytime soon.

Conventional wisdom says that people don't watch television during the summer, thus why networks rerun shows and populate their schedules with cheaper reality fare. The stellar performance of scripted cable series this summer calls such wisdom into question, perhaps especially so given the economic slowdown. But it seems clear that people won't watch bad TV during the summer (or, indeed, at any other time). Frankly, that's a good thing. It's heartening to see viewers flock to new, quality programming over recycled fall series or embarrassing reality shows. And it also proves that someone's making money airing new TV shows in the summertime – just not the broadcast networks.

How this will impact viewer turnout for fall TV shows remains to be seen. Low summer network TV ratings mean fewer people are seeing the on-air promotions for new shows, but will that result in smaller audiences once those shows air? Or will off-air promotions rustle up the word-of-mouth the networks so desperately need? Time will tell.

Still, there's an insatiable demand for quality television. Perhaps the answer to this marketing conundrum is as simple as this: make innovative, smart, entertaining shows and people will find them. But that's easy to say.

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