Saturday, December 06, 2003

Broadcast grids or shelves Broadcast media are limited resources. The airwaves can be divided into only a certain number of channels (frequencies) in each location. Separate frequency ranges are reserved for FM, AM, VHF, and UHF broadcasts, with other frequencies reserved for other forms of radio communication. The channels themselves are, in theory, leased competitively by the national government. These channels are one dimension of the grid, the shelf system, that is the basis of broadcast media. The other dimension is based on the clock, the other limiting factor. The day is arranged into time slices, and those time slices compose the shelf locations available. In fact, there are two broadcast grids, one imposed on the other. One grid is for content (programming); the other grid is for advertising. For the viewer or listener, what matters is the content grid, that is, when each program will start or stop. This grid is documented by the TV section of your newspaper or by your TV Guide. For viewers, advertising is what comes between segments of the program. For the stations and advertisers, the advertising grid is the important thing, interrupted occasionally by programs. There was a time not ago when the three networks, ABC, NBC, and CBS were the whole show in television. There were VHF channels, and educational channels, yes, but these were sideshows only. The real action was on the three networks. The networks were cash machines. They had the shelf space so desired by everyone, advertisers, program creators, and audience. Networks attempted to get the maximum value out of each slot, much like supermarkets getting the best per-inch return on their shelves. But with broadcast, the shelf space is severely limited. There are only 48 half-hour slots per day, and only six prime-time slots each evening. While it is impossible to predict in advance what shows will be hits and which ones will miss, a large part of the game that executives think they can affect is in making marginal improvements. Every share point means millions of dollars to the networks, so the executive who can inch up the ratings of a few shows looks like a genius. To move any program slot up one audience share point is a seemingly attainable goal. For this reason, the networks are constantly making adjustments, so they can charge more money for the important slots, the commercials. One of the most common is moving a show from one slot to another; this is done sometimes in hope of gaining more audience in the new slot; more often it is done in order to anchor a set of slots to allow for improved ratings for neighboring shows, just like the arrangement of shelves in a supermarket can help or hurt sales. An example is the endless succession of TV shows NBC has placed between its two Thursday night hits, Friends and ER. Shows between those two always get an artificial boost in the ratings, at least at first. The few decent ones get moved to other night to set up new programming anchors (usually in vain). The majority start off strong and then fail. Nevertheless, NBC keeps slotting in new programs and making profits, no matter how eventually unpopular those programs end up being. Of course, the growth in popularity of cable complicates the picture. The major networks are now competing not only against each other, but against a host of other choices. While rarely do these cable stations beat out any of the broadcast stations, they are predominant in a collective sense. The general slipping of network ratings makes their advertising slots less valuable. It also gives advertisers a wider range of choices, so there is more overall competition for advertising dollars. The big network oligopolies have fought this in several ways. First, they own many of the cable channels, so they can catch lost revenue. They can, for example, build packages that involve both wider network advertising and les expensive ads on specialty channels. Second, they have restructured the advertising grid. Advertisements on TV eat up increasing percentages of program time. As one anti-TV on-line source puts it: The American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA) and the Association of National Advertisers, Inc. (ANA) released their annual Television Commercial Monitoring Report showing the level of TV clutter. This clutter is defined as "commercial time, public service announcements, public service promotions, promotions aired by broadcast and cable networks, program credits not run over continuing program action, and 'other' unidentified gaps within a commercial pod." The AAAA report showed that in the primetime slot, non-programming time on network television was 16:43 minutes per hour. The daytime level of advertising was 20:53 minutes per hour. Network news showed 18:53 minutes of commercials per hour and late night news aired 19:06 minutes of ads per hour. The most "cluttered" program in all of TV, according to the report, was ABC's Good Morning America. Not only are there more ad minutes per hour, but there even more ads. Commercials have gone from a standard one minute in length to half-a-minute to 15 seconds. That way, they can charge higher fees per minutes, split up among two or four advertisers. It has the effect of cramming boxes on a shelf sideways, so that more of them can front the customer. The network oligopolies have found a way to get around their biggest limitation (available time slots) by redefining that time. It's a way of creating added value where none existed before. And with lax FCC enforcement of any rules about ratios of programs to ads, we are slowly approaching the Platonic ideal of all commercials all the time. Oh, we have that already -- with infomercials. 8:32:29 PM

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