Hits Still Matter But...
Only a Handful of Shows Give Strong Lift to Nets' Ratings
By Linda Moss -- Multichannel News, 2/22/2004 7:00:00 PM
Queer Eye for the Straight Guy was a pop culture — and ratings — phenomenon last year. The Fab Five represented one of NBC's first efforts to make over its artsy acquisition, Bravo. Nip/Tuck on FX replicated the kind of buzz, and viewership numbers, that the Fox Cable Networks channel enjoyed with its first breakthrough dramatic series, The Shield.
And USA Network's quirky Monk, featuring an endearing but obsessive-compulsive detective, opened its new season this year with some jaw-dropping numbers. Recent episodes posted 4.7 and 4.6 ratings, according to Nielsen Media Research.
There's no question that marquee shows boost cable networks, create water-cooler conversation and define brands.
But how much does a strong series lift a network's overall primetime ratings?
KNOWN FOR THEIR HITS
To the typical TV viewer, basic cable might look like a land of one-hit networks that depend on single shows, like Bravo and Queer Eye.
Some of Turner Network Television's critics, for example, have suggested that the service would badly suffer — and possibly lose its No. 1 primetime crown — without its off-network juggernaut Law & Order. TNT officials dispute that assertion, and point to numbers that back them up.
"If you want to be in the top echelon, if you want to seriously compete with broadcast networks for dollars, you can't just be a one-hit network, whether it's an acquired or developed [program]," said Jack Wakshlag, chief research officer for Turner Broadcasting System Inc. "You can't do it with just one hot show."
In fact, only a handful of shows provided much lift to their networks' primetime ratings last year.
Popular Trading Spaces, for example, in its premiere runs raised TLC's primetime average by 11% in 2003, and lifted it a sizable 19% when all its plays, including repeats, were taken into account, according to Nielsen data provided by Discovery Communications Inc.
Queer Eye was one of the bigger boosters of its network's ratings, with its premiere-episode runs raising Bravo's primetime ratings 7% last year, and 12% with all its plays, according to an analysis of Nielsen data that Turner Entertainment Research performed at the request of Multichannel News. "There's no doubt that those two shows were certainly watersheds for them [TLC and Bravo] because they turned around their ratings," said Betsy Frank, MTV Networks executive vice president of research and planning.
9% BUMP FROM 'L&O'
South Park bumped up Comedy Central's primetime average 2% in its first plays last year, and a heftier 11% in all its telecasts, according to Turner's analysis. And TNT's Law & Order increased the network's primetime ratings by 9% last year.
In contrast, and more the norm, marquee shows with stellar ratings ranging from USA's Monk to FX's Nip/Tuck only raised their network's primetime numbers by 1% to 3% last year.
"Contrary to what some believe, these networks are not one-trick ponies," said Ray Giacopelli, Comedy Central's vice president of ad-sales research. "These networks may be known for one or two shows, but viewers are watching them pretty much across the board. There is a little more consistency of those ratings across the board than one might think."
High-rated cable networks don't achieve their pinnacles on the back of a sole hit, according to Steve Leblang, senior vice president of strategic research and planning for FX Networks.
"No one show can honestly make a network," Leblang said. "The value of any one show to an overall network rating is secondary. There are people who like to say one show can make a network a one-trick pony. And the truth of the matter is successful networks, top-10 rated networks — there is no one show that can do that."
All this shouldn't be a surprise, according to cable-research officials.
They noted that because a show is typically on just one hour out of 21 in primetime a week — and some series only air part of the year — it's nearly impossible for any one series by itself to dramatically impact a network's ratings in that daypart over time. One show certainly can't carry a network for a whole year.
"You're talking about a single show and its contribution to a huge ocean of time," said Tim Brooks, executive vice president of research for Lifetime Television. "If you only took Everybody Loves Raymond and the rest of the CBS schedule, just that one half-hour wouldn't contribute much, either."
BUZZ AND OTHER AID
Cable-network executives also said that the value of a hit show goes far beyond its contribution, in hard numbers, to a network's overall primetime household ratings.
They argue that a show's real worth relates to its ability to attract critical acclaim; to draw new viewers, who then sample other programming on the network; to improve a channel's demographics; to lift viewership for a particular time slot; and to provide a platform to successfully launch other shows.
Also, there are endless ways to slice and dice the numbers, and some cable officials officials say they consider a show's contribution to a network's gross ratings points as a key metric, not the lift it gives to household ratings.
In fact, that's one of the measures MTVN uses to keep watch on how much specific shows are impacting its networks' ratings. The programmer thinks that kind of tracking is important.
"It's a valuable exercise," said Betsy Frank, MTV Networks executive vice president of research and planning. "It can be an early warning. It's something we look at here periodically."
MTVN will look at a series on one of its networks — or someone else's — and take into account its repeat pattern, "to see whether there's a sense that someone is becoming too dependent on one show," Frank said.
"If it's representing a really high percent of GRPs [gross rating points] versus the amount of runs it has on the schedule, it kind of gives you a little bit of an early warning," she said.
Generally speaking, a show has to dramatically outperform its network average, and get a lot of plays — be on the air for a longer duration — before it has much of an impact at all, according to Brooks.
60 'SPACES' TO FILL
That's true for Trading Spaces and Queer Eye.
TLC general manager and senior vice president Roger Marmet said that there are 60 new episodes of Trading Places produced for each season.
With that volume of new shows along with repeats, TLC is able to air the show nearly a dozen times a week, with one of those plays a premiere.
"That's one of the benefits of doing 60 episodes a year," Marmet said.
While Trading Spaces has a substantial impact on TLC's primetime average, Marmet emphasized the network is using the hit as a launching pad for new series, which are scheduled as either its leadouts or Friday night companions.
"I can't live or die off of one show," Marmet said. "It has been a strategy of ours to use this as a platform to launch other hits. Clean Sweep is a show that is taking off and it's about organization, but it's also about your emotional baggage and relationship issues over things in the house that one persona may like and the other might not. The most important shows for us are the ones that are in development and that are the future because we have this captive audience."
TLC's demographics have also shifted and grown younger because of Trading Spaces, and that has helped the network tremendously on the ad-sales front, according to Marmet.
Last year, with the help of Trading Spaces, TLC ranked No. 6 for cable among 25-to-54-year-olds in primetime.
Without the show, TLC would have dropped down to No. 9 in that demographic, according to officials at the network.
YEAR OF 'QUEER'
Queer Eye debuted last summer, so it only played half a year. If you annualized its impact on Bravo's primetime last year, it would perhaps double the numbers in Turner's analysis, Bravo vice president of strategic programming Dan Harrison said.
But the show's halo effect went beyond the ratings it produced, according to Harrison.
"Queer Eye allowed us to really begin to transform Bravo," he said. "Bravo's been around for 23 years. Most people probably wouldn't realize it. The one show that really makes an impact for Bravo before NBC took it over is Inside the Actors Studio, and most viewers wouldn't necessarily associate that show with a particular network."
Through the benefit of Queer Eye, which was heavily promoted by the Peacock Network and repurposed on it, Bravo's average age has dropped to the mid-40s from the mid-50s, according to Harrison, with a large number of new viewers now "circulating" through the cable network.
Primetime impressions for 25-to-54-year-olds grew almost 450% on Tuesday nights, when Queer Eye aired, and were up every other night on Bravo, Harrison said.
"Our challenge is to take Queer Eye and build a schedule that builds the second hit and the third hit, and to grow shows so we aren't just dependent on the popularity of one show, because shows go in and out of favor," Harrison said.
One series that never seems to go out of favor is Law & Order, which Lifetime's Brooks described as "a bonanza" for TNT.
The off-network show, which airs an average of six hours a week in primetime, made up about 25% of TNT's primetime lineup last year.
It raised the network's primetime ratings by 9% in 2003, taking it to a 2.0, according to Turner's analysis. TNT occupied the No. 1 spot in primetime ratings last year, the crown Lifetime held the prior two years.
TNT TOPS REGARDLESS
Wakshlag agreed Law & Order helps TNT's ratings, but doesn't buy claims the network would lose its top-rated status in primetime if it didn't have the show.
"Last year, even without Law & Order, TNT would have been No. 1," Wakshlag said. "No matter how you slice it, this network would have been No. 1 without the numbers for Law & Order."
Factoring out Law & Order, TNT's primetime rating last year would have dropped to a 1.856 from a 2.025 — which would have still kept the network ahead of Nickelodeon.
The same story holds when using audience delivery as a gauge.
Delete Law & Order from TNT's primetime last year and persons 2-plus for the network would have dropped to 2.18 million from 2.33 million with the show — a 7% drop, according to Turner Research.
That still would have kept TNT No. 1 ahead of second-place Nick's 2,063,000.
That said, it doesn't mean that Law & Order isn't important to TNT, according to Wakshlag.
"It's a show that will be identified with us just like American Idol is associated with Fox, and 60 Minutes is associated with CBS, and Real World is associated with MTV," he said. "It's a show we're happy with and it occupies a significant part of our schedule and it's good and it's buzz worthy. It's important to us, even though it doesn't change our rating all that much."
TNT's past programming strategy — notoriously, and almost heretically, in the world of basic cable — has been to shy away from original scripted series and to instead invest in theatricals, original movies, off-network series and sports, such as NASCAR and the National Basketball Association, with Law & Order in the mix.
But in a shift, TNT does have some limited series set to air this year.
TNT's philosophic differences with FX, USA or Lifetime — which have emphasized traditional original scripted series — are apparent when Wakshlag talks about some of his rivals' programs. He pointed out that even shows "that are outperforming their network average by a ton," like Nip/Tuck, only raised FX's primetime ratings 3% last year, although the series itself averaged roughly a 3.0 rating compared with the network's 0.9.
"If you were in my business, would you rather be a 1.8 average network, or a 0.9 network with a show that gets a 2.7?" Wakshlag said.
"Which one gets you more money? Which one gets you more viewers? Which one is more valuable to cable operators? "
FX officials think their network has plenty of value. They pointed out that Nip/Tuck and The Shield were the top-rated basic cable shows in several key younger demographics that advertisers cherish, and they believe their hit shows have defined their brand as an edgy destination on the basic-cable dial.
Turner believes steadfastly in its own strategy.
"In order to be a dominant network across a year, a TNT or a TBS — and you can see other networks trying to get there, USA and Lifetime, as well — you need to build a schedule that has consistently strong programming throughout the week," Wakshlag said. "You need a network that has more than one pony … An original series in and of itself isn't enough to change your rating much and it doesn't seem to be enough to really change your profile except for buzz and PR, which has some value."
Turner's competitors fundamentally disagree with Turner on that "value" of original scripted shows.
"Our primary competition has vocally claimed that they are out of the originals business," said Rick Holzman, senior vice president of strategic research for the Universal Television Group, which owns USA and Sci Fi Channel.
"The whole argument goes to a philosophy of why you do originals," he said. "For a USA and Sci Fi, there is a chance to do projects we really believe in that will clearly — very importantly in the USA world — differentiate us from any other general-entertainment network. And three of our [original] shows improved their daypart considerably."
Lifetime's Brooks maintained that while a show may seem to only raise a network's total primetime a tiny amount, it's still very meaningful, on many levels.
Lifetime did an analysis that looked at the impact of hit shows on their network's primetime ratings during the quarters new episodes premiered.
The analysis, for example, showed that in the first quarter last year, when new episodes of The Shield debuted, it added 0.083 to FX's 0.9 average rating in primetime during that period.
"The rap on very expensive scripted shows is they don't help your [ratings] average," Brooks said. "Well, they apparently do."
SMALL JUMPS COUNT
Even small jumps in ratings translate to a lot more ad dollars for a network, according to Brooks.
"The Shield adds almost a tenth of a ratings point to FX's average," he said. "That's a lot of money. You can raise your whole primetime average by a tenth on a low-rated network like FX, which is normally under a 1.0 rating, and you're raising it by 10% … A tenth of rating point on a primetime average is in the millions of dollars in annual revenue. It depends on the network, obviously, and what they charge. But seemingly small changes, when they cover a lot of time, like a whole quarter for all of primetime, that would be in the millions."
Brooks also pointed out that it's harder for one series to raise the rating on a network that's already doing a high number to begin with. For example, Lifetime's four original scripted shows —Strong Medicine, The Division, Wild Card and 1-800-Missing — only slightly improved the network's primetime average last year: each show raised Lifetime's primetime numbers no more than 1%.
USA is in the same boat as Lifetime in that regard, with Monk only raising its primetime ratings 1% last year.
"We're a pretty highly trafficked network," USA president Doug Herzog said. "We have a pretty high ratings floor. So hit shows contribute to that, but when you're only doing a handful of them, and your running one hour a week as a premiere, the impact overall is not huge. Where the impact comes in is differentiating ourselves from the other guys with viewers, with the press, with sales community and with the affiliates."
The flipside is that a network with a smaller ratings, like Bravo with its 0.4 primetime average, sees more of an impact from a show like Queer Eye, which with its 2.2 for its original episodes does almost five times the network's average.
NEW EYES TO LIFETIME
While if may appear almost "neutral financially" for Lifetime to be doing original series, Brooks set forth the classic argument as to why a scripted show is worth the effort.
"It has other advantages, probably the biggest is it brings new viewers into your network who will come for original programs but won't come for repeats," he said. "You can then advertise to them and get them to watch other things. It's a big entry door and it's how you build brands in cable. That's the reason networks do these shows, as opposed to a strict financial analysis of, 'Can we make a lot of money off it right away?' That's why you don't need a seven-day schedule of them. "
Officials at FX made the same case.
"Ultimately, it comes down to mass," Leblang said. "If you have a show that's on an hour a week, and there's 21 hours of primetime, that's 5% of your schedule. So the net impact of any one show statistically on a network ratings-wise is minimal. On the time period, obviously we see dramatic gains. But what it does in terms of brand perception with consumers is exponentially greater. Like any network, we gain much more in terms of other benefits than simply just ratings."
Like Brooks, Leblang argued that original programming lures viewers in to see what else a network like FX has.
"We've seen the benefit of Nip/Tuck lifting our overall awareness, circulation and value," he said. "You have to get them into the neighborhood before they can sample the cuisine. That's what we really see the benefit is."
FX is one of many programmers using that strategy. Comedy Central schedules new show in the time slots around its primetime ratings leader, South Park.
"What you really want your No. 1 show to do is work as a workhorse," Giacopelli said. "You want it to be able to use it as a promotional platform. You want to try to bring new viewers to the network however you can. Even if a show like South Park that's been on the air for awhile, you want try to put it in different places so people will sample that show and the program that follows it on different nights."
Court TV's signature series, Forensic Files, goes beyond its ratings contribution, network officials said, by acting as a branding "linchpin" that performs consistently, typically a 1.0 at 9 p.m., for Court TV.
The network is scheduling new shows around Forensic Files, particularly at 8 p.m., that it hopes will skew younger and attract upscale viewers, Court TV CEO Henry Schleiff said.
In defense of original programming, Brooks pointed out that its viewership remains on an upswing, growing over time.
"The ratings of original series have been rising on cable," he said. "A big-hit original series in the early '90s was something that got to a 2.0. Now you have series that get to 3.0s and 4.0s. Even with all the fragmentation, cable series are getting overall higher rating than they used to. That's why they're contributing more."
ESPN'S PRIME EFFORT
ESPN's first foray into a scripted dramatic series was the controversial Playmakers last year. According to Turner's analysis, the show actually had a negative impact on ESPN's primetime ratings last year, minus 1%, when all its telecasts — repeats included — were taken into account. That's because there was such a wide gap between the show's numbers and the type of high-rated fare ESPN carries, like its 7.0-plus rated NFL games.
Still, ESPN achieved what it set out to do with Playmakers on the ratings front, according to Artie Bulgrin, the network's senior vice president and director of research and sales development.
Two years ago, ESPN committed to raise its ratings by improving the viewership for time slots filled with "other programming" — meaning fare other than live events, news and information.
ESPN didn't expect to duplicate its NFL ratings in those low-rated time periods — which make up about 20% of the network's schedule — but to still lift the numbers, according to Bulgrin. So that was the strategy behind ESPN's original movies and scripted shows, he said.
"Playmakers absolutely helped us improve that bottom end of our programming," Bulgrin said, boosting the below-average ratings ESPN's had been doing in its Tuesday-night time spot.
"The time-period average did 0.48 normally, and with Playmakers those ratings increased about 300% to a 1.88," he said. "One night of the week in primetime for 11 weeks was dramatically improved. You take that out of that and it certainly has a negative effect on our primetime."
Playmakers also drew more young women, 18 to 34, to ESPN, averaging better than a 1.0 rating in that demographic, according to Bulgrin.
"And in the time period from 9 to 10, it actually delivered more young female viewers than Lifetime did in that period," he said. "We're also know as a destination network, not necessarily destination programming …Playmakers changed all that."
Unfortunately, the show's dark depiction of pro football infuriated ESPN's partner, the National Football League. Citing the NFL's reaction as one factor in its decision, ESPN this month cancelled the show.
| Gauging The Impact of a Hit | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2003's hit series, and how they contribute to the primetime ratings of basic-cable networks. | |||||||||||
| Network Primetime | Series Premiere Episodes | Series Contribution to Primetime | Ratings Lift | Series All Telecasts | Series Contribution to Primetime | Ratings Lift | |||||
| Series | Net | HH Rtg. | (Min.) | HH Rtg. | (Min.) | HH Rtg. | (Min.) | ||||
| Primetime = Mon-Sun 8-11 p.m.; All ratings are household coverage area based; (12/30/2002 - 12/28/2003); Includes episodes that start between M-Su 8-11 p.m.; Includes only the program portion that falls between 8 - 11 p.m. (1) Data from Discovery Communications Inc. Source: Turner Entertainment Research analysis of Nielsen Media Research data. |
|||||||||||
| Strong Medicine | Lifetime | 1.688 | 65520 | 2.439 | 1440 | 0.017 | 1% | 2.090 | 2760 | 0.018 | 1% |
| The Division | Lifetime | 1.688 | 65520 | 2.426 | 1320 | 0.015 | 1% | 2.141 | 2940 | 0.021 | 1% |
| Wild Card | Lifetime | 1.688 | 65520 | 2.037 | 840 | 0.005 | 0% | 1.914 | 1200 | 0.004 | 0% |
| 1-800-Missing | Lifetime | 1.688 | 65520 | 2.020 | 900 | 0.005 | 0% | 1.850 | 1200 | 0.003 | 0% |
| Nip/Tuck | FX | 0.859 | 65520 | 2.964 | 812 | 0.026 | 3% | 1.651 | 2278 | 0.029 | 3% |
| The Shield | FX | 0.859 | 65520 | 2.779 | 780 | 0.023 | 3% | 1.163 | 3602 | 0.018 | 2% |
| The Osbournes | MTV | 0.943 | 65520 | 2.872 | 480 | 0.014 | 2% | 1.221 | 3960 | 0.018 | 2% |
| Real World XIII | MTV | 0.943 | 65520 | 2.498 | 750 | 0.018 | 2% | 1.084 | 4350 | 0.010 | 1% |
| Trading Spaces (1) | TLC | 1.072 | 65520 | 2.997 | 3420 | 0.108 | 11% | 2.494 | 7140 | 0.174 | 19% |
| Playmakers | ESPN | 1.531 | 65520 | 1.884 | 644 | 0.004 | 0% | 1.255 | 2306 | -0.010 | -1% |
| Forensic Files | Court TV | 0.871 | 65520 | 1.113 | 960 | 0.004 | 0% | 0.903 | 17400 | 0.012 | 1% |
| Stargate | Sci-Fi | 0.980 | 65520 | 1.657 | 1262 | 0.013 | 1% | 1.296 | 11885 | 0.070 | 8% |
| Law & Order | TNT | 2.025 | 65520 | - | - | - | - | 2.525 | 16575 | 0.169 | 9% |
| Queer Eye | Bravo | 0.433 | 65520 | 2.241 | 960 | 0.027 | 7% | 1.009 | 4890 | 0.046 | 12% |
| Monk | USA | 1.606 | 65520 | 3.433 | 540 | 0.015 | 1% | 1.600 | 2790 | 0.000 | 0% |
| South Park | Comedy | 0.644 | 65520 | 2.235 | 450 | 0.011 | 2% | 1.136 | 7770 | 0.066 | 11% |
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