TVB

With Kansas City as a backdrop, Major League Baseball celebrated itself with its annual All-Star Game recently, pulling in strong summertime showing of 10.9 million people tuning into the game. Dayton, Ohio, tied with Dallas for the fifth-highest market rating for the game, even though Dayton has no MLB team. But it is the home of the minor league Dayton Dragons. So that’s something to pay attention to — a baseball-hungry market with no major league team. Local advertisers who are active in markets like Dayton would be wise to remember that heavy viewing doesn’t necessarily require a heavy market team presence.

Injecting localism into our celebrations often is a function of some particular characteristic endemic to that market alone. Reenacting the Boston Tea Party, gazing upon the actual Liberty Bell, visiting the Washington Monument and its brethren in Washington, DC, or taking in the majesty of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota — these are all things that only can happen in one place alone. The amazing thing is that your local television station is there to capture it all.

While the majority of viewers watch TV live, there are a few who use commercials as a timing device while they’re doing other things. They’ll listen to the audio, monitoring the broadcast until the commercials are over, then go back to watching the program. For people who might not give the commercial their full attention, the jingle is the most likely message that they’ll pick up on. And it’s going to be the stickiest.

The trade group’s CEO says that Internet video accounts for only 1.5% of total viewing and adds that with Americans watching television an average of 297 minutes a day (and spending an average 13 minutes on Facebook), “it’s television that makes the [advertisers’] cash register ring.”

Consumers are willing to forge a bond with those things that mean something to them and that they, well … like. But oftentimes in the social media space, clicks aren’t pursued independently; they’re more likely to be activated when it’s made easy and somewhat seamless. Since TV is a strong driver to the Web, local stations make that easy connection between advertiser and end-user.

Local delivers a customizable, targeted national footprint at lower cost. And it delivers the content — and corresponding GRPs — that aren’t available nationally. How much more credible of an alternative could there be?

Perhaps it’s time that buyers take a closer look at TV staitons’ digital subchannels as a stronger option to local cable. They’re available in 100% of TV households, deliver higher ratings and more reach than many top tier cable networks, let alone the smaller niche verticals, all for lower CPMs.

Why there should be room for 210 spot slices on every agency’s diet plan.

If you were to ask someone to name three words that are most associated with the ideals of the United States of America, there’s probably a 100% chance that one of them will be “freedom”. We live in a world where that word — and concept — are both in danger of losing significance due to it being used to advance a political agenda. It’s for this very reason that our free, over-the-air television station groups such as Dispatch, Hearst, Post-Newsweek and Scripps are donating significant amounts of free airtime to qualified candidates during the election season.

Market by market and special program by special program, stations make Black History Month TV moments accessible to both viewers and sponsors. In doing so, advertisers have the opportunity to extend their brand connections with local consumers and acknowledge the changing role of Black and African Americans in the consumer economy.

The proximity of the broadcast to Whitney Houston’s death allowed the broadcast audience an opportunity to share in a communal social moment with the artists, as they simultaneously processed the immediacy of the shocking news. The impact this had was evident on a market by market basis, as 20 of the 25 LPM markets delivered higher household ratings than the national broadcast.

While headlining her own syndicated The Oprah Winfrey Show, Oprah was unstoppable. Her name became synonymous with quality; she routinely gave away audiencefuls of cars, exotic trips and other sundry expenditures that she found she couldn’t live without — and those brands benefitted from the “Oprah Seal of Approval” in turn. But since last January she’s on cable, on her OWN. The Oprah Winfrey Network, that is. And she’s hardly been heard from since.

The largest local Super Bowl audiences are not merely determined by home markets of the participating teams. There are four additional key factors to look for that correlate to driving higher local market viewership.

In 2012 watching the game on your living room HDTV isn’t the only “best” way to watch the game anymore. And by that I don’t mean that I didn’t spring for the full 3D TV experience. It’s bigger than that. Today, you can virtually have an “all-access” pass to the Super Bowl while still being hundreds of miles from the stadium.

TVB’s political ad guru Jack Poor says there’s good news and bad news for TV stations in this election year. The good news is that their four-fifths share of total TV spend will be up 20% to around a record $2.5 billion, and no other medium seems positioned to cut into stations’ share. The bad news is that the total take will be suppressed due to the lack of any major gubernatorial contest that swelled the coffers in 2010.

While playoff football games draw big ratings, TVB says a look at numbers in the teams’ home markets reveals much, much larger audiences.

The 2012 Consumer Electronics Show was overflowing with TV technology. For the creative, forward-thinking marketer there was an abundance of innovative ways to reach television-loving consumers, and TV broadcasters were squarely in that game with mobile DTV. With mobile DTV, marketers will have the opportunity to establish the deepest connection with consumers through the reach of television, their relationship with local news and entertainment, the interactivity of the Web and the intimacy of personal devices.

In last week’s “Wall Street Journal”, Kevin Sintumuang wrote what was in effect a “Dear John” letter to cable TV. It’s a pretty bold statement to make, Kevin — so publicly ending a relationship like that. When you’re ready to get into a more lasting relationship, broadcast television will be there for you.

There is indeed a correlation between increased spot spending on TV stations by auto manufacterers and increased sales. And why wouldn’t there be? Where is the actual consumer connection to their new car purchase? At the local dealership. So anything that helps spread that message has got to help the manufacturers’ bottom line.

As we see the last of 2011 fall by the wayside, we at the TVB are enthusiastically looking forward to 2012, because it looks to be a banner year for local broadcast television. Some of the reasons include political spending, the London Olympics, growing auto sales and an improving real estate market. In addition, one of the most important areas that will invigorate local broadcast TV is likely to come from a somewhat unexpected place: mobile.

If broadcasting and cable are interchangeable, then why do sports draw substantially more viewers on broadcasting than they do on cable? Case in point: Fox’s broadcast of baseball’s American League Championship Series last fall attracted 55% more male 25-54 viewers than TBS’s telecast of the National League Championship Series.

This final installment of TVNewsCheck‘s three-part special report on audience measurement looks at the impasse in the search for a local ratings currency that’s acceptable to both broadcasters and agencies. The broadcasters want some credit for DVR viewing, while most agencies still insist on live-only numbers. Although a compromise floated by TVB President Steve Lanzano went nowhere, some agency executives concede that broadcasters have a point.

The reality is that more people are consuming local news content across more hours and across additional station platforms. Station websites have become the online choice for local news and weather. And, possibly the most significant expansion of on-demand news is now underway with direct broadcasting to mobile screens — mobile DTV.

Local broadcasters’ $1.8 billion in local online ad revenue this year might represent only the visible portion of the Internet iceberg. A TVB survey found that 61% of the local businesses surveyed said they expected their expenditures on digital media to grow in 2011. The survey identified a large opportunity for local TV broadcasters to tap into that vein: 58% of the respondents said they considered their TV rep a good source of information for digital opportunities, while 71% expressed confidence that the rep was a good adviser on media buys.

The goal of business development is to bring value to advertisers by understanding their business, identifying opportunities and putting together local customized solutions that will produce greater sales results. That’s why TVB has made it a priority.

After considerable posturing, agency and network executives drew up the C3 Compromise for the national marketplace several years back. Hammering out a deal on a dominant currency in the local broadcast market has been far more knotty. TVB chief Steve Lanzano is floating a creative alternative: “live plus three with an adjustment factor.” It attempts to bring some commercial ratings to local TV. The key figure is an estimated 50% of the ads watched with a DVR are skipped.

A TVB analysis of Rentrak audience data during the weekend of Hurricane Irene shows dramatic ratings spikes for ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC affiliates.

According to broadcasters, reps and analysts surveyed by TVNewsCheck, the revenue driver at TV stations next year will be political ad money, but no one expects a repetition of the huge increases stations enjoyed in 2010. Another positive sign is that auto spending is picking up again following the earthquake-tsunami double whammy that hit Japanese automakers in March. A still struggling economy is said to account for the core forecast in the low single digits.

The two leading rep firms along with the broadcast software developer will provide the financial support to maintain and further develop the system for buying and selling spot TV.

East Coast station tune-in and website visits escalate after Tuesday’s 5.8 magnitude quake.

The TV trade group was the source of the FCC’s recent recommendation that the federal government divert its advertising dollars from the national media to local media. And TVB didn’t stop there. Now it’s hard after the government money. For starters, it’s trying to get a better accounting of exactly how much money there is and where exactly it is coming from. Then it’s off to Washington. TVB has to convince the bureaucrats not only of the efficacy of local media, but of the relative merits of local TV. Good job.

A TVGuide.com study found that more viewers chatted and tweeted while watching live TV during the past season and the top 10 most popular “social shows” are all aired on broadcast networks. Such social viewing is giving rise to a new metric, social impressions, that bolsters the gross ratings points. Stations are also discovering the value of tying local programming in with the Facebook and Twitter.

Michael Bollo has been named vice president, marketing and business development at local broadcast television marketing association, TVB. Bollo comes to TVB from Crystal Media Networks where he was VP […]

Network program ratings may be getting smaller, and cable ratings may be getting bigger, but programs from the broadcast networks still were dominant this past season. A TVB analysis of Nielsen data says broadcast shows accounted for 89 of the top 100 shows when it came to 18-49 viewers, and 93 of the top 100 shows among viewers 25-54.

That alternate delivery system number is an all-time high, while wired cable hits a 21-year low.

The new NCC initiative will allow cable sellers to offer advertisers added reach on telco-owned systems and DirecTV in dozens of markets. It sounds good, but it involves a complicated system that may leave buyers far short of the homes and viewers they had paid for. TVB is keeping a close eye on NCC I+ on behalf of the advertising community. We’ve created a special NCC I+ area on our website where we’ll be posting ongoing developments.

A new TVB analysis of Kantar Media data details the adrenaline rush experienced by local broadcasters last year as advertising flooded in the door. Local broadcast’s percentage gain topped every other television media sector.

National ADS (alternative deliverysystem) penetration is at an all-time high in television households and in homes that pay for cable, satellite or telco delivery; wired-cable penetration remains at its lowest in 15 years.

A new Borrell Associates report conducted for TVB finds the top local ad-spending categories continue to be general merchandise stores, car dealers and real estate agents. The report also forecasts 17% growth this year.

The trade group announced today that it has hired Susan Converse as VP, finance and administration. She will be assuming most of the responsibilities of COO Hope Etheridge, who is leaving TVB  to join Doctors Without Borders.