Syndies, Networks Give Stations Promo Help

New media and production tools add efficiency, but also expand the workload for beleaguered station promotion executives. That theme emerged loud and clear Thursday from an assembly of top marketing “Luminaries and Leaders” at the inaugural PromaxBDA Station Summit in Las Vegas.

“We’re supporting Glee and American Idol even over the summer with tweets and QR codes for cell phones,“ said Joe Early, president of marketing and communications for Fox Broadcasting. “But even though we’re supposed to embrace the new, we can’t let go of any of our traditional promo mechanisms. That requires significant content to be created for each project to “feed the monster.”

Despite declining station budgets and staffing, promotion workload has steadily increased as station marketing departments strive to coordinate their own strategic goals with those of networks and syndicators. These program suppliers have responded with increasing sensitivity to the real-world limits of station resources.

“Previously Fox dictated the graphic style for affiliates. We’ve flipped this so that the Fox brand compliments the station’s brand,” says Early, who points to the successful “So Fox” campaign that affiliates have localized as “So Philadelphia’ and “So San Diego.”

NBC, too, has loosened graphics standards for affiliates, says Scot Chastain, NBC’s SVP of affiliate marketing and development. “We have more important issues than policing color usage and where stations place the Peacock.” For example, says Chastain, NBC focuses on supplying local news and sales departments with as many local angles and supplementary footage as they can handle to support The Biggest Loser, and the Olympics. “We try to make sure these are covered as local events” and sales opportunities, Chastain says.

While sometimes burdensome, the emphasis on local marketing is no small compliment to the unique promotional clout that stations enjoy in their markets. And sometimes the demands run two ways. To jumpstart its launch of the forthcoming The X Factor talent show, Fox paid to assemble all its affiliate promotion managers for a special strategic workshop that included an appearance by producer-host Simon Cowell. During the Q&A, promotional executives wasted no time in challenging Cowell to step up with custom promos, local appearances and other personal support. They were surprised and delighted when he readily agreed.

“Simon Cowell’s not just the talent, he’s a smart show person,” says Bill Butler, VP of programming and promotion for Sinclair Broadcast Group, whose stations include 20 Fox affiliates. “Everyone who attended Fox’s X Factor workshop came back and said Simon was the smartest, hardest-working talent they’d ever met.”

Like several major station groups, Sinclair has taken steps to address the growing mountain of promotion production by centralizing and automating repetitive editing and distribution as much as possible. “We’ve got four Avid editing stations working four continuous shifts to create 6,600 local promo tags per week that are transmitted to Sinclair stations,” says Butler. This frees local promotion staff to focus their creativity where it’s more likely to build audience and revenue.

That’s been Tribune’s experience when approaching syndicators for some extra help, says President of Programming and Entertainment Sean Compton. “We work closely with Warner Bros. on Two and a Half Men. We recently added Family Guy at 6 p.m. and the Twentieth team has been terrific,” says Compton, who credits such close collaboration for achieving “18% growth in the main demo during that hour,” which also drives viewers into primetime — a special challenge for Tribune stations, whose CW primetime schedule and assortment of New York-based talk shows can pose special challenges for creating audience flow.

The speakers revealed that media consolidation brings new responsibilities — but not everyone agreed whether these represent opportunities or obstacles for stations. Soon after Comcast closed the deal to purchase NBC, it was decreed that the network would support the launch of the movie Hop throughout the schedule. On the other hand, NBC receives signage and talent visibility at its sister Universal Theme Parks.

That’s valuable, says Fox’s Joe Early, “anytime you can hit a consumer when they don’t have their filter up.” But Sinclair’s Butler disagreed: “You like to think it helps the affiliates, but a theme park ride or kiosk does nothing for ratings in Indianapolis.”

One area of agreement was the value of  the PromaxBDA Station Summit. “It’s important to remember that we work in television,” said Butler. “As we get caught in the grind of doing more, we must remind ourselves that this is show biz. I hope we come back year after year.” The comment garnered audience applause.