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from kids to teens
Edges out Big 4 networks as upfront approaches
By Kevin Downey
Cable television has long dominated kids’ viewing, as any parent can tell you.
Now it's spiriting away America's teenagers.
Ad-supported cable now has an 11.0 rating and 38 share among teens in primetime, reports the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau.
The four major broadcast networks, in contrast, have a 10.4/36 for the season, which ends in May.
While young TV viewers appear to see little difference between cable and broadcast, cable's rising command of those young viewers, translated into ratings, stands to mean the difference between millions of dollars as the upfront ad-selling season approaches.
"It’s a widening gap and it’s clearly about the programming," says Joe Ostrow, president and chief executive officer of the CAB.
"Cable, with its ability to target, much more so than the broadcast approach, has developed a wantedness for teens and kids to come to cable. The cable networks are brands that they identify with."
The CAB further reports that cable has a 10.5/44 among kids to broadcast’s 7.2/30 for the season.
Those ratings are especially important as cable and broadcast get ready to square off in next month’s kids upfront.
"It’s potentially a significant impact on the upfront because advertisers are tired of the broadcast networks not meeting expectations," says Ostrow.
The upfront is expected by most media buyers to be sluggish, with ad dollar commitments for the coming year to hit roughly $750-800 million for a third year in a row. Cable took about 60 percent of that last year and should do about the same this year.
While the broadcast industry essentially concedes a tight race between cable and broadcast among kids, the battle for ad dollars makes the reporting of ratings a matter of fine tuning.
The Television Bureau of Advertising, for instance, reports ratings for broadcast that include all networks, including Spanish-language and independent stations.
"They look at the four [major network] broadcast totals and say, ‘we win,’" says Harold Simpson, vice president of research and development at the TVB.
"If you look at all the broadcast numbers, we have a win for broadcast for teens and we are catching up in kids."
Using the TVB’s measure, broadcast actually edges out cable among kids, with a 10.4 rating for the season against cable’s 10.1.
Regardless, Simpson says, advertisers ultimately base their spending on ratings for specific shows, not an entire medium.
"When advertisers consider cable and broadcast, they don’t look at these numbers," he says.
"They look at programs and that’s where we produce 2s, 3s, 4s, and 5s. [Cable] gets something like 0.1s and advertisers don’t want to select dozens of cable networks to accumulate ratings."
While cable and broadcast duke it out next month for kids upfront dollars, the broadcast industry isn’t willing to let what they say is their lead among teens slip away.
Smaller broadcast networks have done especially well in reaching the group. The WB, for example, is the No. 1 network among female teens.
The TVB’s figures, again including all broadcast and based on a slightly different time-period from the CAB report, show its rating for teens to be a 15.2 compared to cable’s 10.6.
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Cable
vs. Broadcast |
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|
2000/2001 |
1992/1993 |
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|
Situation |
U.S. Rating% |
Share % |
U.S. Rating% |
Share % |
|
KIDS |
||||
|
Ad-Supported Cable |
10.5 |
44 |
6.1 |
23 |
|
Broadcast (4-Networks*) |
7.2 |
30 |
17.6 |
66 |
|
TEENS |
||||
|
Ad-Supported Cable |
11.0 |
38 |
7.0 |
22 |
|
Broadcast (4-Networks*) |
10.4 |
36 |
21.9 |
68 |
|
* ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC |
||||
|
Cable
vs. Broadcast |
||
|
Situation |
Kids 2-11 |
Teens 12-17 |
|
Ad-Supported Cable |
10.1 |
10.6 |
|
Broadcast - 4-Networks* |
6.9 |
10.3 |
|
Broadcast - 7-Networks* |
9.2 |
14.2 |
|
All Broadcast* |
10.4 |
15.2 |
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* 4-Networks (ABC, CBS, Fox,
NBC); 7-Networks includes The WB, UPN, Pax; |
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-Kevin Downey is a staff writer for Media Life.
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