Is It Time to Do Away with Sweeps Ratings

The cornerstone of selling local television time is the sweeps ratings periods, which are held in February, May, November, and, to a lesser extent, August by Nielsen Media Research to determine what stations and shows are being watched in all 210 U.S. television markets. The term sweeps dates back to the 1950s, when Nielsen began mailing diaries to households and reporting the results, first with the East Coast markets before sweeping across the country. As TV networks gradually took control of programming, they needed better demographic numbers to calculate how much they could charge for commercials on specific shows. Local stations could not afford to measure TV viewing audiences year-round, as the networks do, so they settled on the four month-long sweeps ratings periods.

The numbers gathered during the sweeps periods are used as guideposts in the buying and selling of TV commercial time during the rest of the year and are extremely important to local stations. However, many people in the advertising industry are enraged over the tactics used by networks and their local affiliates to bolster their ratings during sweeps periods, such as special programming, contests, games, and other non-typical promotions. They argue that the extraordinary programming and promotion efforts inflate the ratings taken during these periods and that they are not indicative of audience sizes for the other 36 weeks of the year, when networks run their regular programming and promotions are not used to boost local viewing audiences.

Advertisers and their agencies have become accustomed to the usual tactics used to beef up program schedules during the sweeps months, from blockbuster network programming to lurid sensationalism in local newscasts. Many local stations follow the accepted practice of producing and heavily promoting sex and scandal stories to lure viewers to their newscasts. For example, a Miami station ran an investigation into female college students who work as strippers to pay their tuition. Of much greater concern, however, is the blatant use of ratings grabbers such as big-prize sweepstakes,contests,and giveaways during sweeps periods. Nielsen Media Research has expressed concern over the number of unusual sweeps-period station promotions—most often giveaway contests on local newscasts. For example, a Houston station conducted a watch-and-win contest offering $2,000 each day to viewers of its 5 P.M., 6 P.M. and 10 p.m. newscasts. Nielsen's research has confirmed that giveaway promotions increase a station's audience share but that it generally drops back to pre-contest levels when the promotion ends.

Nielsen Media Research is working with the advertising industry to solve the sweeps problems. It pro vides red flags in its printed reports if stations use special promotions to bump up their ratings. Nielsen also recently dropped a San Diego TV station from its sweeps measurement period when it discovered that the station tried to pump up its ratings by sending promotional tapes to Nielsen's local panel members. However, the advertising industry argues that the only real solution to the problem is to increase the number of weeks Nielsen measures local audiences rather than relying on the artificially hyped numbers from sweeps periods. However, Nielsen argues that a continuous measurement system like that used for the network ratings would be very expensive and the TV and advertising industry would have to be willing to pay a higher price for local ratings information. Nielsen's director of communications notes: "In a perfect world, putting people meters in all the markets is what we'd want to do. But there's not enough advertising dollars in the smaller markets to make it worth their while."

Nielsen may also be getting some resistance from the local stations that have grown accustomed to getting higher ad rates year-round based on the inflated sweeps numbers. In the top 20 television markets, as much as half of a station's revenue comes from commercial time sold during the four or five hours of local newscasts aired each day, and a 30-second spot may sell for $2,500 to $3,000. Local stations are limited in the amount of airtime they can sell during network programs, so they concentrate on local newscasts to increase ad revenue. Ironically, however, some media researchers argue that sweeps don't always help boost a local station's ratings. They note that many viewers are loyal to local station news teams while others see through all of the sensational stories and promotional gimmicks.

Despite the many drawbacks of the system, many local stations continue to support sweeps for three main reasons: habit, fear, and money. However, nearly everyone in the advertising industry argues that some type of overhaul of the sweeps system is needed. The chair of the media research committee for the American Association of Advertising Agencies notes: "Sweeps are a travesty. Advertisers buy time on stations 365 days a year, yet we have no idea what ratings are for most of the year when there aren't those hyped, big-event programs." She speaks for many in the advertising industry when she concludes,"Sweeps should be done away with." It will be interesting to see if the television industry takes action to solve the sweeps problem or just continues to sweep it under the rug.

Sources: Michael J. Weis,"Sweeps," American Demographics, May 2001, pp. 43-49; Allen Banks,"Close the Book on Sweeps," Advertising Age, Mar. 15,1999.

Nielsen has been battling with the networks, local TV stations, and ad agencies for years over the accuracy of its numbers. Many in the industry suspect that Nielsen is not moving fast enough to improve its audience measurement systems because it has a virtual monopoly in both the national and the local ratings business. They would like to see some competition.

The major networks, advertisers, and agencies have explored alternatives to Nielsen Media Research. One such recent effort was a system developed by Statistical Research Inc. (SRI) called Smart-TV, which was initially funded by the three major networks and big advertisers such as Procter & Gamble, AT&T, and General Motors. SRI claimed its Smart-TV system had many advantages over Nielsen's people meter and tested the system in Philadelphia in 1998. However, in May 1999 SRI canceled a national rollout of the new measurement system due to a lack of funding.35 The latest effort to develop a TV audience measurement system that challenges Nielsen comes from a joint venture involving shopping network QVC and its majority owner, cable system operator Comcast.36 The new service is called TargetTV and relies on digital set-top boxes to monitor viewer behavior by recording clickstream data in increments as small as five seconds in order to track channel surfing. The service was launched in 60,000 homes in Philadelphia in late 2000 and has moved into several other markets. The system has several drawbacks, however, as it is limited to households with set-top boxes and does not account for noncable TV users or those with analog cable boxes. It is not likely that the TargetTV service will mount a serious challenge to Nielsen anytime soon.

Another alternative to Nielsen is the portable people meter (PPM) system, which is being tested by Arbitron Inc.37 The pager-size device detects an inaudible code embedded in the audio signal of a TV program, radio show, or Internet streaming audio. At the end of the day, users of the device drop it into a bay station, which then sends the ratings information to Arbitron's central database. Arbitron maintains that the PPM is superior to traditional set-top meters because it captures audience behavior year-round, it tracks media use outside the home, and it tracks all different types of media. The company began field tests of the system in Philadelphia in 2002 and plans to expand into as many as 100 markets by 2008. Arbitron has skirted potential opposition to the system from Nielsen by giving its one-time rival the option to develop PPM technology if it goes into commercial production.

Many advertising professionals hope that a focus of new technology for measuring viewing audiences will be on developing rating systems for commercials, not just for programs. The Nielsen system measures the audiences for the programs surrounding the commercials rather than the commercials themselves. But with new technologies such as personal video recorders, as well as zipping, zapping, people leaving the room, and people being distracted from the TV during commercial breaks, there is a need to develop accurate ratings of more than just program audience viewing. Nielsen has announced that it can now monitor the TiVo personal video recorder behavior of all the U.S. TV households it monitors.38 However, the impending arrival of convergence technology also means that people may soon routinely watch television shows on their computers, personal digital assistants, and other wireless devices such as cell phones, which will add to the problem of accurately measuring TV viewing.

For over 50 years consumers passively received TV programming and commercials. This is changing rapidly, however, as the major cable operators, telecommunications companies, and others bring various entertainment, information, and interactive services into homes via television. Researchers argue that the Nielsen system is being overwhelmed by the explosion in the number of TV sets, delivery systems, and program options available. These developments must be carefully monitored by advertisers and media planners as well as by people in the TV industry, as they can have a profound impact on audience size and composition and on the way advertisers use and pay for the use of TV as an advertising medium. Improvements in measurement technology are needed to accommodate these developments.

Media experts also argue that consideration must be given to measuring media involvement and determining when consumers are most tuned into television programs and open to receiving advertisements and other types of marketing messages.39 Current audience measurement methods are often criticized for only reporting the sizes of viewing audiences and not distinguishing among them in terms of the intensity of their relationships with television programs. These limitations have prompted researchers to investigate the qualitative distinctions among viewers who may all be counted as "watching" a TV program but have very different levels of attention, attitudes, and even behaviors related to the show. Researchers Cristel Russell, Andrew Norman, and Susan Heckler have introduced the concept of audience connectedness to capture the fact that some television viewers build relationships, loyalty, and connections with certain TV shows, with the characters portrayed in these programs, and with fellow audience members.40 These connected viewers are very different from viewers who are less involved with a program. They may be more attentive to advertising and product placements and more likely to engage in behaviors such as visiting a program's website or purchasing brands that are associated with the show.

Television has often been referred to as the ideal advertising medium, and to many people it personifies the glamour and excitement of the industry. Radio, on the other hand, has been called the Rodney Dangerfield of media because it gets no respect from many advertisers. Dominated by network programming and national advertisers before the growth of TV, radio has evolved into a primarily local advertising medium. Network advertising generally accounts for less than 5 percent of radio's revenue. Radio has also become a medium characterized by highly specialized programming appealing to very narrow segments of the population.

The importance of radio is best demonstrated by the numbers. There are more than 11,000 radio stations in this country, including 4,784 commercial AM stations and 5,766 commercial FM stations. There are over 576 million radios in use in the United States, an average of 5.6 per household. Radio reaches 77 percent of all Americans over the age of 12 each day and has grown into a ubiquitous background to many activities, among them reading, driving, running, working, and socializing. The average American listens to radio 3 hours every weekday and nearly 5 hours every week-end.41 The pervasiveness of this medium has not gone unnoticed by advertisers; radio advertising revenue grew from $8.8 billion in 1990 to over $18 billion in 2001 (Exhibit 11-10).

Radio has survived and flourished as an advertising medium because it offers advertisers certain advantages for communicating messages to their potential customers. However, radio has inherent limitations that affect its role in the advertiser's media strategy.

Continue reading here: Limitations of Radio

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