There is just no pleasing a network affiliate these days. NBC has been vilified (at least in the trade press) because The Jay Leno Show is not a good lead-in for the affiliates’ local news programs. We haven’t actually seen ABC vilified yet even though at least a couple of nights a week it is doing no better (or worse) than Leno.
Now comes word that not even the CBS affiliates are happy with the way 10pm works, even though CBS wins the hour routinely:
General managers of CBS affiliates frequently say it’s a good time to be a CBS station. Primetime is thriving, particularly the 10 p.m. dramas, which are gaining ratings points against fewer scripted shows in that hour. But GMs wish those dramas ran a few minutes longer, to seamlessly serve up viewers to their stations’ late news.
At the annual CBS affiliates meeting in May, the station executives voiced their concerns to the network about the 10 p.m. shows ending well before 11, pushing CBS for less cluttered lead-ins to late news this fall. But as the new season progresses, it seems their complaints have gone unheeded.
A 10 p.m. drama on CBS may end two or three minutes short of 11. While the subsequent gap features a late-news tease, it also has an array of spots, credits, scenes from next week’s episode and a plug for The Late Show before local news rolls. With viewers increasingly watching TV with a laptop or iPhone nearby, there’s mounting anxiety that they will tune out during the minutes-long gap between primetime programming and local news in favor of their digital devices.
While the trade press makes much ado about lead-ins to local news, the real ado should be made about this: the affiliate model is busted. In the old days, the local affiliate model made sense. It was a way for the big broadcasters to have virtual monopolies nationwide. It was the only way for national broadcasters to be national broadcasters!
Those days are gone.
Increasingly, what the local affiliates are searching for is relevancy; and the revenue that comes from being relevant. But, the local affiliates will never be as relevant as they used to be. More and more, the national broadcasters will be looking for ways to unwind from the affiliate model.
Robert beat me to this by a matter of minutes. I was all ready to entitle a nearly identical post:
“Are Local Network Affiliates EVER Happy?”
gaining ratings points against fewer scripted shows in that hour.
Isn’t CBS down at 10 pm most days? I know they are up slightly on Tuesday and Thursday, but aren’t they down significantly on Sunday, Monday and Friday? And probably about even on Wednesday?
Juila, I should take a look at that, but it’s too much work for a Sunday
Sunday news gets pushed later every other week, and I believe Cold Case is down. Plus the news competes with the end of a football game.
Monday, CSI Miami is down a bit. Friday, Numb3rs is down, but whatever.
Where’s the big boost CBS and ABC said they’d get from the Leno decision?
I don’t know what the big deal is for CBS, just copy the other networks and bleed a minute into the news.
Fine, I’ll do it.
(Using fast nationals only, not finals.)
For the week of October 11-17, 2008 (I know, it’s not Monday through Sunday, like it should be, but it’ll have to do) the 10 pm ratings were:
(There was a debate on Wednesday, so I took the average of the week before and week after for CSI: NY.)
Sunday, The Unit 2.6
Monday, CSI: Miami 3.9
Tuesday, Without a Trace 2.5
Wednesday, CSI: NY 4.1
Thursday, Eleventh Hour 3.2
Friday, Numb3rs 2.1
vs
Sunday, Three Rivers/Cold Case 1.7
Monday, CSI: Miami 4.0
Tuesday, The Good Wife 2.8
Wednesday, CSI: NY 3.2
Thursday, The Mentalist 3.4
Friday, Numb3rs 1.8
I had Mondays and Wednesdays confused, with Monday being about even, and Wednesday being down.
CBS is obviously having some trouble with Sundays, but it’s going to get rid off Three Rivers soon enough. Apparently local affiliates are like everyone else and only happy when they are bitching. It’s not like CBS’ affiliates can halfway believably claim they’d rather air Seinfeld repeats.
idizzle, it is very believable to think that affiliates might rather air Seinfeld repeats. At least with Seinfeld (or some other syndicated show) the affiliates would get to keep all the ad dollars. During primetime, affiliates get like 2 local spots per hour. They have more of an opportunity to make money if every spot in an hour is local.
LOCAL NEWS
I assume there may be a smiliar campaign in the US, but here in Canada, there are commercials airing all the time to “save the local news”, due to satelite, internet and other ways of getting television that does not ever give us our local news.
Therefore they are in the red ink by alot, and they are caving any year now! we will go to general news like CNN (the candian version).
Julia, your belief that affiliates keep “all the ad dollars” from syndicated shows is simply wrong. The overwhelming majority of syndicated shows have national ad time that is sold by the distributor.
Sony, in fact, is contemplating the upcoming fourth syndication cycle of “Seinfeld” on an all-barter basis, with Sony keeping most of the ad time and the stations getting the show for free.
Furthermore, unless the local stations were to shut down their news departments, they would no longer be able to amortize the costs against that 35 minutes of airtime.
Overwhelming majority? I admit, I’m not an expert in syndication sales, but from speaking to a programming director at a local station which runs both a network affiliate and an independent station, my understanding is that most are cash sales.
Julia: most syndication sales are cash plus barter, with the distributor retaining a portion of the ad time for themselves.
Few are all-barter, when the syndicator gives the station the show for free plus ad time. But that number is growing as the broadcast model changes.
And very, very few are the old-fashioned straight cash deals, with all the ad time for stations and allowing a limited number of runs of each episode.
I don’t understand why netlets like CW and myNetTV won’t just dump their affiliates and become cable networks.
Is the carriage fees they would have to pay to cable providers is biger than what they have to split with the affiliates?
TomKH, my knowledge of the cable marketplace is far from complete, but I’m not sure that if CW and MyNet stopped being broadcast networks they could automatically negotiate channel positions from MSOs like Comcast or Satco’s like DirecTV and DISH. Anyone else know more about how that might work?
And to your question, while we see cable carriage fee numbers from time to time, I know nothing about the economics of the local broadcast affiliate model in terms of relative payment amounts.
My local CBS news is awful. When Jay Leno runs to 11pm, I still switch the channel. I dont think what airs at 10pm helps you choose a local news. I stick with the local ABC news everyday.
At this point, CW and MyNet have affiliates who cover the cost of all but 10 (I think MyNet is 15?) hours of the week. Would having to fill the other 158 hours be worth it, even if they could become cable nets?
I too am curious about how CW and MyNet would negotiate channel carriage to become cable outlets.
Julia, Tyra was moved to CW exclusively, though still sold through syndication, along with a rerun, so that’s two more hours each weekday. The Kids’ WB (or whatever it’s called now) is another two or three hours on weekends. CW is at least 22. I believe My is only the ten hour primetime package.
But your larger point is taken, but they can just air stuff from the WB/Turner/CBS library at first.
That’s still 146 hours they would have to fill. Did MyNet give up Sat and Sun? I thought they used to program them.
I’m going to echo RJ on this one. I think people what a particular news broadcast because they like the way that broadcast is presented and not because of its lead in. My family members tend to watch NBC’s or WGN’s (same channel as CW) local news regardless of what channel they were watching before that. We watch those because we like the format and the particular presenters. Newscasters become local celebrities and people definitely have preferences about who they get their news from.
If the CBS affiliates have a problem with people sticking around for their local news then maybe they need to make their local news something to stick around for.
lol, maybe viewers no longer care to watch the 11pm news?
MyNet didn’t program Sunday, and gave up the Saturday reruns/movie after season 2.
I doubt MyNet would become a cable channel, as its few shows can be folded into NewsCorp’s other cable channels.
J.R., at this point I think MyNet’s only “original” show is Friday Night Smackdown, everything else is a syndicated repeat.
It is. I don’t know if The Unit is syndicated outside My, though. If we’re talking the future, I heard they’re developing a late night show.
I think they need to put the Police Procedurals a lot earlier like in the 8pm hour. I mean nobody wants to watch local news right after the police procedural. It’s like watching fake crime come after the real thing. To many it’s depressing and scary.
JR, the problem with airing shows from their libraries is that there is still a cost to that. There are still residuals that have to be paid. It wouldn’t be extremely expensive, but still more than they spend on content now.
Okay, Melrose Place reruns, day and night.
Anyway, the idea is unlikely because CW would have to close (like WB and UPN did) and rebrand in order to break the affiliate contracts, but would still be on the hook to Tribune for the balance of their ten year programming agreement.
The concept of “lead-ins” and “lead-outs” seems more outdated than the broadcast and affiliates models. Do a lot of people still say: “I like watching Show A at 8 and Show C at 10 on X Network. I wasn’t going to watch Show B at 9 but I don’t want to change the channel so I’ll watch it anyway.”
Mark Said:
LOCAL NEWS
I assume there may be a smiliar campaign in the US, but here in Canada, there are commercials airing all the time to “save the local news”, due to satelite, internet and other ways of getting television that does not ever give us our local news.
Therefore they are in the red ink by alot, and they are caving any year now! we will go to general news like CNN (the candian version).
I don’t know how affiliates handle Satellite TV there, but here we have the option to get broadcast stations via Satellite only if we do not have a local affiliate to get that broadcast station over the air, or if the local affiliate is willing to sign off that their signal will not reach that customer (Which in my area our local CBS and FOX stations , which both are owned by the same company and use the same news sets and anchors, will not do this even if you legitimately can’t get the signal over the air from them.) They even go as far as having Comcast block the out of market stations when they air anything that they themselves air in syndication (Live with Regis & Kelly, Oprah, etc.) Now I have seen them air a request to sign a petition to get DirectTV and Dish Network to offer our local CBS & FOX stations, but those attempts have been unsuccessful.
Well since CBS has another doubleheader game and it’s going to OT again, I expect CC won’t start until close to 11 ET. What’s the point? Another record low for CC coming up!
Finally CBS just announced that CC will new seen next Sunday. Thanks for not wasting an episode. Wonder what will be on here (Denver) and West Coast. I’ll be watching Bears.
Isn’t CBS traditionally 3rd in most major markets? I always thought CBS’ primetime strength (at least with overall viewers) was with smalltown America (rural, smaller markets, esp. the South and Mid-West) and they do much worse with urban viewers (the Northeast, West coast). I know the owned and operated affiliates in Philly, NYC & LA have historically struggled. So, even though CBS has dominated the 10 pm hour nationally this season, if they are in fact down a tick from last year, wouldn’t that be a real cause of concern for their main affiliates, for which the network has never really had the stronghold in that 10:00 time slot the same way it did in lesser markets? If so, I could see where that would be a big reason for these stations to get upset and not just mere whining.
The article isn’t about the leadin that CBS provides but the amount of clutter leading into the local late night new. ABC ends their shows at 11pm and the local new begins, don’t understand why CBS can’t do the same.
@DenverDean, likely a Cold Case rerun for the west coast.
Boyd. I’ve never seen any network ratings averages by geography either for local or national primetime. I bet they exist, and I’d love to see them.
why oh why has everyone on this site become so pretentious and condescending, as if their opinion is the only thing that matters. everyone is arguing what’s more important: demos vs. total viewers vs. transgender adults betwen the ages of 10 and 12. all here seem forget to realize that the truth is, while ratings matter to an extent, nobody really knows the deals that go on behind the scenes. while this site may be “all about the numbers”, the decisions of tv networks are definately not always just that. everyone here seems to think they know the answers to everything, when the truth is most are likely broadcast majors who were rejected. seriously. it’s annoying to no extent, and I’m a guy who really had an interest in following tv ratings. not anymore, that’s for sure!!!!!
And, yet, you still come here.
I might have to agree that the local news does not depend on the network’s rating in the 10:00 hour. Here n Atlanta, WSB channel 2 (an ABC affiliate) has always had better 11:00 news ratings than every other channel combined. It’s been that way for 30 years now. I think people get used to their local news channel and will tune into it no matter what they are watching at 10.
Sunday, The Unit 2.6 vs Sunday, Three Rivers/Cold Case 1.7
Maybe canceling The Unit was not such a good idea
If local news is going to remain relevant, it should focus on exactly that — LOCAL. Let the cable networks and the internet handle the national and international. Then the local news becomes a destination for what’s going on in your area.
I work at a local CBS affiliate. The 10 pm lead in is a HUGE factor in who wins the 11 pm news. That 35 minutes is our biggest money maker. And Leno has been a Godsend to us. After years of playing second fiddle to the NBC station, we are now consistently #1 at 11 pm. However, we still bleed a big chunk of our audience between 10:57 and 11 pm. A seamless format would not only help us, but the CBS O&Os that bring in a lot of revenue for the network.
Good example of how to bleed audience. During time between end of Bills/Jets game and 60 Minutes: No less than six minutes of ads and promos. (I was waiting so I could set DVR for TAR.) Ridiculous. I would’ve started 60M immediates and worked ads into program. I’d love to see how many people switched during that lag time.
@ Bill
Someone at PiFeedback occasionally posts the primetime numbers for all brodcast networks by market (usually the top 10 cities)
Anon, thanks, I will try and check it out.
JT – I’ve learned from this site how little I know about the television industry, even after spending one whole Kansas winter reading about the history of vaudeville, the movies, TV etc. The TV history books were broad brush indeed compared to the info you can get here by going to the right sources. Right now, I am willing to concede ( don’t mean to sound pretentious, I mean privately concede in an ms. I’m working on) that TV went,from the 1960’s to the present, from being basically an advertising forum with filler programs to a combination of both an art form and an advertising venue. What seems up in the air to me now is the future of quality shows – defined simply withouit subjectivity as dollars spent per half hour or hour on the product – can be sustained with diminishing returns on network spots. It seeme the huge ad dollar bonanzas of the 1980’s were actually spent by the nets on expensive production values; that the network share kept decling relative to cable anyway, and now …???
Viewership may have been about quality, but the business never has been and never will be. Don’t even make an exception for those cases where a network can get a free publicity boost by boasting that they are keeping low-rated quality shows alive. That free publicity is worth real advertising money so don’t even count that as “being about quality.”
Besides, quality is subjective. I don’t watch talk shows but many people do. Millions consider the genre to have enough quality to tune in. I don’t care about doctor shows but people often consider these to be among the highest of quality and profitability. It’s all subjective until you get to the networks’ reason for being: Making money.
I’m sure someone could make a very good drama very cheaply as CGI improves when you could have a small cast talking in front of a green screen, then replace the screen with any environment. Syfy already does this for the megacheap Sanctuary show. Just because I don’t personally like Sanctuary doesn’t mean that quality writing couldn’t be done on TV with that same cheap format.