Shorter Commercial Breaks Feed Syndication’s Growth

Those spaces known in the business as commercial pods are growing by the season on many broadcast and cable networks Commercial breaks that used to be two minutes at best now regularly exceed four minutes or more no matter what the time period Some industry analysts believe the clutter of advertising and stationnetwork promotion inside pods has reached an alarming point declaring they are a factor in an accelerated decline of network viewership in recent months and an accelerated viewership of Netflix and other services available through smart TVs and smart TVmaking devices like Roku and ChromecastViacom recently announced a planned reduction in available commercial inventory and other networks are considering similar moves spurred on by senior programming executives with responsibility for growing their networkamp8217s ratings National syndicated television companies such as Sony Pictures Television 20th Television and Warner Bros have begun capitalizing on advertisersamp8217 growing concerns that viewing of their commercials is also negatively impacted by commercial pod lengthA new Kantar Media study out last week illuminates the situation From April to June 2015 broadcast network ad time was up 28 percent over the same threemonth period last year while cable network ad time was up 46 percent Twothirds of all networks taking part in Kantar39s study increased their ad time and five networks ended June averaging 20 minutes or more of advertising and promos an hourYou read that right Five networks went into this summer with onethird or more of any hour in their schedule taken up by ads and promosBy contrast syndicated series whether firstrun or original generally keep their ad allocation in check six minutes for halfhour series 1012 minutes for hour series The check is maintained no matter the breakdown between spots local stations sell on their own and messages sold nationally anywhere from one to two minutes in halfhour programstwo to six minutes for hourlong programsIf broadcast and cable networks answer the pressure to make up for lost ad revenue and viewership via more pod time or more ads and promos stuffed into those pods syndicators can make the case among advertisers and media buyers for being the stable attraction amid instability quotTheir lack of clutter will be an advantagequot says Carol Hinnant Rentrak39s senior vice president of national TV sales Her company now on track to merge with audience measurement firm comScore just introduced a service tracking syndicated content on a 247 basis Editoramp8217s note Weamp8217ll have more on this development in an upcoming column Uproar within the advertising community over clutter and how to address alternatives was one of the factors Rentrak looked at prior to going forward with this serviceA few syndicators are countering the increase in pods or pod time elsewhere with decreases to some degree Commercial breaks on firstrun and offchannel series distributed by Sony Pictures Television39s syndication division run up to two minutes max The division also utilizes the opening oneminute national pod in a number of its top attractions such as amp8220Seinfeldamp8221 That39s the strategy Sony intends to stick with declares executive vice president of ad sales Stuart Zimmerman quotLess clutter is a selling point for syndicationquot he saysamp160 quotWe have some of the lowest commercial loads in the industry An ad is rarely more than 30 seconds or a minute from content Our loads are set and don39t change We don39t arbitrarily add inventoryamp8221For 20th Television39s daily repeats of amp8220Modern Familyamp8221 the first commercial break is 60 seconds taken up by a pair of 30second national messages It39s more than a throwback to the era when every commercial break was one minute tops quotIt39s become a valuable avenue to get noticedquot adds Michael Teicher 20th39s executive vice president of media sales quotThat standalone pod demonstrates that we39re talking the talk of an uncluttered environmentquotAs concerns about broadcast and cable network performance early in this 201516 season build no one39s alarmed at least in public about how syndicators are making out so far The top original performers from amp8220Judge Judyamp8221 and amp8220Wheel of Fortuneamp8221 to amp8220Jeopardyamp8221 amp8220Family Feudamp8221 amp8220Dr Pamp8221 and amp8220Litton39s Weekend Adventureamp8221 are steady or slightly up from early in the 201415 season according to Nielsen At least two newcomers amp8211 amp8220Fab Lifeamp8221 from DisneyABC and amp8220Crime Watch Dailyamp8221 from Warner Bros show promiseAlthough syndicators will not detail how much revenue they are producing from their counterclutter measures they are on record that the current ad inventory mix serves their interests by serving the interests of viewers and advertisersUntil the next time stay well and stay tunedSimon39s special series on syndication continues hereThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillageMyersBizNet management or associated bloggers

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Shorter Commercial Breaks Feed Syndication’s Growth

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