Sports, Movies and Appointment Viewing

For many sports rituals like this are interim remedies to supplant our cooped up winter blues with something more hopeful more springlike For me baseball has always been my sanity savior and teacher of life lessons in miniature At the first game I attended in Tampa names like Jeter Sebathia Gardener Ichiro and Tanaka brought a sellout crowd to Steinbrenner Stadium The following day at the Yankee amp8220Awayamp8221 game in Dunedin ie the Toronto Blue Jays spring training home the batting lineup had me scouring my scorecard for the identity of players with numbers like 99 and 72 with names so new to me and the press box that they hadnamp8217t even made it onto the team roster in time for the game day scorecardWhy do I share this little bon mot Because professional team sports for me and millions like me represent the American spirit of competitiveness and hope in a way that other group activities donamp8217t Sports are one of the last live events that audiences still plan their eveningamp8217s viewing around TV sports programs with their limited number of GRPs and short shelf life make them the perfect candidates for appointment viewing And nothing underscores this more than the current NCAA Basketball Tournament March Madness matchups that have witnessed some of the most stunning and nailbiting upsets in recent memoryWhen you look at the trend of broadcast prime time GRPs for P1849 it becomes quickly evident that traditional broadcast network program categories canamp8217t muster the audience the way live sports and special event programs can Look at the trend in Broadcast Prime viewers 1849 for the last three seasons and youamp8217ll see a diminution of the AA ratings for classic network TV programs like sitcoms dramas reality shows and even celebrity magazine programs 2013amp8217s average broadcast prime time rating for P1849 dropped nearly 10 from the previous year averaging just below a 20 in that highly sought after daypart What is equally intriguing is the fact that even the broadcast networksamp8217 live prime time sports programming which include the NFL NBA MLB NHL College FootballBasketball Championships in this example saw a decline just shy of 4 in 2013 for the same average audience rating compared to the 20112013 season That migration of A1849 sports viewers seems consistent with the diaspora of amp8220regularamp8221 nonsports viewers in broadcast network prime timeBut if you look closely at the last two national networks on the chart above you might be surprised to see that Cinema is a medium that not only can participate but compete in this GRP arena against live sports Take for example the 2013 weekly average audience ratings of a 62 generated by NCM Media Networks the largest cinema network in the country for P1849 This average weekly audience represents a spread that at its nadir is a low of 35 during a month like April while delivering up to 95 weekly GRPs for the same target demo during a high movie attendance month like July Very few prime time programs broadcast or basic cable networks can boast numbers like those for an average audience telecastNow some might accuse me of playing fast and loose by comparing Cinemaamp8217s weekly audience delivery with an average audience delivery in TV I would simply reply that the end goal for all of us is to help an advertiser maximize their targeted GRPs across platforms that complement one another in search of their audience Theatrical moviegoing by definition is also appointment viewing just like watching the Final Four will be The only real difference between watching the Final Four or amp8220Captain Americaamp8221 is the former you can watch at home while the latter you go out to watch in your local movie theater Both represent conscious decisionmaking choices that require you to dedicate a chunk of your time towards a scheduled entertainment eventAdditionally Cinema has consistently shown itself to be an extremely engaging medium when you examine the brand recall message recall and likeability of onscreen advertising compared to identical ads that have appeared on Prime Broadcast Network TV Prime Basic Cable TV and SportsSo the next time someone in the industry comments on the scarcity of appointment viewing GRPs remember to tell them that Cinema can help supplement that scarcity especially with young P1234 Light TV viewers who do a lot of time shift viewing And if youamp8217re a media planner or buyer and you donamp8217t have Cinema in your bracket you could be missing out on a big winThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentaries

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Sports, Movies and Appointment Viewing

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