@spotupj a couple things. Do advertisers really place a premium on Thur night, and how much? More than any net, CBS boasts viewership above
— Mike Stein (@TheReal_MStein) October 23, 2012
@spotupj 18-49, is there r different from other nets? Thanks!
— Mike Stein (@TheReal_MStein) October 23, 2012
Do Advertisers Really Place a Premium on Thursday Night?
Mike is addressing the oft-cited conventional wisdom that Thursday is a "bigger" night for advertising because it's the last high-rated night prior to movie openings, weekend shopping, etc.
What do the numbers say? Keeping in mind that there's a pretty small sample size on any individual night, the numbers suggest there's very little if any Thursday premium. The "league average" for dollars per 18-49 demo point was about $53,500, and the average of eleven shows on Thursday was about $54,900. That's only 2% above the league average. And it's almost certainly at or even below the average of all the weeknights, since the rates are typically so low on Friday/Saturday. Six of the eleven shows were above the league average, while five were below.
One other way to examine this is to compare the multi-night shows. If there were a Thursday premium, then stuff like American Idol and The X Factor that theoretically have pretty much the same audience composition on both nights would probably make more money per demo point on Thursday than on Wednesday, right? That one doesn't really suggest a Thursday premium either. Idol makes almost $64,000 per point on Wednesday but under $61,000 on Thursday. X makes over $64,000 per point on Wednesday but only a little over $56,000 on Thursday!
Maybe it's a different story among ad buying that's closer to the airdate, but based on the upfront estimates... there's little to no evidence that Thursday is the big deal that a lot of people think it is.
Do All Those 50+ Viewers Affect CBS Ad Rates?
It's commonly believed that CBS "cares" about the 50+ set because they put programs on the air that attract a whole lot of them. This one I've actually examined in the past, but it's been a few years. The conclusions with the 2012 data are pretty much the same:
1. The ad rates for just CBS correlate a bit better with A18-49 ratings than for the big five networks as a whole. r = 0.94 for CBS, r = 0.93 for the big five.
2. The ad rates for just CBS correlate much, much better with A18-49 ratings than with total viewers. r = 0.94 for A18-49, r = 0.52 for total viewership.
3. Those extra viewers don't make CBS more valuable per demo point. In fact, it's the opposite. Their average $ per demo point is just over $48,000, which is a fairly significant 10% below the "league average" of $53,000ish.
#3 is an important one. People get really mad about the "total viewers are meaningless" notion that gets thrown around, but sadly, it's actually being sort of kind. Given two shows with the same A18-49 rating, it's likely that the show with better ad rates will be the one with fewer viewers, and that's evident by looking at high-viewed CBS compared to the league average.
Does that mean that the over-50 set is just so undesirable that they actually bring down the numbers? No. What it means is that total viewership typically does a pretty good job of describing how that 18-49 demo is composed. If there are tons of out-of-demo viewers, it means the in-demo viewers are likely to fall toward the top of the 18-49 range (35-49). If there are very few out-of-demo viewers, it means the in-demo viewers are likely to fall toward the bottom of the range (18-34). And the advertisers sure seem to like 18-34 better than 35-49.
So does CBS "care" about the over-50 set? Depends on your definition. They certainly don't sell ads based on them, as #2 indicates. But they do seek out shows that are likely to be older-skewing than the broadcast norm. In my opinion, it's not out of the goodness of their hearts; it's a calculated decision to sacrifice some advertiser-friendliness (18-34) in exchange for a far less fickle audience (35-49). In recent years, that's how it's played out; they've typically been light on megahits but very heavy on solid, reliable programs. They are different roads up the same mountain, but people tend to have a lot more respect for the CBS approach because it makes for a lot fewer scheduling holes.
As for why CBS boasts total viewership in press releases? Because they have total viewership! PR 101*: play up the value of what you have, downplay what you lack.
*- Disclaimer: I never actually took PR 101, but that's what I would expect!
