It's not the done thing these days - in sales and marketing terms - for TV networks to refer to 5+ ratings (that is, all viewers five and over). Somewhere along the line the advertising world decided that big bulk audience didn't matter and demographics, particularly younger ones, were where it was at. But despite that, I've always been surprised that TVNZ doesn't make more of the fact that its news programmes always have more viewers in 5+ than TV 3's news shows do. They've tried all sorts of fancy tag-lines on their promotional billboards over the years, but never the basic "New Zealand's most watched news." So I was intrigued yesterday to see a small, simple advertisement placed in the Business section of the NZ Herald just quietly stating the 5+ viewing figures for all of the main news shows across the two big networks in March. The ad didn't have a note on it to say who had placed it, but I can only assume it was TVNZ, though the subtlety was unusual compared to the network's usual efforts. And of course the rarely quoted 5+ figures show a very rosy picture for the TVNZ shows - quite a different picture than that painted by the many news releases TV 3 puts out talking up its ratings success in News and Current Affairs. These many news releases play with ratings data shamelessly, and if TVNZ has finally been driven to a bit of subtle rebuttal - good on them.
For the record, here are the numbers that appeared in the ad:
TVNZ TV 3
NZI Business 38,100 ASB Business 12,440
Breakfast 113,830 Sunrise 21,980
ONE News Midday 93,890 3 News at 12 29,600
ONE News 548,580 3 News 303,670
Close Up 456,990 Campbell Live 177,960
Tonight 164,200 Nightline 138,210
About Me
- Irene Gardiner
- I am a media commentator with a regular spot on TV ONE's Breakfast show every Monday morning and on Radio Live's drive show every Monday evening. I also make occasional appearances on National Radio and Newstalk ZB. I began my professional life as a print journalist (the Dominion and the Evening Post), then worked in television, first as a publicist, then as a director and producer. I ran TVNZ's internal production unit for a number of years, before becoming TV ONE Commissioning Editor, then TVNZ Head of Commissioning across both channels. I left TVNZ five years ago to work as a freelance Executive Producer and Television Consultant. I fell into media commentating a little by accident with a small segment on Radio Pacific about four years ago, and it has built up since then. I hope it's not too much a case of "those who can do, and those who can't teach or talk about it!!!" But hey, I enjoy it, as media is a fascinating part of all our lives, and has been an important part of mine.
No comments:
Post a Comment