You can increase news ratings two ways – get your current viewers to watch more (increase their time spent viewing) or get more people to watch you (increase cume). You’re better off doing the first option. It’s easier to build on an existing relationship rather than start a new one.
All businesses face this quandary. Is future growth a function of its existing customer base or does it lie in expanding that base? Most businesses are convinced that the latter takes precedence.
Marketing expert Seth Godin examines this phenomenon in his book Meatball Sundae. He values the idea that companies should create products for their customers instead of searching for customers for their products.
Existing customers are already fans. They value the company and are receptive to doing more business with it. Understand their desires and listen to their feedback. Respond appropriately and you’ll sell them more product.
How Television Treats Current Customers
You can see the parallels in your business. Current viewers are users of your product. How well do you know what attracted them to your newscasts? What mechanisms are in place to gather feedback and suggestions that will spur more viewership?
You need to spend more time understanding your audience and interacting with it. Not only because viewers expect it, but also because the exercise creates a blueprint for higher ratings.
Sadly, most stations take the approach that ratings growth only happens when you steal audience from the competition. They chase after customers instead of mining the possibilities that exist with their current viewers. They lack the systems that would provide such information.
There’s also a mistaken belief that current viewers have “maxed out” their product usage. Erroneous assumptions are made regarding how much these viewers actually watch. Acting on this fallacy emphasizes the perceived need to find new customers while taking the existing ones for granted.
How To Understand Viewer Behavior
How much do you really know about your station’s viewer behavior? Ratings and share are just one indicator. You need more information to determine your upside with exisiting viewers. Just a small portion of your audience watches every newscast, so there’s ample opportunity to increase viewership. The potential varies for each station.
You can discover your possibilities by examining Nielsen viewing data for each news program. Have your sales or research department run a week long advertising schedule that places a spot in each program’s quarter hours. The data will unearth two key measurements:
1. The average number of quarter hours viewed. This figure is called frequency and indicates how committed your viewers are. The lower the number, the less committed.
There are ten quarter hours per week for weekday late evening newscasts. Hour long early evening news features twenty quarter hours per week. Compare your frequency against the maximum. You’ll see plenty of room for growth.
2. A frequency distribution of viewers. This analysis indicates what percentage of viewers watched a specific number of quarter hours. You will learn how many watched one quarter hour, how many watched two, and so forth.
Most stations find viewers congregated at the lower end of the scale, meaning opportunities exist for increasing viewership. Your goal is to move viewers up the the quarter hour ladder.
Your Customer-Focused Solution to Higher Ratings
Focus attention on your current customers. They’re the key to boosting ratings. Discover their hot buttons. Foster interaction with website input and viewer advisory panels. Add the elements to your news that these people find attractive.
They’ll watch more and your ratings will grow.
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