It may be the most interesting idea in years, and it's coming from NBC: scrapping the traditional September-to-May television season for one running the full 12 months of the year.
Rather than participating in this year's May upfront presentations to advertisers, NBC says it will meet with media buyers in April to reveal its lineup of shows for the coming year and that going forward it will stagger its new shows throughout the year, much as it's done in Britain.
Two questions arise, and one is whether it's even feasible. It was an idea that Fox trotted out a few years ago but didn't totally stick with. The other is whether NBC is fully committed to pulling it off.
Among media buyers, the thinking is that it's smart and quite feasible. It's also coming at the right time. But they remain to be convinced that NBC is committed to carrying it through.
A 12-month season makes sense on several levels. Most important, say media buyers, it's an idea advertisers will support.
“Advertisers want it because they’re doing business all year,” says Alan Jurmain, media director at Avrett Free Ginsberg.
But it also makes sense from the standpoint of viewership. Media buyers believe viewers will tune in any time of year if there's something worth watching. Cable has shown that by rolling out new shows in the summer and seeing big audience jumps.
Networks traditionally went to reruns in the summer on the grounds that people were outside more often and that viewership sunk to levels that made airing original shows infeasible. In this scenario, ratings were strong from September to May or June and then plummeted.
But that's not really the case. Summer viewing doesn't fall nearly as much as people think. On average, about 64 percent of homes watch television in primetime at the height of the broadcast season, in the fall and winter, compared to about 54 percent in the dead of summer, according to Nielsen.
Also, ratings actually begin to fall in the spring, about the time the weather warms up. The networks are already airing shows during periods of declining viewership.
So in theory, it would be possible to program for the full 12 months of the year, staggering new shows, and end out the year with higher ratings than for a fall-spring season, perhaps substantially higher.
Lower summer viewing levels would be more than offset by better shows drawing larger audiences from those fewer viewers tuning in. Yet there would still be enough strong programming during the traditional season to sustain ratings during those months.
But therein lays the rub. Just how much will NBC invest in programming?
“It could turn out to be a very good idea, but the devil is in the details,” says Louis Roloff, vice president and group director of video investment and activation at MediaVest.
NBC so far has said little in terms of just how and what it would schedule over those 12 months, and as Roloff suggests, that will be the real test of how serious it is.
If NBC simply loads up its summer schedule with reality shows, it won’t really do much to jack up ratings or get the attention of advertisers. The networks already do that.
If NBC continuously rolls out original scripted series, including in the summer, it would be a different story entirely.
“What happens the rest of the year depends on what the summer programming comes at the expense of," says Roloff.
"Is it additional programming or does it come at the expense of original programming throughout the year? I’ll be anxious to see.”
If NBC continues to load up summers with reality shows, it won’t have a huge impact on how media buyers evaluate programs for their clients, says David Scardino, entertainment specialist at Rubin Postaer and Associates.
“On a practical level I don’t think it’ll make much difference,” he says. “We’ll evaluate the shows as they come up. If something hits, they’ll order more of it. If it doesn’t, they won’t.”
One last question is why NBC is announcing its 12-month schedule now.
Media buyers say there are likely a few reasons. It may simply be a ploy to drum up interest with advertisers in the months leading to the upfront ad market. As the No. 4 network, it has nothing to lose and everything to gain by enticing advertisers any way it can.
NBC may be out to reassure viewers who’ve suffered through the writers’ strike that it’s committed to giving them original programs.
Or it could be a combination of the two. The network has been generating a lot of media coverage for its 52-week strategy.
“Part of this is an opportunity for overall brand strengthening and promotion,” says Bob Thompson, director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University. “If you get people to talk about this, it might get people to think about NBC. It’s kind of a heads up to viewers, which is promotion, which can never hurt.”
The only advantage that I can see with the year round schedule is that NBC can get rid of clunkers like Bionic Woman, Journeyman, and Lipstick Jungle faster. If they have three or four shows ready to go, they can just do a quick cancellation and have the next one cued up and ready to go.
The schedule itself won't change too dramatically. Summer will still be full of reality shows and filler. Fall will have the most anticipated new shows of the season. Spring will have the replacements and so on.
