Every programmer who has suffered through the challenges and heartache associated with being judged by Arbitron, Nielsen, or the services that have come and gone over the years knows all about the realities of the ratings roller coaster.
I once worked with a PD who told me how excited he was about the upcoming book. The station had developed a stellar marketing plan – TV, outdoor, and great contests. And there was also a major audience event that occurred during that past month.
As his consultant, I gave him the best piece of advice I could: “NEVER look forward to a ratings book!” They’ll break your heart, and often go precisely in the opposite direction you anticipate. (Yes, he had a crappy book.)
There’s just something oddly karmic about the ratings. Like how the last book of the old format is always “up.” Or that if you have a TSL problem in the fall, it often turns around and becomes a cume issue in the spring.
PDs also know too well about walking that line – the one that prohibits stations from directly asking the audience to bestow them with higher ratings. It is totally against the rules, and it causes delisting, flagging, and in some rare cases, decapitation. (OK, maybe not that far.)
In the past, radio programmers have tried just about everything to impact the Arbitron diary (the predecessor to the more difficult to manipulate Portable People Meter). Many years ago, some “clever” stations went so far as to give away Armitron wristwatches. Like I said, PDs will try just about anything.
So when the news broke that of all people, Oprah Winfrey blasted her nearly nine million Twitter followers with a request to watch her new show last Sunday night “if you have a Neilsen box,” it was a newsworthy event in and of itself. Plus, Oprah misspelled “Nielsen.”
So Nielsen gave Oprah the asterisk for that night’s edition of OWN’s Oprah’s Next Chapter, and life goes on. Except that all the publicity that has been generated by this flap probably did more to bring attention to Oprah’s network than a billboard campaign up and down Broadway or Sunset.
And as always, Oprah lives that charmed life. Not long after the Super Bowl “wardrobe malfunction,” radio morning shows cowered in fear about the words that might or might not have gotten them fired or fined. At the same time, Oprah was discussing the same body parts throughout the afternoon on her show and not a single FCC commissioner cared.
But what goes around may in fact come around. Using Twitter to drum up viewership isn’t usually too effective for most afternoon drive guys giving away concert tickets or movie passes. And the same applies to Oprah and her blatant attempts to tweet her way to higher ratings for OWN.
On Twitter, it came off as a desperate attempt to drum up viewership for her fledgling network – something unbecoming of the First Lady of Daytime TV. Oprah was also firing off Tweets during commercials for the Grammy Awards. Oy.
This is not why people signed up for Twitter nor is it the reason why most of her “9 million battalion” decided to follow her in the first place. Like Facebook, Twitter is about relationships. And we all know that it’s often easier to hurt those closest to us. In this case, the damage was self-inflicted.
Makes you wonder whether Oprah owns an Armitron watch.
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Fred was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2018.
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I saw that tweet roll across my screen and thought “if she’d be in radio, someone in her market would get her delisted from the next monthly”. I guess there’s a bit of a different orbit if you’re Oprah. And because she IS Oprah, I wonder if she personally did the tweet or had one of her minions do it. My guess is we’ll never know.
We had the same thought, Mark. Although it sounds to me like this…
Oprah: “Well, I have a fledgling TV network and more viewers out there than Nielsen is measuring. Yet, I have 9 million followers on Twitter. Why don’t I use them to get noticed in the ratings?”
Or maybe it was just a stunt to get some PR for OWN. (It worked and only cost one *.)
Fred,
Interesting piece today on the “Oprah Twitter scandal of 2012.” A couple of thoughts:
1. I doubt Oprah(or her peeps) gave the tweet THAT much thought. It was just an attempt to spread the word and boost ratings. And like you said–could have been a PR stunt. That Worked. All us bad boys(and girls) know…to make some noise, ya gotta break some rules.
2. Perhaps if PD’s, consultants, GM’s and station owners STOPPED thinking about ratings, and STARTED thinking about how to make their LISTENERS happy, by creating interesting, fun, and just GOOD RADIO…ratings would eventually move in the UP direction. In most cases–that’s just not happening.
JC, your comments are spot-on. Sometimes we get so caught up in tactics and manipulation that we lose sight of the reasons why people might want to listen in the first place. Appreciate you taking the time to weigh in.