This weekend's Globe and Mail features a profile of Kevin Newman, the former host of Good Morning America who now serves as anchorman for "Global National" on the Canwest stations. When it came on the scene in September of 2001, it was believed that even with the handsome Newman, that Global didn't have a chance to compete with the more established CBC and CTV news. The profile revealed some fascinating information about how Global views it's audience. Now Global says its newscast, which airs at 5:30 (CBC and CTV's national newscasts are at 10 and 11, respectively) now reaches around a million viewers.
Who are these viewers? According to the article, 85% of them are female. Even if that statistic is off by 10 percent, that's still an incredible number. If this is the make-up of the audience, then how does the time of day factor into the way the newscast is constructed?
"You're in a different frame of mind at 5:30 than you are at 10 or 11. You're more contemplative. You're quieter. The audience at 5:30 is emotional. You're making dinner. You're tired. You sit down. The TV competitive environment is very different at that hour. At 10 o'clock, your competition is serious drama. At 11, it's local news. At 5:30, it's talk or game shows."Is this true? Is Global's audience really "more emotional" at 5:30? How did they figure this out?
And how does this affect the actual content itself? Newman says that Global National is "a little more energetic, a little more colloquial, a little more Ellen." If only other Lloyd Robertson and Peter Mansbridge could offer sound bites as great as this.
1 comment:
I think Newman says some interesting things.
News at 5:30 pm is unusual for a 'network'.
That's usually the time for local news.
It's also usually the time for game shows, Oprah, after-school specials, etc.
In the US, the 5:30 time slot came into existence as a result of the PTAR (prime time access rule) of 1971 which said that in the top 50 markets, networks could not supply material to their affiliates. The networks decided that if they couldn't supply the top 50, they would supply no one. This, therefore, created the opportunity for syndication -- and so 5:30 is rife with syndicated shows which, by definition, are non-network. The FCC had hoped that by banning network supply, it would encourage locat production but that overlooked the fact that most local stations lacked either the ability or the initiative to undertake such production.
In Canada, trends followed US developments.
There was no PTAR but there was, suddenly, an abundance of cheap syndicated material.
So, this actually became a way for local Cdn stations to become even more stitched into US broadcasting patterns, not less so.
Nonetheless, the main thing about the 5:30 audience is that it's not a 'valuable' audiennce.
It's not valuable for US networks since they can't reach it.
It's not valuable for local stations since they don't produce for it.
It is barely valuable for syndicators who reach it with the cheapest content possible (ratings in this time period are regularly measured in single digits and on a city-by-city basis, no 'national' ratings).
It is an audience no one really cares about -- hence Jerry Springer, Wheel of Fortune, Judge Judy, etc.
Those shows are not so much 'emotional' as they are 'sensationalistic' or 'exploitative'.
Here are the questions I would ask Global.
How does placing your main news program at 5:30 pm allow you to save on production costs?
How does placing your main newsscast at 5:30 drive you to measure city ratings rather than national ratings (i.e., are there big differences between cities -- I'll bet there are)?
How does that time slot affect the types of news covered (lifestyle news? cat-up-a-tree stories? local vs national vs international)?
How does that time slot affect the anchor's mode of address (friendly and unctuous like Max Keeping or efficient and distant like Peter Mansbridge)?
The question is not "how does Global KNOW its audience is emotional".
The question is "how does the assumption of emotionality provide coherence for the production decisions which have to be made?" And this includes "how does it provide a credible alibi for low production values?"
PA
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