Content area
Full Text
Like a candidate seeking a convention nomination, metropolitan Detroit's 3 major television network affiliates are waging campaigns replete with glitz, imagery and political-like maneuvering to woo viewers to their respective channels.
At stake in the stations' bids to control Motown's television turf are the cherished ratings points released regularly by the Arbitron and Nielsen services. For affiliates WDIV-NBC (Channel 4), WJBK-CBS (Channel 2) and WXYZ-ABC (Channel 7), ratings points mean money. The more ratings points amassed by a station in a given time slot, the higher the price it can charge for advertising.
WXYZ general manager Tom Griesdorn succinctly explained the goal of his ABC affiliate station in its bid to dominate the Detroit-area market: "We are competing for rating points and for every advertising dollar in this market."
But the larger stations are becoming vulnerable to alternative programming, because as the alternative programming receives higher ratings, the larger stations are going to find it increasingly harder to sell high-priced advertising in time slots where they are losing viewers.
A rating point for a station is the percentage of total television households tuned in to a particular program. A share is the total number of people watching a program in the viewing audience. Stations base their advertising rates for programs on those ratings, in a mathematical formula which has a dollar figure times the ratings points.
For example, a rating of 12 or 13 in the Detroit market can enable a station to charge between $500 and $800 for a 30-second spot on the air, or anywhere from $50 to $70 per ratings point. A loss of a single point for a station, therefore, means not only a loss of viewership, but the loss of significant amounts of advertising money as well. Considering all the commercials shown on television by a station in just a 30-minute or hour-long show, this translates into quite a difference.
If a station loses just one single point for a half-hour show, and loses a total of $60 per spot because of it to the station that picked up that point, a lot can be thrown into turmoil. In a 30-minute broadcast, there is an average of 8 minutes worth of commercials, or 16 half-minute spots. Losing $60 per...