After Rebecca came some laid-back wisdom, but spot on to today's media planning problems. Alan Gersten, Director of Media Planning Services, Senior VP, Campbell Mithun Esty, took Rebecca's tomorrow head-on and turned us back to yesterday. He takes fragmentation very seriously, and pulled some figures from 1977 to set the tone. In the February, 1977, sweeps, a few of the top network K2-11 ratings were: Batman - 23.8; Bugs Bunny - 17.7; Schoolhouse Rock - a range from 15 to 24. By happenstance, the same shows were also on network TV during the February, 1998, sweeps. And the numbers: Batman - 2.5; Bugs Bunny - 3.5; Schoolhouse Rock - 3.5. Yep, that's an 80-90% drop, and there you have a very clear definition of TV fragmentation.

As Gersten underscored, in 1977 kid shows had strong "reach" and an advertiser could impress a critical mass of consumers with a relatively low frequency. Network buys were quality buys, and they deserved (and got) premium CPMs. In 1998, big reach is tough, and very expensive where it exists. So frequency is now the king, and ad wear-out becomes a more substantial problem. However, "if [an ad] works, stay with it. Err on the long side, not the short. [And] bad ads never wear out, since they were never good to begin with."

Day Two - Part Two
After lunch, we were treated to what I thought would be the most informative panel of the conference: TV Audience Measurement - Who's Watching? As was pointed out before lunch, fragmentation of the audience is a hot button in the kids biz, and constant readers of AWM know that I've got my own thoughts on the subject. (See AWM, "The Cost of Eyeballs, " September 1997 issue.) Well, kids, you should have been there.

The four panelists were evenly split between those who report the ratings (Nielsen Media Research - the Nielsen ratings people - and Statistical Research - the developer of the SMART rating system) and those who have a vested interest in high numbers (Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network). Bruce Friend, VP Worldwide Research and Planning at Nickelodeon, started with a lucid and intelligent summary of the main questions, and raised these same points for the rest of the panel to discuss. Three of his five questions (content ratings & the V-chip, three and four year-old viewing, and kid/parent co-viewing) are important to media planners, but not of overwhelming interest to general toilers in the trade. His other two are perhaps the two most important overall questions facing the kids TV ad sales business today: Are kids viewing levels (PUTS - persons using TV) declining? And, how is PC/Internet usage affecting TV viewing?

PUT level is the key to the very basis of the ad-supported TV biz. No matter how high the share of the available audience goes to any one of the networks (Nick has been cited with a 55+% share), the total size of the audience must be large enough to imply "reach" - the ability to gather a "critical mass" number of eyeballs. As was pointed out by Gersten earlier in the day, frequency can only substitute for reach to a limited extent. (A simple analogy: if you have 25,000 people each draw one cel, you have a Disney-level cel count, but you most likely don't have Disney quality.) So any secular decline of Kid PUT levels strikes fear into the heart of the ad sales guys. Well, what's the story?

Friend opened the discussion with a straight statement: "While Nielsen has reported stable K6-11 TV usage (PUT) levels since 1990, K2-5 levels were on the decline...until last year." (Data was from Nielsen, 24-hour day.) He went on to explain that the K2-5 PUT level reclaimed all its loss last year, and therefore is also virtually flat - or slightly up - for the period 1990-97. However, and this is a big "however," K2-11 PUT levels are down 5% over the same period. You may ask how the total can vary from the underlying segments, to which I reply welcome to the world of numbers. Barry Cook, Sr. VP, Chief Research Officer, Nielsen Media Research, didn't argue with these figures (as the raw data came from Nielsen), but he did startle some members of the audience with another look at the same K2-11 universe. Narrowing his remarks to what we all used to call "Kid Prime Time," he cited a secular (ten-year trend) decline of 15-30%: 15% in the Monday-Friday 3-5 p.m. daypart, and 30% in the Saturday morning sector.