Winning November Sweeps Strategy: Be Boldly in Character

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Winning November Sweeps Strategy:
Be Boldly in Character

While the two political conventions and Hurricane Charley have captured our attention for the latter part of the summer, sweeps are just around the corner. This week we visit with the consultants from Crawford, Johnson & Northcott for their views on how to make the most of November by preparing today.

Here are some key thoughts:

Use all the resources available to you to develop a plan. Include attitudinal research, the detailed data Nielsen provides, and even sales research.

Stay in character. Sweeps is no time to have a sudden personality change that will jar your viewers. The content and tone of your sweeps pieces and of the promotion must match who you are.

Don't dilute the impact of your special reports. As you allocate your resources, place your sweeps pieces where they will have the most potential impact --- on the nights you think you do well.

Promotion must make clear where and when viewers can see the product that you are pitching. Often viewers don't know which station they are watching.

A sweeps plan should not be created and cast in concrete. You must plan early, but be flexible and keep adjusting your strategy throughout the ratings period.

Make a major statement in sweeps

"Sweeps are regularly scheduled opportunities for great television stations to be 'boldly in character,'" says Bruce Northcott, partner at Crawford, Johnson & Northcott.
However, he says some stations become "boldly out of character" during sweeps.
"They do things they wouldn't do any other time of the year. It is not in keeping with who they are. Sometimes that results in them suffering, rather than gaining, " he says.
The key is for a station to use the sweeps period to demonstrate what they are all about.
"Promote and demonstrate your strengths," Northcott urges.

Make sure the key elements of who you are and that your key people are present in your sweeps plan. This includes top weather talent, who are sometimes overlooked for these assignments.

"Unfortunately, too many stations go into sweeps periods looking for the most bombastic story they can do or the network show they can tie into. That often takes them out of character."
	Bruce Northcott CJ&N

There is cynicism in some newsrooms and promotion departments about sweeps and what has to be done during sweeps. Some think they must fool or trick the viewer into watching.
"Where things come off the track in sweeps planning is when people have entered into it with the wrong mindset," says John Altenbern, Vice President of Client Services for CJN.
"In a way, stations have created their own problems. They are using it as a time to do something that ordinarily they would never do. They approach sweeps as a time for stunts or things that are so outrageous that it would cause people to watch," says Altenbern.

Effective sweeps planning does work and can move a station's numbers.
"We know a lot about sweeps reporting and sweeps viewing behavior because we have looked at it in research. At the end of the month, we can say unequivocally that --- done correctly --- sweeps reporting and planning does work, and it does have an impact on the numbers," he stresses.

Altenbern uses the example of stations that want to be known for their investigative reporting or coverage that goes beyond the surface of stories and reporting in-depth.
"If they find some pieces that prove that and execute those well, and if they do the planning so they can make the promotional splash they need to, and put it in the nights where they have a great opportunity to gain an audience, those sorts of things have paid off," he says.
"Not only does it pay off that night for retaining the audience coming out of their network lead-in, it pays dividends down the road, because it builds the image of the station. It creates a lasting impression about what that station does day-in and day-out," he says.
"Sweeps are very high-profile times during the calendar year. Those nights can make a huge impression with viewers on what the television station is about the rest of the year just because of the promotional inventory put on the line, and also because of the high-profile nature of some of the stories," he adds.

"If you are running a circus, you'll be known as the station that has a circus on the air. "Or if you are running good investigative stories or are breaking material no one else has, then that's what you become known for."
	John Altenbern CJ&N

Research and ratings analysis provide the foundation

Northcott says the process must start with research.
"Before you can plan for something as important as November, you must take stock of reality in the marketplace," he says.

Who are you? How do people think about the television station? What are the greatest strengths? Weaknesses? What are the vulnerabilities of your competitors? Who is it you want to be in the marketplace day in and day out? What is your network going to deliver to you? What is going on in syndication that leads into or out of your newscasts?

"You must take stock of all of your assets. A key piece of that is research. What do we know from research that viewers feel about you and your competitors, and how do we take that knowledge and turn it into a successful plan?" he asks.

Senior consultant Dean Bunting is doing this kind of planning with a client right now.
"The broadcast world is littered with stations that have done research, but coming out of it, they never built a plan," he says.
It is vital to wade through it and develop a plan for what you can execute now and what you need to address in the future.

Even stations that have limited resources have a lot of information at their disposal, according to Altenbern.

Make the maximum use of your Nielsen information.
"By carefully using the data you get, you can map out a good plan based on your retention of audience and the demographic information," he says.
"You can analyze your leadins and opportunities for promotion to certain audiences and demographic groups across the day. That is something most people have, but which they don't always put to good use," he adds.

Use your sales research, too.
Many stations have sales research that can give a glimpse of the audience and the kinds of people who watch your programs.
"By combining some of these things --- Nielsen data, sales research, attitudinal research that companies like ours provide, and information from your network --- it can give people in your newsroom an idea of what kind of audience they have night tonight," he explains.
"Those are huge pieces of the puzzle. If you can sit down and examine it in a systematic way, you may find out that you have a lot of information to digest. It can be very, very helpful in creating your plan," he adds.

This is particularly important when people in the newsroom are relatively young.
"Producers are hard to come by. They may not have the experience that other people in the newsroom have. They may be right out of college," Bunting explains.
"Sometimes news managers assume our people know this stuff," he adds.

It's important to have a staff meeting to go over the basics of how to read the research and what the data means.
"You need to sit down with your people and educate them as to how effective these tools can be," Bunting urges.
Everyone must have at least a cursory understanding of it.
If your late producer is charged with hitting the target audience with the prime time teases, and everyone else has gone home, does he or she have the knowledge to do it?
"So much is expected of these people, and often so little is given to them in terms of education," says Bunting.

Deliver on viewers' expectations --- especially in sweeps

With audiences continuing to splinter, it is more important than ever to be providing benefits that are relevant to them.

Viewers have expectations when they turn on a station, just like consumers do when they go to buy a certain product from a certain store.
"If you walked in, and they didn't provide a product that lived up to your expectation, you'd walk out wondering why you wasted your time," says Northcott.
"A television newscast is a lot like that. People come to expect certain stories, certain approaches, and attitudes. If we have been the serious, journalistic television station, and it comes to sweeps time, and we are doing a three-ring circus of special reports, viewers will wonder what happened to their trusted station," he warns.

"We must also show our viewers that we are relevant to their lives," Bunting adds.
He feels there has been a disconnect, because for whatever reason, some have forgotten what is important to their viewers.
"You must know who your viewers are, and you need to make sure that whatever position you are going to take in your market, you prove it to your viewers. You must be that for them 365 days a year," says Bunting.

"Sweeps times are opportunities to raise the awareness of who you are and what you are working to deliver to your audience."
	Dean Bunting CJ&N

Northcott says when they survey viewers, there are many things they don't like about local news, but it is seldom the things people in the industry talk about.

The issue of the stories not touching their lives is a major factor in tune-out.
"Somehow we must reach out as meaningfully as we can so that the stories we are filling these newscasts with every day are stories that really do touch their lives," says Northcott.

The sweeps plan must be flexible

You must keep adjusting your strategy throughout the ratings period. "The best stations manage sweeps as a night-to-night and day-to-day opportunity. They spend a lot of time during sweeps making very careful adjustments to promotional messages, content, and stories to have the best shot at the audience that is available that day," says Altenbern.

Don't dilute the impact of your special reports. ÿProduce and promote the pieces you do well, and place them where they will have the most potential impact. You may not have something every night.

Bunting says station executives must realize they are not going to win every night of a sweeps period.
"For a 10 or 11 o'clock newscast, they'll look at their leadins and if they think they can win on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, they'll put their efforts there," he explains.
One of the other mistakes stations make is trying to do sweeps pieces every day, even when they don't have the resources to do so.
"What ends up happening is they dilute these pieces, so they might as well have not done anything," he adds.

One resource that is often overlooked in sweeps planning is weather.
"One of the Number One reasons to watch a newscast is weather. Sometimes managers forget about their weathercasters and how they could play a role in sweeps planning," says Jill Johnson, a partner at CJ&N.

A warning about material that worked on a sister station: Johnson says beware of taking an idea from another market and thinking that because it worked there, it is going to work in your market.
"It all comes back to relevance. You must put it to the relevance litmus test to see if it's really going to work," says Johnson.
One mistake she sees frequently during sweeps is very creative spots that fail to include the station identification.
Promotion must make it clear where and when viewers can see the product that you are pitching.
"Sometimes people will forgo their station logo or the time and date on a special sweeps story because it conflicts with the creativity or the production," says Johnson.
"It is even more important to have your ID on those spots for a sweeps piece because if it does interest the viewers, they will want to know where to find it. If you wait until the very end, you may lose some viewers that way," she warns.
"You can't take for granted that viewers know what station they are watching at any particular time," adds Johnson.
Northcott says in research projects, viewers will often remember seeing a spot that they thought was really good. However, if they are asked what station it was on and when it will be on, they don't have any idea.
"A lot of times they assume it is the next newscast coming up. However, stations may be selling a story a day ahead or a newscast or two ahead of the actual airing. Viewers get confused. Real viewers don't watch television the way news directors and consultants do. They are casual and passive," he says.

Promotional messages must be clear, simple and straightforward, or people may miss it, he warns.

News and Promotion must cooperate

Johnson says marketing and promotion for sweeps aren't necessarily different this year, but executives must be very focused.

"Communication between News and Promotion is vital. "To be effective in your promotion and in selling the stories you worked so hard to get on the air, one department cannot work independently from the other."
	Jill Johnson CJ&N

At one client station, the Promotion and News departments each send a representative to spend a day going over all the sweeps topics they are looking at.
"They question each story as to what the viewer benefit is and how it can be promoted," she says.
"We go out with the best intentions of bringing back a story, but things change. Interviews change, soundbites change. Too many times the information doesn't get passed on so the promotion can be as good as it can be for the story," she says.

She feels relevance is key when it comes to promotion, too.
"If a topic isn't relevant, it is easier for a viewer to decide to watch something else. The whole shock and scare techniques that have been used in promotion in the past generally are not effective --- and in a worst case scenario will make viewers actually turn away," she says.
"We really must determine what is going to be in it for the viewer and how we can make it beneficial for them," she adds.

For more information, you can reach these consultants at:
Crawford Johnson & Northcott
309 Court Avenue Suite 226
Des Moines, Iowa 50309
515.875.4888 info@cjni.com

Sweeps Checklist
Crawford, Johnson & Northcott

1. Does it sound like real news?
"If it sounds like it's a feature or optional viewing, it can be intriguing, but who cares? It must sound like real news," Northcott says.

2. Is it in character?
"Is it reflective of the station's overall position and what you do the rest of the year?" he asks.

3. Is it really something new?
"We're in the news business, it must be something that feels new," he stresses.

4. Does it deliver?
Is the promotion and marketing greater than the story, or does it really deliver?
Johnson says too often when the station produces a promo and the story airs, it is over and no one ever thinks about it again.
"Part of the process post-sweeps should be to do a review. Look at the story and the promotion side-by-side and see if they really accomplish that goal, or if they did oversell the story," says Johnson.

5. Is it inviting or intriguing and easy to watch?
Sometimes promotion convinces people not to watch, according to Northcott. If it's dark, scary, and negative, sometimes it will actually drive people away.
"There are elements of the news business that are dark and scary, but we don't have to go out of our way to choose those things," says Northcott.

6.Would you be sufficiently interested in the story to either stay up or switch to see it?
"You must ask yourself that question as newsroom managers, and be honest about it. If you wouldn't watch it yourself, why would you put it on?" he asks.