by Dave Zornow
The 2010 Super Bowl set a ratings record with 106.5 million people tuned into the Big Game. About 7 in 10 U.S. households watching TV on Super Sunday watched the Bowl averaging a 68 percent share of viewing.
Which is huge, but it isn’t everyone. What were the other 32 percent of football-agnostic people watching? How does the rest of broadcast and cable compete with most the watched telecast of all time?
For the most part, competitors treat the Super Bowl like most of us handle the recession. You muddle along as best as you can and hope it’s over quickly.
“You’re fighting for a much smaller piece of the pie. It’s not worth trying to counter program,” says Peter Gordon, former head of programming for The Golf Channel. “It’s not worth putting out your killer key lime pie when you’ll get the same viewers for apple pie.”
More than 30 percent of all TV viewing is too big an audience for some competitors to dismiss. There have been big successes during the Super Bowl halftime – but none recently. In 1993, In Fox’s Living Color lured 20 million viewers away from the Super Bowl with a special football-themed parody.
Media consultant and former head of Fox cable research Steve Leblang says successful counter programming needs to reach a broad audience. “General entertainment networks such as TNT and USA will run older skewing drama marathons because there is a larger percent of viewers that tend to be less interested in the Super Bowl and sports in general,” he says.
One tried and true strategy is to rerun tried and true TV classics. This year, ABC Family ran The Sound of Music opposite the Super Bowl with modest results – about what was expected when you go up against the Big Game. The hills may still have been alive – but they delivered about 25 percent less than its usual audience.
“It’s not that programmers lay down,” says Gordon. “It’s more like recognizing reality.” However, some channels literally lay down. Or encourage their “talent” to do so.
Animal Planet aired the 6th Annual Puppy Bowl on Super Bowl Sunday, an event filled with “dogged defense, puppy penalties and Fido first downs,” starring pups from animal shelters. Announcers provided the football-like play-by-play for the on the field animal play.
“We were very pleased with the performance – it did extremely well both on TV and online,” says Lauren Goodson Machen, senior research director at Discovery’s Animal Planet. She says Animalplanet.com broke its previous record for unique visitors on Super Sunday, counting 56 percent higher traffic than last year’s Puppy Bowl.
Machen says despite the CBS’ record-breaking Super Bowl delivery, this year’s TV household Puppy Bowl rating was on par with last year. Which doesn’t surprise media consultant Leblang. “Networks that are the most successful are reaching an underserviced demo niche.”
Even on Super Bowl Sunday there’s something on the tube for everyone. Where some viewers go gaga over Drew Brees, others go “aaahhh” over bunny rabbit cheerleaders and a blimp piloted by hamsters.
Sources: blog.nielsen.com, Animal Planet, Wikipedia
This article was originally published on Associated Content.