Kerger at press tour, July 2011. (Photo: PBS.)
From the summer press tour
To weigh interrupting promos, PBS will talk with producers, test viewers
Beverly Hills, Calif. — Stakeholders such as PBS documentarian Ken Burns will have a say in whether the network takes the unprecedented step of inserting breaks within programming, PBS President Paula Kerger said, and only certain shows that naturally break into segments would contain the controversial tune-in promos.
At the Television Critics Association summer press tour, Kerger told Current that viewership of PBS programs in Southern California has dropped since KCET left the network in January, although she hopes the loss is temporary. KCET’s successor as the market’s primary PBS outlet, PBS SoCal, has seen healthy membership increases, President Mel Rogers said.
PBS’s has tempered its public stance on the promotional inserts since its formal announcement of the strategy in sessions closed to the press at the annual station meeting this spring in Orlando (Current, May 31, 2011). After mainstream news outlets began reporting that PBS would begin running “commercials,” Kerger issued a statement to the system that “we need a more thorough and deliberative process to assure ourselves whether we can proceed safely and effectively with this idea.”
As parts of that process, PBS execs are meeting with stakeholders, including producers such as Burns, whose eagerly anticipated six-hour series Prohibition will air this fall. Burns has repeatedly praised PBS as a documentary distributor for, among other plusses, not inserting breaks in their programs.
That hands-off attitude from PBS wouldn’t change, Kerger said in an interview July 30 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. “I would not want our filmmakers to have to think about their work differently,” she said.
The new promo breaks would occur only in naturally segmented programs, such as Antiques Roadshow. “You’d never want to interrupt the arc of the story,” Kerger said. “As we look at the possibilities we might consider, the content itself would make a difference. So anything we do would not be applicable to every program that we have.”
Kerger said Nielsen will continue dial testing the breaks with sample viewers in Las Vegas and four other markets. The randomly selected viewers will watch a program interrupted by the promotional messages touting upcoming shows, and use a feedback device to indicate how much they like or dislike what they’re watching moment by moment. Preliminary results suggest the breaks don’t cause a problem, PBS said.
“If the research leads us to the next step, then we would want to lay out exactly what we would be doing in actual broadcasts,” the PBS president said. “At that point, I would sit down with the general managers and explain to them what we’re doing and why we’re doing it.” That could come during the CPB/PBS Round Robin meetings with station execs Oct. 12-13 in Arlington, Va., and Oct. 17-18 in Kansas City, Mo.
Whether or not the new research leads to changed plans, PBS will benefit from the data, Kerger said. Even if no new breaks are added, the network will use the information to learn how to make the break between programs more effective and useful to viewers.
PBS also is learning its way in the nation’s second-largest TV market, following major station KCET’s departure from membership Jan. 1. KCET’s ratings fell and Orange County’s KOCE, PBS rebranded to PBS SoCal gained PBS viewers. Though PBS SoCal also teamed with the two other PBS member stations, KVCR and KLCS, to let viewers know that all their favorite PBS programs are still available, PBS SoCal ratings continue to lag compared with KCET’s numbers last year.
“We think that, in another year, viewership will be higher than where it was before Jan. 1,” Kerger said. “The reason I believe that’s possible is that the three remaining stations are looking at their programming together and they’re trying to create a coordinated schedule (Current’s report). They’ve also started cross-promoting each other’s programs.”
And there is reason for hope. Rogers of PBS SoCal said station memberships have grown dramatically this year. The station had fewer than 30,000 members last year, but should double that number soon. Rogers said pledge revenue is up between 50 percent and 75 percent and, depending on the hour, some viewing is up between 20 percent and 100 percent.
Earlier in the press conference at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, Kerger produced figures pointing to PBS’s increased popularity. She said primetime viewing was up more than 7 percent over the previous year, and viewing by children ages 2 through 11 was up 23 percent.
At the same time, PBS set records for Emmy nominations this year with 43 in primetime and 121 overall. The primetime nomination haul is “twice the combined total of A&E, Bravo, Discovery and the History Channel,” Kerger said.
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