Programs/Content

PBS mulls strategy to boost kids’ ratings

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With many local pubcasters reporting sharp declines in daytime viewership, PBS programmers are reevaluating scheduling strategies for children’s programs, trying to get a handle on a problem that’s also affecting commercial competitors for kids TV audiences.

People

Luoma, Cornwell recognized for achievements in local scheduling

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In a citation honoring Maine Public TV’s Kelly Luoma as the Charles Impaglia Programmer of the Year, PTPA lauded her “for tirelessly advocating for the audience and the programming community within public television, even when it is not politically correct . . . [and for] the singular achievement of increasing a station’s viewership every year since the digital transition, while the system has shown whole week and primetime declines.”

In another award presented during last month’s PTPA meeting in Miami Beach, Fla., Kentucky Educational Television’s Craig Cornwell was lauded for achievements in local scheduling. TRAC Media Services, which manages PTPA, cited Cornwell “for ensuring that local productions always get prime placement, for understanding a market where Best of the Joy of Painting often equals the Antiques Roadshow repeat on Saturday .

Programs/Content

Finding bright spots: cloning what works in local pubTV programs

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For more than 25 years, we have been studying public television stations and programming, and for all those years we sat on one of the best-kept secrets in the system. We knew that some of the most-viewed programs on public television were locally produced shows, and the responsible stations certainly knew that piece of good news. But local shows don’t show up in the national ratings, and there are very few reliable ways for people outside of those stations to see the numbers. After years of schedule-watching, we began seeing related patterns in the stations’ performance: Many of the stations with very popular local programs were among the broadcasters with the greatest success in viewership, in community partnerships, and in public support. What was the connection, we wondered?

Audience research

Good news about the splintered TV audience

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What you are about to read may sound familiar—like the strategy in public radio, with its emphasis on serving a core audience—but it’s an evolution in the thinking of the LeRoys, prominent audience consultants for public TV stations and co-directors of TRAC Media Services. Public television’s cume fell below 50 percent in the 2001-02 season. The portion of the viewing public that samples it in a week — as high as 59.2 percent in 1991 — was down to 47.8 percent a decade later. Fewer and fewer homes are sampling public television’s fare and they’re viewing it less. When cumes and gross rating points decline, stations can lose membership and support.