Splitting Up Together #5

Posted on March 6, 2018 by Nicholas Vitalone

So the show in the past week has finally increased its promotions on its twitter. To sum up some of the things that have been featured on the twitter are: an exclusive trailer aired on Ellen, reviews of critics who have screened the show, comments from fans.

The fact that the show has now been featured on Ellen is huge as that exposes it to a national audience of the exact audience that ABC is most likely trying to target with this show.

Another development this week was at the Oscars when ABC aired the premiere trailer for its Roseanne revival which premieres the same night as Splitting Up together. While not a direct advertisement for this show, any ad which will attract viewers to any program on ABCs lineup on the night of the 27th will be likely to increase the viewership of the entire lineup for the night when you factor in lead ins and lead outs.

Overall it is very refreshing to see the show switching up its promotion as its launch date nears in just over 3 weeks now.

A.P. Bio #6

Posted on March 6, 2018 by Nicholas Vitalone

As I discussed last week AP Bio did a major shake up to its schedule this past week. Well the final results are in and it does not appear the shake up has paid off for the first week. Both episodes on 3/1 contained a .7 rating with 2.6 million and 2.7 million viewers respectively.

This is a drop from the premiere which had a rating of .8 and of course the episode which aired after the olympics closing which had a massive boost because of that. I’m sure that NBC is hoping that this week now that the schedule will remain in a regular time slot the ratings may stabilize and hopefully increase but based on all of my findings so far this seems unlikely.

I will add though that this is a show that seems likely to get more of a buzz as a watch later and binge type comedy perhaps especially if it is targeting a younger skewing audience.

Station 19 #6

Posted on March 6, 2018 by emlipsto

Station 19’s unveiling of their characters within Grey’s Anatomy on March 1^st garnered 2.0, 7.5M views, hopefully meaning those viewers will move over and watch Station 19 when it premieres. As the premiere becomes closer, more actors have been announced who have signed on for roles. Mistress alum Brett Tucker will appear for a multi-episode arc. More notably, the Station 19 was released during the 90^th Academy Awards on Sunday, sparking more excitement and twitter action then before. Derek Haas, Chicago Fire creator, tweeted after the airing of the trailer, “That is so cool they showed clips from our old pilot during the Oscar–. Ohhhh. Whoops. Disregard that.” This is due to the similarity between Chicago Fire and Station 19, and the fact that ABC had previously admitted that Chicago Fire’s success had made it difficult to name the show. Meanwhile, Jason Winston George was doing a Q and A during the Grey’s Anatomy Crossover event, along with Station 19 tweeting and Jaina Lee Ortiz retweeting gifs of her from the episode.

‘Station 19’: Brett Tucker Set To Recur On ABC’s ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Spinoff

http://popculture.com/tv-shows/2018/03/05/chicago-fire-creator-calls-out-station-19-trailer-oscars-2018/

Alex, Inc. (6)

Posted on March 5, 2018 by Ian Frazier

During the 90^th Academy Awards on ABC, two short promos for Alex, Inc. aired. Each had a running time of only fifteen seconds and featured Zach Braff as the prominent figure to compel audiences to tune in. There was also a focus on Braff’s return to television in each of the ads. Interestingly, one of the advertisements contained a reference to Scrubs, Braff’s previous ABC show that attracted a large audience for almost ten seasons. However, it is unclear if this choice to incorporate Scrubs with this new show resonated with fans, as twitter users like @memles said “We’re promoting Alex Inc. with Scrubs jokes? I mean, I’m not mad, but that’s a choice.” Overall, though, the choice to promote Alex, Inc. during the Oscars as a general advertising decision from ABC appears valuable, as the network gets to promote its own television program on a night that attracts millions of viewers.

Black Lightning #5 – Cast Advertisements

Posted on February 28, 2018 by Tejah Robinson

As Black Lightning took a week break, the stars and famous writers of the show are ramping up on advertising. I have mentioned before how the cast of the show has taken a lead role in the advertisement of the new series. We a one week break from airing new episodes, The CW’s star characters and writers posted various advertisements urging their followers to watch the episode live. When viewing different social media platforms, it seems as though Instagram and Twitter are the main tools used by the cast and crew. When averaging the total followers of China Anne McClain, Cress Williams, Nafessa Williams, Christine Adams, and Krondon they alone reach over 4 million people on Instagram.

According to TV by the numbers, the show stays consistent with its 0.5 rating after a week off due to the Winter Olympics. The constant advertisements of the show from the cast and crew seem to aid in the steady viewership of new episodes.

Good Girls #5

Posted on February 27, 2018 by Gabriel Alfredo Acosta Romero

Good Girls premiered this Monday at 10pm following the episode of The Voice. It had a strong start with a rating of 1.5 and audience of 5.98 million. Good Girl’s ratings were the top for the time slot beating out the premiere of CBS’s Living Biblically, ABC’s The Good Doctor’s new episode. The combination of The Voice’s high rating of 2.8 in addition to Good Girl’s strong start help NBC win the night. The show has gotten mixed reviews from the audience with a rating of 6.9 on IMDB, 57% rotten tomatoes critic rating and a 71% of the rotten tomato audience liked it. A lot of the critics are discussing the merits of the shows titles and whether or not the show merits it’s sarcastic title.

Olympic Closing Ceremonies

Posted on February 27, 2018 by Halie Aaron

The Olympics closing ceremony took place on Saturday, February 24 2018. The event was broadcasted on Sunday, February 25 at 8:00PM on NBC. Some of the program was shortened in order to fit the two-and-a-half-hour time slot. Some of the highlights of the night included a sports recap in the beginning of the show, a montage of medal ceremonies, Jessie Diggins carrying the flag, a 13 year old guitarist, Korean pop superstars, a look forward to the 2022 games in Beijing, and a performance by Martin Garrix. The major issues surrounding the closing ceremonies were the loss in overall ratings and the time change causing a tape delay and shortened content.

Programming

Prior to the closing ceremony, NBC put on an “Olympic Gold” special, which brought in a rating/share of 1.6/7 and 8.35 million viewers. NBC’s new show A.P. Bio followed the closing ceremonies at 10:30pm. It put up a promising 1.1/5 rating and had an impressive 4.69 million viewers. The Olympics definitely helped A.P. Bio, so it will be interesting to see if the show will hold on its own.

Ratings

The closing ceremonies brought in a 2.4/9 rating and 14.87 million broadcast only viewers according to Variety. This is significantly less than the opening ceremonies, which brought in 17.2 million viewers. It is expected for a closing ceremony to have a smaller viewership than the opening ceremony, but overall the Pyeongchang winter Olympics lost viewership by 7% compared to Sochi in 2014. Specifically, Sochi beat Pyeongchang closing ceremony viewership by .4 million. Since viewing habits have changed over the past four years, this is not considered a huge loss. According to the Chicago Tribune, On NBC alone, the Olympic coverage averaged 19.8 million viewers across broadcast and digital platforms, while the combined average for ABC, CBS, and Fox was 9.8 million. That is an 82% advantage, up from a 43% advantage in Sochi and an 8% advantage in Vancouver. These numbers are very pleasing to NBC.

Competition

Competing shows throughout the night did not come close to beating the Olympics in ratings. “Big Brother: Celebrity Edition” on CBS received a 1.4/5 and 5.18 million viewers. “The Bachelor: The Women Tell All” on ABC received a 1.1/4 and 4.19 million viewers. “The Simpsons” on Fox received a 0.7/3 and 1.81 million viewers. “Ghosted” on Fox received a 0.5/2 rating and 1.21 million viewers. “Family Guy” on Fox received a 0.5/2 rating and 1.31 million viewers. “La to Vegas” on Fox received a 0.4/1 and 1.1 million viewers. “Shark Tank” on ABC received a 0.8 and 3.12 million viewers. “NCIS: Los Angeles” on CBS received a 0.4/2 and 3.42 million viewers.

Promotions

Promotions for the closing ceremonies revolved strictly around promoting NBC only content. The network promoted shows across all categories such as news, entertainment, and even special events. To begin, NBC News teased an Ivanka trump interview regarding the Olympics, and said that more would be shown on NBC Today the following morning. There were promotions for the Olympic Channel, The Voice, Good Girls, AP Bio, Chicago Med, and the special event Jesus Christ Superstar. Interestingly, the network showed three spots promoting the NBC Snapchat account. This shows that NBC was conscious to hit traffic in all areas.

Advertisers/Sponsors

Immediately following content before cutting to commercial break, NBC highlighted its main sponsors. Some of these companies included McDonalds, Intel, Toyota, and Google. These companies paid more money for these sponsorships because they attract more attention than a regular commercial. The commercials that aired during the event were consistent with NBC’s and the Olympic committee’s values. The network showed commercials that appealed to the 18-49 demographic because that is the program’s most successful target. The network chose commercials that were family oriented and appealed to everyone. The companies with the most spots were Toyota, Excellus Blue Cross Blue Shield, Samsung Galaxy X9, Coca Cola, and Hershey’s. Visa used its two spots to cross market with NBC, using the Olympians as the stars of the commercial. There were three local commercials during the program. Two were for Adirondack furniture in Syracuse, and the other was for Laserview of CNY. According to the Chicago Tribune, NBC made a profit off this Olympics with $920 million in national sales. Sochi only brought in $800 million.

A.P. Bio #5

Posted on February 26, 2018 by Nicholas Vitalone

Shaking Up the Schedule:

NBC announced this past a week a huge disruption to its already unique introduction to the series. The series aired a “preview” episode on Thursday March 1st at 9:30pm before taking a break until after the olympics concluded. (During this time the first 4 episodes of the show were available on Hulu).

This week though could get very confusing for viewers trying to follow the show. Last night following the Closing Ceremony of the Olympics the show premiered its second episode. This was very much out of its normal time slot. Additionally this Thursday the show was supposed to premiere into regular programming Thursdays at 9:30pm but now it will air its third episode at 8:30 pm and the fourth episode at 9:30pm. Then next week on March 8th the show will permanently move into an 8:30 time slot.

I can imagine that changing the schedule of a show around its first few weeks is critical and can easily cost a program viewers. The question here is if the decision was because NBC is already concerned about ratings for the show and trying to find a way to boost the ratings up before it hits regular programming?

Splitting Up Together #4