New TV measurement – what to do?

You’re stuck owning a few TV stations in the “new media landscape”, your old investment buddies left you off the weekend party list, and your name rhymes with ‘Jasper’.  What do you do when you receive new TV audience data collected through the new PPMs and it shows numbers are significantly higher than last week’s system?  It’s a big opportunity that you can’t miss out on

It’s almost exactly three years ago that we first wrote about PPMs (Portable People Meters are pager-like devices that track TV wherever the sample is exposed to a signal replacing the traditional diaries and People Meters).  At the time, it was mostly a radio issue we were griping about but we had TV related concerns too.  Now Montreal radio data is in use, and we’ve seen preliminary Toronto radio and TV data – and the same concerns still exist (http://www.willsandco.ca/?m=200812)

As we’ve always said, it’s not about the actual numbers but how the stations react to them.  The PPM introduction for Montreal radio, it’s not what you’d call a home run.  At least not in the way many of the stations reacted – protecting spots costs without acknowledging drops in audience levels isn’t cool  

Now TV is in the position of having to deal with new audience numbers and the preliminary info shows they’re up on average (by a lot) across conventional and specialty stations.  They can screw it up or they can use it to their benefit

What I believe the stations would do naturally is use the new higher numbers to increase their spot costs.  They have every rationale to do so.  Except that they’re generally hurting under current economic pressures and losing revenue to the web.  So cranking up rates by 20% or so isn’t going to help their business even if advertisers are getting what they pay for based on PPM measurement

Rather, the stations need to use this information to stop the bleeding:  show advertisers that TV’s not on its deathbed and show them even better value

What will they do?