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Will sweeps go the way of rabbit ears?

The likelihood of year-round programming and a new method for collecting data about viewers have pushed sweeps months past their time.

By CHASE SQUIRES
Published February 1, 2005

	[Fox]
	Finally, Comic Book Guy of The Simpsons will have a name.

Today marks the start of another of television's "sweeps," a monthlong period during which broadcasters trot out their most dazzling productions in a quarterly dogfight for viewers.

The idea is to lure us like moths to a bug zapper, so we can be computed into demographic data and converted into advertising dollars.

But February is different this year. The epic miniseries and star-laden, made-for-TV movies, usually so densely packed onto the schedule that even the most dedicated DVR jockey can't keep up, are curiously absent. There still will be events, known as stunts in broadcast-speak. Fox will ride its Super Bowl coverage with a Simpsons episode full of sports star guests (which also will reveal Comic Book Guy's name); ABC rolls out Happy Days 30th Anniversary Reunion and the Academy Awards; CBS presents a new Survivor and the Grammy Awards.

And here's something different: Networks will focus on special episodes of existing shows to build viewer loyalty that executives hope will last beyond February.

"You can't get a bigger event than American Idol, so there's no stunt that we could do that would exceed that," said Preston Beckman, Fox executive vice president for strategic planning. Idol airs twice a week in February, so it represents more opportunities to win viewers than a single special event.

Splashing major projects in a month when the Super Bowl will skew ratings averages doesn't make sense, said NBC's Tom Bierbaum, vice president for ratings and program information.

NBC will have some specials, including a nostalgic Saturday Night Live retrospective. But much of NBC's new programming came before this sweeps period (January's release of Medium) or will follow it. Sylvester Stallone's boxing reality show, The Contender, was moved out of February. Both it and Law & Order: Trial by Jury launch in March.

ABC will debut producer Steven Bochco's saga of a blind detective, Blind Justice, after sweeps as well.

"If you're going against Desperate Housewives, Lost, three CSIs and two American Idols, you have to pick your spots," Bierbaum said. "You don't just go head to head against a very difficult time period."

But isn't that exactly what networks have done for years during sweeps? Why have they suddenly figured this out?

Blame it on economic necessity and new technology.

Broadcast network heads, feeling the competitive heat from the ever-proliferating cable universe, had mumbled about a push to a year-round television season in the past. But this time they might mean it, thanks to a new viewer monitoring system, according to marketing analyst John Rash, a senior vice president at the Campbell Mithun ad agency in Minneapolis.

Nielsen Media Research, which tallies who's watching what, has started to change the way it works. Instead of relying on TV diaries that a representative sample of viewers are supposed to fill out and mail back, the company is moving to electronic boxes that collect data automatically. The system is aimed especially at the channel surfer.

The average American home now receives 100 TV channels, up from 27 a decade ago, Nielsen's CEO Susan Whiting told a Senate panel last year. The convenience of the remote and the abundance of channels means people often only watch for a few seconds or shift gears halfway through a show.

"It is no longer enough for major media markets to know only how many households are tuned to a certain TV show or to rely on four standard monthlong sweeps periods," she told the group.

Sweeps are scheduled in February, May, July and November.

Those periods will continue to exist until Nielsen's conversion to the People Meter system is completed, Bierbaum said.

Of the more than 200 U.S. television markets, almost all are on the written diary system. The Local People Meter service is in five of the top 10 markets now, and the other five are due to be connected by 2006. The Tampa Bay area market is ranked 13th by Nielsen.

The biggest market, which is connected to the new system, is New York City with 7.3-million TV homes; the smallest is Glendive, Mont., with just more than 5,000.

With the diary system, it's simply too expensive to collect the intensely local data that individual affiliates need to set their advertising rates - and that's why sweeps were created, Rash said.

"Sweeps are an audience anachronism," Rash said. "All of the networks have made public pronouncements that they are moving toward a 52-week season. They are faced with continuously eroding audience bases, and they can't keep the same business model."

At CBS, network scheduling executive Kelly Kahl said programmers are listening to affiliates and understand sweeps may be the only direct feedback they get, but everyone realizes the model is changing.

"The idea of sweeps, way back when, was to take a snapshot a few times a year of what was considered representative programming," he said. "But you look now, the Super Bowl? This is hardly representative."

The networks' hand also has been forced by the fact that they've lost millions of viewers to cable. No longer are Americans eagerly waiting to see what the major networks will roll out.

"We've all felt that the importance of sweeps is beginning to diminish," Kahl said. "There's a benefit for all the networks to think a little more globally across the season."

At Fox, Beckman said the end for sweeps is near.

"Within 10 years, I would say sweeps would be irrelevant," he said. "It's nice to win them, but I really don't think they will have the meaning that they would have had in the past."

Chase Squires can be reached at 727 893-8739 or squires@sptimes.com

[Last modified January 31, 2005, 13:11:02]