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From: J.JPM@EPIC (Jim McGrath)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: TV Coverage of the Shuttle
Message-ID: <12185007170.8.J.JPM@EPIC>
Date: Thu, 20-Feb-86 21:43:29 EST
Article-I.D.: EPIC.12185007170.8.J.JPM
Posted: Thu Feb 20 21:43:29 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 24-Feb-86 05:23:23 EST
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: mcgrath%mit-oz@mit-mc.arpa
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        From: amdcad!lll-crg!seismo!rochester!emil@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
        (Emil Rainero)
            "As the networks pre-empted soap operas and game shows,
            they also dropped commercials for the afternoon, costing
            collectively up to $1.7 million an hour."
         Give us a break, Ray.
 
    From: amdcad!lll-crg!seismo!rochester!ray@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
    (Ray Frank)
    You have a point there which I must of course counter with another
    point: How much money did Nightline make directly due to America
    Held Hostage Day N?

Very little.  No matter what the ratings (% of TV sets that are on
watching it), Nightline's share (% of total TVs) is inherently low -
and advertising dollars are based on share, not ratings.  While prime
time can get the largest share of all the time segments, daytime TV is
actually often more profitable due to the low production costs of
soaps, game shows, etc...  Late night TV cannot compete with either.

So when a network preempts its regular schedule during the daytime,
for whatever reason, it is losing a lot of money and can never really
make it back.  The only reason it ever preempts is prestige (which
can, very indirectly, translate into dollars), and there are always
severe pressures not to do so.  (During the vietnam war CBS preempted
a lot of daytime TV to cover some congressional hearings.  That
decision was made by the News division, and the upshot was that the
head of the division got fired.)


Jim


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