The PBS initiative Reinventing Breaks recommended flow-building “sticky breaks” with some elements of what PBS is considering, but breaking into program content was still verboten ( Current, July 22, 2002). And for the broadcast schedule, PBS experimented with a version of the hot switch nearly a decade ago. PBS began inserting sponsor credits into online programs streamed from its website in 2009. Commercial networks have been hot-switching for years. In that way, “this is a better fulfillment of our public-service mission.” Ideas with pedigrees, notoriety “I think stations are just as interested as we are in creating a better experience for viewers so we can spend more time with them,” John Wilson, PBS’s senior v.p. If ratings look promising, it will add Antiques Roadshow Monday nights come winter. PBS will try the experiment first on Wednesday nights this fall with Nova. Thus the “hot switch” to prompt audience flow between shows. Program content that would keep viewers around for the lead-out and grab viewers sooner for the lead-in would stay at the hour. Promo spots, such as tune-in blurbs, would move into the hour, to 20 and 40 minutes. Formats for shorter and longer programs have not been discussed in detail. Funder spots would move to shorter breaks at the 5- and 55-minute marks of an hour show. Plans call for slicing up that clump of “business,” as programmers call it, and moving much of it deeper into the programs. Details were revealed in several sessions at the Orlando conference, May 16–19. PBS had been discussing, in general terms, its plans for revamping primetime at various meetings including round robins. Programmers - and sponsors - know how hard it was to win those eyeballs for the earlier show and don’t want to lose them if they can help it. The audience isn’t keen on sitting through the present hodgepodge of video snippets between shows: some eight minutes of national and local underwriting spots, promos, program credits, network and station branding and teases. And by clustering compatible programs, as PBS plans to do for the fall, stations can retain more viewers through the station break. They realize that the PBS schedule loses hundreds of thousands of viewers between shows and has for years. As one blogger quipped, “Even though it wouldn’t involve actual commercials, I honestly think that Fred Rogers wouldn’t be happy with this idea.”īut some public TV programmers have responded more with curiosity than with outrage. So the public reacted fairly predictably when PBS announced at this month’s annual meeting in Orlando that it’s considering internal promotional spots as part of its primetime revamp. Proportional chart by Current showing proposed rearrangement of PBS primetime hour.
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