This September, CBS and FOX each used early-season NFL games to promote various new programs, including the following:

For each promotional campaign, networks placed a small number of promos during NFL games, and the reach of these spots was very large:

NFL games draw huge numbers of viewers, so a tiny number of promos wound up reaching a significant portion of the total audience reached by the entire campaigns.B Moreover, a large number of these NFL viewersbover 700,000 STBs in each casebwas unique, and did not see the promotion at any other time during the campaign.

It is clear that NFL games allow program marketers to efficiently reach a huge number of viewers.B Better yet, these viewers often have not otherwise seen the promotion, so new people are exposed rather than simply hitting the same viewers over and over again.B The final question deals with response rates.B Do football fans exposed to promotion respond positively, or are they poor targets of promotion who watch lots of football but nothing else?

The answer appears to be the former: NFL fans respond positively to promotions for new shows.B Series premiere response rates for promos during NFL games are nearly as high as response rates for all promos.B If we exclude same-day promos, NFL viewers actually had higher response rates than average among all exposed viewers (in three of the four examples):

As we see, NFL games are a great opportunity to reach large numbers of new viewers who will respond positively to promotion.B Networks value these viewers so much that they pay the NFL billions of dollars for game rights.

In less than a month, the broadcast networks will roll out their new shows for Fall 2009 season.B Among them are NBCbs Mercy, ABCbs Flash Forward, CBSbs The Good Wife, FOXbs Glee, and the CWbs Melrose Place.B With new shows comes the barrage of promotion, via television, radio, online ads, outdoor billboards, and within magazines/newspapers.B B Resistance is futile.B Thou shall not escape the networksb attempts to help you blearnb about these new shows.B B Or maybe, just maybe, thou have.

Earlier this year, Accenture released its Global Broadcast Consumer Survey titled bTelevision: Entering the Era of Mass Fragmentationb.B B The report highlights the ways in which consumers learn about new television content.B Of those polled, ads/promos garnered the highest response representing 40% of the group, followed by channel surfing (33%), and friends/family (30%).B More recent methods such as blogs, web content stores, mobile ads, and DVR/PVR recommendations were towards the end of the pack with 8%, 6%, 5%, and 2% respectively.B

In view of this Accenturebs survey results, it would seem that networks canbt afford to not reach all potential television viewers when it comes to on-air promotion.B B That is, however, exactly what is happening.B

Note: Data from TNS Media Researchbs Charter LA.B Time period: 2008-2009 episodes of the showbs most recently completed season.

B The table shows that less than half of potential viewers have been reached with an on-air promotion for any networkbs new program.B These numbers will improve as the season approaches and finally begins, but as the following chart shows, even last season there was still a large population of viewers that had not seen a single promotion.

Note: Data from TNS Media Researchbs Charter LA.B Time period: 2008-2009 episodes of the showbs most recently completed season.

Marketers are not reaching a large portion of the television viewing audience.B That a sizeable percentage of the potential audience does not see a promotion creates a downward spiral.B If you donbt see a promotion, chances are you wonbt know about the program.B If you donbt know about the program, then you canbt watch it.B And if you donbt watch it, then ratings might decrease.B

The solution to this problem is simple.B Networks must increase their promotional reach prior to program launch and maintain it during the program season.B

A conversation from The Sandlot (1993) humorously illustrates the point of this issue, showing that people canbt consume something they know nothing about. B

Ham Porter: Hey, Smalls, you wanna s’more?

Smalls: Some more of what?

Ham Porter: No, do you wanna s’more?

Smalls: I haven’t had anything yet, so how can I have some more of nothing?