Should anyone care who won the ratings this year?

I just saw this headline in Mumbrella today.

“Who Won the Ratings this year?”

It reminded me of when I first arrived in Sydney in the ‘80’s. I was bemused by the focus on “Who is the No. 1 TV channel”.

In other countries I’d worked I was used to selecting programmes that were the best for the clients’ needs. Then we’d negotiate the best deals.

But I soon realised why there was such a focus on channel shares.

All the clients wanted to advertise on Channel Nine. Because it was the No. 1 channel.

And guess what … the No. 1 channel (Nine in those days) was able to charge premiums for ALL their programmes.

All the channels had been able to persuade agencies to commit to annual deals, making life easier for their sales teams. And that made it even better for Channel Nine.

Funny thing was … most campaigns were not performing any better on Nine than the other networks. But clients never knew.

Thirty years on and we’re still talking about who won the ratings.

And now we’re spending all our money on the number one social network … and the number one search network.

Hmmm.