Public Television.  Although it may not be the most popular media vehicle for advertisers in this age of Twitter, a burgeoning blogosphere, and increasingly interactive outdoor advertising, it’s still a perfectly viable, albeit decidedly un-sexy, medium to consider in media planning strategy when attempting to reach a more…   how do I put this delicately?  Distinguished audience.  It’s fairly well-known in media circles that PBS reaches an audience that tends to be older, more affluent, and thus more likely to purchase luxury goods and services.  We think. 

Because of the rules that surround ‘advertising’ on Public TV, advertisers aren’t technically ‘advertising’ at all, they’re underwriting or sponsoring given programming—“Nova this evening is brought to you by Lear, specializing in all of your private jet setting excursions.”  These sponsorships are not allowed to feature calls-to-action or pricing information of any kind—additionally, (or perhaps interestingly is a better word) if you’re selling personal products, soap, etc., you might be out of luck: they’re reviewed on a case-by-case basis and if your ad features any “waist-to-knee” footage, you’ll receive a large “REJECTED, OVERT PBS VIOLATION” stamp on your sponsorship submission.  The collateral damage that results from these stringent FCC-enforced rules is a complete lack of ratings information.  Without ratings information, media planners are acting on a gut-feeling when recommending PBS to those dedicated to retail marketing.  “Well, we feel like this is a good fit for your Nantucket-based-boutique-400-thread-count-seersucker-robe business, but you’re just going have to trust us as we have NO data to back up our feeling.”

Until now. I found recently via MediaBuyerPlanner that PBS recently signed with ratings company Nielsen in an attempt to hopefully shed some much-needed light on what we’ve suspected all along: the Antiques Road Show has a lot of viewers.  Kidding aside, this is a very good thing: PBS is helping us planners to be surer about our choices, in turn allowing us to make our clients and their local advertising more successful.  Armed with the appropriate ratings data, we can either abandon previously-recommended PBS sponsorships or—and PBS is hoping it will go this way—ramp them up.  Don’t be surprised to see luxury goods producers/Centrum Silver clamoring for PBS underwriting in the coming months.  I just hope I can get through Masterpiece without constantly being reminded of the fact that I’ll probably never own a Rolex; amid my frustrations, however, I will thank them for “bringing me that programming”.