TVP tops the charts in one-day programming promotion scheme
On the second day of the new year, public broadcaster Telewizja Polska (TVP) made its viewers' dreams come true. For one day only, TVP aired viewer-designated programming.
The reward for the broadcaster was ratings that went sky high. On Jan. 2, TVP1 gained a record 34.84% market share (8 million viewers) estimated by market researcher Osrodek Badania Opinii Publicznej (OBOP). That figure was only topped last June 17 when Pope Jan Pawel II's landing on the Baltic coast garnered 46.5% of Polish viewers.
In late fall, TVP launched a campaign in daily Gazeta Wyborcza asking viewers to submit preferred programs to run on the first of the year. TVP received more than 250,000 responses. At the top of the viewer-preferred list was "Sami swoi," a Polish comedy. In addition to comedy, the most sought after programs were famous sporting events and reports on the Pope's visits to Poland. Only one foreign production achieved top ranking, the landing on the moon by U.S. astronauts in 1969. Three decades ago, Poland was the only communist country that transmitted the event, according to TVP.
Despite its success, TVP said it would not strictly follow the recent viewer request rankings as a guide to future programming.
"If we followed the ranking, we would have to show only comedies and entertainment and forget we are a public broadcaster," said Artur Burchacki, head of TVP's promotion department.
Vetting journalists
Last week, a group of 31 journalists sent an appeal to Sejm Speaker Maciej Plazynski asking for amendment of the vetting bill that would call for disclosure of former ties between the secret service and members of nation's private media groups. Under the current law, heads of public media have to declare whether they did or did not cooperate with secret police during communist rule.
"An influential journalist can have a much more serious impact on events than even 10 lesser-known deputies, so he has to be trustworthy," said Stanislaw Remuszko, one of the journalists pushing to broaden the scope of the existing law to journalists in the private sector. "That's why we want those people to be absolved of potential blackmail."
Private broadcasters should also have the possibility to ask for vetting of their staff so that secrets of their past couldn't serve for blackmail, Remuszko said. The current appeal provides no details on how an amendment to the law should be worded. "We leave it to legislators," Remuszko said.
Ad association to broaden flock
The Polish Association of Advertising Agencies is looking to bring media-planning companies into its fold in a bid to add more harmony to the industry as well as to better serve advertisers, media watchers said.
"We wanted to bring some order on the market, especially in the way of (research) tools," said Leszek Popowicz, the association's general manager and president of Best Marketing and Promotion.
During the past two years, media houses have sprung up around the country and many ad agencies have carved their media operations off into separate entities. Media houses specialize in organizing and buying space or air time for ad campaigns, while ad agencies have focused on creative work.
Despite industry segmentation, both planning and creative work comprise the sector, Popowicz said. And as clients and consumers become more ad savvy, the industry has to take steps to promote its own development, he said.
A chief concern is developing consistent guidelines for measuring effectiveness of ad campaigns, media watchers said. Currently, there are at least two methods of electronic measuring for television and several for outdoor ads, and that can make it difficult to gauge quality levels. "I think there are various issues that we need to discuss," said Greg Paine, general director of media company Universal McCann.
Media companies started coming into the association in late November, Popowicz said. Currently, there are 16 advertising agencies in the association and 10 media companies were slated to join at the beginning of the year. Media planners will be grouped to form a media club, but this is only to distinguish between creative agencies and media planners. Otherwise, they will hold full membership and pay standard membership fees.
Overall, industry members generally approved the move to expand membership to include media planners. Despite the highly competitive nature of the media market, sitting down and talking between the different industry segments could be beneficial, said Al Harris, managing director with Media Group. "There are areas of common interest," he said.
Joining an association could be useful to strengthen the position of planners in the market, said Rupert Slade, media planning director with Initiative Media. "People underestimate the importance of media companies," he said. In addition, the move could weed out firms and improve standards, media watchers said. "There are a lot of cowboys out there," Slade said.
A united front between planners and ad agencies makes for a better defense against interference from lawmakers who seek to regulate the sector, media watchers said.
"It hurts advertising agencies, it hurts media houses, it hurts everybody," said Jakub Bierzynski, general manager for media house Optimum Media.
But self-regulation of the sector, which the association does undertake, is more of an issue for ad agencies and their creative work than for media planners, according to some industry members. "What we do isn't so sensitive," said Harris of Media Group.
Bringing media planners and ad agencies together may succeed where planners themselves have failed. Two years ago an attempt to form an organization of planners failed because of the highly competitive nature of the planners, media watchers said. "We found it too competitive and there were too many ego problems," Bierzynski said.
While nobody denied the need for media houses to get together and talk, Harris did express one reservation, due to the media environment itself. "I do feel that media people tend to be secretive about what they are doing," Harris said.
While Bierzynski also thinks that there is a need for such a broad-based organization, he also warned that the more detailed the project, the more competition there is among media planners. "I am not so sure if we can find a balance between competitiveness and common thinking," he said.
Chris Rivituso contributed to this column.
