What did you take with you from the AAAAs conference last week?

Said Steve Grubbs, PHD CEO: Overall, for me, it was a very worthwhile trip. I got to hear some thoughts from some of my counterparts and some pretty insightful presentations from Yahoo and Mr. Gore. Most importantly for me was just connecting with people down there that I don't have the opportunity to see but once or twice a year. It's also good to see some of the people in the booths down there, some of which we have ongoing relationships and work with.

Jean Pool, EVP/Director of North American Operations Universal McCann, Chairman of Media Policy at the AAAAs, has been to 12 of the last 13 AAAAs conferences. She tells us this was one of the best. We asked if there was any reaction from her keynote speech, where she announced her initiative to get commercial audience data and bashed the problem of clutter (3/3/06 RBR #44).

---

"The issue of clutter seems to have grabbed hold. If we can generate some discussion on clutter, I'd be real, real proud. This is something we can actually do something about-exercise constraint. That got a lot of buzz. And, if we got the stations to release the [commercial] audience data, that would make me very proud as well. From what I heard from the folks from the AAAAs, we got good marks. I was pleased with the way it turned out."

Was there any blowback from the networks on your challenge/initiative?

"No, I haven't heard a word. I'm sure they're rumbling, but I haven't anything."

Again, we think your committee not issuing an ultimatum about commercial ratings, as ABC President of Sales Mike Shaw had (even though you could have), was very professional.

"The word in town on Mike Shaw's thing was it was a silly thing to say. I think we can challenge, we can't command. There's no way that Mike Shaw is going to walk away from millions and millions of dollars worth of business. 'Challenge' makes sense amongst business partners."

How could adding live commercial ratings in the mix benefit everybody?

"First of all, the advertisers have always wondered why we need program averages. Is it that the commercial ratings are so abysmal they don't want us to see the data? Well, they start losing face in the medium. [Advertisers] go to the internet, they go to direct marketing where they know what they're going to get. With television, you don't really quite know what you're getting. I think the advertisers would pay more to know more."

RBR observation:
Want to know why the networks hardly show up at the AAAAs? This may be one of the reasons. The last thing they need is to be stuck on a panel session with a point blank question such as 'why keep commercial ratings secret?'. The agencies are not saying they want to change the currency to commercial ratings only. They want to get all of the information that's available to study overall viewing habits. Perhaps commercial ratings are totally unpredictable. They need to study why. Perhaps for some shows, commercial ratings are very close to program averages (if that's possible). That show would command higher dollars than it's getting now. Let's do as Jean said-start a dialogue on this. It's not too late for a network to make the proclamation that it will work with commercial ratings before the upfront. That network will be swarmed by agencies to get that data and work deals. It's not about chiseling down price, it's about knowing the consumer better. Television needs to do itself a favor and move forward to compete better with new media. No better time than the present, right?