The Young and the Restless

At 3:30 p.m. on May 15, hundreds of advertisers and agency executives are drinking NBC’s beer and munching on NBC’s sushi, but it’s clear that many aren’t buying into NBC’s new fall shows.

They’ve just sat through a two-hour presentation of the network’s fall strategy and the reviews are instantaneously lackluster. Plus, they gripe, there’s no music at the party, and the stars of “The West Wing”--which drew a highly unusual standing ovation during the presentation--are nowhere to be found. Not a good way to start Upfront Week, the four-day cram session at which ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, UPN, the WB and Pax vie to woo advertisers to their fall schedules and, ultimately, a bigger share of the $8-billion advertising pie to be split in a buying frenzy the following week.

But who are all these people anyway? Predominantly young and--from their solid ties and cool sunglasses and micro cell phones--obviously hip, how can they even come close to guessing what will appeal to the masses of Middle America? And will sushi and beer and a song-and-dance routine by the stars of “Will & Grace” actually make a difference in how they spend their money?

Mike Greco is one of the young people making the rounds. The 29-year-old, whose title is manager of broadcast research for Optimum Media Direction USA--the media buying and research umbrella for some of Madison Avenue’s largest ad agencies, BBDO, DDB and TBWA/Chiat/Day--is assigned, with his team, to assess every show on every network, well over 100 in all. That means predicting, with the help of computer software that tracks such arcana as how well sitcoms have fared over the years in specific time slots, how each show will perform in the coming year in terms of audience share, among every age group from kids to adults 50 and older. And he has to have his assessments--which will be used by the agencies’ media buyers as they negotiate ad rates with the networks on behalf of clients like Pepsi and Visa--ready to go by the end of the week. And he has to prepare them in between the two-hour-plus network sessions at locations from the Metropolitan Opera House to Radio City Music Hall, and the star-filled parties following.

It’s a high-stakes game that is played out very quickly. Agencies buy packages of ads for their clients spread out over a multitude of shows. If the agency guesses wrong, it might lose out on getting those ads into what is known as the “rich mix,” a spot on the hottest shows. If an agency overestimates a show’s popularity, its clients might end up having to take makeup ads in other programs, throwing off a whole media plan.

For the networks, there are risks too. Last season, many agencies underestimated the CBS show “Judging Amy,” one of the year’s top-rated new dramas, miscalculating its appeal in favor of the ABC drama “Once and Again,” which came with a hip pedigree--its producers used to do “thirtysomething”--and a younger, hipper cast. With most of the ad time for the show sold in advance (or “upfront,” giving Upfront Week its name), networks don’t earn what they could on shows that are underestimated. Indeed, CBS has long griped that the relatively young age of the advertising community leads to a bias against CBS’ older-skewing shows in favor of places like the youth-oriented WB.

Greco’s taste runs to Fox’s “The Simpsons”--his favorite show--and the WB’s “Dawson’s Creek” and ABC’s “Monday Night Football.” Still, last year, he had a strong track record: Of six shows he thought would make it to a second year, five did, including “The West Wing.” The only show he badly overestimated was a half-hour version of Fox’s “Ally McBeal.” Like most of the ad community, he didn’t foresee the strength of “Judging Amy,” although he had it down as a possible contender.

Coming out of NBC’s presentation, Greco likes--some might say predictably for a guy his age--a new sitcom starring Steven Weber (who starred on the popular NBC sitcom “Wings”). “The jokes actually made me laugh,” he says, as he and colleagues and friends from other agencies debate how the shows look (they’ll get full pilots later in the week). And with shows increasingly targeted to niche demographics, the group consensus of these young researchers and buyers becomes more important as they attempt to judge shows not aimed at them.

But just as a good clip can get talked up at the post-presentation parties, so too can a bad clip have a negative effect. NBC’s new sitcom starring “Seinfeld’s” Michael Richards comes with the built-in promotability of its star--but once it played, many advertisers left rolling their eyes, disappointed. (NBC executives were apparently equally disappointed; the show is being completely retooled before it airs.)

“If people really like a new show, if it comes off well in the presentation, it will help build demand,” and higher ad prices, says Jon Nesvig, president of sales for Fox.

For the most part, ad executives insist the presentations, with the exception of being able to hear network executives talk through their rationale for the decisions they made, have little to do with how they end up assessing the shows. Greco may have joined the audience in raucous applause when Bette Midler appeared on stage to promote her CBS sitcom, but what matters more, he says, are a show’s time period, the track record of the writers and producers, its stars and its competition. Buzz is good, he says, if it will help a new program get noticed, but it only counts if he thinks the team behind the program can sustain the show’s consistency.

“They have no influence at all,” says Steve Sternberg, senior vice president and director, broadcast research at TN Media, hanging out at the CBS soiree in the garden at the Central Park restaurant Tavern on the Green. “It’s a thank you, a party to get out of the office before all the work begins the next week.”

And hospitality--including plenty of free-flowing alcohol--is emphasized. Even Pax, the family-friendly network with a spiritual bent, finished its presentation at 11 a.m. Wednesday with an invitation for advertisers to join executives for “champagne and orange juice.” Only the WB, which had an early-morning breakfast presentation, didn’t offer booze, proffering instead rows and rows of V8 Splash.

Still, Sternberg also says that the presentations are good for a network’s image; when CBS can muster comedy routines from David Letterman and Ray Romano, magic from David Copperfield and a song by Faith Hill, it helps remind the ad community of the muscle power of the networks, even if they are seeing their audience share nibbled away by multitudes of cable networks.

So while many agency executives echo Sternberg and insist that the presentations and parties can’t sway their evaluation of specific shows, the networks clearly believe in the intangibles. The WB, for one, makes much more of an effort to invite younger, low-ranking agency employees to its presentation, on the theory that they will better appreciate the shows that are being pitched. Indeed, Stefanie Mandrin, a 23-year-old media research analyst who works for Greco, didn’t make the cut at NBC but was among the 2,500 agency executives and advertisers invited to view the WB shows, where she talked to one of the stars of “Felicity,” a drama series the WB is hoping will find better pull with viewers next year.

For shows that aren’t targeted toward him, Greco seeks opinions. “The more people you talk to, the better estimates you’ll have,” he says. And then there’s the Friday “share meeting,” where the more than 100 Optimum Media executives who attended the Upfront presentations thrash out how they think the shows will do. “Everyone has a certain program they like or don’t like, so we debate it out, and if there’s still a discrepancy, we take a vote,” he says.

The main debate this year? “How much [ABC’s ‘Who Wants to be a] Millionaire’ is going to decline next season,” says Greco. The group also had a hard time coming to a consensus on Fox’s Wall Street investment banker soap “The $treet,” precisely the kind of show targeted to the young media people attending Upfront Week.

As for Greco’s picks for next season, he saw “a lot of programs that looked OK, but none of them really jumped off the page like last year.” His colleagues agreed, he said, adding that “last year there was more of a consensus” around NBC’s “West Wing” and WB’s “Roswell,” both of which are returning this fall.

On first reflection, Greco singled out only three shows he thought would make it to a second season: ABC’s romantic comedy starring Geena Davis, “Geena,” whose scheduling he likes as a lead-in to “Once and Again”; CBS’ “The Bette Show,” because he thinks Midler will carry the program despite competition from ABC’s “Millionaire”; and CBS’ remake of “The Fugitive,” starring Weber’s former “Wings” co-star, Tim Daly.

And he also has his candidate for first cancellation of the season: an ABC sitcom about a self-help group, titled “People Who Fear People.”