E-Poll Market Research Blog

Does Politics Make Good TV?

With the both the Republican and Democratic political conventions dominating TV news programming, it brings to mind that political theater makes great television.

Using both Program Pulse Broadcast and Cable we looked at the most notable politically themed programs including The Newsroom, The West Wing andVeep. Political themed programs demonstrate an advantage over the average drama leveraging clever storylines and colorful characters.

Whether it’s to keep up with plot developments, to avoid Twitter spoilers or to be prepared for water cooler conversation, there are certain shows we go out of our way to see.

Using Program Pulse we looked at both broadcast and cable programs to see which scored the highest in “Special effort to watch.”

Source: Program Pulse Cable, Broadcast, Weekday, Late Night

Standing Out In The Upfronts

As the television “upfront” season approaches, it seems that every year certain categories of programming have emerged that are more popular with advertisers and sponsors.  Some examples are: Family-Friendly, Engaging,Edgy and On-The-Rise.

In just a few clicks Program Pulse can help build a strong case for your Upfront Presentations. MediaSYNC’s easy and fast interface can identify program strengths and unique features in a simple and efficient way.

Cable Networks Pawn for Ratings

The recent flood of storage, pawn, antique and auction cable shows has demonstrated that one man’s trash is another network’s hit show.  But can the viewing audience sustain all these shows? With similar titles and subject matter, what sets one show apart from another?

Looking to appraise each of these trash-to-treasure shows, we used Program Pulse Cable to measure their strengths along several important program attribute and element ratings.

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Source: Program Pulse Cable, *Attribute/Program Element Top Two Box Ratings; most recent fielding,
secondary rank by awareness

What Emmy Nominated Series Have in Common

The Emmy nominations were announced two weeks ago including the six shows up for the best comedy series trophy.  The nominees include 30 Rock, Glee, Modern Family, Parks and Recreation, The Office and The Big Bang Theory.  A best series winner need not have the highest ratings, as recently demonstrated with 30 Rock’s three-peat best comedy series run.  Critical acclaim can be an indicator but seldom promises a trophy.

What, then, are the factors that make a show nomination-worthy?  Using Program Pulse we were able to identify the common strengths this year’s best comedy series nominees hold.

Emmys Choose Brains Over Beauty

Program Pulse Broadcast provides a measurement of program attributes and key elements.  Calculating an average for all broadcast comedies we looked at where this year’s nominees pull ahead.

The six nominees possess significantly higher than average scores in Clever, Intelligent and Unique.  The nominees score an average Clever score 13 points higher than average.  The broadcast comedy genre average for Unique is 39%, well below the nominee average of 52% led by everyone’s favorite sing-a-long Glee with a Unique score of 67%.

The Emmy nominees also scored 16 points higher than the broadcast comedy average in Intelligent with the theorem-dropping The Big Bang Theory getting top marks with 57%.

This year’s nominees show a growing maturity in audiences that appreciate programs that at least appear to stand out from the collective TV programming. Program Pulse is fielded monthly covering both cable and broadcast programs.  Each show is rated among 24 different attributes and 7 program elements.