Counter Programming

Sunday is a day of religion, relaxation and football. As I was sitting around doing nothing too productive and flipping through the outlandish number of channels available on digital cable looking for the best football game playing, I realized that the thing that stuck out in my mind the most was what was playing on NBC. Fox had a football game. CBS had a football game also. Since NBC doesn't have rights to broadcast afternoon football games for the NFL, they were stuck with their counter programming which in this case happened to be CURLING or more specifically the Korbel Elite Challenge. Curling has sponsors. Who knew?

These are some of the programs available during the football broadcasts:
Bowling on ESPN
Figure Skating on ESPN2
9 Ball Competitive Billiards on Fox Sports Net
Triathlon on Versus
LPGA on ABC

This got me to thinking about counter programming and its prevalence. Have we become so structured and predicable that we can be segmented into the football watchers and the non football watchers? More specifically, has it reached the point where advertisers have ruled out that football watchers are willing or even able to watch something remotely considered to be "masculine" during football time slots?

I mean it is a key marketing principle to segment your target audience, but I feel that there is an oversimplification of human complexity. Yes, there are correlations that can be made to beer advertising and football games. Yes, it may make sense to advertise "feminine products" during a Lifetime movie. But, I feel that most people watching television do not operate on the extreme and fit somewhere in between the drastic ends. Kind of like Anthony Down's aggregation model, but without the politics.

Take fast food for example. After the Supersize Me expose came out, McDonalds offered "healthy" alternatives to its traditional Big Macs and McNuggets. It started promoting its salads and alternatives to french fries instead. They also implemented their Get Fit meals. So in order to grab market share away from the leader, McDonalds in this instance, Wendy's starts promoting its Baconator. I mean there isn't much to say about the Baconator except that it has six strips of bacon in it, not to mention three patties, and three slices of cheese. Counter programming. Burger King started offering 1000 calorie "breakfast" sandwiches.

Maybe people are that fickle and are that divided, but I would like to think otherwise. It is just frustrating to know that since advertisers and market principles get to decide what is available on television on Sundays and what we can eat at a fast food restaurant. I mean it just sucks that the decision has to be football or curling. If they offered real alternatives and decided to go out on the limb, maybe just maybe, they could capture the many who are sitting somewhere in between ordering a salad or a baconator.

That is all.

-ydollar