Pledge Culture: Rituals and Truths

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Pledge Culture Rituals and Truths

• Or
• Why the Regular Schedule Programs Dont Pledge
  Very Well

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Pledge is

• Not like being a doctor formal school
• Pledge is an apprenticeship
• On the job training
• Learn the rituals and mores from a
  master/mistress
• All of that training and practice constitutes the
  pledge culture

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Pledge Culture Rituals

• Many are true scientifically
• The practices are garnered from years of use and
  change gradually
• Example from taped breaks, to air checks to
  virtuals
• So why is it so hard to pledge regular schedule?

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Rituals are Habits

• Look at how we learn to ride a bike
• Or more complicated to drive your car
• After lots and lots of practice you finally get
  it
• And it goes on automatic
• Old habits hardly ever die after decades you get
  on a bike and after a bit be back in form

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Effort Expended Learning
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Biology of Habits

• After you learn a habit or understand a ritual
  your brain slips into automatic
• You no longer pay attention
• Thats what happens when you watch a TV program
  or a pledge break
• Automaticity dampens attention
• Neuroscientist have more dire label

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Habituation

• A habit or ritual is different
• Habituation is the result of lengthy practice or
  repeated exposure
• Good side Automaticity. I can drive to work
  without sweating bullets.
• Bad side if you are an addict, your dose has to
  increase to get buzzed

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HabituationContinued

• A television program suffers from habituation
  where peoples attention wanes from repeated
  exposure
• And the same for a pledge break or a pledge drive
• So one not all reason the regular schedule
  does not pledge is habituation

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Learning from Antiques Roadshow

• A television format is another form of
  ritual/habit
• We have spent years learning the mores and have
  conditioned expectations about what is proper and
  expected Judy Woodruff does not kiss and make
  out Ray Suarez on the NewsHour set

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Antiques Roadshow Appraisal

1. Introduce object with some mystery
2. Bullet points on distinctive features
3. Provide historical context
4. Epiphanies of lives and antique
5. Whats it worth
6. Close the loop between owner, object and
   apprasier

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Why ARS is a Hit

• There is a variety
• Objects
• Casting owners and apprasiers
• Length
• Pacing is quick short two minute segments
• Cutting is quick and pink

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Show Colleene Fesko segment
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Segments Are Habits

• Antiques Roadshow has a basic format that it
  spins off variation
• The viewer has conditioned expectations and pays
  attention to that varies from expections
• Pledge Breaks are expectations that rely on
  traditional TV practices

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Ritual Pledge Break Elements

• Type of break
• Live or virtual?
• Challenge break?
• Sustainer
• Casting pledge talent
• Pacing and variety in the break mostly occurs
  through editing

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Building Blocks of Break

• Program (reference to it)
• Incentives (Premium, member card etc.)
• Mission of station
• Case statement (Basic needs statement)
• Member benefits
• Vote (your pledge is a)
• How to pledge
• Call to action

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Message Points PercentagesEight Station Averages
Two Selected Stations
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Pledging Antiques Roadshow

• AETN pledged a special edition and it was 9 in
  total dollars for the drive
• They used local talent, the usual premiums, and
  two breaks
• It uses a three talent rotation of 60-90 seconds
  per talent with each working up the premium
  ladder.

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Show AETN segment
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AETNs Approach

• The viewers hear their own voices and see their
  friends and neighbors
• The tone is civil southern civil
• The set is warm and red
• The appeals were mostly social contract the
  loaf of bread
• Local is local

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Using Tools of the Trade

• Kansas City successfully pledged Finding Your
  Roots
• Created a clever set of premiums that tapped into
  reservoirs of success elements viewer
  desires/craving and the magic of TV
• The program delivered a primed audience
  interested in genealogy

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Creating a Premium Craving

• Kansas City has one of the top 10 genealogy
  research libraries in the US
• The city has a robust library culture and the
  librarians are raised in the civic culture to
  create public value
• The premium was a 120 one day training session
  at the library (box lunch included)

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Premiums Exist in Context

• Premium price ladders focus attention on the mid
  range choices. In KCPT they had 3,200 premium,
  120 and basic membershipThe 3,200 premium makes
  120 look like a bargain.
• The breaks were mostly traditional with two major
  new elements all the librarians on the set
  explaining things and a video visit to the
  library to see the tools and how to use them

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Progressive Discourse

• AETN Blencko
• excerpt

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Creating Tension

• KCPT employed a version of progressive disclosure
  that is they did television and captured the
  viewers attention
• By mid-break viewers want to see that library and
  what you are going to do that day and finally
  you do see (play excerpt)

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Show KCPT segment
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Key Take Aways

• Habitation normally dooms efforts to pledge the
  regular schedule, since both the breaks and the
  program are on automatic pilot
• The station has to strive to localize their
  appeals (hear your voice) and appeal to local
  guilt mores to succeed
• And/or create compelling local pledge premiums.

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Pledging Local Acquisitions

• These series tend to be music, Britcoms, travel,
  docs and drama
• These programs attract genre specific audiences
  and have more varied appeals in terms of emotion
  and social relationship (drama)
• Why we pledge is based on emotion not reason and
  contemplation

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Most of Your Life is Unconscious

• Emotions are feelings and not words
• Music is emotional
• A Picture is worth a thousand words
• Speaking and thinking in words is slow,
  cumbersome and mostly boring

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Why Spock Would Never Pledge

• Generally you decide first, often impulsively
• Once you decide to pledge your mind goes looking
  for alibis
• The premium is a part of the problem, not the
  alibi
• Ergo our mission and case statements

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Pledging Drama is Easy?

• It is a local decision, and that has deep social
  roots
• The pledgers are local viewers hooked on the
  dramas relational emotional hooks
• Pledging is voting
• The embers of arousal need only be fanned

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Erupter Breaks Could Float the Titanic

• Even the most taciturn breaks can not stop the
  phones
• Even the lack of premiums, logical ladders of
  offers can quell phones
• Erupter breaks spoil pledge producers

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Maine excerpt
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Pledging Foyle in Seattle

• Again local talent, local references, your
  choice to view and pledge
• Bell shaped curve of pledge tallies
• Here there is wit and wisdom
• The middle level disappears

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Does it Make You Warm/Mellow?

• There should be some type of emotional
  connection meter
• If drama connects with viewers then it should
  pledge if the series has density and production
  values
• Same with music and some local docs
• Nostalgia is a personal but it is a powerful
  emotional buzz

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Creating Local Pledge Documentaries

• Designed to evoke nostalgia for times or people
  gone by
• They validate peoples lives
• Create a link between the station and its viewer
  community
• They have some unique properties to succeed

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Take Aways