Cable networks try split screens to keep viewers

NEW YORK -- Commercial breaks used to be just that -- interruptions in programming to allow advertisers to pitch their products so networks could earn money to pay their bills. But in a day when the remote control is ubiquitous, zapping from station to station -- often during the commercial breaks -- is in vogue. Several cable networks, however, may have found a way to make viewers stay put.

Those networks, most of which focus on financial news, continue to run programming during some commercials. The obvious hitch is that advertisers have to compete for the couch potato's attention.

On CNBC, which is owned by General Electric, the ticker that crawls along the bottom of the screen, displaying data on stock prices and trading volume, never stops while the markets are open -- not even during the commercial breaks. The few local ads that are sold do run without the ticker.

Bloomberg Television, a cable news service, has been taking a more audacious approach since 1994, framing commercials in one of four windowpanes while the remaining panes present news.

"The remote control is the worst thing that ever happened to advertisers," said Michael Bloomberg, founder and chief executive of the parent company, Bloomberg LP in New York.

"I'd rather my audience keep one eyeball on the TV than go change the channel or the diaper," he added.

But advertisers, accustomed to having commercial time to themselves, may be wary of paying to share screen space. A 30-second ad costs roughly $3,000 during the day on CNBC and $750 on Bloomberg Television, which is newer and has fewer viewers.

"I don't know what they are watching, my stuff or the ticker," said Andrew Donchin, national broadcast director for Carat MBS, a media services agency in New York that is part of the Carat North America unit of Aegis Group. "It competes for your attention."

Nevertheless, he has bought time on CNBC for a client, Berger mutual funds, because he feels it is an appropriate medium for the spots, although the ad may become "more of a radio commercial than a television commercial," Donchin said.

"Maybe they are only listening," he added.

Therein lies the key question for advertisers and agencies.

Does the benefit of having viewers stay tuned as they watch the latest stock quotes outweigh the disadvantage of not being forced to watch a sales pitch?

The concept of running programming and spots simultaneously is not new. Prevue Networks, which provides the scrolling television listings on cable TV, split its screen in two in February 1988 to accommodate advertising without having to break away for commercials.

"It took a long while to get advertisers to get comfortable with the idea of sharing space," said Craig Dahlquist, advertising client services director of Prevue Networks, a unit of United Video Satellite Group of Tulsa. "But they recognized that when we take a break, so do viewers."

CNBC also realized that was the case after it began broadcasting, in April 1989.

"Our decision to keep the ticker running was based on viewer feedback," said George Jamison, a vice president for CNBC, which is based in Fort Lee, N.J.

"People wanted regular access to the ticker, and we had the ticker going continuously by the end of the year."

Why have other cable networks with informational tickers not followed suit?

"We bounced the idea around for ESPNEWS," said Eric Handler, a spokesman for the ESPN unit of Walt Disney in New York, referring to a new sports news channel. "But at this point, we have no plans to do anything like that."

Handler would not elaborate on ESPN's decision. But industry experts say that some advertisers are reluctant to present their commercials on divided screens, particularly if the spots are visually elaborate or striking.

"With all the clutter that's already out there, this just looks like more," Donchin of Carat said.

"And we're the ones who are supposed to be cutting through all the clutter."

Another agency executive said he was less concerned about that.

"You understand what the drill is," said Larry Blasius, national broadcast director at TN Media, a unit of True North Communications in New York, "and you either go with it or you don't."

Now that commercials can run alongside programming, what may be next?

"One day," Bloomberg predicted, "Tom Brokaw will be sitting at his desk with a Coke."

Copyright 1997
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