I was interviewed in an NPR story about Fox's "Remote Free TV" experiment last week, and thought we wouldn't know whether Fox would continue the experiment until their upfront meetings in May. We understood that the metrics for consumer behavior had been good (less ad skipping, better recall, better engagement), but that Fox had not been able to charge the premium necessary to make up for the reduction in ad time during each show. MediaPost is reporting today that Fox may already have decided to abandon the effort.
According to a production executive close to the network, Fox will probably be ending the practice. "Financially, it wasn't viable," says the executive. "It was a noble experiment; viewers enjoyed it." A Fox spokeswoman had no comment.
Under the "remote free TV" banner, which Fox announced during last year's upfront event in New York City, "Fringe" and "Dollhouse" have witnessed a 50% cut in national TV advertising inventory--from 10 minutes per hour to five minutes. The effort was undertaken to keep viewers on Fox rather than switching to other channels.[...]
Last fall, Fox released results showing that advertisers that have participated in Fox's efforts for "Fringe" did see higher recall for their ads. Before each commercial break, Fox alerted viewers that upcoming commercial breaks had been shortened. Typically, Fox has been running just two 30-second commercials per commercial break.
But despite positive results from advertisers that participated in the effort, Fox got bogged down in dealing with a smaller pool of TV marketers that will pay a premium to be in a prime-time show with fewer commercials. Plus, Fox incurred some additional costs in producing extra content for the two-hour drama--about five minutes or so.
The cost per thousand viewers (CPMs) are some 25% to 30% higher for two shows compared with shows of similar appeal, according to one media executive. Initially, Fox was asking for a 50% premium.
Some of the advertisers on "Fringe" included Sony Pictures, Warner Brothers, Universal Pictures, American Express, Apple Computer, Verizon Wireless and Wal-Mart. Reports suggested that Fox was inking deals at $300,000 and more for a 30-second commercial in "Fringe."
via MediaPost
So how will this change affect Dollhouse?
Clutz, one thing touted in Dollhouse’s favor is its relative C3 performance is better. Those improvements are due entirely to “Remote Free”. Minus that, I don’t think it’s C3 (commercial viewing ratings) would continue to be relatively better than any other show that’s getting the kind of ratings it gets.
Thanks, Mr. Seidman! I figured the C3 ratings would be negatively impacted by this move. I can see where Dollhouse could be in jeopardy as the C3 ratings, without “remote-free” concept, may not boost the show enough to maintain its ad prices, and by extension, its profitability?
As for Fringe, I still reserve judgement until we see if anyone bothers to come back after 8-week hiatus. The hiatus factor might be more telling than the “remote-free” experiment for Fringe
Theres something i do not quite understand. Advertisers one of the main sources for income for a network right? So why do Remote Free in the first place?
Ant, the idea that reducing the number of ads would increase their value (because of less skipping, better message retention, etc). The information we’ve seen indicates that it accomplished that, but that advertisers wouldn’t pay enough *extra* per ad to make up for the lost ads.
I’d like to see Fox keep Remote Free in some form next year purely because I quite like it.
I know Nick has talked a lot about pairing it up with more focused sponsorship deals and that seems like its one possibility as does a stronger focus on product placement during the Remote Free shows. Generally speaking though I think Fox’s best route forward (at least over the short term) is to link Remote Free with event TV, which is something I believe Reilly talked about in a recent interview. I like the idea of season premieres and/or finales being Remote Free and it has the advantage of being able to pitch it to advertisers as a one-off special. The same can be said for stunt shows – if you’ve got a big episode of House pitching that as Remote Free probably has a lot more legs in terms of jacking up the price than an entire season of House as Remote Free.
Right now I think there’s a lot of potential within Remote Free but that Fox’s execution of it has been somewhat flawed. I’m also not convinced that launching it with two brand new sci-fi shows was the best route to take even if those shows are from the creators of Lost and Buffy respectively. Would Remote Free be in a stronger position right now if they’d launched it with known quantities like House, Bones or Idol? I can understand completely why they didn’t but it’s a hypothetical to look at.
On the Dollhouse note I’m not sure the fate of Remote Free factors into the decision to bring it back unless the numbers stay where they are now, if it doesn’t trend back up over the second half of its run then the only way it would come back is on the strength of the Remote Free C3’s but most people’s argument seems to be that for Dollhouse to come back next year it has to trend back up over the rest of the run. If it’s closing back in on the 2.0 from the premiere come the season finale then I think Fox can justify bringing it back with or without Remote Free next year.
If Fringe gets renewed, I think this could have a negative impact on Fringe creatively. The writers are used to writing 50min stories, and now they’d have to adjust to writing 42-44min stories.
Hmmm… who here said the rates were 25% to 30% bumps… oh the rumor mongerer.
On another note, I think it will survive on FRINGE, and be ditched on DOLLHOUSE. JJ likes it. Experiment some with it on FRINGE adding different ways to make up the lost income. It needs to be a 40% premium to break even, and 50% to be “better,” than normal TV.
The real fact is it works, but advertisers are cheap.
Well…if they remove it, it will be for next season largely because Dollhouse and Finge already have shot and finished the extra-long episodes.
I Don’t know anything about Dollhouse but I know that Fringe keeps you on the edge of your seat. The 90 second ad thing is great