If you take a quick glance at TVNewser, and do some reading between the lines, it’s easy to see how strong are the rivalries in television news. Hell, last night’s Daily Show is evidence enough of that fact. Today, AdAge reports that ABC has bought local cable space in the top 10 markets during morning cable news shows like CNN’s American Morning.
Don’t you just love it? Now according to the article, ABC stuck to cablers because the network affiliates would never allow Good Morning America ads to run over the Today Show. And apparently the local market prevents the national boys from stepping in.
CNBC spokesman Brian Steele summed it up best, “As I am sure you know, we don’t sell ads placed locally. Given that we have the most affluent and educated audience on TV and we are essentially DVR-proof, strategically it obviously makes sense that they would want buy time on CNBC.”
According to TVNewser editor Chris Ariens, Steele’s statement is boiler plate. And indeed, CNBC is a strong provider with a smarty-pants-McGradyish audience. But Steele’s remark is particularly funny considering the lashing CNBC got last night. When we read that quote we thought, “Oh, you have the most affluent audience that you’ve just spent the last year or so duping into believing that everything is AOK.
Anyway, posturing aside, ABC wants to pull some folks to GMA and that’s just fine. But we’re not sure this is a big deal — after all, competing car dealerships park next to one another all the time — it just makes things easier. We’re not convinced that dropping an ad in the middle of American Morning will help much — changing the channel isn’t that hard. If we’re bored with a show, we change the channel anyway — and if we’re looking for light morning banter, the click stops on Today. Love that Al Roker.
More: “Does That Make Any Damn Sense?”