If Quebec’s French-language television networks were cars, what kind of cars would they be?
Easy, says Suzanne Thibeault, vice-president, media for Saint-Jacques Vallée Young & Rubicam: tva would be a family minivan, Société Radio-Canada (src) a luxury sedan, and Télévision Quatre Saisons (tqs) a hot-rod sports car.
Don’t let fancy styling fool you, however. In the race for Quebec viewers, it’s the minivan and the sedan that traditionally jockey for first place, while the hot rod pulls up the rear. And this year looks to be no exception to the rule.
At mid-season, there’s no clear winner, Thibeault says. While src has been strong in prime time, tva looks good during the day.
And tqs? Well, with its increasing emphasis on provocative programming (and its dubbed versions of u.s. shows such as King of the Hill and Cops), Quebec’s perennial number three seems to be bidding to become the French Fox Network.
The new show Blackout, for example, clearly follows in the Jerry Springer tradition of shock television. But while it may enjoy good ratings, Thibeault says, its audience isn’t necessarily the most coveted by marketers. In fact, her agency’s clients have been known to specify tqs shows on which they absolutely do not want their advertising to appear.
With only one show ranked in the top 50, tqs cannot be considered a great ratings success, says Pierre Delagrave, executive national vice-president of media for Cossette Communication-Marketing. Still, he argues, the network does deserve credit for building a strong brand – an approach that may well pay off in the long-term.
‘Their strategy is to create a lot of noise in the market,’ says Delagrave, citing examples such as Blackout and the network’s regular Saturday night erotic film. ‘They will do things other networks won’t do.’
‘They want to grow,’ agrees Sylvie Sauvageau, buying director for Carat Stratégem. The network’s share of the total viewing audience, which typically hovers below 10%, has increased to 12% this season, she notes. While that doesn’t make tqs a major threat to the dominant players, it does force them to keep an eye on the rearview mirror.
Mostly, though, they’re keeping an eye on each other. src and tva are – predictably enough – running neck and neck this season, with the top 30 shows basically split down the middle between them.
src’s fall schedule included some of the province’s highest-performing programs ever – among them La Petite Vie, Un Gars, Une Fille and 4 et Demi. The new drama series Réseaux, however, did not perform as well as expected – an ironic turn of events, since the show concerned a battle between two major television networks.
Over at tva, there were few surprises. Of its 10 new shows, says Nancy Tombs, media buyer at Carat Stratégem, only one proved a disappointment: the drama Ces Enfants D’Ailleurs II. Despite predictions that it would hit the top five in prime time, the show ended up ranking thirteenth.
Quebec’s star system can make or break a show, Delagrave says. That’s why the numbers coming out of the annual sweeps have to be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism. src, for example, scored a huge audience this past fall for a music awards broadcast featuring Celine Dion. But one cannot make the decision to buy a network on that kind of basis, he says.
News programming is another fierce battleground in Quebec, Delagrave notes. Here, tva arguably holds the lead, since it has a stronger brand, and takes the increasingly popular infotainment approach to news. src, however, delivers a more upscale audience. And its performance will undoubtedly improve, now that it has lured respected anchor Stéphane Bureau away from tva.
As the 1998-99 season swings into its second half, all eyes are on the upcoming battle of the dramatic series. src will be airing the third and final season of its hugely popular Mafia saga, Omerta, while tva has Juliette Pomerleau, a new series based on a best-selling novel of the same name.
Who’s got the edge? Too close to call, Sauvageau says. ‘They are both really quite different.’
Also in this report:
– Low-concept shows spell high ratings: Sitcoms about a gay/straight couple, a blue-collar single mom and a group of long-haired teens have climbed to the top of the fall TV heap p.B3
– A few successes, lots of bombs: Five media experts offer their takes on the current season p.B6
– It’s all in the brand for specialty services p.B14
