Pierre Arthur is vice-president and media director and France Daoust is supervisor, buying unit, at Montreal-based ad agency bcp.
The new French tv season will continue to offer advertisers good value with good programming.
Indeed, the early analysis of the new schedules reveals that many of the top performing shows are returning and there are, in fact, few new shows.
This should make for a very stable buying context for agencies and advertisers.
Television in Quebec has always been unique when compared with tv in English Canada or the u.s.
French tv has a share of more than 85% of the viewing time of French Quebec across most demographic groups, and that share has remained stable over the past five years.
The three major networks, Societe Radio-Canada, tva and Television Quatre Saisons, account for about 75% of the viewing time of Quebec consumers.
Furthermore, Quebecers continue to watch more tv than the average Canadian.
Many reasons account for this trend, which is best explained by looking at the list of the top 12 shows, based on Nielsen Metres, adults 18+, for the past season:
Program Adults 18+ (000s)
1. Blanche 1,926
2. Scoop III 1,713
3. Metrostar 1,651
4. Rene Levesque 1,437
5. Gala de L’ ADISQ 1,408
6. Cormoran 1,325
7. St-Vincent 1,317
8. Chambres en Ville 1,261
9. Grand proces 1,134
10. A nous deux 1,133
11. La petite Vie 1,120
12. Sous un ciel Variable 1,102
As one can see, most of these shows are locally produced and have been able to build their success by combining the two strengths of Quebec tv:
1) A powerful and complete star system, unique to Quebec and well supported by lots of pizzazz.
Marina Orsini, Roy Dupuis, Macha Grenon and so many more have become Quebec superstars of the entertainment world, and Quebecers can identify with them, while English Canada does not benefit from such a powerful star system.
2) A storyline that is a reflection of the views, values and aspirations of Quebecers.
Some of these shows are historical dramas, others are contemporary, while some are pure teleroman, a form unique to Quebec tv, somewhat related to the sitcom and soap genre.
Not much is new
The biggest news for the next season is, in fact, that there is little news to report.
This is good news for advertisers and agencies who should better be able to forecast and estimate the media delivery of the buys that we will make, reducing the risk and uncertainty, and allowing the advertising community to better respond to the concerns of advertisers.
The most important programming change is the transfer of the mid-week Hockey ‘Les Canadiens’ to tqs from tva.
Gain audience
This move will help tqs gain audience, with minimum impact for the other broadcasters.
Given the few changes and the limited number of new shows in the best broadcast positions, we consider that the list of top 10 shows will be essentially the same as it was last season, with the exception of high profile miniseries such as Blanche, which are obviously not returning.
Of the regularly scheduled shows, the following (not necessarily in order) are reasonable bets to make the hit parade:
Regular shows:
A nous deux (src)
Sous un ciel Variable (src)
Chambres en Ville (tva)
Match de la Vie (tva)
La petite Vie (src)
Specials and mini-series:
Scoop IV (src)
Grand proces (tva)
Fort Boyard (tva)
Le sorcier (tva)
La misericorde (tqs)
Metrostar (tva)
Gala de L’ADISQ (src)
Many of these specials are, in fact, the continuation of series that ran in 1993-94. This is the case for Scoop IV, the last series of 13 episodes.
Grand proces, about famous trials, will be back with a number of new trials, and it will do well.
The game show Fort Boyard is back with new shows. This program really captivated the audience and we expect the new episodes will do even better now that the concept is better known and understood.
Le sorcier is the continuation of the miniseries Au nom du pere that ran on tva 18 months ago. Le sorcier should do as well, and be the first- or second-ranked show of the year.
Finally, La misericorde is the first attempt by tqs to break into the world of the miniseries.
Looks promising
This one looks promising because of the presence of such stars as Marina Orsini (Emilie), because of the writing team of Tremblay/Larouche (Scoop), and because it is directed by Jean Beaudin, who has a number of tv and movie hits to his credit.
But programming is not the only news for Quebec tv.
Let me cover briefly some other developments worth mentioning. Videoway and the ubi market launch are obviously big, big news, as Videotron prepares the way for a truly universal, bi-directional and interactive system, whose pilot phase begins in Chicoutimi, Que.
This will have consequences for the development of interactive programming, of which there is more and more right now, but also for interactive applications for advertising.
While the word ‘interactive’ has been abused and misused recently, we consider that we are on the leading edge of the world of new media with Videoway and ubi.
Last week, the federal broadcast regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission made its announcement regarding new licences in French.
Little impact yet
We do not believe these new services will have a significant impact on the viewing of commercial tv, at least for the next season.
The last comments we will make relate to the issue of qualitative data.
For years, media planners and buyers have complained about the lack of qualitative data to evaluate specific programs.
It should today be noted that both major broadcasters, tva and src, now offer some form of product consumption data by program.
Compusearch system
The tva system is based on a study by Goldfarb Consultants, while Radio-Canada uses the Compusearch system.
We consider that the efforts of these broadcasters demonstrate their commitment to providing agencies and advertisers with more than just tonnage data and that we should take advantage of this new data to make our buys not just more efficient, but also more effective.
