WTMJ Hard Up for Cash? Infomercial Bumps Prime Time Programming

[SRW1000]

Tonight's episode of Law and Order:  Criminal Intent has been interrupted to show a Carol Burnett infomercial.  

The guide on their own website shows Law and Order.

Very strange times,

Scott

[SRW1000]

And at 7:30, it's Hip Hop Abs!

[Jack 1000]

I wanna see Mick and Mimi with The Magic Bullet!!!!  My favorite informercial!

Don't forget the special 2 hour weather report "All About Snow" at 10!!! hahahaha.

Jack

[vegasvic]

It's just not an infomercial without "Set it and forget it".

[WITI6fan]

It's just not an infomercial without "Set it and forget it".

It's not an infomercial without Billy Mays!

[troyriley]

It's not an infomercial without Billy Mays!

My prediction: Vince the Shamwow guy will take over as the infomercial king, replacing Billy Mays. "Are you following me, camera guy?"

[LoadStar]

I noticed the sports presentation immediately preceding the gymnastics competition earlier today was likewise preempted for an infomercial.

I somehow doubt TMJ is that hard up for money. It is possible that they had a bad backlog of infomercial inventory for some reason (i.e. they had a technical glitch, a news special report, or possibly a programming schedule change that happened after the ads were sold... something that forced them to preempt a large number of infomercials) that they had to "make good" on.

Someone could just email or call the station and ask... I'm sure they'd probably be OK with explaining it.

[morning traffic]

I noticed the sports presentation immediately preceding the gymnastics competition earlier today was likewise preempted for an infomercial.

I somehow doubt TMJ is that hard up for money. It is possible that they had a bad backlog of infomercial inventory for some reason (i.e. they had a technical glitch, a news special report, or possibly a programming schedule change that happened after the ads were sold... something that forced them to preempt a large number of infomercials) that they had to "make good" on.

Someone could just email or call the station and ask... I'm sure they'd probably be OK with explaining it.

That sounds about right... plus I'm not sure what else was on the other channels tonight, but if it was something that would own the ratings for that hour and I needed to burn through some infomercials, I'd do the same thing.

[gparris]

-Another reason to aim your antenna towards Chicago's NBC network O&O channel 5, if you can do it...Milwaukee's local channels just suck big time and here is another reason, IMO.:bang:

[nick3092]

My prediction: Vince the Shamwow guy will take over as the infomercial king, replacing Billy Mays. "Are you following me, camera guy?"

Maybe you're right.  I did see a commercial with Vince hawking some other product, but I forget what.

[WITI6fan]

Maybe you're right.  I did see a commercial with Vince hawking some other product, but I forget what.

The SlapChop?

[SRW1000]

I somehow doubt TMJ is that hard up for money. It is possible that they had a bad backlog of infomercial inventory for some reason (i.e. they had a technical glitch, a news special report, or possibly a programming schedule change that happened after the ads were sold... something that forced them to preempt a large number of infomercials) that they had to "make good" on.

That doesn't sound likely.  Even if they had some kind of backlog for infomercials, it seems like they could command some kind of major price increase to interrupt network programming, and run them during prime time.  Sure, Saturday night viewership is low, but it is still quite unusual to see this kind of thing.

Almost all of today's daytime programming consists of infomercials.

It would seem that this is more closely related to their current economic woes rather than any kind of backlog.  From last week's Business Journal:

Brenner referenced a letter to employees last week from Journal Communications Inc. chairman and CEO Steve Smith about steps the parent company is taking to reduce costs across all the company's businesses. In addition to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Journal Communications operates radio and television stations, publishes shopper publications and runs a printing business. . . .

Journal Communications' radio station group cut its work force 11.7 percent in 2008 and the television station group reduced employment 12.1 percent, president Doug Kiel told stock analysts.

The company's fourth-quarter broadcast revenue was down 6.4 percent and publishing, which includes the Journal Sentinel, was down 10.4 percent.

Certianily, the biggest concern is their print operation, but the pain is also being felt by the broadcast group.

From the Television Broadcast website:

The 12 TV stations owned by Journal Communications generated revenues of $33.4 million for 4Q08, down 5.5 percent from 4Q07's $35.3 million. The stations posted an operating loss of $51.9 million, reflecting a $56.9 million write-down on the value of the licenses. Excluding the charge, Journal said operating income would have been $5 million--flat compared to last year. Operating expense for the stations was cut by 6.5 percent from 4Q07.

Political and issue advertising revenue was $6.1 million in 4Q08 compared to $400,000 the year before.

For the full year ending Dec. 31, 2008, the TV stations generated $130.6 million in revenue, down 2.6 percent from the $134.1 million chalked up in 2007. Political revenue was $11.6 million compared to $1.3 million in '07. Revenue from Olympics advertising was $2.3 million.

The television division posted a full-year operating loss of $60.8 million included a $77.9 million write-down on the licenses, and a $100,000 impairment charge for layoffs. Without the charges, operating income fell 15.8 percent to $17.3 million compared to $20.5 million in 2007.

The Olympics and political ad seasons have ended.  Desperate times call for desperate measures?

Scott

[RonH]

They did this again today... I tried to tune into some HD "action sports" (snowboarding I think) according to the guide but it was an infomercial for some music video.

[mrschimpf]

The same thing has been happening on WGBA and WACY up in Green Bay since the beginning of the year, but it's been even more apparent on those stations. Journal dumped Live at Noon onto WACY (along with a midnight rebroadcast of GBA's Live at 10) and is now programming an hour of infomercials on WGBA before Days of Our Lives. The 2pm hour, which usually contains Better, that show is sometimes on, sometimes not, depending on the whim of the programmers/brokers to get an infomercial on. With Tyra at 3pm moving over to WIWB because of the CW's programming deal with her next year, I could see that WGBA would even program that hour with infomercials before long. Wherever they don't have a syndicated show they bought a couple years ago and have to air it, or between 3-7, you'll now see paid programming instead.

I think that WGBA was a troubled operation to begin with and Aries put just enough shine on the station to get Journal to buy it; now they know exactly why it's had so many problems. The VHF loyalties to the 1950's, Aries not trying to get aggresive for programming after getting NBC, and a news operation which mixes between tabloid in a market where there's not much tabloid going on and hyping weather to an extreme. Journal's move to position the station haven't worked at all, and that might be distracting them from keeping TMJ the market leader here.

At least they quickly realized one thing; rebroadcasting TMJ4 Daybreak in Green Bay didn't work because nobody north of Fond du Lac cares about Milwaukee news. They're back to a rolling weather block based locally for those two hours.

[troyriley]

Maybe you're right.  I did see a commercial with Vince hawking some other product, but I forget what.

That would probably be Slap Chop. He demonstrates all the products you can chop with this device. Some of his best quotes in this commercial:

"Stop having a boring tuna, stop having a boring life."
"You're going to love my nuts."

Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUbWjIKxrrs