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That strategy, coupled with pioneering mini-series like the two Roots and QB VII, has enabled the network to add 22 new stations since 1976, seducing nine from NBC and twelve from CBS. In some cities it picked up stations where it had had none before; in others it traded up, replacing a weaker station with a stronger one. Take away its affiliates and a network is nothing, and CBS and NBC are being slowly eaten away, an uncomfortable feeling, by all accounts. "In the past year, ABC has picked up one new affiliate a month," says Gene DeWitt, a vice president of BBDO, a leading ad agency. "Both CBS and NBC are terrified of losing their strongest stations." NBC's Minneapolis station, KSTP, is jumping to ABC this week, and several other NBC and CBS affiliates are thinking of doing the same. "The greatest pressure I feel now is to keep our affiliate lineup," acknowledges Fred Silverman. "One of my major objectives is to minimize any more affiliate changes."
There is no end to paradoxes in the TV business; yet perhaps the biggest is this: the sweeps are absolutely vital and absolutely meaningless. If each network puts its best foot forward only during the sweeps, then those months are no longer typical. Anyone who reads TV Guide knows that once the February specials are over, the regular series will return, and that March will bring a lot of mud.
If a network was weak in January, it will probably be just as weak in March, no matter how much it spent on stunts in between. The networks know that, the stations know that, and, most important, the advertisers do too. Last month, for instance, just as sweeps fever was taking hold, Joel Segal, a vice president of the Ted Bates ad agency, virtually ordered his media buyers to make cool evaluations in February. "The sweeps weeks lead to distorted audience data in this important month for local ratings," he warned them. "The message is clearly that in estimating individual station ratings, let the spot buyer beware."
If everybody hates the sweeps, why do they exist? The answer, like everything else in television, is punctuated by dollar signs. The sweeps are estimated to cost $25 million a year, and most of the local stations, which pay the brunt of this, think it is plenty. They are unwilling to spend more to spread the sweeps out to eight or even twelve months of the year, as the networks would like. If longer surveys are to be taken, the stations maintain, the advertisers should pick up the tab.
If it all sounds absurd, it is. Given the revenues of the industry, the cost of extending the sweeps to 52 weeks is so small as to be almost unnoticeable. By NBC's account, the additional expenses would be something like $15 million, about what each network spent for specials in February alone. A shorter extension, which CBS would settle for, would naturally cost even less. For the networks the gain—being able to schedule in a rational and orderly manner—would far outweigh the expense. Eventually the networks will probably pay part of the cost of local, as well as national, ratings. In fact, both CBS and NBC, which suffer most from the sweeps, have already started investigating the possibility of helping their affiliates pay for their ratings. If they do, ABC might also follow suit.