Bravo! A Job Well Done For A Change!!

I frequently get accused of rarely paying compliments, and I suspect of late that’s true.  When you muse as much as I do about political news items that immediately cuts drastically into the potential of positivity at one’s disposal.  And since media is still ostensibly my true area of focus and expertise what has transpired of late between mergers, acquisitions and capitulations has also given me still less upbeat material to work with.

But there are still occasions when folks I know and respect turn up within the hundreds of articles I come across in any given day are being given a chance to be featured in a spotlight to show off their accomplishments and the roles they played in tangible successes–themselves increasingly rare in the complicated, fractionalized, polarized media landscape we are all dealing with.  Such was the case when this INSIDE THE RATINGS feature from THE WRAP’s Loree Seitz popped up yesterday:

The final streaming numbers for Peacock’s “The Traitors” are in, with Season 4 closing out another season of growth for the buzzy competition series — standing out amid a straggling unscripted landscape…Dave Kaplan, NBCUniversal’s EVP of content analytics and measurement, unpack(ed) the ratings growth… touching on the show’s impressive appointment viewing wave and how all those watch parties helped.

I shared a memorable evening enjoying gourmet cuisine and open bar with Kaplan and some of his Bravo cronies at one of the last Media Insights Conferences I was allowed to attend when I too was still believed to be an important enough of a potential client to be openly plied.  I had never known him before that night; he’s New York-based and at the time operated in a content bubble I had little to do with either professionally or personally.  But I did have a history–and not a great one–with one of the alleged architechts of Bravo’s ascent to cultural zeitgeist–at least that’s the version that was constantly being drummed into our heads by the woman who was recruited to Game Show Network as our alleged savior who accomplished little more on her accord other than accruing debt and making enemies with anyone who questioned her genius and/or she saw as a threat to her agenda.  Which placed yours truly at the top of her sh-t list.  When I shared the identity of said executive with Kaplan, his immediate reaction was “She had fewer good ideas than did our janitor”.  Well, that’s one way for someone to endear themselves to me.

Another is to be both knowledgeable and passionate about the good ideas that did make a difference, not to mention have the ability to compellingly and effectively tell their stories.  When Kaplan referenced the principles he helped develop for the network as the Five Pillars of Bravo, he had my attention.  He proceeded to describe the buckets he convinced his management to put everything from sales strategies to program development into–all of which was based on sound quantitative and qualitative research findings.  The more of those pillars that could be ascribed to a proposal, the better the chance it had of being greenlit.  And if one looks across the landscape of all of the myriad networks and businesses that NBCU has attempted since Kaplan joined the company 15 years ago it’s no surprise that the last one standing that’s still actually a part of the company is the one he helped create enough external and internal value to itself become a pillar of Peacock–and he’s got the receipts to prove it.  And it’s also no surprise that he was eventually elevated to head up what used to be called research for the entire outfit.

What he shared with Weitz was inspiring on several levels.  For one, it was truly quantifiable:

While most unscripted shows shed viewers as they enter their later seasons, Peacock’s “The Traitors” has consistently flipped the script, closing out its fourth installment with its biggest ratings to date…. with Season 4 skyrocketing 72% when compared to Season 3, according to first-party data from Peacock. All together, “The Traitors” tallied 6.4 billion minutes viewed on Peacock since the Season 4 launch, according to Nielsen viewing numbers from the Jan. 8 premiere through March 8.

“Traitors” stands out amid the broader unscripted landscape because of that increase, according to…Kaplan,. “You look at two or three dozen [unscripted] shows across the landscape, the vast majority of them are either stable or down in their early seasons after launching,” he said.

“The Traitors” is enjoying a similar bounce to Peacock’s “Love Island USA,” which saw ratings growth in its seventh season after breaking out in its sixth, which Kaplan noted reflects both an influx of Peacock subscribers as well as increased engagement from existing subscribers with each new season. In fact, 43% of viewers for “The Traitors” Season 4 were first-time viewers of any “Traitors” title. “We’re galvanizing our existing base, but we’re also growing it from new users, meaning people that are coming in and signing up for Peacock for the first time to watch these shows,” Kaplan said.

For another, the fact that Kaplan was allowed to be front and center with mainstream media sharing these datecdotes is a feather in the cap to the position itself, especially in an era where far fewer publications pay any attention to any data specifics at all and when those scant few stories are often accredited to creative, sales and/or marketing executives who pirate those sorts of bullets to advance their own perceptions of genius.  For example, far fewer people know the name Julie Piepenkotter, the seasoned executive who replaced me at FX just as John Landgraf was being declared the Mayor of Hollywood by taking the mantle of deciding what actually should qualify as a hit scripted series.  It’s Piepenkotter and her team that have done his bidding–oft-times at the expense of more exhaustive research opportunities such as the ones Kaplan described above.  She’s rarely quoted anywhere–not that she’s complaining, as she now is well on her way to doubling my tenure and far more exponentially earning multiples of my income.  But to be sure her team works as hard and diligently as Kaplan and his.

There was a time not all that long ago where folks like them and their peers were far more frequent public resources to reporters.  I was one of those more go-to sources; Google me if you need proof.  You might have to scroll through several pages and perhaps widen your search since so many of those stories are now outdated–but trust me, they’re out there.    It’s therefore all the more encouraging to see Kaplan getting his due without the need to do much all that much heavy lifting.

And when given the chance by Seitz to expound further on what he cites for THE TRAITORS’ growth unlike most with a background in ad sales spiel he proceeded to draw from meaningful qualitative insights: