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October 30, 2007
 
HRTS News and Features
Network Chiefs Summit 2007
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Profile: Reginald Hudlin
Profile: Eric Steinberg
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Profile: Eric Steinberg
HRTS Member-SVP, Research, CBS

A member profile by Chris Davison, davison@intellcap.com
Eric Steinberg is Senior Vice President, Research at CBS. Eric has worked in television for many years and he and his team perform research and analyses for everything from individual pilots to broad Industry trends. I recently had a chance to interview Eric to discuss psychology, Las Vegas, and keeping up with the Nielsens.

Q: Can you tell us about your background? what made you want to work in entertainment?
-I got a psychology degree from the University of Rochester and I wanted to find an application for my degree in a business related field. Market research seemed a logical place to start. After working at a research firm in NY, a college friend recommended I go for a job in the research department at Petry Television, a firm that sells local stations’ spots to national advertisers. I found it exciting to be part of an industry that was at the center of so many people’s daily experience, and it didn’t hurt that the occasional celebrity would come through the place.  It was there that I was first exposed to the Nielsen ratings, but I came to think of them as a daily national psycho-social experiment.  I liked learning how many and what kind of people were watching which shows and how we could use that information to inform competitive strategy. Plus, I had always been an avid viewer, and I had thought it would be fun to be a network television executive. I never considered pursuing it because I always thought one had to be in production first, but once I learned otherwise, I was hooked.

Q: What sort of data and analyses do you produce for CBS?
-My staff and I do all of the program and promo testing for the Entertainment division. This includes, but is not limited to, pilot testing, current series testing and as well as fielding surveys about the shows and general industry trends. We also provide analysis of the Nielsen ratings for all of the west coast executives.

Q: How are research methods different today than in the past?
-Technology has had a great influence.  It wasn’t that long ago that most survey research was conducted over the phone. Many surveys are still done that way, but the internet allows us to push surveys to more people for much lower cost. The turnaround is much faster--we can get hundreds of responses in one night!  Also, program testing was typically done either in a theater, by sending video tapes to respondents, or by piping the show through an unused cable channel in respondents’ homes.  The internet now allows for testing to take place in people’s homes for a much lower cost. In addition, at CBS, we have our own facility in Las Vegas where we can screen shows to tourists from all over the country.  Thanks to the internet, we can see data from that location as the respondents complete the surveys. We can also stream focus groups from the facility so we don’t need to travel to watch them.

Q: What is your #1 new show and what does the audience like best about it?
-The Big Bang Theory is off to a terrific start, and with good reason.  The audience really responds to the chemistry between the characters and viewers see them as different from others on television. They like that the dialogue is smartly written and that the humor is clever. Above all, the show is perceived as funnier than others they watch.

Q: What sorts of new media testing do you conduct?
-The internet properties are handled by a research unit within our interactive division. They use our Las Vegas facility to do research on how consumers use our websites. We work closely with them to monitor usage of our sites, especially regarding streaming of our content. Understanding the relationship between content on the web and how it affects performance on the network is an important issue. We’ve also done at least one project involving cell phone content for our mobile group.

Q: What are some ways that research will improve in the coming years?
-I think technology will continue to help us. From the program testing perspective, we are looking at tools that measure people’s physical responses to programs. The hope is that this allows us to get past the social biases respondents can bring to a product or an event within a show. There are also some interesting psychological techniques that we are investigating. Finally, computing power will also help us mine data in new ways, hopefully bringing a fresh perspective to data that we already collect.  On the audience measurement side, we are already seeing the deployment of “personal people meters” that respondents can carry around like pagers. This moves measurement from being solely in the household to wherever viewing takes place. This technology is also being inserted into cell phones—a clever way to increase the likelihood that people will carry the meters with them.

Q: Any thoughts on the HRTS during its 60th Anniversary year?
-In addition to being a part of this industry, I love being a part of one of its great institutions.  I go to the luncheons as often as I can, partly for the opportunity to reconnect with the friends I’ve made over the years. But there is always some substance to go with the socializing, as my co-workers and I often debate the views expressed by that day’s speakers on the way back to the office. We work in an exciting industry with extremely talented people and I think it is special that we have an organization that encourages our community to gather.

 
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