Visiontv has been taking stock and decided it needs a new outlook. While the Toronto-based faith and spirituality specialty is still not-for-profit, it has switched its focus to becoming a competitive broadcaster in the minds of media planners and buyers.
To that end, the net is putting an aggressive push on sales. It outsources its ad sales to Airtime Sales, of Toronto, but has now hired a consultant to work on sales and has more control over the function.
It is also taking a different approach to programming to try to bring in the punters, moving away from a Vision that’s good for you like broccoli to recognize that faith and spirit programming is mainstream, as evidenced by successful prime-time series on mainstream nets such as Joan of Arcadia and the new mini Revelations.
Vision is using this insight to shoot for a broad popular appeal. Its core audience has traditionally been women 45+, says Susan Mandryk, VP marketing and communications, but its fastest-growing audience is women 18-49. According to BBM Fall 2004, the net’s viewers are avid readers, including of newspapers, who have an active lifestyle, like to garden and enter lotteries and are the principal shoppers in the home.
Current advertisers include some whose target may not be seen as congruent with the traditional Vision demo, such as Pepsico’s Frito-Lay and Tropicana Twister and P&G’s Herbal Essence shampoo. Says COO Mark Prasuhn: ‘We’re starting to see some of the advertisers for youth-oriented products because moms are watching.’
Numbers have been increasing over the past few years. Prime is up 25% over last year; in fact Vision has tripled its market share in prime since three years ago. Top draws tend to be movies which generally pull 125,000 to 150,000 viewers (although the St. Patrick’s Day broadcast of The Quiet Man did 229,000), but family shows, like the increasingly popular Aussie import McLeod’s Daughters, also do well, says Mandryk.
The channel is trying to continue that trend with a new stream of lifestyle programming designed to appeal to a mainstream audience. Divine Restorations (Mondays, beginning May 2) is a joint venture with TV1 in the U.S. and follows 48-hour fix-ups of African-American and African-Canadian churches.
Prenup Challenge, tentatively scheduled for July, takes three engaged couples to Dominica where marriage experts put them through a series of challenges to determine if they have what it takes to make a lasting marriage.
Also planned: Shrines and Homemade Holy Places puts a spin on the Weird Homes concept and looks at people who have created wild and wacky shrines in their backyards and living rooms; while Gospel Challenge will bring a spiritual bent to the American Idol idea (see MIC Sept. 30/04.)
Vision is launching a mainstream advertising and PR push in support of the lifestyle programs, mostly in newspaper and TV Guide with the Divine Restoration campaign breaking May 2 to coincide with the show’s premiere.
