In full transparency, will they rebrand as the McScalder in a tip of the hat to the scalded pork stomach?

Did anyone really think they were getting that much high quality pork rib meat at that price point?

What a horrific quagmire. Transparency? This report guarantees that the "transparency" that's been erroneously bandied about for decades will never be reality. And the people just get more and more stupid delivering dopamine hits to their brains while consuming content that, for the most part, is nowhere near factually based, but supports what their "believing brains" have already sussed out through falsehoods, but that divisiveness DEMANDS be reinforced so more yelling can occur. 

Josh, the truth is that 18-49/25-54 GRPs were used as a way for sellers to guarantee total schedule audience tonnage --not show by show delivery--- and, at the time they represented 50-60% of the viewer "impressions". Now they constitute a distinct minority--20-25%. But these were never targeting metrics--though it seems that many of the participants didn't realize that.

What's reaslly interestng is that the retention  of these outmoded "buyer graphics" today gives the buyers a huge edge over the sellers. By guaranteeing audience tonnage for only a fifth of their viewers the sellers are not fully monetizing their much larger older audiences. And, unlike the 1960s, the oldster of today is far more likely to be college educated and considerably better off financially than his 1960 counterpart--so such viewers have value for many advertisers. Why give them away?

A while ago A&E floated the idea of guarantees based on people 2+ or 18+ but the agencies protested that this would screw up their CPM trending so A&E backed off. If I were a seller I would seriously rethink my position on this--but please don't even think about using set usage ratings--go with people 2+ or better, 18+.

It's great to see that transacting network TV has finally reached the point it was at in 1968!

Internet users are driving a convergence of search and AI chatbots. Online publishers who depend on adverting-based revenue models that are built on views to pages that including ads need to consider which AI chatbot business they think is most likely to successfully build the next gneration of the internet with advertising as a key component. I would bet on Google above all the others because they are the one major player with a business model built entirely on an ad-based ecosystem.

News? What is news these days anyway? Love Michael Shermer's The Believing Brain. For the Dan C's of the world, and everybody else for that matter, "news" is anything that supports what is already believed. When we receive such supportive "news," our brains deliver nice dopamine hits (making us more dopey, and less willing to dive deeper for actual truth). 29% of the age-eligible, and citizenship-eligible people in this country voted for pathological liar trump in the last election. They get dopamine hits to their brains every time that despicable douchebag opens his mouth to tell another whopper, double, triple, or quadruple down on whoppers already told. So much dopamine, and so many dopes...

As a fellow show traveller, an excellent analogy.

Great article. Right on point and really well written.

Everyone except tRump and his lackeys knows he "jumped the shark."  If he wants ratings he should have the shark come back and eat him! ;-)

@Ed Papazian: Just goes to prove why you're still the media analytics guru. I did not originally ask that prompt, but I just did and Gemini estimates that nearly 50% of the comments made on MediaPost articles in 2025 were related to political commentary. Gemini estimates political commentary "over-indexed 18x" comments on all other content published by MediaPost last year.

I'm not sure what to do with that insight though. I think it's just the nature of the subject matter.

Joe, did you get a percentage of "political" coverage for the comments only? My sense of it is that that would be considerably higher than 2.8%. Just curious.

Broad, expensive and incessant advertising. Yet another reason why Rx in the US is three to 10 times higher than in any other developed country. And someday, maybe, we'll get back to legislating that corporations are not citizens and have no right to supposed "free speech," including the industry's role in determining elections through lobbying and campaign financing.

A little axe-grinding for context, first. My grandfather was a reporter for NYT for 33 years. He had a fatal heart attack at his desk while typing out perhaps his umpteen thousandth article. He died doing what he loved, and I'm sure he'd be spinning in his grave were he to even get an underground whiff of what passes as vetting, or journalistic integrity today. My dad took a job writing obits for NYT rather than attending college (ahhhh, good ol' nepotism,) spent two decades as a "madman" at Doyle, Dane, Bernbach (man, did I drive EVERY VW known to mankind growing up in the 70's,) and he retired from the Newspaper Advertising Bureau. I started my career with Hearst Magazines in 1981 (again, nepotism was involved) and moved on to stints with Newsweek Magazine (ten years) and Time Inc. You know, back when journalistic integrity was still a thing, and it was still a people business (nepotism doesn't work without people). All that is gone, and as such, with people for the most part out of the picture in lieu of 1's and 0's, my feeling is you can severely ratchet back your "bread and butter media planning and buying" coverage. That's right, rachet back on the RACKET. I have two nephews selling media, and have been for two decades, and when they tell me they feel sleazier than car salesmen of old, I believe them. When they tell me they are at a loss for having any human "buyer" entertain a creative and substantive twist on why what they're selling will work for clients, I believe them. 1's and 0's, X's and Y's, and horseshit. Please, bump up coverage of things that matter these days... the horseshit coming out of TrumpWorld, and how much more horseshittier it makes things for us all in media, persuasion, and buying and selling businesses...

Maarten, several points.

First and foremost, the purpose of prescription meds TV advertising is not only to target that very small number of people who at a particular moment in time have the disease in question, it's also to make many others who might at a later date have to confront the same situation aware of the product; also it's to encourage anyone who might care--say, because a friend or loved one has the disease----to ask their doctor about the medication. This can be a very helpful way to keep the MDs alert and aware.

Re media cost efficiencies, cable remains the bargain basement media buy for virtually all advertisers and the same is true of daytime TV in general. Over and above that, there is the little matter of ad attentiveness. Use TV and you can be pretty sure that over time  your message will be seen; That's not a given with other media. 

Thanks for the comment Roger. I was able to run down that information from a November story and have updated my story accordignly. 

Yet another article that tells me the CREATIVE agency, but not the agency PLACING the media. GIVE the completer story for 2026 MediaPost please.

From the promos looks like a good show, I'll check out Best Medicine on Tue.

Dan: Brilliant synopsis of the evolving capitulation and convenient acquiesence of the media to the current regime.  While many would have no desire "to live there" or now perhaps even "live here", I am reminded of what the film maker Michael Moore implored during an MSNBC interview during the first equally corrupt term of the current incumbent: "Stay and fight!"  

Another national embarrassment. 

thank you..where are they located???

Thanks for readingl StrongSide handled media placement.

I wish for futures articles like this would post the media placemnet agency as well.

We are the fortunate ones Dave. Thanks for all your contributions over the years.
-Ken