JT Peace, Associate Director of Ad Sales and Strategic Insights at The Weather Channel, presents findings from a study conducted with T-Vision that measures real audience attention on screen. The study tested the hypothesis that Weather Channel audiences are more engaged than those of competing cable news and lifestyle networks, examining attention across day parts, program types, live storm coverage, and original content. Results consistently supported the hypothesis, giving the ad sales team concrete data to bring into upfront conversations with brands and agencies.
Key Takeaways
- Weather Channel delivered audiences 16% more attentive than the average TV network during commercial time, outperforming both lifestyle and competitive news networks.
- During program time, Weather Channel studio and live news coverage outpaced cable news network benchmarks by 8% on T-Vision's attention index.
- Morning day parts showed the highest attention index, driven by viewers actively seeking forecasts rather than using the channel as background noise.
- Attention levels remained consistent between regular days and major storm days, indicating that high audience engagement is not limited to weather events.
- Original content series on Weather Channel drove attention rates more than 27% higher than comparable original content on lifestyle networks.
- Brands and agencies are already using attention metrics alongside purchase and location data to inform buying decisions, making this data directly relevant to upfront negotiations.
Questions & Answers
- Are there any demographic breakdowns available from this study?
- The study was conducted on adults 18 and older. Demographic cuts by specific target audience were not examined, but the speaker noted that T-Vision's panel could potentially allow for those cuts in future work tailored to a specific brand's target.
- Which geographic areas have higher viewership?
- The study was conducted at the national level, focused on reaching national brand partners. The speaker was not certain whether DMA or local geographic cuts are available through T-Vision's methodology, and noted it as something worth exploring.
Session Notes
Background and Hypothesis
The Weather Channel's strategic insights team entered this study with a hypothesis: because audiences tune in with a specific intent, to get their weather forecast, those viewers are more actively engaged than audiences on competing networks. The channel already held strong brand credentials, including being voted the number one consumer-trusted news brand by the Harris Poll for 11 consecutive years, and ranking as the most trusted media organization among Americans in a YouGov and Economist poll released around the time of this talk. What the team lacked was behavioral data confirming that trust translated into on-screen attention.
Measurement Partner: T-Vision
The Weather Channel partnered with T-Vision, which operates a panel of 15,000 nationally representative households. T-Vision installs proprietary technology in panelist homes to measure two things:
- Visible index: whether a person is physically present in the room while content is airing.
- Attention index: whether the person's eyes are directed at the screen during program or commercial time.
The study was conducted in 2021 and examined attention across commercial time, program time, day parts, storm versus non-storm dates, and original content.
Key Findings
Commercial Time Attention
During commercial breaks, Weather Channel delivered audiences that were 16% more attentive than the average TV network. It also stood out clearly against both lifestyle and cable news competitive sets.
Program Time: Studio and Live Coverage
Comparing Weather Channel studio and live news coverage to cable news network studio programming, Weather Channel audiences were 8% more attentive during program time.
Day Part Performance
Weather Channel over-delivered on T-Vision's attention index across all measured day parts, outperforming both lifestyle and news competitive sets throughout the schedule. Morning programming showed the strongest attention numbers. The speaker attributed this to viewing intent: people turning on the channel to check their forecast are actively watching, not using it as background. This contrasted with morning broadcast programs such as Today and GMA, where attention index scores were notably lower.
Storm Days versus Regular Days
Attention and visible index scores were consistent between regular non-storm dates and dates that included major storm coverage. There was no stark difference between the two conditions. The takeaway, as the speaker framed it, is that high audience engagement on Weather Channel is not a spike driven by extreme weather events but a reliable baseline.
Original Content
Two Weather Channel original series, Frozen Gold and Uncharted Adventure, were compared against original content on lifestyle networks. Weather Channel original content drove attention rates more than 27% higher than the lifestyle network benchmark.
Implications for Ad Sales and Media Strategy
- The insights team now brings granular attention data by day part, program type, and content format into ad sales conversations.
- Agency meetings confirmed that attention metrics are already being used by brands to inform buying decisions, alongside purchase and location data.
- Buyers recognize Weather Channel as both a black-owned, consumer-safe environment and a strong performer on attention metrics.
- The team is monitoring the broader TV measurement landscape and evaluating how attention data may factor into future transaction models.
- Further cuts by demographic target or geography were not part of this study but are noted as areas for potential future exploration with T-Vision's panel.
Transcript
Read the full transcript
hi everyone welcome to your final presentation for the day my name is krista reed and i am a senior project director here at accelerant research i know that we've had a a great lineup of speakers today everyone was phenomenal i hope you are able to share all of your questions get responses make connections if there's anything that you would like to follow up with us on please feel free to send us a note you can email us all of our information should be available in the emails that you received for the event today we're so happy to have our final speaker of the day for our accelerant research virtual insights conference before i introduce who he is and what he's going to talk about i just wanted to cover a few more ground rules i know you've probably heard this the same tune just a different day different presenter but we are working at the mercy of tech so power outages dogs barking babies crying amazon deliveries uber eats all of those things can pop up at any time so we understand that we know a lot of us are working from home and so we're just trying to navigate through that and any glitches that might occur so please just be mindful of that and stay with us if something does happen but fingers crossed that it won't we should be okay and then use this opportunity to network to engage make sure that you're sending your questions through us in the chat or whatever form is easiest for you to do so we'll send our our questions over to the speaker presenter as quickly as we can so that they can address those during their presentation at the end once they've spoken about their topic and then of course just uh put on a happy face be you know respectful be mindful of uh differences in everyone's opinions and just you know let's just encourage everyone who's participating and the speaker as well so with that i'm going to introduce you to jt peace he's the associate director of ad sales and strategic insights at the weather channel and he's going to talk about how the weather channel proves to brands that they drive more attentive audiences so with that jt you can take it away and thank you everyone for joining us thank you krista and uh thank you for the disclaimers i'm hoping everything goes smoothly but always appreciated um uh as krista said i'm jtp some part of the strategic insights team here at the weather channel um we're you know a part of allen media group and entertainment studios and in my role we're i'm really focused on uh you know trying to drive insights for the ad sales to drive more revenue with their brand and agency partners um and uh you know guide strategy when it comes to you know media measurement um across our across our whole portfolio but uh for today i'm happy to be sharing um you know some of the uh the work that we did with t vision and how uh we've proven with real data that um you know we're we're drawing attention to um to the weather channel and we're uh we're keeping our audiences engaged so uh with that i'll get into it chris is it is it showing on screen yes okay yes uh perfect so as i mentioned um we are owned by byron allen who uh if you guys haven't heard of byron he's really leading the way when it comes to the black owned media initiative um and economic inclusion in the advertising marketplace and um if you haven't heard him speak on on that i would encourage all of you guys to uh hear that message so that definitely continues to be our guiding you know mission and you know um but you know with that said we uh you know we we also sought to prove out with real data to you know that um you know that our our audiences are more valuable to to brands so you know brands already know the weather channel brand they know uh that you know it's consumer trusted and safe home for their campaigns um you know we we've been voted the number one consumer trusted uh news brand by the harris poll for 11 years in a row and just last week yougov and the economist came out with a poll that said we were most trusted by americans when it came to different media organizations by actually by a wide margin but on on top of those things um we wanted to you know you know provide our ad sales team with further proof of the value of our audiences with uh the new data and technology uh that's available and one of the things that was top of mind was uh attention so we had this kind of a hypothesis sorry we had this hypothesis of um you know given our content that's whether that we have these you know really live audiences that are tuning in to get their forecasts but we didn't have any data behind it that you know proved that our audiences were actually more engaged and uh paying attention on screen and um you know we we partnered with t vision which who i'll get into in a bit but uh to to prove that and we uh examined a number of areas we looked at commercial time versus program time uh we looked at our at our day parts live studio coverage and um versus like original content and then as well uh you know uh obviously viewership during major storms uh increases on uh the weather channel we wanted to look at how attention looked on those dates as opposed to regular days uh so as i mentioned we partnered with t-vision they and if you're not familiar with t-vision they have a panel of uh of 15 000 people it's you know nationally representative and uh they've actually combined that panel um with the uh with the proprietary technology that goes into the panelists homes and is able to measure um when a person is is in the room um that would be the uh visible index you guys will will see and then and then more importantly for um for advertisers are are are they paying attention on screen and their technology t-visions technology can can measure uh you know whether or not someone's eyes are on screen you know during a program or commercial time um so what we found in executing this the study uh last year with t vision is that uh you know our hypothesis was true we looked at it you know during commercial time uh we delivered an audience that was 16 more attentive than your average tv network and then looking at our you know lifestyle and competitive uh news networks that you know we're often competing with brands for um you can see that we stand out uh amongst the competition um and in driving you know attention during commercial time we as i mentioned we also looked at uh studio and live coverage um so taking you know news just looking at news news net studio coverage and comparing uh weather channel studio news coverage we saw that we were you know outpacing news networks by by eight percent um so you know during those you know during you know when when people are uh you know tuning in to uh those news programs during the program time we saw that they're actually paying more attention to weather rather than the uh the new uh you know other cable news networks uh we also looked at examined uh different day parts and noticed that um across all day parts of our schedule we we over delivered on uh the attention index by t vision um and um you can see that we you know outperform both our lifestyle and use competitive sets um but with that said we we did notice that um morning programming is definitely uh you know when people are paying most attention uh and it's kind of intuitive right like the when people are tuning in to try and get their uh forecast for the day you can see there's such a stark difference in attention on screen for the weather channel versus uh you know cable news or even some of the you know big broadcast shows like today's show or gma where um you know you can see the attention index is much much lower where that's kind of background noise programming whereas you know our audience is when they do tune in to uh the weather channel they're um you know driving we're driving significantly higher attention and as a result you know just a better home for for brands we also looked at um at storms um so we looked at regular non-storm dates versus you know um you know for versus storms included and we you know we we saw that it was consistent there wasn't any um you know there wasn't a stark difference between the attention index or the you know in visible index or people in the room it was really consistent between regular or storm dates um you know so i think the takeaway here is that no matter what the forecast is weather channel is driving uh highly attentive audiences for brands and then uh the other cut that we looked at was original content you see here frozen gold uncharted adventure those are just two new series but um you know in comparison to some of the other lifestyle nets that have these um you know you know well-known original content series that air uh we the the weather channel series actually drove much higher attention rates than uh the original content on those lifestyle networks over 27 percent higher um so uh what you know our ad sales team is out in market with these insights today on top of uh you know approaching you know the upfront and everything but uh we've you know we've uh come away with some you know uh reaction and some you know next steps that we want to uh leave with so you know we came away with granular uh intelligence on how our date parts programs and types of content drive attention uh and you know we realized our our competitive advantage through that partnership with t vision during several several ad sales meetings with agencies we learned that attention metrics were currently being utilized by brands to inform their buying decisions um so similar to things like purchasing data location data you know brands are using attention and then buyers also know that you know twc is black owned and consumer safe but they also know that we perform well on attention metrics and you know we're open to exploring that further with with our brands um and then we're you know predominantly transacting traditionally today but we're paying close attention to the tv measurement predicament and evaluating how we'll transact in the future and uh you know recognition that attention is a valuable input when trying to uh better serve our brand partners and uh deliver more valuable audiences so uh with that all uh i'd like to close and open up to any questions krista and bill i'm going to take that as we're uh we're good to go and we'll follow up afterwards uh i just saw someone come in or sarah nelson asked any details on the demographic uh so the demographics we actually ran were all um it was all on adults 18 18 plus but um something we could you know we could examine further if there are a particular brand you know if there are particular targets that brands want to reach we you know obviously with divisions panel we could look at uh we could look at uh certain cuts but just you know something we didn't examine in this study uh let's see which geographic areas have higher viewership uh so again this was like you know we're looking at uh twc nationally in this case and um we you know we you know when we're you know kind of pitching to those national brands we didn't you know didn't want to um we didn't include any any you know um specific dmas or or local cuts and um i'm not uh not exactly sure if that's something that is even available with t with t vision but something to potentially look at uh christy i think we can probably close i'm not seeing any other questions sorry i was uh trying to get my camera no problem um i was scrolling through youtube and just uh checking to see if we had any additional questions come through that channel and we don't so um i think we've addressed everything uh jt thank you so much for your time and for walking us through this presentation i guess we can just do one last call if anyone who is joining on zoom would like to submit a final question uh we do have a few more minutes left in this time slot so we're happy to cover those we can just kind of stand by for a little bit and it doesn't look like anything else is coming through so thanks so much to everyone who participated thank you jt for your presentation and i really enjoyed it i know the rest of the group did as well and thanks to all for uh joining us for another accelerant research virtual insights conference have a good one and thanks again jt thank you krista have a good one everyone bye
