Q&A Interview with Artie Bulgrin, SVP Research and Analytics, ESPN

ESPN is known for groundbreaking research so I sat down with Artie Bulgrin, SVP of Research and Analytics, ESPN to discuss some his department's trendsetting studies on consumer and viewer behavior. Artie also shared his thoughts on the future of "the screen", his work on the Fan Experience and his company's state of the art Media Lab.

There are four separate videos of the interview covering the following:

Video (Length in minutes)
Artie's Background (3:00)
The Fan Experience Research Study (8:16)
Media Lab (9:48)
CTAM (1:55)

CW: Artie, you are a member of the CTAM Research Committee. Can you tell us about your involvement with the committee?

AB: I look at the CTAM Research committee as a way to get together with really smart people, sharing work that we have done and also help guide the terrific research initiatives of CTAM. I also co-chaired one of the CTAM Research conferences. It has always been a fabulous conference and one that uniquely gets to issues that other conferences don’t. We continue to be avid supporters of CTAM on the research side because the type of research that CTAM does is different from other organizations and more specific to our needs. Our roots are still in cable television. We still need to know the needs of our operators and how we can grow our business together. We have issues like set top box measurement that need to be addressed. We now have the issues of addressability which need to be understood. There is more focus on these issues with this research committee which makes it very important to us.

Artie Bulgrin, Senior Vice President of Research and Analytics at ESPN talks to Charlene Weisler about how he got into the Research field and his work background in this video taken in June 2009:

CW: Where do you think is the most dramatic change in the industry has occurred in the past 5 years?

AB: When I came on board at ESPN thirteen years ago the focus was purely on cable television and television ratings. I think all of us on that side of the business who were focusing on strengthening audience measurement for cable networks realize that it has evolved. We have created multi-faceted research departments ranging from audience research, which is established, to primary research that measures consumer insights for building brands and understanding consumer behavior. For many of us, especially at ESPN, we are currently focused on really understanding cross media behavior. Not just television behavior but how people are using all digital outlets. We are in the audio business. We are in the print business. So it is not just about tv anymore. It’s about understanding the holistic viewer experience. We call it the “Fan Experience”.

CW: Can you share some insights about the “Fan Experience”?

AB: We have invested a lot of time and money in the past few years researching sports fan media behavior culminating most recently in a major study we did with Sequent Partners and Ball State University where we shadowed 50 young male sports fans to help understand how they use the individual media touch points, the role that sports and media play in the context of life itself. From that we created the seven principles of cross media measurement and behavior. The fundamentals are this: Sports fans consume much more media than the average American does because they have to consume sports in the moment. Very little sports on television is consumed on a time shifted basis. Virtually all of it is consumed live. There is this phenomena of “social currency” – big sports fans have to follow the information on a daily basis. So the new digital media, whether it be a PDA, a laptop, any sort of access to the web or web video has been embraced by the sports fans because they can be in contact with sports on a daily basis. So they consume a lot of sports but traditional media has not suffered. Media use is not a zero sum game. Media use continues to grow. And that is because these new digital technologies create what we call “new markets of time”. We have new opportunities to consume media where we never could before.

The other thing we know a lot about is the “available screen philosophy”. Television continues to thrive because if television is available it is certainly the best screen to watch sports. But if I can’t be near a tv I will go to my computer or what is really growing now is the use of mobile devices.  In fact it could be the most prolific and perhaps the most engaging device in the next few years.

Artie Bulgrin, Senior Vice President of Research and Analytics at ESPN talks to Charlene Weisler about ESPN's new research study on the "Fan Experience" in this video taken in June 2009:

Artie Bulgrin, Senior Vice President of Research and Analytics at ESPN talks to Charlene Weisler about his company's state of the art Media Lab located in Texas in this video taken in June 2009:

CW: Is there anything that you would like to add?

AB: The only thing I would add is that there is a lot of misinformation in the industry which slows us down. When you come to work each day there are things that come through the email or in the press that are actually ill-informed. What worries me is that many major decisions are made on this information that is actually misinformation. So we have to work harder as researchers both on the client side and on the vendor side to be more responsible as to how we communicate findings. There is a lot of bad research out there. There is a lot of great research out there. We have to be very focused as to how we separate what is mediocre and not good from what is. Researchers, particularly new researchers coming into the industry, have to focus on methodology quality – really understanding what works and what doesn’t. We have to be very careful of falling into the trap of doing “fun” things that fall into the qualitative area but are not really projectable to anything. We have to understand that the scientific method in research is absolutely necessary before producing results for decision making. It is not about one type of research – one type of research doesn’t do it. There are roles for different types of research – ethnography, set top box data, sample based data – it all has to be able to work together. That is why there is a need for trained professionals in the research industry to know what works and what doesn’t. 

Artie Bulgrin, Senior Vice President of Research and Analytics at ESPN talks to Charlene Weisler about the role of CTAM and the CTAM Research Committees in this video taken in June 2009:

Q&A Interview with Tim Brooks, Research Guru

by Charlene Weisler



Tim Brooks has worked in media research for more than 30 years. He’s the co-author of The Complete Directory to Primetime Network and Cable TV Shows, author of and Grammy winner for Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, and continues to be involved in the business after his “retirement.”

A shorter version of this interview was published in CableFax magazine and Cable360 in June 2009.

CW: Tim, you are one of the most accomplished researchers in the industry. How did you choose a Research career?

TB: It found me. And the way research found me was kind of interesting. My first job was low level, working for a local television station in Albany, New York, writing promotional copy. One day the sales manager came out of his office waving a little book and saying ‘We got a five!’ He ran into the general manager’s office and they broke out champagne. A month later he came slouching out of his office with the same little book saying ‘We got a three.’ And they went in and cried. So I figured ‘What’s in that little book that makes grown men go to extremes of joy or extremes of despair?’ I got hold of the little book to see what it was he was waving. It turned out to be a ratings book. I studied the boilerplate, which they had never read. All they knew was that a 5 was good and a 3 was bad. I became the defacto station expert on ratings because they didn’t have a research department. Suddenly they started turning to me to figure out how to turn a 3 into a 5. I went to Arbitron headquarters and I studied how the diaries were used. I did studies that increased their ratings and they thought that was wonderful. So that’s how I got into research.


CW: Did you study marketing or media research in college?

TB: No. I started in college as an engineering major until I decided I didn’t want to design on-ramps for interstates. Then I got into economics which is known as the dismal science for good reason. But I spent a lot of time at the college radio station. Then I went to a radio tv graduate school at Syracuse but I was the only one in a class of 90 who had any interest in media research. They all wanted to be reporters or businessmen who owned networks. I never got to study
research per se. I did study statistics and probability as well as English composition because
communication skills are very important. But it was basically learning on the job.


CW: What do you think is the most dramatic change in the industry in the past 5 years?

TB: For Research it has been the significant competition for Nielsen and the way we measure television. Nielsen was initially slow to adapt and companies such as Rentrak, TNS and TRA have jumped in with new, sophisticated and different methodologies using set top box data. The question becomes, who will emerge as the leader?


CW: What is the research project you are most proud of and why?

TB: In recent years it is a project I did for Lifetime. We did an ethnographic study of Women in America. It wasn’t a study simply about what Lifetime programs they liked or what they might watch. It wasn’t even focused on specifically what our audience wanted. It was a much broader study about women in America today, or in 2005, what their challenges were, what their interests were and what they wanted from media on a very basic level. This is the essence of building a brand. It was far sighted of Lifetime’s management to allow a study that would look very broadly and deeply at a large segment of the American public. We were not the only network that has done this. MTV networks is famous for studies within their target fields. But I am very proud of what we were able to accomplish at Lifetime.


CW: Where are the innovations coming from: cable, broadcast, gaming, broadband etc?

TB: After being slow off the mark (but not as slow as other industries that fought innovation) the major “cable plus broadcast” companies such as Viacom and NBCU are doing a lot of work in developing new kinds of measurement techniques. They are doing more with agencies who have been arguing for metrics that better reflect ROI. They are looking to incorporate results-based metrics in a way that both sellers and buyers can accept.


CW: Who is the most important person or firm out there in the research business today and why?

TB: That is a loaded question! I think they are all very important. Indisputably though, at least in 2009, Nielsen remains the dominant player in media measurement. They have stepped up to find new ways of measurement. There are still issues but they are more responsive than they used to be. There are others coming up fast but you would have to say that Nielsen is still the most important player in the field.


CW: What are you working on right now?

TB: I am working on a number of projects. In center stage is the set top box issue. It’s interesting that discussions of set top box use have taken place in silos. The cable networks have talked amongst themselves about what they would like. The agencies have talked amongst themselves and of course the owners of the data - cable companies and MSOs - have kept very close to the vest about what they were going to do with the data, if anything. But what has happened in the past year is that these parties have started to talk to each other. Institutions have been set up, Project Canoe among them, which establish a mechanism by which the potential of set top box data can be brought to the marketplace. I am seeing a lot developing in that field and fortunately I’ve been able to work on several projects involving set top box data and how it might be actualized.


CW: Give me three predictions for the next five years.

TB: Five years from now we will have another currency. We used to trade on average program audience. Now we are in C3. I think that will morph yet again in five years. I think it will still be linked to panels and “counting the house” as Nielsen does. But there will be modifications which allow you to look at results-based aspects of it too. That’s my first big prediction. Ask me in five years if I was crazy or not.

Second prediction: There will be a shake-out among the companies who are challenging Nielsen but at least one of them will survive and become a serious contender for audience measurement. It doesn’t mean that Nielsen will go away. It may be a matter of sharing the marketplace where Nielsen continues to do what it does and another company becomes a major player offering a different service. That is my second prediction. You can check with me on that.

The third one is that I will still be involved in the business. It sticks like glue.


CW: In terms of predictions for the media industry in general. Can you give me a prediction?

TB: I don’t think fundamentally it will change greatly. We will still be in the business of bringing commercial messages to consumers to persuade them to like and hopefully consume a brand or service. Those are the fundamentals of what the advertising industry is and has been for a hundred years or more. Nothing upends the business. Businesses morph and adapt over time. We see companies like Viacom, NBCU, ABC/Disney, willing and anxious to adapt rather than circling the wagons trying to preserve an outdated business model. So they will survive and modify their businesses. Their broadcast business will diminish and their cable and online interests will become larger. But none will go away.

The broadcast side of the business is going to change in the next five years. As you know I do a lot of historical research on television trends. I think they now know that their place in the firmament of video entertainment and commercial delivery is never going to be what it was twenty years ago. Their place is going to be with more limited hours; more focused on major events and spectacular productions and less on day in day out programming: 22 prime time hours a week plus daytime and late night as the one-stop for everybody to go to - it’s not that anymore. They will become a place where everybody comes for the Superbowl or American Idol but not the place where everybody comes for everything.


CW: What is the smartest career move you ever made?

TB: The smartest career move I ever made was not voluntary. It was because I had a foot on my back pushing me out the door. It was NBC in the late 80s but it could have been any one of the three networks who were closing down lots of their operations then. The first thing I tried to do was get another job doing exactly the same thing for another network which is the last thing you should do. I wound up at an ad agency and it turned out to be an excellent move. I kick myself for not having made the move myself five years earlier because I learned about a whole part of the industry that you don’t learn about when you are in one of those silos. You see things from a different perspective where television is only one part of the media mix. I made a lot of friends there and I learned a lot. I went from there to cable which I never would have done voluntarily five years earlier either. Cable was very good to me. It’s been very fulfilling. I got to do things I probably never would have done had I stayed at a broadcast network.


CW: Tim, any last words?

TB: Yes. My general philosophy is to always "be inquisitive." If something doesn't look quite right try to find out why. If the numbers don't make sense, explore them a little and see what you find. Turn over some rocks. It's amazing how many people don't do this, but that is where the research breakthroughs are often found.


Interview conducted and edited by Charlene Weisler, current chair of the CTAM Research committee and a strategic research veteran.

Weisler Media Blog - Welcome

The purpose of this blog is to offer opinions and insights into trends as they impact the media industry. The industry landscape is facing unprecedented flux and change from many areas:

> From a measurement research perspective, stalwart services such as Nielsen Media Research are facing new competitive challenges from set top box data providers.

> Broadband video continues to grow. Television programmers and network must decide whether they should place their content on the internet to remain relevant with viewers who are gravitating to that medium.

> MSOs, Satcos and Telcos are also grappling with the growth of broadband and the choices and challenges it brings to their bottom lines.

> Print, especially newspaper readership, is hemmoraging as readers gravitate online.> Change is constant .... and dramatic. The darling of yesterday (such as MySpace) can become the failure of tomorrow.

> And with all of this dramatic change, how do businesses monetize the new platforms and technology?

My work in the media and marketing research field has afforded me the opportunity to work with talented, smart people. While the majority of the content of this blog will relate to the Research field, I will also include posts on Programming, Sales, Distribution and Off-Platform where appropriate. And I encourage readers to comment and create a lively discussion.

Welcome!