At the end of premiere week 09/10 (September 21-27), Cable television earned an impressive 56% share of household (HH) viewing audiences—13.6 points above Broadcast Seven Affiliates, who came in with 42.5% of the household audience share. This season marks the lowest share for Broadcast during any premiere week in history.

Cable is at a distinct advantage this season, as Broadcast is showing a 77% returning program composition for its primetime lineups, while losing audiences across all age groups with the exception of viewers from 50-64. Cable, meanwhile, continues to offer new original programs across all its niche channels.

Even Broadcasts’ more popular offerings are experiencing decline according to Nielsen. Desperate Housewives fell a startling 34% from last year at the same time, with The Cleveland Show on FOX being the only new Broadcast offering to place in the top ten.

Will the ratings improve as the season goes on? While Broadcast’s results may be worrying some, cable advertisers have nowhere to go but up.

A total of 103 categories were honored with the Emmy this year, 28 of which were announced last night. Another 75 categories received their recognition on September 12 during the Creative Arts Awards. In total, the biggest winning channels were HBO (16 Emmys), Showtime (5) and AMC (2).

AMC’s Mad Men won Best Drama for the second straight year. This in addition to Walter White’s honor for Outstanding Lead Actor in a drama series (Breaking Bad) earned AMC its two Emmys this year.

Other Emmy-award-winning cable faces included Glenn Close (Damages, FX); Toni Colette (United States of Tara, Showtime); Jessica Lange and Ken Howard (Grey Gardens, HBO) and Brendan Gleeson (Into the Storm, HBO).

Among 16 other awards, HBO took home Outstanding Made for Television Movie for Grey Gardens, which itself won 6 Emmys overall.

A complete listing of Emmy winners can be found at the official Emmy award website. Congratulations to all our favorites!

When the nominees for the Emmy awards were announced in mid-July, fans of cable television’s great variety of original programs were happy to see their favorites named across the board. With the exception of network TV’s 30 Rock, cable programs dominated most major nomination categories, with drama and comedy being the most impressive. Drama and comedy were widened this year with seven nominations available in each, and cable successfully filled the new spots with its popular niche programming.

AMC’s Mad Men was the star of the drama category, with nominations for best drama series, best actor and best actress among others. Mad Men saw 16 nominations total, which topped any other cable series in the running. Best drama also saw nominations given to FX’s Damages, HBO’s Big Love and Showtime’s Dexter.

Comedy also showed a record turnout for cable television. In addition to Showtime’s Weeds, HBO’s Entourage and CBS’ How I Met Your Mother, Fox’s Family Guy could make history with its nomination by being the first animated series to ever win an Emmy.

As for stations, HBO dominated the entire race with 99 total Emmy-nominated programs across the board. The nominations earned by other cable favorites can be found by visiting the comprehensive list available at TV Week.

Be sure to tune in on September 20th to view the winners!

Cable advertising is only expected to drop 3 percent this year to $20.9 billion whereas television advertising is expected to drop 10% this year to $12.8 billion.

With programming improving on cable television and audiences moving from network television to cable, cable advertising is posed to gain even more ground in the coming year.

Cable advertising offers a niche market that is geotargeted to best meet your customers. No other medium can highly target a particular audience segment with an engaging advertising like cable television. For small businesses, cable advertising is an affordable way to get the message out about your company.

A website called Lakeway.com has bought cable television ads on CNN, FoxNews and A&E to promote the website in Lakeway, Texas. The TV spots will consist of the core features of the Lakeway.com plus feature advertiser’s businesses in the spots. The goal is that not only with Lakeway.com will be promoted but the advertisers on the site will be promoted as well – creating a value added product for Lakeway.com advertisers.

Lakeway.com feels the advantages of cable advertising are local advertising that you can’t get on the Internet and relatively low CPM. Also, Lakeway feels it is meeting their client’s needs. Lakeway.com advertisers understand how cable advertising helps drive business and Lakeway.com is helping them get in front of their businesses.

Cable advertising not only benefits advertisers that have a brick-and-mortar location in a particular geography, but they also benefit websites that want to reach a particular audience in a particular region.

Findings from a recent study conducted by the Nielsen Co.-funded Council for Research Excellence from research firm Sequent and the Center for Media Design at Ball State University illustrates that television is still the best way to reach even the youngest consumers, even when compared with digital and social media. As it turns out, digital and social media even receive a sort of “spillover” effect from television, with about a third of all online queries being driven by offline media, and by television in particular.

Now is definitely not the time to dismiss television advertising, especially cable advertising, as a viable, potentially profitable medium for your message.

Here?s another clear example of the rising strength of cable television, particularly when it comes to viewership. The advantages of cable advertising are so strong and the power of advertising on cable simply can?t be denied, especially now.

Read more about the dominance of cable news networks during the current financial crisis.

Let us make that process easy. Insight Media filters the research to easily help you explore a range of options, from planning your next cable television advertising campaign to simply creating a list of networks that would best attract your audience in a specific zip code.

Insight Media has helped thousands of businesses grow with geographic and demographic targeting, ensuring their television advertising is focused on the right audience. With Insight Media you the have the option of creating wide or tightly focused campaigns and the information you need to decide which cable television advertising approach is right for you.

Go to where the action is and take the guesswork out of your marketing plan. Advertise on cable and reach your pinpointed audience. Contact an Insight Media Representative today.

1. Don’t forget the logistics. You may be thinking “It’s only a :30 commercial. How hard can it be?” If you’re a retailer, and planning on filming at your location, it can be a lot more complicated than you think. If you plan on including shots of actual customers, you may need to have them sign releases stating it’s okay to use them in the commercial. Lighting and time of day foot traffic patterns are other things to consider before you schedule the shoot.
2. Check your timing. Read your script, slowly a few times, and make sure it really is :30 long. Generally speaking, a :30 script is about a half page, double spaced, but always do a few read-throughs to make sure. If there is going to be any “blocking” (on-screen actions, for example, opening an appliance to show the amount of space inside), bear in mind how much time that will take as well. Keep your copy as tight and focused as possible.
3. Make sure your contact information is highly visible. Capturing audience attention won’t help your business if they can’t figure out how to find you.
4. Don?t scrimp on production. Whether you choose an agency, a video production firm, or other vendor to produce your commercial, make sure their work is up to your standards. An amateurish cable advertising spot is a waste of your precious marketing budget.
5. Consider professional talent. If you?re completely comfortable in front of a camera, you may well be the best person to sell your company’s products and services on-screen. If you?re not, then you might want to consider calling a local modeling or talent agency for someone who can make a more polished impression on the audience.