Backchannelmedia

Boston Herald

Five is a lot better than six - at least when it comes to media market rankings.

Late last month, Boston quietly flip-flopped with San Francisco in Nielsen Media Research's ranking of the nation's largest TV markets for the 2004-05 season. The Hub's move up a notch, to fifth, is good for more than just bragging rights over the Bay Area.

Local broadcasters and advertising insiders say the switch could prove lucrative for Boston stations, and could even affect some network programming decisions, especially when it comes to sports.

"Once you get to the top five, you get a whole new status as a market," said Karen Agresti, senior vice president with Boston ad agency Hill Holliday Connors Cosmopulos. "From the stations' perspective, they'll get a lot more business nationally."

When advertisers buy time with local stations, they often start at the top market and work down. In addition to advertising on national network broadcasts, some advertisers will buy additional time on local stations in the top five markets. At No. 6, those dollars had been escaping Boston stations.

"The breaks are probably at five and 10," said Ed Goldman, vice president and general manager of CBS-owned station WBZ-TV (Ch. 4). "On the revenue side, certainly the top-five markets have exceeded the sixth market in terms of the amount of television advertising that was realized in the market."

Goldman said he can't remember the last time Boston, or any station in the top 10, shifted positions.

Boston's climb wasn't the result of gaining population. Instead it came as San Francisco lost population, at least according to Nielsen, which relies on U.S. Census data as well as other research.

The number of homes with a television in the Boston market, which extends to Worcester, Cape Cod and the Islands, will rise by just 10 in 2004-05, to 2,391,840, Nielsen said. But the San Francisco- Oakland-San Jose market lost more than 81,000 TV homes, likely due to heavy Bay Area job losses and high-priced housing.

Some observers say advertising rates won't be affected much by the shift to five from six. But Agresti suggests Boston's rise will boost demand for ad time on Hub stations, giving them a better chance of landing higher ad rates. "It's supply and demand," she said.

Networks may also opt to give nationally televised games with Boston teams better time slots. A New England Patriots game, for example, could get tapped over a San Francisco 49ers game because of the potential for a larger audience, though there are many other factors that play into network decisions.

New York is the largest media market, followed by Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia.