At Magic Live maybe 10 or so years ago, Luis De Matos gave a presentation in which he talked about real-time ratings data he had reviewed for several TV specials he had done, so he could analyze what worked and what didn’t work. These shows were on broadcast TV, so one of the biggest questions was: how can we keep people from changing channel during a commercial?
One thing that worked: if you announce that the next trick will involve a celebrity, more people will stick around through a commercial break to see it.
The strongest result he found has nothing to do with commercials:
If you show a smash-and-stab style trick, a significant part of your audience will change the channel, right in the middle of the trick, and the great majority of them will not come back.
These shows were all on the air in Spain (I think), so the results may not generalize. And it was 10 years ago, so maybe things have changed. Maybe this doesn’t apply to live shows, where people can’t change the channel.
But if you need any more incentive to stop doing this trick, maybe this will help.
Even worse are the cases where the magician holds a spectator’s hand and the spectator suffers the injury. That’s happened more than once.
At Magic Live maybe 10 or so years ago, Luis De Matos gave a presentation in which he talked about real-time ratings data he had reviewed for several TV specials he had done, so he could analyze what worked and what didn’t work. These shows were on broadcast TV, so one of the biggest questions was: how can we keep people from changing channel during a commercial?
One thing that worked: if you announce that the next trick will involve a celebrity, more people will stick around through a commercial break to see it.
The strongest result he found has nothing to do with commercials:
If you show a smash-and-stab style trick, a significant part of your audience will change the channel, right in the middle of the trick, and the great majority of them will not come back.
These shows were all on the air in Spain (I think), so the results may not generalize. And it was 10 years ago, so maybe things have changed. Maybe this doesn’t apply to live shows, where people can’t change the channel.
But if you need any more incentive to stop doing this trick, maybe this will help.
This is great data! Thanks for sharing