Was Downton Abbey quality television?

I happen to think it is not. My sentiment is based on a totally prejudicial side by side comparison with Gosford Park, a movie made in 2001 and directed by Robert Altman. The two have much in common, the grand country house, the period setting, the more or less similar stellar cast and even the same writer; yet one is the epitome of elegance and perfect dialog and the other, The Bold and the Beautiful in old fashioned clothes.

I offer this judgment not because I expect anyone to care what I think but to draw attention to the notion of 'quality' in media content in the context of advertising and the intensely subjective judgement that defines it.

Most advertisers would say that Downton Abbey is quality media but may be not so sure about the Bold and the Beautiful. The same may be true of the New Yorker and US Weekly and for that matter of Monday Night Football in comparison to UFC. We'll leave the YouTube discussion for another day.

So the question is; how is quality defined from the perspective of the advertiser? Here are a few possibilities:

1. the content has high production values
2. the content is inoffensive and broadly family friendly
3. the content attracts other advertisers with brands like mine
4. the content attracts a large audience
5. the content attracts a loyal audience
6. the content has an upscale audience, or an audience of some particular value
7. the content has a high degree of specificity to the advertisers category or brand

In summary this amounts to some blend of 'what it is', 'who is watching or reading',and 'how many are watching or reading'. (On almost any of of these criteria, my own view is just wrong!)

It's also generally true that the smaller the audience the higher its value and specificity needs to be to have the quality tag applied.

Times change, so does the perception of quality particularly in the context of what is socially acceptable but that line moves nowhere near as fast as the the consumer which brings us to the real question.

We have heard many times that content is king but is that really true? More properly, the consumer is king. if the audience is the 'right one' (they buy my stuff!) is further judgement required? If the potential of (and trust in) data driven marketing is to be fulfilled it seems logical that the decision is left to the machine rather than to the marketer or media buyer unless...it can be demonstrated that the trust in or perception of a brand is impacted by the adjacency of its messaging to certain types of content.

R.I.P. Downton.......

@robnorman