Faced with viewers who have ever-increasing options for how they consume television programming, broadcasters are experimenting with a raft of new marketing and promo tricks to try to lure eyeballs and ratings.

TV Guide outlined five ways the networks are deviating from the old playbook to market their new and returning shows, with a big emphasis on teasers and tastes to keep an increasingly Second-Screening and distracted audience engaged.

Among the tricks:

  • Playing Catch-Up: Fox used the baseball playoffs-induced hiatus to run promos telling “Sleepy Hollow” viewers to “catch up from the beginning” while they waited for new episodes. “Our experimentation this season has been about encouraging catch-up viewing,” Fox COO Joe Earley told TV Guide.
  • Coming Attractions: Long a staple of reality and drama, CBS has started running scenes from next week at the end of its comedies, even if that risks giving away a joke or two.
  • In-Episode Teasers: In an effort to keep people watching throughout the entire hour, NBC has taken to running teasers during “The Blacklist” that reveal shocking moments coming later in the same episode (another reality show habit).
  • Call It “New”: CBS has tweaked returning “Mike and Molly” this season by featuring star Melissa McCarthy much more prominently, taking every opportunity to tell viewers to tune into “The New ‘Mike and Molly’” any time the show is referenced.
  • Take a Cue from Cable News: You know those tickers that blast across the lower third of every cable news outlet to keep people’s attention? The lower third is getting a big workout in primetime now in an effort to get people to stop fast-forwarding and instead pay attention to what’s being promoted.

Read More: TV Guide

Brief Take: In an age when increasingly fickle viewers have an ever-increasing array of TV viewing options, networks hope that giving viewers more teasers and tastes of what’s coming up will convince viewers to invest their time.

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