8 Top Bracket Ideas for TV

Local Programming

Give your viewers a chance to share what they care about, while also learning about the categories and themes your audience wants to see. Use your weather photos to find the ultimate sunset shot, countdown the top pet stories in a Bark Bracket, or repurpose your great human interest stories and create a Story of the Year bracket.

Brackets are a great way to gather viewer opinions and research – have your audience choose their favorite in-studio guest, the cutest show pet, or even hilarious moment of the year.

Plus, do you have a sales-friendly show? Consider a Recipe Rivalry with your top recipes you’ve featured or a Battle of the Breakfast Cereals featuring a local grocery store or back to school segment.

Local interest

Brackets are an ideal way to highlight all the great things about your area! Tapping into local passions is a way to engage every potential viewer in your community. Consider a bracket for the Clash of the Neighborhoods, Historical Figure Face-Off, or Battle of the Local Bands.

Network Programming

People are passionate about TV – the shows they love, the characters they love to hate, the adorable kids, and fun guest stars! Be sure to use brackets to engage your viewers all year long, but also to promote new programming, tap into nostalgia, and offer some awesome sharable content to grow your audience. Try a Battle of the Late Night Guest Stars, an 80s Sitcom Smackdown, or an Ultimate Crime Show bracket!

Food and Drink

Food is a language we all speak. This makes it a mass-appeal theme and a huge win for stations in any area. Do you have someone on your on-air team who’s passionate about food – a reviewer, historian, etc? This is great for them to seed a ballot of their favorites and ask viewers to narrow down the list.

Consider brackets like the Stadium Food Challenge, Top Gas Station Finds, Fast Food Battle, Treat Tournament, Cocktail Challenge, Battle of the Burgers, or even Toddler Meal Mania. These are a perfect opportunity for recurring revenue campaigns for a single advertiser to sponsor.

Movies

With an endless amount of movie categories out there, there are tons of ways to incorporate movies into brackets. This is another one of those topics about which people care strongly. They’ll want to share and also see if they have the same opinions as others.

You can run several different general favorites such as 90s RomCom Rivalry or Battle of the Summer Blockbusters, or try a more specific theme like the Ultimate Julia Roberts Movie Bracket for even more fun.

Award Shows

From movies to music, the entertainment industry has an award show for nearly everything. Just a few ways to capitalize on awards shows would be Best Picture Winner of All Time before movie awards season, Battle of the Britney Songs before music awards, or even Ultimate Guest Star for TV awards. Plus, don’t forget to do year-in-review style brackets for just about any category like Favorite Animated Movie of the Year or 2020 Biggest Upset.

Sports and Athletes

You are already producing a lot of sports content, so brackets are a natural complement to the content you have or plan to build. Plus, they will give you a chance to engage your audience, ask their opinions and start some fun ‘battles’ on air and online as you ask your audience to make some tough choices.

Holidays

The holidays are a natural fit for TV stations to incorporate brackets. Create a bracket to feature local holiday lights, fireworks displays, 4th of July celebrations, or Valentine’s heartthrobs.

There are so many annual holidays (and plenty of fun and slightly unusual holidays each month), these are perfect for recurring revenue campaigns!

Ready to launch a bracket for your magazine? You can chat with someone from the Success Team 9am-5pm CT Monday-Friday using the chat box in the bottom right corner!