ratings ploy

plural ratings ploys

1. A scheme or ploy made to attract a larger audience for usually mass media, like radio, television or digital streaming.

   In the end, NBC needed Savannah Guthrie's performance to justify their decision: Was [President Donald] Trump's counter-programmed town hall just a ratings ploy, or would it pass journalistic muster?

   2020 October 16, Elise Taylor, “At Last Night's Town Hall, Savannah Guthrie Stepped Up to the Plate”, in Vogue

   1 more example

   Among the several television critics whom I polled informally about the [Connie] Chung matter during the Television Critics Association semi-annual meeting in Pasadena, July 14–23, 1995, all but one blamed, in effect, both Chung and CBS: Chung for letting herself be used as a ratings ploy, the network for using her thusly.

   1998, Julia Keller, “Getting Serious: Women at the Anchor Desk”, in Ann C. Hall, editor, Delights, Dilemmas, and Desires: Essays on Women and the Media, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood, page 44