When it comes to the shows with the most DVR viewing on broadcast networks, Nielsen has a significant delay in the normal production which is why I'm posting about the live plus seven days worth of DVR viewer numbers for the week ending May 25, 2008 on June 9.
Many season finales are on the list and none of the episodes on the list were repeats. If all the reports on upfront advertising sales are correct (flat or a little bit better than last year for most networks not named The CW) I'm led to conclude a couple of things:
- There's not much difference between the C+3 (live commercial viewing plus three day DVR measurements which we don't see, that advertising is allegedly bought and sold based on) and LIVE program viewing LIVE+7, or in other words if we had viewer numbers for live plus three days commercial viewing (C+3) they wouldn't be greatly different than the LIVE live plus seven program numbers which we do see. Update: Here are the comparisons from a single week [all we've seen] last Fall. And we drilled down a bit further on one show for that week to see that, as you might expect, effectively nobody watches commercials on DVR playback.
- The networks have convinced the advertisers that even on the DVR, eyeballs are eyeballs
The first conclusion above makes sense to me, that most of the DVR viewing would happen in the first three days. The second conclusion however is a bit of a stretch for me to buy. The pentultimate episode of the American Idol season had nearly 5 million DVR viewers. Almost 80% (77.9%) watched the show via DVR the same night it aired. There were less DVR viewers for the finale (though still over 4 million) but the percentage who watched the same night were very similar.
This leads me to believe in the case of American Idol most of the DVR viewing is purely time-shifting and mostly for one reason: to eliminate the time spent not only watching the commercials, but parts of the show they aren't interested in. Consider this: just the portion of American Idol's audience who watches on DVR is a larger audience typically than ANY show on the CW's TOTAL audience. It's a lot of people fast-forwarding through commercials.
Also, the numbers for some shows are big and getting bigger. The finale of Grey's Anatomy had over 4 million viewers on just via DVR and less than 50% watched the same night so DVR boosted viewing of Grey's from 18.092mm live plus same day DVR usage (the most oft-reported metric) to 20.259mm viewers live plus seven day DVR viewing. That means well over 2 million people watched the show later in the week and gets Grey's total viewing back up over 20 million.
I expect the Nielsen DVR panel to grow for the 2008-2009 season and for DVR viewing to expand next year. For now, it seems, if we can believe the numbers, that the advertisers are giving the networks a pass on DVR viewing and not complaining much. It's good news for show producers, Shonda Rhimes can say, "Hey ABC, we still have 20 million loyal viewers!" It appears the sales teams can sell this DVR usage, but when it grows even further I wonder how it will shake out.
Top 20 DVR Viewed Broadcast Shows for the week ending May 25, 2008:
| Rank | Show | Net | Live+7 (000) | Live (000) | DVR Viewers (000) | % increase from live | Live+SD (000) | % SD |
| 1 | AMERICAN IDOL-TUESDAY | FOX | 28109 | 23,364 | 4,745 | 20.3% | 27,061 | 77.91% |
| 2 | GREY'S ANATOMY-THU 9PM | ABC | 20259 | 16,195 | 4,064 | 25.1% | 18,092 | 46.68% |
| 3 | HOUSE-MON 9P | FOX | 18695 | 14,677 | 4,018 | 27.4% | 16,358 | 41.84% |
| 4 | AMERICAN IDOL-WEDNESDAY | FOX | 32536 | 28,699 | 3,837 | 13.4% | 31,661 | 77.20% |
| 5 | CSI: MIAMI | CBS | 18050 | 15,655 | 2,395 | 15.3% | 16,265 | 25.47% |
| 6 | NCIS | CBS | 17836 | 15,491 | 2,345 | 15.1% | 16,524 | 44.05% |
| 7 | Bones-MON 8P | FOX | 11368 | 9,075 | 2,293 | 25.3% | 10,302 | 53.51% |
| 8 | Criminal Minds | CBS | 14521 | 12,264 | 2,257 | 18.4% | 13,153 | 39.39% |
| 9 | TWO AND A HALF MEN | CBS | 15630 | 13,619 | 2,011 | 14.8% | 14,700 | 53.75% |
| 10 | HELL'S KITCHEN | FOX | 12246 | 10,326 | 1,920 | 18.6% | 11,441 | 58.07% |
| 11 | SO YOU THINK CN DANCE-THU | FOX | 9697 | 7,935 | 1,762 | 22.2% | 8,739 | 45.63% |
| 12 | CSI: NY | CBS | 13062 | 11,440 | 1,622 | 14.2% | 11,830 | 24.04% |
| 13 | DANCING WITH THE STARS | ABC | 19795 | 18,225 | 1,570 | 8.6% | 19,223 | 63.57% |
| 14 | UGLY BETTY | ABC | 9622 | 8,054 | 1,568 | 19.5% | 8,753 | 44.58% |
| 15 | SHARK | CBS | 11374 | 9,858 | 1,516 | 15.4% | 10,271 | 27.24% |
| 16 | HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER | CBS | 8678 | 7,188 | 1,490 | 20.7% | 7,986 | 53.56% |
| 17 | DANCING W/STARS RESULTS | ABC | 20662 | 19,285 | 1,377 | 7.1% | 20,122 | 60.78% |
| 18 | BIG BANG THEORY, THE | CBS | 8007 | 6,759 | 1,248 | 18.5% | 7,344 | 46.88% |
| 19 | BOSTON LEGAL | ABC | 7231 | 5,984 | 1,247 | 20.8% | 6,466 | 38.65% |
| 20 | Law And Order | NBC | 9531 | 8,291 | 1,240 | 15.0% | 8,573 | 22.74% |
Nielsen TV Ratings Data: ©2008 Nielsen Media Research, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
This table ranks the broadcast network shows most viewed via DVR over the course of the week. Please note these DVR tables are the only place at all where "live" viewing is reported and that almost all of our daily and weekly reports are based on live plus same day (the show aired) DVR viewing. We use the live number only to arrive at total DVR viewing, and some of that viewing is baked in to our normal live plus same day DVR usage reported. I've also listed the % of DVR viewing that happens on the same day the shows aired.
- LIVE = live viewing
- LIVE+7= live plus seven day DVR viewing
- LIVE+SD = live plus DVR viewing occurring the same night the show aired
- %increase = the percentage of audience increase above live viewing
- %SD = the percentage of total DVR viewing that occurred the same night the show aired
Since I SUCK at math, can you explain how much Criminal Minds gained???
De, I don’t think you suck at math — I think somehow the table got horribly formatted and was impossible to read! Sorry about that. It’s fixed but Criminal Minds had 2.257 million DVR viewers and only around 850,000 of those watching on DVR watched it the same night, the rest watched later in the week.
De, I don’t think you suck at math — I think somehow the table got horribly formatted and was impossible to read! Sorry about that. It’s fixed but Criminal Minds had 2.257 million DVR viewers and only around 850,000 of those watching on DVR watched it the same night, the rest watched later in the week.
De, I don’t think you suck at math — I think somehow the table got horribly formatted and was impossible to read! Sorry about that. It’s fixed but Criminal Minds had 2.257 million DVR viewers and only around 850,000 of those watching on DVR watched it the same night, the rest watched later in the week.
I wonder where all the Moonlight fans are at, you know, those who scream bloody murder and insist the show has 8 million viewers and that so many DVR it… Perhaps I need better glasses, but I don’t see it up there. I even see BL and canceled Shark. No “mega hit” Moonlight.
I wonder where all the Moonlight fans are at, you know, those who scream bloody murder and insist the show has 8 million viewers and that so many DVR it… Perhaps I need better glasses, but I don’t see it up there. I even see BL and canceled Shark. No “mega hit” Moonlight.
I wonder where all the Moonlight fans are at, you know, those who scream bloody murder and insist the show has 8 million viewers and that so many DVR it… Perhaps I need better glasses, but I don’t see it up there. I even see BL and canceled Shark. No “mega hit” Moonlight.
@Kay: Perhaps you should check when Moonlight aired. Ok, I’ll do the work for you: it didn’t in the week reported in this post. Next time, do a little research before simply attacking.
@Kay: Perhaps you should check when Moonlight aired. Ok, I’ll do the work for you: it didn’t in the week reported in this post. Next time, do a little research before simply attacking.
Both Gusar and Kay have a point. Moonlight didn’t air during this week, but it didn’t appear on this list when it did air either.
Both Gusar and Kay have a point. Moonlight didn’t air during this week, but it didn’t appear on this list when it did air either.
There are some major variations by program, but on average for this past primetime season, “C3″ ratings are roughly the same as “live program” ratings.
Dayparts like early morning and late night see a dip in C3 ratings vs live, not due to DVR recording (there is almost none there), but due to channel changing and placement of commercial pods within a program.
Anne responded and the short answer is this : I was indeed wrong, and Carl is absolutely correct. Fast-forwared minutes are *not* counted neither for commericals OR for program viewing.
“There’s not much difference between the C+3 (live commercial viewing plus three day DVR measurements which we don’t see, that advertising is allegedly bought and sold based on) and LIVE+7, or in other words if we had viewer numbers for live plus three days DVR viewing they wouldn’t be greatly different than the live plus seven numbers”
I must make an important quibble about your definition of C3 measurement. It includes not only live commercial viewing (within Nielsen measurement limitations) but also 3 day DVR *commercial* viewing, not program viewing.
Advertisers aren't giving the networks any kind of pass on this stuff. They are agreeing to pay for DVR playback viewers only if they don't fast forward thru the commercials.
The networks can tout live plus same or seven day program ratings all they want, but it's not what advertisers are writing their deals on.
Carl, you are correct.
What we saw in the single week last fall where C+3 numbers were available widely was that the C+3 *commercial* ratings were about the same as the LIVE *program* ratings.
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2007/10/16/c3-commerc…
The caveat being that we saw only a single week, and while most shows had similar numbers, some varied from +8% to -6%. I'm not comfortable drawing conclusions from a single week, but it's all we have.
We drilled down a bit more on a single show to see that almost no DVR viewers watched commercials as common sense would dictate:
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2007/10/17/nobody-wat…
If you're going to be a purist, the C+3 was about the same as the LIVE+SD program ratings not the “live” ratings.
Based on DVR measurements for programs, it seems fairly clear that Nielsen is including people who fast-forward through programs. I don't know how they accomplish “only commercials not fast forwarded through” on the C+3 side, or even if they really do.
There are some major variations by program, but on average for this past primetime season, “C3″ ratings are roughly the same as “live program” ratings.
Dayparts like early morning and late night see a dip in C3 ratings vs live, not due to DVR recording (there is almost none there), but due to channel changing and placement of commercial pods within a program.
Rcurrlin,that does make sense.
And Bill is correct it was same as “live” not “live+SD” which drives home pretty quickly that DVR viewers *don't* generally watch commercials…
“Based on DVR measurements for programs, it seems fairly clear that Nielsen is including people who fast-forward through programs. I don't know how they accomplish “only commercials not fast forwarded through” on the C+3 side, or even if they really do.”
You are completely wrong. Perhaps even dangerously so since your kinda saying Nielsen is misrepresenting its viewing figures to a multi-billion dollar industry.
People who fast forward thru program or commercial minutes on a DVR don't get credit for having viewed those minutes.
No, I'm saying *I don't know* because Nielsen doesn't do a good job of making it abundantly clear.
We do know the data for the programs. If it's removing fast forwarded minutes — not just for commercials, which presumably wouldn't matter to program viewing — but of the show itself, that would mean that actual DVR viewing, especially for shows like American Idol, which some people definitely fast-forward through program parts is higher than what we actually see.
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