Comments on: Nielsen Ratings Monday June 16: Reruns vs. Reality

By: Holly

Holly — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 06:36:56 +0000

“On a DVR, if you fast-forward through 20 minutes worth of commercials and credits you'll be counted as only 2/3rds of a viewer in the data we see.”

Part of me thinks that makes sense, but that certainly changes the viewer numbers.

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 06:20:47 +0000

If what Nielsen tells us is correct -- that fast-forward viewing is *not* counted in the numbers we see there is also the issue that we can't fully reconcile DVR impact because we lack the data for fast forwarded minutes. If without DVR your TV was on for one hour for a 60 minute show, you counted as one viewer. On a DVR, if you fast-forward through 20 minutes worth of commercials and credits you'll be counted as only 2/3rds of a viewer in the data we see.

I'm still not sure if what Nielsen is telling us is correct and I'm not trying to rub anyone the wrong way by saying that. it's just that I see things like this (link below) which ran in a publication owned by Nielsen itself and scratch my head:

http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/m...

By: Holly

Holly — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 06:04:11 +0000

The charts had data from September and October of 2007, so it would have been when almost everything was airing new episodes.

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 06:01:54 +0000

That's a very interesting article Holly. To create their two charts they definitely have data that we've never seen like a by day [and even by hour] breakdown of when DVR viewing happens [we see only Live, Live+SD and Live+7]. Overall I agree with their conclusions though.

I'm not sure how they came up with the 15% increase either since they don't spell it out, but if I had to guess it might have been for a limited set of networks and a limited period of time.

The numbers I cited above were for the entire season, and the %'s would go up if was just during a period of brand new episodes. Also, removing Univision [which has very low DVR numbers] from the mix, boosts the avg. viewer number to 8% even for the long period we looked at, and the 18-34 number to 13.3%, so 15% is certainly "correct" given the right parameters.

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 05:49:05 +0000

“It's definitely correct to say that some shows are very heavily DVR'd in the 20-40% of total viewing range, but those shows are still in the tiny minority at this point.”

And with rare exception (you could count on one hand), the shows with over 30% viewing increases via DVR are shows with fewer than 5 million viewers. Lost and the Office are the only exceptions that come to mind.

By: Holly

Holly — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 05:47:20 +0000

Bill,

Thanks for the info. I was taking my numbers from the study in this article:
http://www.marketingcharts.com/television/dvr-u...

I have no idea what their criteria was, whether they included cable and/or daytime, etc.

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 05:39:24 +0000

Holly, we don't do overall "how much of TV viewing is via DVR" calculations regularly, but I did do some calculations in late April and here's the data for reference.

For the current season, through 4/20, for broadcast primetime for the 6 top networks [ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, CW, Uni] this portion of the Live+7 viewing was via DVR.

Avg. viewers: 7.5%
Adults 18-49: 10.6%
18-34: 11.7%
25-54: 10.2%

For cable, the DVR percentages are much lower, but we cannot do any kind of overall calculation because we don't get the complete data. Same for syndicated, and almost certainly all other daytime.

It's definitely correct to say that some shows are very heavily DVR'd in the 20-40% of total viewing range, but those shows are still in the tiny minority at this point.

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 04:32:06 +0000

Holly, thank you! You saved me a longer reply. I'd only tack on this: Nielsen currently has DVR penetration pegged at about 25% or roughly 28 million out of 113 million television homes. That jibes with other data I have seen. While it's easy to say that “everyone has a DVR” just because everyone you know does, that's nowhere near the case yet.

By: Holly

Holly — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 04:17:19 +0000

avschamp,

These numbers include same day DVR viewing. Robert and Bill also post the Live+7 day DVR viewing, but we only get data on the top 20 overall DVRed shows and the 20 shows that with the highest percentage of DVR viewers.

While there is obviously a difference between numbers Live, Live+Same Day, and Live+7, for the majority of shows, it is not significant enough to call the Live or Live+SD results “skewed”. Live+7 ratings are only (on average) 15% higher than Live. For scripted shows, around 40% of that is same day viewing (which is included in the daily ratings); for “reality” shows, that goes up (American Idol had around 70% of its DVR numbers counted in the Live+Same Day).

By: avschamp

avschamp — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 03:43:05 +0000

Funny thing about cancelling shows, a lot of times the addition isnt much better. The Mole is okay for now, Summer time. Secondly, Who nowadays don't have or rely on DVR's. The ratings have got to be way skewd?

By: avschamp

avschamp — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 03:34:44 +0000

Do these numbers include TIVO, DVR's

By: Holly

Holly — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 01:36:56 +0000

“On a DVR, if you fast-forward through 20 minutes worth of commercials and credits you'll be counted as only 2/3rds of a viewer in the data we see.”

Part of me thinks that makes sense, but that certainly changes the viewer numbers.

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 01:20:47 +0000

By: Holly

Holly — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 01:04:11 +0000

The charts had data from September and October of 2007, so it would have been when almost everything was airing new episodes.

By: Holly

Holly — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 00:47:20 +0000

By: Holly

Holly — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 23:17:19 +0000

avschamp,

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 19:36:00 +0000

You’re correct Jim (5.758mm in the overnights), I’ve made the correction to the table.

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 19:36:00 +0000

You’re correct Jim (5.758mm in the overnights), I’ve made the correction to the table.

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 19:30:08 +0000

Your total viewers for The Big Bang Theory is wrong. It got 5.76 million viewers.

By: bob

bob — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 19:00:55 +0000

the mole? wat a waist of a timeslot! how awful!!!!! it better get canned soon!!!!

By: Bill

Bill — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 18:53:04 +0000

Well, we always have “>Summer!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 18:53:00 +0000

“what’s wrong with the mole?”

It gets horrible ratings.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 18:53:00 +0000

“what’s wrong with the mole?”

It gets horrible ratings.

By: tom

tom — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 18:13:00 +0000

what’s wrong with the mole? if you answer… please give specifics and not general put downs. what makes the mole worse than survivor or great race or any of the other ones? i don’t understand the complaints.

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:57:23 +0000

We should get the US Open Golf playoff ratings by NEXT Friday with the sports results at the very latest, quite possibly earlier from another source too.

By: ChiChi

ChiChi — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:48:04 +0000

Hi…do you have the ratings for golf on Monday?

By: Guess Who

Guess Who — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:46:01 +0000

The Mole and Murkin Gladiatiors are the worst shows on Mondays. Kill the mole, have it stuffed and mounted and hung over the fireplace. Have all remaining Murkin Gladiators battle Blaster inside THUNDERDOME – 2 men enter 1 man leaves. And no whistles allowed – thats cheating, Max.

By: kayarn

kayarn — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:40:39 +0000

any chance well see the ratings for the golf playoff? it was great stuff, but it was in the middle of the afternoon/late morning and on 2 different channels.

By: Sandy

Sandy — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:34:08 +0000

Who exactly was dying for more Mole?