Comments on: Fringe Has Most DVR Viewers, 90210 Has Greatest DVR Increase

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 20:56:14 +0000

Dexter, while some (the CW) issue press releases bragging about their shows levels of DVR viewing, we don’t think that the Live+7 numbers mean that much to the networks in terms of revenue. We believe that the Live+SD numbers are more likely related to the success or failure of each show.

By: Dexter

Dexter — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 20:39:49 +0000

Do networks take these DVR’s 7days viewing into considoration?

By: FrankJ

FrankJ — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 02:55:44 +0000

Thanks for the info, Robert. That does appear to be at least some kind of good news. Curious to hear how the 9/22 episode did, as that went against the Heroes “recap” (though NBC tried to make it sound like it would be a three hour premiere) and new comedies.

By: entertainmenttodayandbeyond

entertainmenttodayandbeyond — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:55:46 +0000

I hope Fox’s Terminator series stays on the air, as I think its a really good show. It one I DVR and watch a few days later every week!

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:04:38 +0000

Frank, you seemed like someone who could use some silver lining. I won’t see the data for the 9/22 episode until tomorrow, but the 9/15 episode of TSCC led among men 18-34, and excluding “Al Diablo con los Guapos” on Univision (which did just a tenth of a point better) it was ahead of the rest of the field both in its hour and for the night by a fairly large margin. There was Monday Night Football that night, but there were not any new shows on CBS and ABC, so the data we should see tomorrow for 9/22 will be more telling.

By: FrankJ

FrankJ — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 23:56:22 +0000

Ah okay. Yeah, I would totally concur the network executives don’t like them because of the impact on ads. I understand the love/hate relationship they’re dealing with. I would hope though that if say FOX found out a large percentage of the 18-49yr demo was recording Terminator, they might be more apt to try to do something about that and get those viewers to tune in live rather than just discount the time-shifted viewers as a lost cause.

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 23:32:20 +0000

Anthony, it’s hard to call the DVR viewing levels for Prison Break “strong” or “weak”. A 16% increase over its Live viewing is a little above what was average for the English broadcast networks last year (11% as of May when I did the calculations).

My guess is that we will see overall DVR viewing rise this season. We’ll have overall network numbers we can do the DVR math with in 2 weeks.

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 23:03:28 +0000

Frank, we may look at the DVR numbers differently than our readers. In this regard, the live numbers published here are probably very closely looked at by network execs. We view DVR viewing as bad, not good, for the television networks.

Sure, they’ll use the numbers in press releases because they look bigger, but when it comes to selling ads, they are bad for the networks. While the networks will launch a crusade to cultivate the notion that people actually watch the DVR ads, the networks surely view it as a good thing that the # of DVR homes is not growing that rapidly.

the demographic data for DVR viewing likely exists, but we do not have access to it.

By: FrankJ

FrankJ — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 22:41:12 +0000

Bill, I’m curious, is it possible to see the 18-49yr/18-34yr demo breakdown for DVR viewers? Does Nielsen provide those numbers to the networks? Once you start getting into the millions for time-shifted viewing I’d imagine that could really start to change the ratings share.

By: Anthony

Anthony — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 22:03:16 +0000

Bill you do a fantastic job here. Keep up the good work my friend.

Been a bit worried about the ratings for PB as this season definately deserves more viewers. Even some of the hate-happy-critics love it. Are the DVR numbers strong for it? Last week i saw for the premier it was third in DVR viewings.

By: Holly

Holly — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 21:52:51 +0000

FrankJ, Ok, I see what you mean. I misinterpreted your earlier post. Sorry

By: Sarah Connor Society » Blog Archive » DVR Numbers for Samson and Delilah are in!

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 21:51:30 +0000

[...] Source [...]

By: FrankJ

FrankJ — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 21:36:37 +0000

Holly, I'm comparing Live+SD to Live+SD. Last year the finale had Live+SD numbers of 8 million for the two hour finale (7.75 Vick's Chip/8.29 What He Beheld). This season's premiere had 6.343 million Live+SD. That's about a two million person difference. The DVR numbers for last season were fairly consistent at 1.8 million time-shifted viewers, and this season so far has 1.586 million, which is about a 200,000 viewer drop.

By: srwerew

srwerew — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 21:20:24 +0000

I’m willing to bet at least half those DVR numbers from Terminator are viewers who watch Monday Night Football live.

By: Holly

Holly — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 21:15:35 +0000

FrankJ, You’re comparing last season’s Live+SD numbers to this years Live+7 numbers; hardly an equal comparision. On the last two Mondays TSCC aired last spring, it had around 2 million DVR viewers each day. So, even with DVR viewers added in, it has still lost a LOT of viewers year-to-year.

By: FrankJ

FrankJ — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 21:01:31 +0000

And Terminator continues with a huge DVR audience. Thirty percent watching time-shifted has to be giving FOX executives fits. It’s like the live audience dropped two million from last season, but the DVR audience only dropped 200,000. Weird.

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:38:18 +0000

When I produced it, I included the % of DVR viewing that was same day. I think it’s worth it, and not that much work in terms of calculating it (whether it’s worth it or not is…subjective). But there are formatting issues too that are somewhat easier for me to handle than Bill.

When I published them I reported % increase over live just as they are above. I only showed what % of the DVR viewing happened the same day. You can’t calculate the total dvr viewing population without using the live number, but I would agree ideally the increase would be versus live+SD since they’re published everywhere. This is the only place “live” numbers are used and it does cause some confusion. But I do think it’s important to report “total DVR” viewing.

By: Holly

Holly — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:27:38 +0000

This may be one of those “it’s just too much work” things, but… Last spring you started including the Live+Same Day ratings with the DVR numbers so we could see the increase from the numbers we get here on a daily basis. Is that possible or not worth the effort?

By: Holly

Holly — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:22:20 +0000

Correct. Nielsen’s numbers are based only on their sample. TIVO also reports shows recorded, but those numbers only reflect what TIVO subscribers are recording, not everyone with a DVR. In general, advertisers may look at the TIVO numbers, but they’ll make decisions based more on the Nielsen’s numbers.

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:21:54 +0000

Jim, you are correct.

By: Jim

Jim — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:16:44 +0000

So, viewing a recorded show on my Tivo isn’t contributing to these DVR numbers? It’s only Nielson families?

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:11:59 +0000

Jackson, for Nielsen families, Nielsen measures their actual viewing of the show, whenever they watch it Live or via DVR.

Nielsen reports to the press the numbers for Live Viewing, Live + Same Day (up to 3am the next day), and Live + 7 day viewing.

I calculate the percentage increase with this equation:

((Live+7)-(Live))/Live = % increase

Nielsen used to do the same calculations themselves and report them to the press, but they stopped doing so (at least where we can see it) about a year ago.

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:10:14 +0000

everything from Nielsen is based on their panel (a sample).

By: Jackson

Jackson — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:06:59 +0000

How do they determine the dvr increase, is it a sample, or actual data recieved and added on to the neilson results?

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 19:57:09 +0000

Holly, as usual, the mistake (now corrected) was mine!

The Fringe repeat appearing on the list is interesting indeed. That plus the relatively high Live viewership of the repeat (68% of the premiere) indicates to me that the premiere either (a) snuck past a lot of people despite all of Fox’s promotion, or (b) it got some moster buzz in between those dates.

By: Holly

Holly — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 19:44:26 +0000

I think the fact that the Fringe same-week repeat made it on this list is kind of impressive, if a bit perplexing.

Oh, and either your title is wrong or your numbers are. 90210, not ANTM had the greatest increase.