While we figure out what to do about posting live plus seven day DVR viewing on a regular basis in the spirit of both "better late than never" and "it's better than nothing" here is a graphic of the top 10 most viewed shows on a live plus seven basis among 18-49 year olds for the week of 11/24-11/30 via a Fox press release. Please keep in mind that typically we measured the entire DVR viewing audience of people aged two and above, and these numbers are only for 18-49 year olds:
Also note that was Thanksgiving week, which explains the absence of Grey's Anatomy and CSI (they were reruns that week). House got nearly a two point 18-49 ratings increase as a result of DVR viewing, but it should also be noted that around half of that DVR viewing likely occurred the same night the shows actually aired and is included in the typical "live plus same day" results we report.
Interesting,
Nielsen had to rerelease its recent top 10 2008 Shows % change. Appears they omitted 2-4 CW shows! Appears they were busted by a brodacasting ratings site and the CW……
How can CW have 2008 YTD Top 10 but not included in weekly listings?
Can someone also post Jericho’s CW DVR Addback %
Thanks!
Only after Nielsen had been contacted by both Broadcasting & Cable and The CW did Johnson say that the company would release “two additional time-shifted lists for 2008 to show how the rankings can vary depending on whether you show raw number differences or ratings differences.”
Below is the list of the Top 10 “Timeshifted” Primetime TV Programs of 2008 using the methodology Nielsen used in 2006. By that measure, 90210 is at the top of the list, with a 35% increase in viewership, based on the same household ratings and date range that Nielsen used for their official list. In total, four CW shows made the list.
Revised #’s
CW – 90210 #1 35%
CW – ATM -5 #3 27%
CW, ATM -4 and Beauty and the Geek – 26% both made top 10
sadly, we’re no longer seeing DVR data. It’s not a Jericho conspiracy, though it is possible it is somehow related to the way Nielsen counts when it does the top 10 lists (we used their data to come up with different lists, which on a % increase basis DID include the CW shows).
I did see the news story explaining why the CW shows weren’t included, but I’ve seen nothing about Nielsen re-releasing its list to include 90210 and Gossip Girl. If you have a link to that, please post it.
Edit: I have seen this story: http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6623130.html
I know that includes the revised data you list. But that’s very separate from Nielsen revising its own lists, which as far as I can tell, did not happen.
Just to clarify a few things:
1. Nielsen stopped making any calculated DVR viewing numbers regularly available free to the press in late 2007. They could easily have still provided those numbers to paying customers, I’m not sure.
2. We continued calculating the DVR viewing numbers ourselves using Live and Live+7 viewing data from Nielsen until November, 2008 when Nielsen stopped providing those numbers free to the press. We calculated top DVR viewed shows for both absolute viewer gain and % gain and included both top 20 lists in our posts.
3. Nielsen’s method that is discussed in the B&C article Robert linked to of selecting the top shows by absolute DVR viewing and then ranking them by % gain Isn’t what they used to do before they stopped in late 2007, but they could have changed their “method” since then without us knowing (see point #1).
4. Nielsen’s described method of calculation/presentation is non-obvious enough that to do it without explanation of the method is a bit unusual. I’d like to know more, but am not sure what we’ll hear.
Wait… is the “Top DVR Shows” blog section going to be updated in 2009 or is that part of TV by the Numbers over? i.e. Will we see something like http://tvbythenumbers.com/2008/12/16/greys-anatomy-has-most-season-to-date-dvr-viewers-office-has-greatest-of-viewing-by-dvr/9271 again?
Er–I meant to post this link: http://tvbythenumbers.com/2008/12/03/greys-anatomy-yet-again-has-most-dvr-viewers-lipstick-jungle-has-greatest-share-of-dvr-viewing/8946
thedemonhog: see Bill’s comment above. Both of the links you provide are to posts that we no longer receive the data to produce. As Bill notes above, Nielsen stopped providing the data necessary to calculate. We’re investigating alternate solutions, but unfortunately we might wind up limited to blurbs like the graphic in the post above.