More statistics the TV networks hate to hear, but it’s no surprise to see more data supporting the logical notion that people with DVRs fast-forward through commercials or skip them all together. It’s also no surprise to hear TiVo users bypassed as much as a whopping 84% of the commercial time (the Grey's Anatomy episode on May 7).
That data nugget is out as part of a TiVo campaign to champion a new metric it has created for its data services: the “pure program rating”. Though TiVo has an increasingly tiny share of the roughly 34 million homes with DVRs in them, it certainly has enough users to create some interesting data. TiVo has made a lot of top ten "pure program" rating data available -- both live and time-shifted viewing as well the most-watched individual commercials in May in its press release (here, in a PDF file).
But does it mean anything in terms of the Nielsen measurement approach? Probably not.
If the TiVo data shows people are watching less commercials than the Nielsen data shows, then the advertisers and advertising agencies will use it to champion different measurement and/or reporting at Nielsen. If the TiVo data shows people are watching more commercials than the Nielsen data than the TV networks will use it to champion different measurement and/or reporting at Nielsen. The more likely outcome seems to be that the TiVo data tracks reasonably closely with the Nielsen data and merely offers more granularity. In that instance you can count on nothing much changing at Nielsen.
For now, it’s quite likely that the advertisers and the advertising agencies will just use it as an additional data point in the “we don’t want to pay for DVR viewers!” campaign. They want to pay as little as possible, even for ads that are watched on DVR. The networks, of course, want the exact opposite and spend a lot on research that shows commercials are still being viewed via DVR – or at least leaving an impression -- “our biometric research showed your ad got focused on even during the fast-forwarding!”
More granularity is good, and I don’t blame TiVo for trying to sell it, but my guess is that among the data buying customers at the networks, advertisers and advertising agencies won’t want to pay a lot extra for it, even if it sounds good. I remember well the TV networks wanting out of home measurement, but that a.) the advertisers weren’t interested in paying more for those additional eyeballs and b.) the TV networks weren’t that interested in the data when they caught wind of how much it was going to cost to produce.
With DVR viewing there will be constant negotiations going on between networks and advertisers and Nielsen will be in the middle of it. So far, none of the data we've ever seen favors the networks -- unless you believe that you should pay full frieght for high biometric engagement, even though the commercials are being fast forwarded through. Unfortunately, for the TV networks even there the data only favors one spot per commercial pod, the one that is right before the show resumes and DVR users are intently focused on when to press "stop" and not miss any of the actual program.
Only 84% on that episode….still seems low.
Isn’t this a Surprise? If they want to get people to watch the Commercials STOP MAKING THEM SO OBNOXIOUS AND/OR OFFENSIVE! Why in the name of Heaven do Advertisers believe that being Obnoxious is the way to boost your product’s sales. Also REDUCE the number of Commercials being shown. In the 1960s less than 10 minutes of each hour was set aside for commercials, nowadays over 20 minutes of the hour is for commercials! Not making enough money? Use the Law of Supply and demand. REDUCE the Supply, and RAISE the Advertising Cost!
I still don’t understand what the pure program rating is. What’s the difference between a pure program rating and a program rating?
Nielsen program ratings measure total minutes viewing divided by the reported duration of the show, including commercials. If I watched a one hour program and fast-forwarded through 17.5 minutes of commercials, network and local affiliate promos, I’d be counted as ~.7 of a viewer.
My understanding is the TiVo regular program rating works similarly, but in the pure program rating I’d count as a whole viewer.
Easy. Break the show into ten parts, and put one commercial every couple minutes. Tivoers aren’t going to bother fast forwarding through thirty seconds. Ad supported television is saved.
I have said this again and again until i’m blue in the face – at bars, with friends, family, to anybody, anywhere, at any time: Ads are the number one reason network tv has become unwatchable. Can I prove it with a computer algorithm?( I can’t even spell it.) Can I quantify it, monetize it, CAT scan or MRI it? No. What happened to plain old common sense in the business world? (I’ll never forget, though, the guy who posted here telling us TIVO causes people to watch MORE commercials. If I managed a sales team, I’d want to hire that guy.) But I don’t. … The Nielsens measured the first twenty minutes of viewing time only, before they doubled ad time per hour. I’m not privy to much inside info but I can use fifth grade logic: One reason the Nielsen numbers are low for dramas MAY be because nobody watches the entire forty-five or whatever of those ad-chopped, close-up heavy, scene-cluttered, sometimes even serialized hour dramas. Anyway, be relentless on this fact, as Mr. Hughes said precisely: Annoying, obnoxious, humorless, vapid, puerile … to sum up how @#$% the ads are you would need to loot a thesaurus …
So the pure program rating captures every viewer who watched any part of a show?
If so, that seems really unfair. Of course that’s going to appear to inflate the number of people who skip commercials.
Doesn’t it make more sense to divide the commercial rating by the traditional program rating? But then again we can already do that with standard Nielsen ratings so I guess that wouldn’t give Tivo anything new to say.
Live sporting events are the ONLY thing I don’t TiVo. EVERY other program I’m interested in I TiVo for no other reason than to skip through the commercials.
Mikey, no, I don’t think it’s capturing viewers who watched any part of a show.
I’ll try again:
Let’s say a show’s duration minus commercials is 42 minutes. Let’s say between fast forwarding through commercials and credits you watch 40 minutes. Under the program rating you would count as .66 of a viewer (40 out of 60 minutes). Under the pure program rating you’d count as .95 of a viewer (40 out of 42 minutes).
So who will be the first to do a show with no breaks and have advetising run over programming in the bottom third? (it’s already done to promote other shows, why not third party paid ads?)
Yes, okay. That does make sense. That’s really interesting.
Cable bill or commercials NOT BOTH!
Charging for TV thats already paid for with ads is wrong.
The ad industry needs to rethink itself. Idconfig is right – charging cable fees and making me watch ads is too much. Also too much is how many there are, how much time they consume and how often I see the same one 2-3 times in an hour. Do one good one! When I am fast forwarding I will stop and reverse to watch a commercial that looks interesting (like the Apple-PC ads) unless it is one I have seen a zillion times. Fewer ads, better quality, take up less of my time and I won’t work so hard to avoid you. Although there is a point about fast forwarding – I do have to stay put. Before I just walked out of the room and did something else for 5 to 10 minutes during the ad breaks. But Nielsen nor TiVo could measure that. So I am be seeing more ads than before. I am getting less done.
Why exactly is product placement not a good thing. Reduce the number of commercials and have the actors use real products we use in their “lives”.