Since I am not connected to any survey box how does when I watch a show matter or get counted?

Currently, Nielsen doesn’t measure every commercial spot, but rather the average commercial viewing during a show (across all commercials in the show) for live plus three days DVR viewing. According to Nielsen time spent “skipping through the commercials” is not counted in those C3 numbers, and it is also excluded from the program viewing numbers above (so if you were a Nielsen home and you watched a one hour program but skipped through 15 minutes of commercials/credits/etc, you’d count as .75 of a viewer rather than 1).

Flashforward gets to 3.9, close to its 4.1 premiere

How do advertisers know if someone is skipping through the commercials via DVR?

And wow at The Office with 6.0!

I’m not saying this to knock DH (as I like the show), but it seems to me that networks are probably generally better off with shows that have a broad appeal than that are youth-targeted. Broader-appeal shows like “Medium”, whose target demos you would expect to skew somewhat older, seem to attract youths as well or better, by these numbers than a younger-skewed show like “Dollhouse”. So what makes a youth-targeted show a youth-targeted show seems to be more it’s ability to discourage older viewers than it’s ability to draw younger ones.

As it stands, I don’t think any network would put a “niche” (even if that “niche” was “youth”) show like Dollhouse on a night besides Friday. If it were cable, this would be a different story, as they are already dealing with submarkets. But for networks, it seems that if you had to arrange a schedule of youth-programming and broad-appeal programming, the broad-appeal programming takes dominance for the Mon-Thu slots.

And, as stated previously, I don’t see any of the Mon-Thu programs as discouraging of younger viewers. Certainly if there was “old-people-only” *cough*Dateline*cough* programming it would probably go to Friday too.

The Live+7 number above include all viewing Nielsen measures.

Thank you kindly

But we get weekly data on Tuesdays for every night from the previous week. On 10/16 Dollhouse didn’t air and I seem to have lost my spreadsheet that covered the week including 10/9.

For 10/2 in the “teen” demo here are the 9pm Live+SD ratings/share (little love for Dollhouse among the youngsters either)

MANANA PARA SIEMPRE FRI(PAE) 1.4 / 6
FORGOTTEN SP-10/2, THE(SR) 0.3^ / 2^
MEDIUM 0.7 / 3
DATELINE FRI(PAE) 0.3^ / 2^
DOLLHOUSE(PAE) 0.3^ / 1^
AMERICA’S TOP MODEL7-ENC(R) 0.5^ / 2^

The question networks ask isn’t “when should we show youth shows?” but “what should we show on Friday?” Networks typically air “youth” oriented programming every night (Vampire Diaries, Glee); and even “older” fare is still broadly appealing to youths (House, Grey’s Anatomy).

So what should they show on Friday — some random show that is targeted purely to a small/frugal demographic, or more “youth” programming?

Moreover, the broad appeal shows may be more appealing to youths than the “youth-targeted” shows. HIMYM pulled in a higher share than Heroes, for example, although the former is arguably an “older” show.

@Rob/Bill — do we have more targeted numbers for the “younger” demos for Friday night? I’m curious how something like Dollhouse stacks up against Medium for the “younger” market… or am I just not digging enough.

I generally fall into a combo of your 1st & 2nd groups. I record or VOD nearly every show I watch and then pick and choose when I want to watch something. However, sometimes I will do a slight timeshift and wait until about 20 minutes into a show (10 for a half-hour) to start watching. This means I can skip through all the ads quickly and basically be live at the end of an hour. So if a show starts at 8, I might start watching another recording (from that night or another) by 7:40 so I’m not actually wasting time waiting.

Also, if I’m going to miss a sporting event, I’ll record it and fast forward through the game. For football, enabling the short skip function on Moto DVRs (about 10-15 secs I think) enables me to basically hit a button at the end of each play and get to the next play perfectly. Makes it easy to ignore all those national anchors who are too obvious or too timid in their comments to be worth hearing.

Totally. Most shows don’t last that long and if they do, they usually suck by then. I’m having a hard time thinking of many that were still good after 9 seasons (the Simpsons, I guess. Was Cheers still good after 9? M*A*S*H? There are probably more but they’re the exception, not the rule).

Given that DVR penetration is what? 40% I thought most people where in category 1 but it looks like most are in category 2. What catregory are you in. I in category 1.

meaning that a show like NCIS needs a huge 1.7 increrase to its 4.3 to get 40% increase, that is more than the the rating for dollhouse or smallville after the DVR increase.

did we ever post the season to date C3 year-to-year comparisons for all 5 nets…can we do a separate posting for that? I must have missed it, sorry!!

Our experience is that most people skip the ads most of the time via DVR, but advertisers have agreed to pay for the ones who don’t for up to 3 days after the show aired.