Topic: Ratings and the time-shifting phenominon

[theschnauzers]

I couldn't find a general non-season specific ratings thread, which would be useful for items like this one, but there's a really interesting article from Reuters via Yahoo today after the rapid spread of time shifting aong U.S. television viewers; it's reach pandemic proportions!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100817/media_nm/us_timeshifting

Tue Aug 17, 2:53 pm ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Time-shifted TV viewing has more than doubled over the past year and over 40 percent of Americans now make plans to record their favorite shows and watch them later, according to a survey released on Tuesday.

More than two-thirds of viewers have watched prime-time television series through video on demand, digital video recorders and the Internet, the survey conducted for the No. 1 U.S. cable TV operator Comcast Corp found.

Sixty-one percent of those who responded said they were using time-shifting technologies more than one year ago.

The survey results underscore the surge in multi-platform TV viewing that has sparked a concerted search by broadcasters and advertisers for new ways to uniformly measure viewership.

"Time-shifting has got the mainstream and is changing the way people watch TV," said Diana Kerekes, vice president of entertainment services for Comcast.

"The results of our 'TV Pulse Survey' underscore more consumers are watching their favorite shows when and how they want to watch them," she added.

The survey found that 80 percent of those questioned planned to watch live the upcoming 2010-11 TV season starting in September. But 41 percent plan to use DVRs to record shows and watch them later, while 17 percent will watch online, and 16 percent will use on-demand services provided by cable and satellite companies.

As for the most anticipated new TV shows, those questioned ranked the CBS remake of 1970s crime series "Hawaii Five-O" at the top of their list, with CBS lawyer drama "The Good Wife", starring Julianna Margulies, and the Fox musical comedy "Glee" topping the list of returning favorites.

The survey was conducted with 1,000 people by International Communications Research on behalf of Comcast. Comcast is in the process of acquiring a controlling stake in the NBC TV network and sister cable networks from General Electric Co..

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

It's hard to even guessamate how much more time-shifting is going on than what Neilsen can detect, but this article implies that the practice is being underestimated.  I mean people have been using VCR to "time-sfift" for years before the advent of the DVR, and it has to make one wonder, doesn't it?

[mswood]

While its true that Neilsen doesn't track each home, but it does use standard sampling patterns (those are usually accurate within a small margin or error).  As for online viewing (at least through legitimate sources) that is tracked to a very accurate degree.  They get very accurate data points of of online viewing. 

The main problem with online viewing is that up to this point the number of ads per hour show is considerable smaller then what occurs on tv. And unlike ads for TV (where they have breakdowns of the income level, sex, and age groups that watch their programs and can sell ads that target those groups, those don't occur with online viewing and as such advertising revenue off of online sources is still very marginal.

This upcoming year though, two major things or occurring as far as online viewing.  1.  Many sites are now going to be airing he same commercials that air on tv (so instead of a more common online ad period of 4-8 minutes you will see ads increasing to 20 plus per hour show).  That will increase revenue to be closer to one online viewer being worth one live tv viewer (it will still be less, but much, much closer).

Also Neilsen is starting a target program to start including those viewers as part of their ratings that will help set ad rates (it's a pilot program so this year will really be a test).  Currently ads for internet are not sold in the upfront packages.  A year or two down the line this will change.

Also the time a show airs also heavily impacts on when it is watched off of DVR's.  Shows that air at 10 typically have most of their DVR viewing the next day or later (and have the largest percentage that is after 3 days), shows at 8pm have the highest rate of DVR viewing during that same day, and the lowest percentage of viewing outside the 3 day.

As for DVR use while time shifting does occur, revenue is only generated during the first 3 days of airing.  After that if you watch a show (even if you are a Neilsen family) you really wont be helping your show at all. 

For TAR (and in fact almost all reality shows) the largest part of their time shifting is the same day that the show airs.  Thus maximizing any potential ad dollars.

[theschnauzers]

Here's some important information that CBS included in its fast nationals ratings for Monday night September 20, concerning DVR penitration and how CBS is going to "estimate" same plus seven day" figures.

Editor's Note: With DVR penetration now at 38%, up 33% from last fall, playback continues to have an impact on ratings beyond same day viewing. CBS Research has provided live plus 7-day lift estimates at the bottom of this release to more accurately reflect total audience for each program.

from source CBS press release

[mswood]

I can't wait to see the actuals live plus 7 to see how close (or how far off those numbers end up being).  As certain shows do great others do poorly, certain time periods typically (though not always) do better, ect.