Bill Gorman of TVbytheNumbers talks about the confusion that the NY Times is likely to create with a recent article stating that DVR playback is actually helping (and not hurting) commercial ad viewership.
Everyone is used to program ratings increases from “DVR viewing” being defined as the increase from Live+SD program ratings (which is available the day after a show airs) to Live+7 day program ratings (available about two weeks after a show airs), so people will point to this article by Carter and claim “See that increase from DVR viewing really *does* boost commercial viewing, it must be helping my show!” Sadly, that’s mostly wrong.
In fact there is almost no increase in commercial ratings after the Live+SD period.
In a recent conversation with a researcher at a broadcast network, I asked him “Given the fact that the public (and us) sees only Live+SD and Live+7 program ratings on a regular basis, how much of the increase between those two numbers could be assumed to benefit C+3 commercial ratings?”
His answer? 10%
So that 40% increase in program ratings from Live+SD to Live+7 for Dollhouse? It helped advertising revenue by 4%.
Not exactly time to break out the champagne.
Don’t be confused that additional DVR viewing beyond the Live+SD period is going to be a big help to your show, because it isn’t.
Payout Perspective:
It’s probably best that you run over to TVbytheNumbers and check out the article for yourself (including the Times article) to really get a feeling for how TV ratings are measured.
If you don’t have the time, I’ll try my best to synthesize everything, and then relate it all to why this is relevant to MMA:
- There are two types of ratings in the television world: commercial and program.
- Commercial ratings are used to buy and sell commercial advertising spots, but not often published.
- Commercial ratings are referred to in the C+3 format: live commercial viewership plus 3-day playback
- Program ratings are disclosed to the public in the form of Live + Same Day or Live + 7-day playback
- Live + SD is the live rating of the show plus any DVR playback until 3am of the following morning
- Live + 7 is the live rating plus any DVR playback over the next seven days.
- Generally, Live + SD is used as a proxy to gauge the undisclosed C+3 rating.
The problem – or source of confusion – seems to be that network PR people are touting an increase in the Live + 7 over just the Live ratings (when, in fact, the public hardly ever sees the Live ratings; they see the larger Live + SD). If the networks were to compare the Live + 7 increase over the more standard Live + SD, there’d be less of an increase. Therefore, as Live + SD is a proxy of C+3, it stands to reason that there’s also very little change in commercial ratings after the initial same day period (what amounts to by some estimates as only 10%).
Why is this relevant to MMA? A small increase in commercial ratings as a result of the DVR playback isn’t going to positively influence the price that networks are going to receive for ad spots during television shows like The Ultimate Fighter and CBS’s Strikeforce on Primetime card.
Furthermore, the idea that 46% of those watching DVR playbacks still watch commercials is a bit misleading according Robert Seidman of TVbytheNumbers.com.
The actual hard data I have seen is that around 75 percent of the commercials get skipped. But 100% of the people don’t skip 75% of the commercials 100% of the time, so you can still wind up with PR spin like ~50% of the people watch commercials during playback. That doesn’t mean that 50% watch 100% of the commercials though, and again, the actual hard data I’ve seen (mostly from TiVo) is that regardless of the percentage of viewers who wind up watching SOME commercials, around 75 percent of all commercials still get skipped/fast-forwarded through.
In other words, don’t believe the hype or PR spin.
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