There had been a lot of concern this year by networks with some of their past great performers seemingly losing ground. But results from Nielsen's 7-Day Playback show that some of the numbers weren't reflective of the reality.
Some examples are "Prison Break" and "24" on Fox (NWS-A), which were showing a drop this year, but actually increased by 18 percent when including DVR playback in the mix.
For ABC (DIS), their "Lost" was in a similar position, with ratings down in comparison to last year, but when measured with DVR playback, it was a huge 24 
percent higher than thought.
It wasn't a surprise that live shows had little benefit from the measurements, as people hear about it in conversations during the week and don't bother checking it on playback. Sitcoms also don't benefit from the new data.
Dramas receive the most value, especially those that are serialized as people want to keep up with what's happening and see it.
Having said all that, does this matter with advertisers? The consensus seems to be that at least for this year they probably won't consider the numbers as part of the negotiating in the upfront. Most want to get on with the upcoming commercial ratings which Nielsen will debut toward the end of may.
The agencies are pretty much demanding that they want deals based upon live-only ratings. It promises to be a lively upfront for sure.
Because I hacked my TiVo and added lots of hard drive space, I watch things that are way past 7 days all the time. This morning I was watching the Beach from when it aired last December. It's weird seeing all the Christmas ads now. Between my fast forwarding and the few promos I caught, I'm not sure any advertiser spent good money for my viewership.
I like watching TV later, it lets me go at my pace. Sometimes, the networks will split up good shows, so that they can have cliffhangers and I don't want to wait. If I see a part 1 of 2, I will always put off watching the show until the next week.
Right now, I've been stockpiling 24 onto my hard drive all season and am planning to live blog what it's like to watch 24 in 24 hours later this year. In the meantime, I've been doing my best to avoid spoilers. I'm not sure that doing a marathon Jack Bauer session will give me the maximum enjoyment from the show, but it will be neat to experience the season in real time and something I've wanted to do for awhile. I'm not sure that the 30 second buyers will get a good bang for their buck when I do watch, but the product placements in 24 will get plenty of my attention. I bought my car after seeing Ford put it in their show a few years back.
I think that the way I would handle this disagreement is to get rid of the 7 day window and make product placement pay for every view for 3 months, but then 30 second buyers only pay live.
Posted by: davis freeberg | April 12, 2007 6:27 PM | Permalink to Comment