MEDIA BUYING DIRECT RESPONSE TELEVISION (DRTV) ARTICLE ..

 

Surprise: More People are Watching Commercials on DVRs

By: Peter Koeppel
Published: 12/09

 

Nielsen reports that 46% of viewers 18-49 watch commercials during playback on DVRs for the four broadcast networks combined. This is a surprisingly high number, since many in the advertising and TV industry predicted DVRs would kill TV advertising. A combination of more people owning DVRs, 33% of households in 2009 compared to 28% in 2008 and more people willing to watch the commercials during playback have contributed to this high level of DVR commercial viewership, according to the NY Times, 11/ 2/ 2009.

 

Commercial-Plus-Three Ratings

Two years ago Nielsen began measuring viewership using the commercial-plus-three ratings. This replaced the old ratings system and Nielsen began measuring viewing for shows watched live or played back on DVRs within three days after the live show aired. Network executives feared that viewers would zap through the commercials during playback, which would negatively impact ratings and profits. Prior to the current TV season it was predicted that the increase in playback over live viewing would only be 1% for all networks combined. However, to the surprise of many network executives, for many shows the increase has been 7% to 12% and for some shows it’s as high as 20%, when DVR ratings are added in.

The phenomenon of more viewers watching commercials on their DVRs has helped the ratings for hit shows like “House”, adding more profit to Fox’s bottom line and allowing shows like “Heroes”, which might have been cancelled, to survive another season. “House” is number two in live program ratings to “Grey’s Anatomy” and is the number one show in terms of commercials viewed within 3 days with a 5.68 rating, which translates into 6.63 million and represents a gain of 18% over its live rating. “Heroes” saw its ratings jump by 22% with playbacks.

 

DVR Proof

Among the 18-49 age group, Fox experienced the biggest increase from live ratings to ratings when the 3 day DVR playback is added in. However, not every network has experienced gains in ratings. NBC thought that moving Leno’s show to prime time would make the show “DVR Proof”. They predicted that because it’s a live show more people would view it live and less would record it on their DVRs and skip through the commercials. But now it appears that this strategy has hurt NBC, since Leno’s show is one of only a few shows that saw their 3 days ratings lower than their live ratings. This happened because not enough people recorded the show and played it back to overcome the live viewers that are skipping the commercials.

Various advertising and network TV executives attribute the lower than expected level of commercial zapping by consumer during DVR playback to the fact that viewers are passive and just forget to skip the commercials. Whatever the reason you can be sure that networks will look to further monetize this trend to their advantage moving forward.