DISQUS

My frustration with the Olympics was that I think many of the people who write about media for a living were determined to stick to two pre-determined storylines no matter what the facts said.

Those storylines were: 1. NBC's tape-delay strategy was obsolete and would never work in the new media world and 2. Online viewing of the Games would make up a significant percentage of all viewing.

In fact every part of NBC's scheduling worked brilliantly and traditional TV obliterated online viewing, but unfortunately those facts went largely unacknowledged, even by trade press that should know better.

These Olympics call into serious question the conventional wisdom that the public "wants what they want, when they want it." Given the chance to watch whatever they wanted whenever they wanted, the public overwhelmingly chose to watch what NBC gave them, when NBC gave it to them. There is something compelling there about the nature of television consumption and how it's fundamentally different from internet use, but it rarely gets discussed because it doesn't quite jibe with the pre-determined narrative.

So my hat is really off to you guys for being one of the few outlets to follow this data where it leads and not just where you expected it would lead.

I also tip the cap to NBC. Maybe they were not completely transparent with their data, but give them a break; this is still the corporate media world and not an academic exercise. They could not have been more transparent with these numbers without essentially embarrassing their online division. They made a very high-profile effort to contextualize multi-platform usage and they did the whole industry a service.

It was fun and we learned a lot. Bring on football season.

It does.

By the way, I ran it again today and it's now 129.3 billion minutes, of which 114 billion is NBC.

The reason for the big increase is that it can take a week to get ratings for programs that run outside of primetime on broadcast networks.

My opinion is that Nielsen should stop issuing ratings statistics for kids ages 2-5. It's not appropriate for kids that age to be targeted by marketers.

I think the evidence on the effect of very young kids watching TV is inconclusive at best. I'm not at all convinced that the act of watching TV itself is necessarily a bad thing, and in moderation it can actually be useful. It's the commercialization that I think is troubling.

If we stop issuing ratings for toddler-age kids we can't stop marketers from continuing to target them, but at least we can say that as an industry we don't acknowledge three year olds as part of a consumer marketplace. I think that would be a healthy step.

I also recognize the chances of this happening are about equal to the chances of me swimming from New York to Australia.

Ah, my favorite subject!

After you posted this I checked the total number of Olympic minutes viewed on television. Through last night the total is 107.6 billion.

Thus the TV:Internet ratio of 300-1 that you reported last week still holds up.

Nielsen actually does track HDTV homes. As of a couple days ago the Olympics were averaging a 21.5 in Prime in HD homes, or +25% better than they were then doing in all homes.

I posted this fact in Cuban's blog comments as well. Wonder if he reads the comments?

Believe it or not, the 25% bump could be called mediocre for a big sports event. The Super Bowl was +40% higher in HD homes. So was the World Series, NFC Playoffs, Masters, etc. (I'm ballparking here).

Wow. Nine and a half minutes per stream. That is pretty darn good.

I must say, big kudos to NBC for putting all this info out. They have done a phenomenal job.

Notice that now that we know the durations of these streams we can conclude that over 99.5% of Olympic viewing is viewing to TV, not 94% as has been reported by many, many outlets.

By the way, total viewing of the Olympics on all networks through Tuesday night = 55 billion minutes.

On NBC alone = 49 billion minutes

Just NBC Primetime = 36 billion minutes

Mind-bending figures

Excellent post! Thanks for asking your guy at NBC.

It's all about minutes. That's what so many people fail to grasp.

I'll bet that total number of minutes will be under 100 million. Online streams typically average 2-3 minutes. An Olympic stream will probably be longer but not tons longer.

Thanks Robert. As you know I work for an NBC competitor but in this case my hat is off to them. They've done a good job getting this complex info out and being fairly transparent about it, although I do think they're being just a bit evasive with the time spent viewing online numbers.

I can probably get you those figures for average time spent viewing the Olympics on TV, at least on NBC Prime. I'll look into it tomorrow.

If you guys have a contact at NBC it would be worth asking them what the average length of those 13.5 million video streams has been. It makes for a more complete comparison of online viewing of the Olympics to TV viewing of the Olympics.

We also don't know if AMC has been able to raise its subscriber fee by having such a critically acclaimed show, or if they are now being carried on cable systems that weren't previously carrying them.

AMC can monetize that show in ways that a broadcast network can't.

Even if they aren't making up their costs in commercial sales and DVD sales (and they probably aren't) a show like Mad Men can still be a big moneymaker in more roundabout ways.

The final six-game average audience for the Finals is in. 14.946 million.

If ABC actually believed that the only truly valid comparison is Live + Seven Day, then that's all they'd release. Simply by issuing Live + SD comparisons they indicate that they don't believe their own argument.

For sports programs, the difference in audience between Live + SD and Live + 7 is frequently less than 1%. It's certainly not a difference that would cause anyone to say that the Live + SD comparison is an invalid measure of success or failure.

When the Live + 7 figures become available for Game 1 I'll post them. I'll predict with confidence that the difference will be trivial.

That 15 million turned out to be a great over-under. I don't think it's in the bag yet. If the Celtics win tonight ABC's got to do 17.5 million to get there. Tonight's competition will be a little tougher than the Tonys, the game may not be close, it's a work day which impacts the west coast audience. It's gonna be pretty darn close.

Are you really looking to the Silicon Alley Insider to provide objective analysis on the state of over-the-air television?

That's like linking to Hannity and Colmes for news on the Obama campaign!

Bill, you raise an interesting question about 08-09 revenues being up or down compared to 06-07. I think they will be but it's certainly not clear-cut.

If we can agree on a credible source for revenue data, I'd offer you a friendly wager that total revenue for the four major broadcasters will be up over two years ago

Geez, Bill, that's an awfully negative view. Not to say that it's inaccurate, just very gloomy.

Given the widespread predictions of weakness in this year's upfront, isn't it fair to say that the market came up strong for broadcasters?

The likelihood is that revenue will be up this year at every broadcast network, and perhaps up quite substantially. The scenario you outline in which ratings don't bounce back from the strike season seems awfully bleak to me.

The networks won't have to make up the difference solely through CPM increases. Every network can reasonably project some ratings improvement simply by not having a mid-season strike this year.

The four networks collectively should be up next season. That ratings increase, coupled with the reasonable CPM increases that Friedman projects, would equal increased revenue for most if not all broadcasters.

Of course, the expected ratings rebound could fail to materialize, but isn't it more fun to think positive?

Just for fun, let's see where Gossip Girl ranks for this season among all programs:

41st among teens

166th among adults 18-49

189th among all viewers

If Gossip Girl is a hit show, is there anything that ISN'T a hit show?

Excellent topic!

I've come to expect mass media outlets like New York magazine to use the term "hit show" liberally, whether the numbers justify it or not. But TV Week is a TRADE publication for crying out loud! You would think they'd be sophisticated enough to see through the hype.

Gossip Girl has become an interesting case study in PR. How much buzz can you generate out of thin air for a show that virtually nobody is watching?

If a tree doesn't fall in a forest, can it make a sound?

Oh. Also, the ratings that Nielsen has provided you are misleading.

The ABC ratings include the entire pre-race.

The NBC ratings do not. They split their pre-race into two program titles and you are only seeing the second, higher-rated portion of the show.

NBC has increased Derby ratings but not by as much as this chart indicates.

NBC moved the post time of the race from roughly 5:30 to about 6:10. Made all the difference.

So far this year:

Around the Horn has averaged 746,000 viewers

PTI 1.0 million

6pm Sportscenter 829,000

Average age for PTI is 36 and average household income for PTI viewers is $63,000. That average income is quite high for any show and particularly for one with a relatively young audience.

I'm sure they have no trouble whatsoever finding sponsors for PTI! Any network will take as many young, male, and affluent viewers as they can get....

Ratings aside, I used to love PTI but I don't watch too often anymore. Can't take the frequent fill-in hosts.

Around The Horn is the worst sports-related show on television bar none.

Not only do you not have it, I believe it's not even produced.

Although someone here may know otherwise.

The numbers actually seem to say that only around 40% are watching at any given moment.

If you aggregated the number who watch any portion of primetime on a given night it would be quite a bit higher.