Disqus - Latest Comments for Bill Gorman

Re: Why I Like Les and the Katie Couric Experiment

Bill Gorman — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 16:38:18 -0000

My guess is that the Broadcast evening news will change little over the next 5 to 10 years. (has it changed much over the last 5 or 10?)

One simple reason is inertia, but I also think the "Big 3" networks continue them as legitimacy exercises. Their "Temples of News" that set them apart from the hoi polloi of the rest of the television channels.

Re: Overnight Results for 10/20: Fox wins with Red Sox

Bill Gorman — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 16:50:45 -0000

I must mention that the ESPN2 late college football game* was the Virginia Cavaliers coming back for the third time in a row to win [and extend their winning streak to 7 games], this time over the hated Maryland Terrapins!

Wahoowa!

*Ok, it's not the game mentioned in the post, but I'm plugging Virginia regardless.

Re: The Hills Tops Cable Timeshifted Shows, Oct 1-7

Bill Gorman — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 18:04:23 -0000

To expand on Robert's point, and I will edit the post to reflect this, we see data only on the Top 40 Cable shows total [and by agreement with Nielsen can publish only the Top 20].

On the other hand, we see data on effectively all the Broadcast shows [200+], so we don't lack any visibility there.

Re: Top Timeshifted Broadcast TV Shows Oct 1-7

Bill Gorman — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 01:29:14 -0000

Mark, you are correct!

I will correct the post copy.

Re: Fortunetelling the Future of the 2007-2008 TV Season

Bill Gorman — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 11:58:14 -0000

Good idea, I will come back to this in mid-season.

Re: Samantha Who? Tops New Shows, Oct 15-21

Bill Gorman — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 11:57:59 -0000

Star Trek is good clean fun for *all* ages. ;)

Re: Overnight Results 10/23: Fox Wins

Bill Gorman — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 15:56:06 -0000

Cubes gone, say it isn't so!

Re: I Love TiVo: It’s Still Not a Good Business

Bill Gorman — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 16:15:00 -0000

I had exactly the same reaction to the "feeling the heat" line.

TiVo customers are fast bleeding away to private label DVRs and they're feeling the heat from a brand new company with an unsustainable consumer proposition? Come on.

Re: Top Broadcast Shows For African Americans, Oct 15-21

Bill Gorman — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 17:19:23 -0000

Joe, we see only the top 10 African American shows for broadcast and 25 for cable, we have never posted the cable shows, but for you, I am more than happy to. It'll be up in a few minutes.

Re: Fox Sweeps Weekly Network Ratings, Oct 15-21

Bill Gorman — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 22:19:52 -0000

CD, We are limited by agreement with Nielsen from publishing more than the Top 20.

Re: Moonlight: Renew or Cancel?

Bill Gorman — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 12:48:16 -0000

Mickey, If you're a Nielsen family, your DVR viewing is measured along with your Live viewing by the people meters installed in your home. If you're not one of the 12,000 people meter families, you just watch for fun like the rest of us!

Re: Overnight Results 10/29: ABC Dancing on Mondays

Bill Gorman — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 15:11:10 -0000

Joe, I completely agree on Journeyman.

I love the San Francisco city scenes, but having friction with Dan's present day contacts be such a big story point is just tiresome.

I'm leaning against doing a Renew or Cancel? on Journeyman because the result is so obvious.

Re: Overnight Results 11/2: A Dip in Moonlight Viewers?

Bill Gorman — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 17:33:36 -0000

"Fox’s The Next Great American Band sucks". Indeed.

However, if the writers strike lasts past the holidays, you might see the top 3 shows for Friday's being Smackdown, American Band and 20/20 by January.

Re: Chuck: Renew or Cancel?

Bill Gorman — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 21:14:10 -0000

Our numbers are the Nielsen television viewing numbers only, no online viewing of any kind.

We would *love* to get and report the numbers from webstreaming and download viewing, but at this point, nobody's sharing, at least not in any organized public manner.

Re: Friday Night Lights: Renew or Cancel?

Bill Gorman — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 16:27:13 -0000

It is definitely possible that the show could move to a cable net. More likely that happens with a "friendly" network, ala Law & Order:CI's move to USA.

Re: Forecast Show by Show Writers Strike Impact

Bill Gorman — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 17:31:03 -0000

Susan, I don't know. We have limited information on individual show's special situations, but are happy to receive it from anyone who'd like to share.

Re: Writers Strike Starts, 1988-like Ratings Drop Too?

Bill Gorman — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 18:23:28 -0000

Mark,

Here's a chart of overall household viewing patterns. Until recently overall viewing time was trending up.

http://tvbythenumbers.com/2007/10/18/overall-tv...

And here's a chart of the broadcast networks trends over time, including share. It's been headed down for quite some time.

http://tvbythenumbers.com/2007/08/28/primetime-...

Re: Forecasting the Strike Impact: By The Numbers

Bill Gorman — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 11:23:39 -0000

D'oh! Thanks for catching my Telemundo/Univison error, will correct.

And yes, I believe that MyNetworkTV is entirely in the clear on the strike. We don't typically report their numbers but, since you asked, for comparison their Season to Date (11/4) average Live+SD viewership is 860,000. For reference, that compares to CW at 2.92 million, Univision at 3.39 million, and Telemundo at 960,000. You can see the other STD numbers here.

Re: Samantha Who? Again Tops New Shows, Oct 29-Nov 4

Bill Gorman — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 01:15:53 -0000

Angela, that's indeed the $64,000 question.

Samatha owes a lot to Dancing's 21.4m average audience on 10/29.

However, for 18-34s, Dancing had 2.299m avg. viewers and Samantha had 2.359m. So *more* younger viewers tuned in for Samantha. That's likely significant.

Re: Top Broadcast Shows, African Americans 10/29-11/4

Bill Gorman — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 12:52:09 -0000

tichaon, CW shows like The Game and Girlfriends are significantly more popular among African Americans than with the general US population [~ 5 times as popular], but their overall ratings are so low, that more African Americans end up watching other shows than those two.

Re: Overnight Results 11/7: ABC Wins with CMAs

Bill Gorman — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 13:09:23 -0000

Bionic Woman is dropping like a stone. Its previous episode average viewership was 7.81m (10/24). That 6.44m is another drop of 17%. Hard to believe its first episode was seen by 13.91m.

Re: Latest Strike News: November 8

Bill Gorman — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 14:58:05 -0000

Dave, I agree.

Add ABC into that mix. I'm sure CBS is uncomfortable with the relative success ABC's new shows have had this fall vs. CBS's.

Conventional wisdom is that an extended strike is most damaging to new shows without a long term viewing trend.

I don't think it's too far fetched to think that CBS might want to see ABC's new shows extinguished by a long strike, even at the price of its own new shows.

Re: Samantha Who? Again Tops New Shows, Oct 29-Nov 4

Bill Gorman — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 19:24:42 -0000

[Off] means the show didn't air that week.

Of the 6 new shows that didn't make the top 20, 4 had zero viewers since they didn't air. The 2 CW shows aired with fewer viewers than Gossip Girl.

Re: Latest Strike News: November 9

Bill Gorman — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 16:19:43 -0000

David,

I agree with you. The writers [and the on-air talent supporting them] seem to be behaving in a "maximum PR pressure early wins the strike" mode. Maybe that's inevitable based on the dynamics of the situation, but I don't think it's likely to prove useful.

I think the studios are in this for the long haul and that most of the activity at this point ends up being just noise. The WGA needs to be planning for months of activity not days or weeks if they want to be successful.

Re: CNBC Viewers Before & After Fox Business Network

Bill Gorman — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 17:07:20 -0000

No FBN ratings will be out for at least another 60 days, or so we hear. We'll be on the lookout.

Re: Top CBS Primetime Shows, Oct 29 - Nov 4

Bill Gorman — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 23:56:01 -0000

Kat,
Blame the Patriots for taking too long to beat the Colts. The NFL post game ran 5 minutes into primetime and pushed Moonlight to #21 with 7.553m average viewers.

Nielsen left the NFL post game show off many lists because it was so short, but I figured it was a CBS show that was in primetime, so we'd include it here.

Re: Top Univision Primetime Shows, Oct 29 - Nov 4

Bill Gorman — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 00:13:17 -0000

Eva, that 2.469m is average viewers (which Nielsen defines as persons 2+ years old).

The Hispanic HH rating for that night for Sabado Gigante was 11.7, meaning that 11.7% of Hispanic HHs were tuned in.

Re: Writers Strike Starts, 1988-like Ratings Drop Too?

Bill Gorman — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 09:39:44 -0000

Fine with me.

Re: NBC Back On Top, Evening News Viewers, Nov 5-9

Bill Gorman — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 23:50:01 -0000

Patricia, sadly, we don't have that data. The broadcast evening news data we get includes only ABC, NBC and CBS, and the Spanish broadcast data we get is primetime only [8pm+].

Re: Weekly Network Ratings: Nov 5-11, ABC Tops CBS

Bill Gorman — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 00:53:48 -0000

Jose, You can find individual show information [as opposed to aggregate network info] by clicking the "Top Broadcast Shows" link, but here's a direct link to the latest Top 20 ABC shows,
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2007/11/13/top-abc-pr...

Re: Broadcast Morning News Ratings, Nov 5-9

Bill Gorman — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 01:31:54 -0000

Good catch, Zedman. The folks at Today must be more than a little nervous about GMA.

Re: Overnight Results 11/15: CBS Sweeps Again

Bill Gorman — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 16:54:22 -0000

I agree with Robert on the show, I like it, but sadly, the viewing public does not.

To Robert's point on 18-49 demo though, 30 Rock is only middle of the road.

Season to Date through 11/5 it's #46 in the 18-49 demo [top four network shows bottom out at about 100, CW shows at about #115].

And for NBC, it's #12 of 21 among 18-49.

However, NBC is a beggar, not a chooser when it comes to mediocre shows, and I bet 30 Rock sticks around.

Re: Overnight Results 11/6: Fox Leads with House

Bill Gorman — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 12:00:43 -0000

Linda, You've motivated me to make Cane our next Cancel or Renew?

Re: Top Cable November 5-11, 2007

Bill Gorman — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 12:02:44 -0000

Nip/Tuck made the cable Top 20 last week.

http://tvbythenumbers.com/2007/11/06/top-cable-...

Re: Top Cable November 12-18: All Hail SpongeBob

Bill Gorman — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 13:57:58 -0000

I, for one, welcome our new squarepanted overlord. ;)

Re: Top Cable November 5-11, 2007

Bill Gorman — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 15:49:42 -0000

Susie, Sort of like the NYTimes did in its book best sellers when the Harry Potter books were too successful for the other book publishers [and NYT advertisers] liking?

We don't have pushy advertisers (yet!), but we only get info on the Top 40 cable shows each week.

For the week of 11/12-18, L&O;:CI wasn't in the Top 40 cable shows.

For the week of 11/5-11, L&O;:CI just made it on the list at #40 for viewers, with 3.282 million.

Re: Top Cable November 12-18: All Hail SpongeBob

Bill Gorman — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 21:56:22 -0000

I agree with Mark. And Monday Night Football is stuck with its schedule, while in the last half of the season Sunday Night Football is not.

Re: Weekly Top Cable Networks: November 5-11

Bill Gorman — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 11:09:56 -0000

whiteGuy7, We post it early Wednesday, you can find it here.

Re: Moonlight: Renew or Cancel?

Bill Gorman — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 16:15:14 -0000

Laura, Our latest information [which was from 11/13] is that there should be 2 fresh Moonlight episodes left as of today. If so, when they air is another question that we don't have the answer to.

Re: Samantha Who? Again Tops New Shows, Nov 12-18

Bill Gorman — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 14:01:44 -0000

Ike, we do have the Top 20 shows for the 3 age demos 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54 every week at our Top Broadcast by Age. Plus, we include age demo performance in the analysis of our Renew or Cancel? show items, and we have the 18-49 demo information in our Overnight ratings posts.

We understand advertiser interest in the age demos, but we've made the editorial decision to feature average viewers as the general measure on the site, because for most people that's what they're used to seeing and it's what most other media reports.

Re: Dissecting the NBCU - TiVo Deal

Bill Gorman — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 16:44:41 -0000

You're on baby!

Winner to be declared by Thursday ;)

Re: Overnight Results 11/26: ABC Wins, but…

Bill Gorman — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 22:10:13 -0000

Dave, good eye. We had the wrong numbers. They are now correct.

Re: Dissecting the NBCU - TiVo Deal

Bill Gorman — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 16:50:28 -0000

The beer is on me. TiVo lost 130k subscribers vs. 145k last quarter!

Re: Samantha Who? Tops New Shows, Nov 19-25

Bill Gorman — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 13:40:24 -0000

Let me add that we are unlikely to present *only* age demo numbers in any general analysis like this. (Of course, you can find that information in our Top Broadcast by Age posts)

We added 18-49 demo numbers because some find it useful, but we will keep the average viewer numbers as well.

If we reasonably have the space/time we will always fall on the side of more information presented vs. less.

Re: Journeyman: Renew or Cancel?

Bill Gorman — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 14:57:09 -0000

I really tried to hang in with the show as well, for many reasons, but once the conflict in the present with his brother became such a big deal it just became tiresome.

I will likely watch the episodes on Dec 17 & 19 though. If only to see if they really did finish with their best stuff.

Re: More Fun with Numbers: Thanksgiving Redux

Bill Gorman — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 18:02:00 -0000

I completely agree. +10% in DVR viewing is a reasonable guess, the huge numbers are highly unlikely. We'll know in a week.

I don't understand why they burned those new episodes on a low viewership night either, but if I HAD to go out on a limb, it might have been an entirely non-economic decision to boost good will to advertisers.

The conventional wisdom is that advertisers are freaking out about the potential for ratings decline as the strike continues, maybe this was a bone ABC could throw now, during an important part of the selling season, that may yield dividends in advertiser attitude later.

Or it might just have been a really bad decision.

Re: Top Timeshifted Broadcast Shows, Nov 12-18

Bill Gorman — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 11:23:56 -0000

David,

All of our information is for average viewers [or age or demo for the entire period of the show.

In the US, there are C+3 ratings which show viewing for the commercials themselves within 3 days of broadcast, but we don't receive those regularly.

The one time we found them we were able to calculate that nobody watches commercials in DVR playback.

Re: Season to Date Broadcast Net Ratings, 9/24-12/2

Bill Gorman — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:08:27 -0000

Fox has done better this fall than they have in the recent past, but as Robert said, that's no PR, that's just the numbers.

With Fox being more competitive in the fall, plus the strike ending most scripted series early, look for American Idol to absolutely maul the competition and Fox to have a banner total year.

Re: Top Syndicated Shows, Nov 19-25

Bill Gorman — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 12:03:52 -0000

Rena,

For the shows that run M-F, the viewership is the average for all 5 days, what the industry calls "collapsed" ratings. That's all we get for syndicated shows.

For Hispanic Spanish broadcast shows we get both the "collapsed" ratings and the "strip" ratings, which gives a rating for each individual day. For that group, we have chosen to publish only the "strip" results, since those are most like all of our other ratings items.

For Syndicated shows, we don't have the choice, the collapsed ratings are all we get.

Re: Top Sports Shows, Oct 29 - Nov 4

Bill Gorman — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 15:30:15 -0000

TV-aholic,

We have no idea. Nielsen hasn't posted any sports results since that week. Sports results were always a bit unreliable in their release date, but the current situation is mystifying.

Re: Top Cable Nov 26-Dec 2, NFL & Tin Man

Bill Gorman — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 15:37:08 -0000

TV-aholic,

If the Pats get to 15-0 we will. The Week 17 Pats/Giants game is on NFL Net on 12/29. If the Pats are going for 16-0 in that game I guarantee we'll hear about the ratings. ;)

Re: Top Sports Shows, Oct 29 - Nov 4

Bill Gorman — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 00:25:33 -0000

TV-aholic,

Sadly, we don't. That's exactly what we lose (non-primetime broadcast sports) when Nielsen doesn't post sports specific results.

We still get broadcast primetime results, like NBC Sunday Night Football and ABC Saturday Night Football, and any cable results, like ESPN Monday Night Football, but we lack the daytime broadcast results.

There still is some hope they will appear eventually. Sometimes in the past, several weeks have appeared at once for us.

Re: Top Sports Shows, Oct 29 - Nov 4

Bill Gorman — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 12:14:52 -0000

We'd see them if they were in the Cable Top 40. UPDATE: Oops, Robert is correct on the numbers of times.

NFL Network could make a press release at any time touting their ratings. My guess is that except for the Packers/Cowboys their ratings have been so low as to be better left unmentioned by them.

Re: Nets See 9% Increase In Prime Viewers Via DVRs

Bill Gorman — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 18:51:43 -0000

I didn't mean to present it in a "this is good or bad" way, more to just show how different network's viewers were using their DVRs.

But since you asked, I think that for the networks existing ways of doing business it's a bad thing.

That's not to say they can't modify their businesses [i.e. product placement, etc.] to adapt, but I think that the past reliance on the multiple 30 sec ad pod between program segments is in long term decline.

Re: Top Syndicated Shows, Nov 19-25

Bill Gorman — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 16:23:35 -0000

Rena,

Here's the answer directly from our friends at Nielsen.

"All of Nielsen's national audience estimates are based on tuning to the average minute. So, the viewing for all minutes are summed together and divided by the number of minutes. As a result when you see a national rating it represents viewing during the average minute of the program whether it airs once or five times a week"

Re: Season to Date Broadcast Net Ratings, 9/24-12/9

Bill Gorman — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 22:25:21 -0000

Alfie, good eyes. I had incorrectly posted the 12/3-9 weekly numbers as the Season to Date numbers by mistake. That has been corrected. However, they don't match the numbers you posted. If you can provide the NBC URL I will check out the differences, there may be many explanations, although I hope it's not another error on my part.

Re: Overnight Results 12/10

Bill Gorman — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 11:33:01 -0000

Check the New Show post today (12/12) to appreciate the Samantha Who? plunge.

Re: Private Practice Tops New Shows, December 3-9

Bill Gorman — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 12:15:10 -0000

Rena, I think it's the ageism at work, valid or not. My mistake in not labeling the WMC ball in the chart [to the right of Chuck], but its got the same overall viewership as Chuck, but a much smaller 18-49 viewership.

Re: Top Sports Shows, Oct 29 - Nov 4

Bill Gorman — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 11:21:10 -0000

TV-aholic,
We have asked our friends at Nielsen about the situation with the sports ratings and hope to have an answer soon.

Re: Top Cable Dec 3-9, MNF and the Family Channel

Bill Gorman — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 11:31:22 -0000

Technique, Here you go. All rankings are for average viewers.

VH1’s I Love New York 2, Rank #32, 3.60m viewers
MTV’s A Shot At Love with Tila Tequila, #28, 3.74m
TNT’s Saving Grace, not in the Top 40
USA’s Psych, #31, 3.67m

Re: Nets See 9% Increase In Prime Viewers Via DVRs

Bill Gorman — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 16:15:53 -0000

We have not seen anything directly about that from Nielsen, and while we do not get regular C+3 commercial rating information, the very first week it came out others in the press had it, and we did our very own study of commercial viewing using that data.

Re: Overnight Results 12/14 - All CBS

Bill Gorman — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 16:23:44 -0000

Brad (and others), As the old saying goes, mistakes were made. The correct number is there now.

Re: A Separate Letterman Deal is Bad For the WGA

Bill Gorman — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:43:12 -0000

Kelly,
Letterman on air talking about the writers would be a PR bonus for the WGA, but it would be a financial bonus for CBS. I just think in the grand scheme of this labor action that CBS [and the AMPTP] comes out ahead in that bargain.

Rena,
My understanding [and I admit to no inside information] isn't that Letterman's company is going to agree to whatever the WGA wants [if so, it *would* be a big positive to the WGA]. My understanding is that they will agree to a "whatever the best deal you get elsewhere we will match" type of deal. That's a very different proposition.

Re: A Separate Letterman Deal is Bad For the WGA

Bill Gorman — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 12:36:43 -0000

Alex, I'm not sure how Oprah's been able to operate. Also, The View uses union writers yet continues to function.

Re: Network Weekly Ratings w/DVR Viewing Nov 26-Dec 2

Bill Gorman — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 11:39:56 -0000

Rena, Fox has had their best fall in years. They are the only English broadcast network with a viewer increase year over year, and their position relative to where they usually end the fall is much better than in recent years.

That, plus the fact that Idol will have significantly weaker competition because of the strike, pretty much guarantees Fox will win the year going away.

Re: Network Weekly Ratings w/DVR Viewing Nov 26-Dec 2

Bill Gorman — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 11:49:28 -0000

I'd have to do some digging to figure out exactly where the increases for Fox occurred. If I have some time, though, I'll look at it.

Re: Post-Strike Show Status

Bill Gorman — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 15:18:10 -0000

Tim, caught my typo, thanks! Has been corrected.

Re: Moonlight Ratings 2007-2008

Bill Gorman — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 21:57:31 -0000

Leeser, thanks for the feedback.

Re: Top Cable Shows Dec 10-16, MNF Up and Down

Bill Gorman — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 00:14:37 -0000

Technique,

Project Runway is the only show you mentioned in the cable top 40 [which is all we get] for the week.

It's numbers:
Households 2.39m [#30]
Avg. Viewers 3.04m

Re: Top Cable Dec 3-9, MNF and the Family Channel

Bill Gorman — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 13:14:52 -0000

TV-aholic,
We don't get season to date information for cable shows, sadly, just broadcast shows.

Re: Top New Shows, December 10-16, Cane Surprises

Bill Gorman — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 15:43:52 -0000

Argh! Samantha Who? info has now been added to the post. Sorry to any fans who were startled.

Re: Post-Strike Show Status

Bill Gorman — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 12:14:12 -0000

Suziq, thanks for your info. And I will add a general note above asking folks for better info if they have it.

Re: Journeyman: Renew or Cancel?

Bill Gorman — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 20:24:49 -0000

Patrick, I think that it's not out of the question that Journeyman ends up on SciFi.

Re: A Separate Letterman Deal is Bad For the WGA

Bill Gorman — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 00:57:51 -0000

David/Joseph,

I'd link to any specific detail about the WGA/Letterman deal, but this report is the best I can find and it doesn't really say much.

I think my original reasons for thinking a separate Letterman deal was bad for the WGA still hold.

A small company like Worldwide Pants agreeing to something with the WGA really doesn't establish the reasonableness of the WGA demands to the bigger companies. More importantly, it doesn't commit the larger companies to anything.

Some writers are now working while others are not. Except for the writers returning to work, that's bad.

Letterman and Ferguson are now advantaged vs. their NBC competition but overall for CBS and NBC-Universal it's not that significant a difference. It will, however, be interesting to see any ratings differences for the CBS vs. the NBC shows. Sadly, we don't get those as a matter of course from Nielsen.

I think there will be some PR boost from having Letterman talk a bit about the strike, but I think all the hope that the WGA has put in PR "victories", and they have had plenty, has been misplaced and largely wasted.

Of the other TV broadcasters, Fox doesn't have any latenight, and ABC has Nightline and that isn't affected.

I do admit, and I should have stated this at the beginning, all my comments cover only the TV business aspect of the WGA strike, as have all our news items. The movie business, and its problems in the WGA strike, are outside the realm of our knowledge and the scope of our writing.

Re: Broadcast TV, Once Again Friend to the NHL

Bill Gorman — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 17:53:08 -0000

I'm sure we'll see it again too. Am just watching PTI on ESPN and they want to do it every Sunday.

I've got to believe that, in general, live events like sports will gain viewing market share over other forms of televised entertainment over the coming years.

The NHL's objective [and other sports] should be to capture as much of that live audience advantage as possible.

Re: Top Cable Shows Dec 17-23

Bill Gorman — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 01:47:24 -0000

Technique, the UCLA/BYU bowl game is all that made the cable top 40 [which is all we see] for 12/17-23.

Here are its numbers:

Households 2.39m
HH rating 2.1
Avg. viewers 3.383.

Unfortunately, our sports specific ratings information from Nielsen continues to be released very sporadically, so we don't have more detailed sports ratings information. I will poke them again and see if we can get updates.

Re: Weekly Network Ratings: 12/24-30, NBC Up, ABC Down

Bill Gorman — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 15:16:22 -0000

Excellent point, Rena. Because of that, I think as the strike continues that CBS will hold up pretty well and ABC and NBC will suffer.

Fox, of course, with Idol will crush them all. If they can figure out how to air the limited number of episodes of 24 that they have, it'll be a bonus.

Re: Top Cable Shows Dec 24-30, 2007

Bill Gorman — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 21:59:15 -0000

Technique, the movie wasn't in the cable top 40, which is, alas, all we see.

Re: Digital TV Converter Coupon Hullaballoo

Bill Gorman — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 15:43:05 -0000

Rena, the tricky thing is having cable *doesn't* necessarily mean you can sit tight.

If you get analog cable without a cable box [i.e. you plug the coax directly into a TV] you will need to get a cable box from your cableco.

I don't have those numbers right at my fingers, but there are A LOT [tens of millions] of people in that position that will need to get a cable box before the switch finally happens.

Also, and I am absolutely the last person in favor of government intervention in anything [ask Robert], I think the switch to digital is driven by more than just the government. The cable companies use less bandwidth/channel transmitting standard definition digital channels than they do analog channels, so a switch to all digital benefits them.

Re: Post-Strike Show Status

Bill Gorman — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 22:49:13 -0000

Amanda, thanks for the info.

Many networks, Fox and CW in particular, have been changing their previously announced scheduling plans recently.

Re: Post-Strike Show Status

Bill Gorman — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 19:12:49 -0000

Eric, what leads you to believe the strike is over? The interim agreement with Letterman's production company? That ended the strike for two shows.

Re: Digital TV Converter Coupon Hullaballoo

Bill Gorman — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 15:20:56 -0000

David, it's a bit more complicated than my initial response and timing will differ on a cableco by cableco basis. The end result [whenever it eventually happens] is the same. Direct analog reception of all kinds, either over the air or via analog cable will eventually go away although eventually may be a very long time [but the government is sticking to its dates at this time].

Here's the answer directly from the government.

Will cable customers with analog TVs have to buy or rent a set-top box from their cable company? If so, how much will it cost?

First, it's important to know that the February 17, 2009 deadline for the digital television transition only applies to full-power broadcast stations. Cable companies are not required by the government to transition their systems to digital, and can continue to deliver channels to their customers in analog. Cable companies are actually required by FCC rules to continue offering local broadcast stations to their customers in analog as long as they offer any analog service. This requirement will continue for at least three years after February 17, 2009. The Commission will decide in 2011 whether the requirement should be continued beyond February 17, 2012. This means that customers who receive analog cable service (without a cable set-top box) will be able to continue to do so.

However, for business reasons (among other things, digital is much more efficient than analog), cable companies may be interested in transitioning their systems from analog delivery to digital delivery. If a cable company makes the business decision to go all-digital (meaning it will stop offering any channels to its customers in analog), it must ensure that its analog customers can continue to watch their local broadcast stations. This may require customers with analog televisions to get a set-top box. If the cable company provides the customer with a set-top box, any costs related to it will be determined by the cable company. Therefore, it is recommended that analog cable customers contact their cable company to ask if a set-top box will be needed, when it will be needed, and if there will be a cost.

It is also important to note that a cable set-top box is different from a digital-to-analog converter box. A digital-to-analog converter box is necessary only for analog televisions that receive their programming over-the-air using a rooftop antenna or "rabbit ears" connected to the set. A digital-to-analog converter box is not necessary for a TV connected to a paid television service such as a cable or satellite TV provider. Information on any set-top boxes needed for a paid service such as cable or satellite should be obtained from the service provider.

Re: Digital TV Converter Coupon Hullaballoo

Bill Gorman — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 12:22:19 -0000

P. Karrer, I don't know for sure what's intended for the VHF band. I remember hearing that a single VHF channel would be broken up into 10(?) standard def digitial channels for the same broadcaster's use, but my memory is definitely cloudy on that. I'll see what I can find.

Re: Weekly Network Ratings: 12/31-1/6, NBC Sweeps!

Bill Gorman — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 14:06:19 -0000

I think it's safe to bet that NBC will suffer the biggest week to week drop off between this week and next for the season.

Re: Post-Strike Show Status

Bill Gorman — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 12:52:56 -0000

EDIT: I just saw that both new Chuck episodes will air around a Celebrity Apprentice on Jan 24.

Re: Post-Strike Show Status

Bill Gorman — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 14:37:40 -0000

In my opinion, there is no chance the strike will end soon enough to get new episodes written and produced for this season.

I think, at this point, the networks next fall back point is their ability to get pilots created for *next* season. I think that's not yet in serious danger, but no talks are going on, and the next event likely to trigger movement is the beginning of the Directors Guild negotiations with the studios/networks.

Re: 8 of 20 TV Ratings Leaders To Survive Strike

Bill Gorman — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 16:07:52 -0000

It wasn't disseminated by anyone. I just pulled the data myself this morning.

I'll take a look at the STD viewers and see what the differences are.

Re: 8 of 20 TV Ratings Leaders To Survive Strike

Bill Gorman — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 16:16:02 -0000

Ok, here's the Top 20 Season to Date shows ranked by average viewers [excuse the bad formatting]:

5 of those 20 shows [as opposed to 8 of the 18-49 list] survive the strike. And again, one is NBC Sunday Night Football.

DANCING W/THE STARS-MON ABC
DANCING W/STARS RESULT-TU ABC
CSI CBS
DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES ABC
HOUSE FOX
NCIS CBS
GREY'S ANATOMY-THU 9PM ABC
NBC SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL NBC
CSI: MIAMI CBS
SURVIVOR: CHINA CBS
CRIMINAL MINDS CBS
WITHOUT A TRACE CBS
60 MINUTES CBS
TWO AND A HALF MEN CBS
EXTREME MAKEOVER:HOME ED. ABC
CSI: NY CBS
LAW AND ORDER NBC
HEROES NBC
COLD CASE CBS
SAMANTHA WHO? ABC

Re: Broadcast Morning News Ratings, Dec 31 - Jan 4

Bill Gorman — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 15:58:56 -0000

Ratings are down across the board from Christmas to New Years.

I was going to point you to our Cable News charts, but they are significantly skewed many nights because of presidential debate and now primary coverage.

Re: Cane: Renew or Cancel?

Bill Gorman — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 19:49:20 -0000

There are no new episodes remaining and no more have been ordered by CBS.

In any ordinary year, that'd mean the show was dead.

This year with the strike, who knows.

Re: TV Bigshot Blog posts for the Week Jan 7-13, 2008

Bill Gorman — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 13:43:05 -0000

Mr. SFTV, I am guilty as charged!

It was my careless division in converting from viewers to HH rating. I ballparked it, badly, instead of just using a calculator.

Lesson learned ;)

Re: Overnight Results for Thursday, January 10

Bill Gorman — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 19:11:53 -0000

Since I still have it fresh on the DVR, by the Nielsen definition, not even I was a Live+SD viewer of last night's 30 Rock ;)

Re: The “Strike Effect”, You Be the Judge

Bill Gorman — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 10:55:37 -0000

It seems pretty clear to me that the broadcast networks viewer loss is attributable primarily to a shift to cable.

I don't have easy to use trend data for cable viewing time, but we do know that overall TV viewing is flat, and if broadcast is declining, cable *must* be growing.

Re: Cable News Ratings through Thursday, January 10

Bill Gorman — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 10:58:54 -0000

Not that I think Nielsen is infallible, nor their methods perfect, but I disagree about the accuracy of these numbers.

The past several weeks in particular with the presidential debates and primaries would be expected to produce big swings in news viewership.

Re: Top Cable Shows Dec 31-Jan 6, 2008

Bill Gorman — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 13:17:06 -0000

Brian, we get data on the top 40 cable shows each week, and Stargate Atlantis didn't make that list

Re: TV Bigshot Blog posts for the Week Jan 7-13, 2008

Bill Gorman — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 16:26:27 -0000

pretzelgirl,

I definitely agree that big ratings moves are one way to add oversized points gains.

We just started our Bigshot blog posts this week. As we move ahead, we're going to try and mix both high risk luck dependent moves with some lower risk less luck dependent moves.

Re: TV Bigshot Blog posts for the Week Jan 7-13, 2008

Bill Gorman — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 16:14:56 -0000

Nymph, I am with you down the line, but consider this.

If you want to hold Apprentice long term, and I haven't done much thought about that, but may before my post late this week, sell it today at $70m and buy it back on Wednesday morning for $52 million. You'll own the same show, and even minus the transaction costs, be ahead $16m.

Re: Supernatural Ratings 2007-2008

Bill Gorman — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 22:50:57 -0000

Both are expected back on Jan 31.

Re: Overnight Results for Wednesday, January 16

Bill Gorman — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 01:47:42 -0000

E-man, just to note that our Top Shows By Network results which appear on Tuesday do have the final HH ratings numbers, but I completely understand the need for information sooner rather than later.

Re: TV Bigshot Blog posts for the Week Jan 14-20, 2008

Bill Gorman — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 11:14:18 -0000

pretzelgirl, I think we agree more than we disagree. I think you should put as much money as you can in shows that you think will have an up week, however you evaluate the chances, and I have no monopoly on seeing the future.

My point was that if you run out of shows that you think are headed up before you run out of money, then you need to make sure the rest of your shows are returning at least 1 point per $1 million invested.

Re: Moonlight: Renew or Cancel?

Bill Gorman — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 16:39:04 -0000

Mckale, who is this Bob you're referring to?

My guess is that Les Moonves at CBS has the last call on Moonlight.

Re: Overnight Results for Thursday, January 17

Bill Gorman — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 12:59:26 -0000

Susan, while we're the strategy bloggers for TVBigshot, we're not the keepers of the rules, so I'm really not qualified to answer your question.

I'd suggest asking in the TVBigshot forum in Television Without Pity.

Re: TV Bigshot Blog posts for the Week Jan 7-13, 2008

Bill Gorman — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 12:52:59 -0000

Shelba,

Once you create an account and log in, you can click on the "shows" link to search and find shows to buy. As long as you have enough money in your account, there will be a "Buy" button next to a show.

To sell shows, just click on the "Dump" button on the right side of the show list in your show lineup.

Good luck!

Re: The Real Reason It’s The “Super” Bowl

Bill Gorman — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 13:15:52 -0000

I think the Super Bowl is so universal, any factors moving the ratings are pretty minor.

I think the Pats try for 19-0 would be a bigger influence than a Favre-Brady matchup, but either is small, maybe a few percent.

The fact that NY as a TV market is in the game is likely an even smaller influence. There will be more viewers than if it had been Tampa Bay, but not significantly.

Re: The Real Reason It’s The “Super” Bowl

Bill Gorman — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 13:19:19 -0000

The 2007 viewership was 93.184m, so I'd say that 100m is well within reach.

Re: The Real Reason It’s The “Super” Bowl

Bill Gorman — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 13:29:26 -0000

Indeed. As I said, I think the effect is likely small, much less important than many other factors.

I have no real analysis to back up TV market influence on the Super Bowl ratings [just as you have none to prove the counter argument].

It just seems logical to me that the marginal viewer in a market that is involved in the game would be more inclined to watch and there are many more marginal viewers in NY than in TB.

Re: Super Bowl: Is it Really Still Super?

Bill Gorman — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 14:20:58 -0000

Now that I look at it with the networks included, the broadcast network may have a very large influence on the ratings.

In the last 11 years, the 4 Super Bowls that Fox broadcast are in the bottom 5 for viewership.

I'm ready to call that cause and effect.

Re: Overnight Results for Sunday, January 20

Bill Gorman — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 16:35:31 -0000

E, Amazing Race is expected back in spring 2008, but I have not yet seen any announced dates.

Re: Top Broadcast Shows Jan 13-20, 2008

Bill Gorman — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 14:04:28 -0000

Amazing Race was #24 for viewers with 9.753m, and a HH rating of 5.9

Re: Top Cable Shows Jan 14-20, 2008

Bill Gorman — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 19:05:03 -0000

Long ago, I welcomed the dominion of the Square-panted one.

Viva, La Bob!

Re: TV Bigshot Blog posts for the Week Jan 14-20, 2008

Bill Gorman — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 11:32:54 -0000

Aaron, I'm not sure I understand. Would you rather the information the blog gave was wrong?

And there are two days to buy for each week, Tuesday night and Sunday night.

While the Tuesday moves are obvious, the Sunday ones most certainly are not and our advice there is just that, advice.

Re: Post-Strike Show Status

Bill Gorman — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 11:38:13 -0000

Jon, our best info has the 1/28 Samantha Who as a rerun, but if you can provide a link I will happily update.

Same with Big Bang Theory, our best info has that all 8 of the produced episodes were aired, but, again, we are open to correction if you can link the info.

Re: Week to Week Ratings Momentum, January 14-20

Bill Gorman — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 16:52:40 -0000

SFTV, I agree. You need to look beyond these numbers for game purposes, but they are useful starting points in many cases. Also, it's meant for our general audience as well, not exclusively TVBigshot players.

Re: Overnight Results for Saturday, January 26

Bill Gorman — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 14:16:54 -0000

It was on TLC, but I admit to Googling to find that out. ;)

Re: Overnight Results for Friday, January 25

Bill Gorman — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 19:01:19 -0000

There were rumors of an FNL pickup by ESPN in the fall, but nothing recently.

Re: Top 18 to 49 Demo Shows Jan 14-20, 2008

Bill Gorman — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 11:23:30 -0000

Selena, we only see the cable top 40, and are allowed to post only the top 20.

Regardless, our adults 18-49 data covers only broadcast shows, and sadly, not cable.

Re: Top 18 to 49 Demo Shows Jan 14-20, 2008

Bill Gorman — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 12:58:59 -0000

Nielsen prohibits us, and any press, from publishing more than 20 in each list.

They are concerned about eroding the value of their paid product which is completely understandable.

Re: Top 18 to 49 Demo Shows Jan 14-20, 2008

Bill Gorman — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 13:53:21 -0000

Also to an extent, we don't know how much we don't see.

We know there is lots more demographic data we don't see and lots more data on cable shows and commercial ratings, which we see none of.

Re: TV Bigshot Blog posts for the Week Jan 28-Feb 3

Bill Gorman — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:04:13 -0000

pretzelgirl, Thanks again. I am surely cursed when putting together that list.

Re: Post-Strike Show Status

Bill Gorman — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 11:53:20 -0000

E, no announcement as to timing of the next Amazing Race.

Re: Top Cable Jan 21-27: Minutemen Wins for Disney

Bill Gorman — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 11:58:52 -0000

TV-aholic, Trading Spaces wasn't in the cable top 40.

Re: Post-Strike Show Status

Bill Gorman — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 12:47:08 -0000

Michael, I would be startled if there are more than a handful of shows, if that many, that manage to get new shows produced and on the air this season. Even if, as is widely rumored, the WGA may settle soon.

Re: The “Strike Effect” Through January 21-27, 2008

Bill Gorman — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 13:53:35 -0000

I'm the first to admit that there can be many logically consistent explanations of the trends that chart shows.

It's a fact that NBC is doing better [in terms of avg. viewers] at this point in the 2007-8 season vs. last year than they were in Nov, Dec and early Jan.

Exactly why NBC is doing better is a good question that I might be able to narrow down with a lot more effort, but then again, I might not, so I'm not sure I'm up for the attempt.

Re: Post-Strike Show Status

Bill Gorman — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 16:40:09 -0000

Glenda, Hard to pin down absolutes in this strike season because the networks aren't being definitive about much of their moves, either because they hate to admit defeat or because they don't know what they're going to do.

But we do know that all Journeymen episodes have aired, they are not in reruns, and NBC has not ordered any more, nor given any hint that they will.

Re: Weekly Top Cable Networks: January 21-27

Bill Gorman — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 11:21:12 -0000

Marc, We only see the top 20 aggregate cable networks ratings, and this week SciFi wasn't in the top 20. They have been in the past.

Re: Post-Strike Show Status

Bill Gorman — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 11:28:12 -0000

Rena,I think, and without any objective fact to back it up, that the calendar would seem to allow the timeline of finishing a script, getting filming going, and completing post-production and getting an episode on the air before the end of May, it's not clear how many episodes could be completed. Is it worth spinning up the entire process just to get out 2 or 3 episodes?

If that's the case, I'd guess that the networks might try and get out a few episodes of some particularly high value shows for the 4/24-5/21 sweeps, but would likely skip spooling up the entire process for most shows.

Re: The “Strike Effect” Through January 21-27, 2008

Bill Gorman — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 11:29:29 -0000

Relative to mid-season this year, NBC is doing better now vs. last year.

Re: TV Bigshot Blog posts for the Week Jan 28-Feb 3

Bill Gorman — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 16:13:02 -0000

Edit: Evidently, that episode of ANTM is considered a "special" for TVBS purposes and not buyable. It seems that the next ANTM that is buyable is Feb 20

Re: Nielsen Ratings: Weds, Jan 30: Idol Reigns

Bill Gorman — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 19:26:45 -0000

That was the final Crowned of the season, and likely forever.

Re: Friday Night Lights: Renew or Cancel?

Bill Gorman — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 22:32:11 -0000

Aeleranne, the folks who write and frequent this site are not typical. Only 20% of homes have DVRs in them, and this season about 9% of broadcast primetime viewing has been by DVR.

I *never* watch live TV except sporting events, but the vast majority of Americans still watch TV live today.

Re: Get Well Soon Michael Wilbon

Bill Gorman — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 20:11:56 -0000

Indeed. Best Wishes for a speedy recovery.

Re: TV Bigshot Blog posts for the Week Jan 28-Feb 3

Bill Gorman — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 12:08:48 -0000

pretzelgirl, That's a reasonable guess, I just figure that a bit of steam has been taken out of Deal or No Deal, perhaps for awhile.

Also, I admit that I approach Sundays from the perspective of someone with $700 million to spent, not someone who's been playing the game since Sept and has built up so much money that they have to buy far more shows.

Re: Nielsen Ratings - Jan 31, 2008: ABC Gets LOST

Bill Gorman — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 22:39:35 -0000

Rob, We're pretty hands off when it comes to any discussion concerning the topics of the blog, but it's not appropriate to personalize attacks towards other commenters.

We're fine with disagreements about ideas, but let's keep all the discussion about those ideas and not about other commenters.

Re: Get Well Soon Michael Wilbon

Bill Gorman — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 22:44:44 -0000

And Wilbon called the Super Bowl winner from his hospital bed [or home, but hospital bed sounded much more dramatic].

Re: Nielsen Ratings for Sunday, Feb 3: Super or Not so Super?

Bill Gorman — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 16:12:31 -0000

And the DVRs of America recorded a lot of partial House episodes last night, because of the over-run.

Re: Nielsen Ratings for Sunday, Feb 3: Super or Not so Super?

Bill Gorman — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 18:44:59 -0000

Wait a second, exactly how many Bill G's are there around here?

Re: TV Bigshot Blog posts for the Week Feb 4-10, 2008

Bill Gorman — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 18:37:49 -0000

Charles, as Robert said, those are definitely the two ratings numbers reported by Nielsen for House, I double checked.

All I can think of is that your other source transposed the 7 and the 5 for one of the numbers.

Re: Broadcast Nielsen Ratings w/e Feb 3: Fox Breaks Records

Bill Gorman — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 06:25:19 -0000

Christian, they most certainly will, they took the lead as of this week.

Re: Top Cable Shows Jan 28-Feb 3: Good Week for CNN

Bill Gorman — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 14:05:47 -0000

Alex, syndicated shows don't run on a single network, they're on whatever local broadcaster buys them.

Instead of "network" in our syndicated ratings, we have "Originator" (aka, syndicator), but that's a business distinction, invisible to viewers.

Re: Nielsen Ratings Tue, Feb 5: All FOX

Bill Gorman — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 00:14:51 -0000

Interestingly, I am both a long time fan of L&O; and a new, but rabid, fan of House. Go figure.

BTW, Mrs. O'Leary, was it really your cow?

Re: Post-Strike Show Status

Bill Gorman — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 01:37:34 -0000

Peter, Absolutely. Networks have already announced the paring of their pilot efforts for next season, and I expect them to engage in plenty of "the devil I know" vs. "the devil I don't" and keep some relatively underperforming shows from this season around.

Re: Post-Strike Show Status

Bill Gorman — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 17:26:37 -0000

Jon V, I agree, whatever the networks have in reserve they will use from April 24 - May 21, which are the last sweep dates for this season.

Re: Online Video Increase Driven by Writer’s Strike?

Bill Gorman — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 15:02:28 -0000

So, instead of "lazy" PR, perhaps I should have written "standard operating procedure" PR!

Re: Online Video Increase Driven by Writer’s Strike?

Bill Gorman — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 19:05:10 -0000

It makes sense that they tag the press releases with something catchy, but I figure it should at least make sense.

"Online video viewing up, yet again, same sites in the list as last time, in about the same order" isn't going to grab anyone.

Re: Top Time-Shifted Broadcast Shows, January 21-27

Bill Gorman — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 15:09:00 -0000

Jon, I think it's tough to pin down the reasons for time-shifting. Most of what I will now write is just an educated guess.

Some people time-shift everything they watch [me] and so unsurprisingly, the most popular shows have lots of timeshifters.

The high % time-shifted shows often fall into these categories:
1. Friday night - folks are out
2. Scheduled opposite popular shows - one is watched live, the less popular is DVR'd
3. Reality shows where folks don't want to watch the entire show, just quickly see what happened at the end.
4. Shows appealing to geeks [early adopters of technology]- they have a higher % of DVRs, so those shows get DVR'd more.
5. Shows appealing to high income [busy] people. Likely some overlap with 4, less time to watch anything live.

Re: Top Time-Shifted Broadcast Shows, January 21-27

Bill Gorman — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 15:16:09 -0000

Anon, that's much harder to know.

Since our data indicates that time-shifted show ads get consistently FF'd through, the value of time-shifted viewing is up to debate.

Re: Top Time-Shifted Broadcast Shows, January 21-27

Bill Gorman — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 18:30:05 -0000

Ike, thanks, correction made.

Re: Top Time-Shifted Broadcast Shows, January 21-27

Bill Gorman — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:58:53 -0000

Brian, We're lead to believe that what really matters to advertisers (and then presumably networks) is the C+3 commercial rating, that measures the commercial viewing withing 3 days of broadcast.

In the one week that we saw publicly available data, the C+3 rating was very close to the Live rating.

Re: Top ABC Primetime Shows, February 4-10

Bill Gorman — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 14:38:13 -0000

Julie, we don't get any local ratings information. Best place to find that is probably your local newspaper.

Re: Post-Strike Show Status

Bill Gorman — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 11:52:44 -0000

Thanks Suziq, all CBS information has now been updated.

Re: Post-Strike Show Status

Bill Gorman — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 12:24:59 -0000

Diana, I'm considering increasing the table data, but there are many factors involved. Information on most cable shows is *really* scarce. And while I can maintain the table with pretty much every english broadcast primetime show, there's no way I could include every cable show, so there'd always be shows left out.

Re: Nielsen Ratings for Jericho

Bill Gorman — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:19:32 -0000

The widget is up, you can get it via the link at the top of this post.

Re: Jericho Nielsen Ratings — Not So Good

Bill Gorman — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:30:47 -0000

Jane makes a good point. Best thing to do is find a Nielsen family and invite yourself over to watch Jericho.

By force, if necessary. ;)

FYI, there are 12,000 people meter families in these cities. Good hunting.

Re: Week to Week Ratings Momentum, January 14-20

Bill Gorman — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 00:04:34 -0000

Jon, each weeks post comes out on Thursday, plenty of time for your Sunday picks.

Re: Nielsen Ratings Wed, Feb 13: Another Idol Moment

Bill Gorman — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:06:11 -0000

Jon, L&O;:CI did very well on USA this fall, you can see it in our Cable top 20s most weeks.

My understanding was that because of past ratings NBC was unwilling to bring it back this season at an "NBC level" price so that Dick Wolf accepted a "USA level" price which is still likely a hefty chunk of change and significantly better than the "show cancelled" price.

As to it's relative profitability on USA vs. NBC (which is all that really counts), I have no idea. We just don't get the kind of insider information that would be required to make that call.

Re: Nielsen Ratings Wed, Feb 13: Another Idol Moment

Bill Gorman — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:51:52 -0000

I think CBS was worried about the strike and pulled in BB because it was doable. That said, I think they could have set it's timeslot a bit better.

Re: Weekly Top Cable Networks: February 4-10

Bill Gorman — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:54:14 -0000

Jon, I don't know. It's very hard to go "backwards" and see what was on those cable networks even a week previous.

Since HGTV shows are unlikely to ever make our top cable show list [or the next 20 we see but can't publish], we'll likely never know what happened that week unless an observant reader is also a big HGTV fan.

Re: The “Strike Effect” Through February 4-10, 2008

Bill Gorman — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 21:54:38 -0000

Mark, when the people speak, we listen!

Re: Weekly Top Cable Networks: February 4-10

Bill Gorman — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 21:56:36 -0000

Steve, thanks for the heads up, mistakes were made.

And corrected! ;)

Re: TV Bigshot Blog posts for the Week Feb 11-17, 2008

Bill Gorman — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 22:25:11 -0000

Angela, I'm sorry but it's the TVBS Tech folks in either the TWOP forum or by email who'd know the answer to that question for sure.

Re: Weekly Top Cable Networks: February 4-10

Bill Gorman — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 11:35:06 -0000

Silvio, SciFi occasionally makes the Top 20, but not this week. If you look back at previous weeks you'll see it.

Re: Nielsen Ratings for Jericho

Bill Gorman — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 11:39:31 -0000

Link & Zelda, these are ratings for the CBS broadcast only.

Re: Cable News Ratings through Wednesday, February 13

Bill Gorman — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 18:58:24 -0000

Kevin,

We'll have CNBC ratings back with the next week's chart.

Re: Season to Date Broadcast Net Ratings, through Feb 17

Bill Gorman — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 15:26:12 -0000

I think it's unlikely that CBS catches Fox in either of those two categories, particularly 25-54.

Fox doesn't have 24 like previous seasons, but figure that Fox has about another 4 weeks of big wins before CBS starts putting on new episodes of most of their shows, the following 6-8 weeks of new CBS episodes will be hard pressed to make up all that ground.

Re: Nielsen Ratings Sun Feb 24: Record Lows for Oscar

Bill Gorman — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 16:14:53 -0000

Show's how daring I was with a sub-40 million forecast. ;)

Re: Academy Awards Viewership, 1974-2007

Bill Gorman — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 16:17:16 -0000

No way did I see the drop below 30 million coming, that's just catastrophic.

Re: Why I (More or Less) Trust the Nielsen Ratings

Bill Gorman — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 17:49:28 -0000

Richard,

The Academy Awards may predate television, but the Super Bowl does not, it has been televised every year.

Re: Daytona 500 Viewership, 1974-2008

Bill Gorman — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 10:47:31 -0000

Carl, while folks may watch shows on their VCRs, Nielsen has never tracked them. Nielsen does however track viewing via DVRs and those numbers have been reported since 2006.

Re: Top Cable Shows Feb 18-24: NICK is King of Cable

Bill Gorman — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 13:36:41 -0000

Spongebob, iCarly, Zoey 101 and other Nick shows are always 20ish members of the top 40 cable shows that we see each week.

What varies from week to week is how well the competition does.

With strong competition, the Nick shows can be somewhat crowded out of the top 20.

On weeks like this one, the competition is weaker and the omnipresent Nick shows move up to fill the top 20.

Re: Nielsen Ratings for Tue, Feb 26: Idol Dominates, Jericho crushes Quarterlife!

Bill Gorman — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 14:40:51 -0000

What will be telling is how the *next* episode of Back to You does tonight (Feb 27).

If it stays boosted by the post-Idol promotion, that's a big win for Fox after it having been off the air for so long.

Re: Nielsen Ratings for Tue, Feb 26: Idol Dominates, Jericho crushes Quarterlife!

Bill Gorman — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 15:31:16 -0000

Jacob, Robert beat me to the reply, but I agree 100% with him. The networks won't get serious about the reliable counting and reporting of online audiences until there is real money at stake. When that's likely to happen is a subject about which reasonable people may disagree, but it's not *today*.

Re: Nielsen Ratings for Tue, Feb 26: Idol Dominates, Jericho crushes Quarterlife!

Bill Gorman — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 13:40:44 -0000

I don't think the leaking of episodes online had a signficant effect on ratings. We'll see next week.

Re: Nielsen Ratings for Tue, Feb 26: Idol Dominates, Jericho crushes Quarterlife!

Bill Gorman — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 16:23:04 -0000

I'm surprised that with corporate groups of broadcast and cable networks now being the norm that shows & networks are not treated more like the ballplayers and the Major Leagues and the Minors in terms of call ups and send downs.

Wayne Friedman at Mediapost had a nice piece on that recently.

Re: Nielsen Ratings for Tue, Feb 26: Idol Dominates, Jericho crushes Quarterlife!

Bill Gorman — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 17:25:49 -0000

Jon, You're maybe 5 years older than I am ;)

I don't buy that anyone has ceded anything to Fox, and if they have they're idiots.

Who "wins" the season matters only for bragging rights.

Relative ratings, including specific age groups, likely correlate pretty well to absolute revenue potential, so doing better is *always* better than doing worse.

Being #1, #2, etc. is for folks like us to chat about, working to get the marginal viewer is what the networks should always be doing.

Re: Reaper: Renew or Cancel?

Bill Gorman — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 13:27:09 -0000

Finally, a pop culture reference I can understand! ;)

Re: Nielsen Ratings for Thur, Feb 28: FOX Cannot Be Stopped

Bill Gorman — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 13:43:54 -0000

There has got to be a way for the television networks, broadcast and cable, to produce and air both kinds of shows; "junky" reality shows and "quality" scripted shows profitably.

I don't know enough about the way the business arrangements work to understand why it seems so difficult at times for broadcast shows with smaller but dedicated fan groups to find profitable homes somewhere.

I'll chalk it up to the inertia of business being done the way it was in the past, but I really have nothing to back that up.

Re: Nielsen Ratings for Thur, Feb 28: FOX Cannot Be Stopped

Bill Gorman — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 16:33:01 -0000

Brian, the same reasons that make it hard to pick up Lost mid-stream would make it terrible for syndication [that plus the 60 min run time].

Look at any of our Top 20 Syndicated shows. Just 2 hour long dramas, and neither of them really has any back story requirement to understand what's going on.

Re: Nielsen Ratings for Thur, Feb 28: FOX Cannot Be Stopped

Bill Gorman — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 19:47:52 -0000

Jon, of course I understand the economics to that extent.

What I don't understand is why a borderline successful show, like Jericho, Cane, Friday Night Lights, Journeyman typically simply disappears if it is unable to make its economics work on broadcast TV.

Why aren't shows like that *routinely* dropped down to a cable channel, with their costs trimmed at the same time?

That's my understanding of what happened to Law & Order: CI's move to USA. NBC didn't want to pay Dick Wolf the "broadcast" price, but they'd pay him the "USA Cable" price, which was obviously more than the "cancelled" price.

Why doesn't that happen more often?

Re: Nielsen Ratings Sat, March 1: Could Paris and Lindsay Best the Bad Boys?

Bill Gorman — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 01:01:27 -0000

Jon, I had not noticed that, and I must admit that as I was reading your comment I was thinking "that's just got to be a coincidence", but we've got the exact numbers from past weeks, I'll take a look at it tomorrow.

Re: TV Bigshot Strategy Blog Discussion

Bill Gorman — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 02:23:02 -0000

NN, I'm glad I kept you in L&O.;

Indeed, large networks, those with $1+ billion will have to buy lots more shows than I advise.

For them it really becomes a matter of which shows *not* to buy.

But I also figure that the high budget network moguls know what they're doing, most of them likely more than I do and so if I can occasionally point out something that they didn't realize, I'm happy.

Re: Lies, Damn Lies and Les Moonves: CBS Most-Watched No More

Bill Gorman — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 12:02:25 -0000

Brigitte, without AI on Fox, CBS would still be most watched still this season, but that's sort of like saying "Without the 3 CSI's, where would CBS be?"

Re: Lies, Damn Lies and Les Moonves: CBS Most-Watched No More

Bill Gorman — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 13:59:17 -0000

Karen, first of all CBS's claim to be "Most Watched" was based on Nielsen measured viewers, so Fox's new claim would have the same basis.

As for new media success, we're ready to report any numbers as soon as we see/get them. So far, they've been pretty sparse, which leads me to believe they're not material yet.

Re: Nielsen Ratings Sun, March 2: Oprah Goes Primetime

Bill Gorman — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 17:13:48 -0000

Jon, I didn't see Unhitched, but will check it out. I'm surprised Fox put it on *last* for its premiere. Fox is usually so good about giving shows a good promo spot after some heavy hitter. I think it would have made much more sense to have it follow NASCAR last night.

Re: Top Time-Shifted Broadcast Shows, February 11-17

Bill Gorman — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 17:36:41 -0000

frankj, I'm not sure how to factor the show duration into the equation, but Terminator has fairly weak competition during the 8-10 period tonight.

I doubt we'll see an extra 2 million though, that would put it at about 11.5m and except for the premiere it hasn't come close to that. I could see it hitting 10m though, which was the level for episode #2.

Re: Nielsen Ratings Sun, March 2: Oprah Goes Primetime

Bill Gorman — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 19:47:23 -0000

Seven more episodes upcoming of Oprah in primetime!

Re: Nielsen Ratings Sun, March 2: Oprah Goes Primetime

Bill Gorman — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 19:54:53 -0000

Re: Lions Share. On average, Newlyweds lost 33% of Oprah's audience and 23% of the demo, but I admit that my comment was colored by knowledge of the 30 minute breakdowns that were not entered into evidence above for everyone.

Here they are:

First 30: 11.22m viewers, 4.4 18-49
Second 30: 9.46m, 3.9

Re: Top Time-Shifted Broadcast Shows, February 11-17

Bill Gorman — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 23:36:41 -0000

Ann Marie, Unfortunately we did get full age demographic information until recently and we are trying to find out why it stopped. Right now we only get info on the top 40 shows for 18-49, but we hope to get back to having that data for all broadcast shows.

Re: Weekly Network Ratings Feb 25 - Mar 2, Fox Beat Down

Bill Gorman — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 16:36:44 -0000

Robert, I'd think Fox has an easier task maintaining their average viewership number. They skip the least watched hours of primetime. CW's task is even easier, and their results are even more pathetic because of it.

What else might be interesting is seeing what the average numbers are for ABC, CBS and NBC during *only* the hours they compete with Fox.

If we start getting the day by day data again, and one day I have a LOT of time on my hands, I'll do that calculation.

Re: Top Time-Shifted Broadcast Shows, February 11-17

Bill Gorman — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 16:49:53 -0000

Multi, we have almost no data on C+3 and we have no data on the particular days of the week that people watch their DVR'd shows, so it's just a guess, but I'd think that there are so many factors that influence when a show gets watched on DVR that it would be tough to isolate just one of them. With the level of data we see, it would be impossible.

Re: Top Time-Shifted Broadcast Shows, February 11-17

Bill Gorman — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 23:24:40 -0000

Karen, make no mistake that paying Nielsen customers likely are able to purchase significant demographic data on viewing habits for shows that we do not have access to.

Some of that may explain decisions that seem wacky without that detailed data.

Re: Weekly Network Ratings Feb 25 - Mar 2, Fox Beat Down

Bill Gorman — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 23:31:47 -0000

My understanding, is that the weekly averages for the networks above are average viewers [or adults in a demo] throughout their entire primetime schedule.

Steve's data illustrates that the 10PM hour of ABC, CBS and NBC is their lowest [except for ABC at 8pm] but the margin is not large in most cases. I do think that speaks to the advantage that Fox has maintaining their overall average, but it's a small one.

However, for that week, if you eliminated the 10PM hour for ABC, NBC and CBS, their averages would increase a bit, but just a bit.

Re: Cable News Ratings through Thursday, February 28

Bill Gorman — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 11:34:27 -0000

Kevin, your wish is our command, darker colors coming next week!

Re: Top Cable Shows Feb 25 - Mar 2: MSNBC Takes Top Spots

Bill Gorman — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 14:11:53 -0000

Doug, As far as we know overnight cable information is not available publicly. At least we've never *seen* it.

Re: Nielsen Ratings for Tue, March 4: Jericho is Toast

Bill Gorman — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 14:36:28 -0000

To many people's points above, since the election shows were not on the national broadcast networks they don't appear in our overnight broadcast results.

Any local election shows would not appear in any information we see.

I'm sure there were people watching either cable news or local election shows [in those states], and they did reduce numbers somewhat, but it's hard to know by how much.

We will have cable news results for last night posted by Friday, so at least you can see how many folks were watching cable news in primetime last night.

Re: Top Cable Shows Feb 25 - Mar 2: MSNBC Takes Top Spots

Bill Gorman — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 17:33:52 -0000

kayarn,

There was an article in the NYTimes today that's in my delicious list on the right about CNN's ratings boost because of the primaries. They benefit from the upswell of casual elections watchers, but seem likely to drift back behind Fox once election season is over.

Breaking Bad has never hit our cable top 40 list that we see [and are allowed to publish 20]. The #40 show the week that Breaking Bad premiered had an audience of 2.983m. If I recall correctly, I remember reading that BB's premiere viewership was 1.8m which is quite good for AMC>

Re: Quarterly Net New TiVo Subscribers 2001-2008

Bill Gorman — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 00:43:06 -0000

Joe, if you're getting it from Time Warner, it's not a TiVo. ;)

That's one thing to take away from the information above. Lots more people are getting DVRs, but almost none of them are TiVos.

Re: Nielsen Ratings for Tue, March 4: Jericho is Toast

Bill Gorman — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 14:41:04 -0000

Barbara, no offense to you personally, but that could possibly be the most meaningless list I have ever seen.

Re: Good News Jericho (and Big Brother) Fans: CBS Doesn’t Care What I Think!

Bill Gorman — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 15:04:03 -0000

Cher, "Jericho’s audience is growing, everywhere but in the Nielsen households" is a typical refrain from fans who's shows aren't doing well in the ratings and it is simply fantasy. The ratings system is far from perfect, but it measures all shows in the same way.

Re: TV Bigshot Strategy Blog Discussion

Bill Gorman — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 15:43:17 -0000

Once again,you are correct pretzelgirl! Editing now!

Re: Friday Night Lights Saved? or Not?

Bill Gorman — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 15:47:40 -0000

Bryan, that is the big question. Why would DirecTV put up money if they were not given some advantage? Yet, what advantage could NBC provide? I will keep my ear to the ground.

Re: TV Bigshot Strategy Blog Discussion

Bill Gorman — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 16:57:25 -0000

SFTV, you, as well, are correct. I must have needed more coffee this morning.

Re: TV Bigshot Strategy Blog Discussion

Bill Gorman — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 19:56:37 -0000

But Jon, if you trade pre-Monday and pre-Wednesday, as I'm sure you do, then you need not be concerned about value loss in the shows you hold Sunday at midnight.

The Tuesday moves are all obvious, and really are the same regardless of your budget unless you have very, very little. Your budget gain trades on Tuesday have nothing to do with your line up points trades on Sunday.

What makes sense on Sunday night is heavily dependent on your budget level. If you only have enough budget for L&O; OR a couple smaller shows, then you have to weigh your options [even in that case I think that L&O; is among the best deals], but many folks have plenty of money to buy ANY good option, and they're looking at the other side of the process which is "where can I put my remaining money with the least chance that I under earn."

Re: Friday Night Lights Saved? or Not?

Bill Gorman — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 11:39:32 -0000

Yes Christian, I was thinking the same thing. Why would DirecTV invest unless it was getting something *like* exclusive access to the show?

Re: Nielsen Ratings for Tue, March 4: Jericho is Toast

Bill Gorman — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 19:01:39 -0000

I pretty much agree with Robert down the line on the Terminator movies. In fact, T1 would be in my personal top 10.

I liked TSCC. It seemed a bit slow at times, but that's really a comparison with the movies, not typical TV pacing.

Because of its demo performance I'd give it a better than 50/50 chance of success.

Re: Nielsen Ratings for Tue, March 4: Jericho is Toast

Bill Gorman — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 23:49:59 -0000

Link & Zelda, No official announcement as yet, so everybody, and that includes Robert and I, are just guessing at this point.

Re: Top Time-Shifted Broadcast Shows, February 18-24

Bill Gorman — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 17:53:52 -0000

To Tom's point about Jericho, note that Boston Legal, which was opposite Jericho that week had even more time-shifted viewers than Jericho.

NBC ran a Law&Order;:SVU repeat which had a Live+7 viewership of 9.454 million, and a timeshifting increase of 3.4%, which you'd expect since reruns are rarely highly time-shifted.

Re: Nielsen Ratings - March 9: Diminishing Oprah, Returns

Bill Gorman — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 22:53:27 -0000

Jon, I didn't get my daily email today either, but that's the first day I've missed it. I don't see any problem reports from Feedburner, but perhaps Robert may be able to chime in if he does.

Re: Nielsen Ratings for Mon March 10: Julianna is no Summer Glau!

Bill Gorman — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 13:39:48 -0000

TVbytheNumbers.com hopes to move to the top in the Summer Glau meme Google indexing ;)

Re: DVR Viewing: Friend to Sarah Connor & Big Brother, but not Jericho

Bill Gorman — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:51:18 -0000

100% agree on Robert's point about Video On Demand being used by the networks to blunt the impact of DVRs, if they're smart.

If every one of a network's shows is available free via VOD with commercials without FFing my guess is that the recording of those shows would be reduced and folks will record shows that aren't VOD'able.

ABC is already doing this.

Re: DVR Viewing: Friend to Sarah Connor & Big Brother, but not Jericho

Bill Gorman — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 16:46:41 -0000

frankj, It's not entirely clear to me that advertisers are able to measure any advertising results from television advertising. I think their negotiations with TV networks over ad rates are just a sort of Kabuki theatre that plays out each year.

Re: Top Cable Shows March 3-9: UNC Bests Duke and SpongeBob

Bill Gorman — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 19:51:21 -0000

It has got to be somewhat dispiriting for other cable network executives to see their business dominated by the Squarepanted one.

Wow, look, the X channel got its biggest single show rating ever! (but was beaten by 17 episodes of Spongebob).

Re: Jericho TV Ratings, The Chart

Bill Gorman — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 19:45:10 -0000

Fair point JT. I will note that in the post above.

Re: TV Bigshot Strategy Blog Discussion

Bill Gorman — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 23:20:33 -0000

John,

1. You buy shows before Tuesday midnight that are going up in value during the repricing on Wednesday AM. Those are no brainer moves since the prior weeks final results are known by mid-day on Tuesday and the preliminary results are known long before that.

2. If you've been doing that since September, you could build up quite a budget.

Re: YouTube via TiVo. Available To Almost No One.

Bill Gorman — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 11:30:57 -0000

Rob, Frank, et. al., Although I used to be a ReplayTV owner, I agree with your comments re: TiVo interface superiority.

I think the problem for TiVo is that folks who have never owned a TiVo cannot make that distinction and so will never choose a TiVo over a generic.

And as we have seen with many commenters [and me personally], many folks who understand the distinction either choose not to pay for it or don't choose TiVo for other reasons [in my case, the lack of VOD capability].

Re: YouTube via TiVo. Available To Almost No One.

Bill Gorman — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 12:32:34 -0000

Julia, my current Comcast provided Motorola DVRs do not provide that feature. It is a very minor inconvenience based on my usage patterns.

Re: Nielsen Ratings for Mon March 10: Julianna is no Summer Glau!

Bill Gorman — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 16:20:39 -0000

frankj, While we are lacking information, not just age demo ratings, but easily garnered timeslot competition data, if I have time I will regenerate the Renew or Cancel with a few of the "hot topic" shows like Jericho and TSCC.

Re: Top Cable Shows March 3-9: UNC Bests Duke and SpongeBob

Bill Gorman — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 22:45:03 -0000

Teresa, while we get data on every broadcast primetime show, we only see data on the top 40 cable programs each week. The Dresden Files was not among them.

Re: CBS “On The Bubble”: Moonlight, Cane

Bill Gorman — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 15:45:36 -0000

Lighthope, I completely agree. But while age demo ratings are a reasonable predictor of advertising revenue potential, we can only guess as to the costs for any show. Not surprisingly, the networks aren't telling :)

Re: Nielsen Ratings Fri, March 14: The Price is Right Again

Bill Gorman — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 01:39:20 -0000

Jon, I got a similar report from someone via email, but when I tried the site it worked for me. It does sound like there may have been problems.

Re: Nielsen Ratings Fri, March 14: The Price is Right Again

Bill Gorman — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 11:33:33 -0000

Jon, no idea what to tell you. We are not the plumbers for the TVBS site and it's working fine for me.

I just looked at the TVBS forums, some folks have some work arounds here http://forums.televisionwithoutpity.com/index.p...

Re: NCAA Men’s Basketball TV Ratings, 1975-2008

Bill Gorman — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 22:13:02 -0000

kayarn, I think you may be onto something. Perhaps when every game began to be televised on CBS [instead of just primetime games] it dulled the interest in the final game.

I'll see if I can find out when that happened.

Re: NCAA Men’s Basketball TV Ratings, 1975-2008

Bill Gorman — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 22:51:47 -0000

Anne Marie, I think the significant advancement of low seeded teams is hyped by the media a lot more than it actually happens. Being a numbers guy, if I can get some good data on that I will post it.

My hatred of the Tar Hells has cooled significantly since Dean Smith left. He truly was evil. I cannot get myself to hate a Roy Williams coached team to nearly the same extent.

Re: NCAA Men’s Basketball TV Ratings, 1975-2008

Bill Gorman — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 12:37:31 -0000

Ann Marie, I know exactly how you feel. The Cavaliers had not beaten Clemson in football ever, starting in the year I was born. They finally won when I was 32. ;)

Re: NCAA Men’s Basketball TV Ratings, 1975-2008

Bill Gorman — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 13:29:38 -0000

kayarn, The NCAA tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, so that doesn't seem to account for the drop beginning in the mid-90s. It could be the effects of the flight of underclassmen to the NBA. I'm not sure how to put a starting date on that though.

Re: Nielsen Ratings, March 16 - Oprah and Sundays, a Vanishing Act

Bill Gorman — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 14:40:45 -0000

For folks out there who don't speak "TV talk"

HUTS AND PUTS: As in, "We didn't do well on the night because the HUT's and PUT's were down." These are research terms that stand for "Homes Using Television" and "People Using Television." Often they are associated with meteorological readings: "There was snow all over the East, so the HUT's and PUT's were up."

Re: CBS “On The Bubble”: Moonlight, Cane

Bill Gorman — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:10:57 -0000

Dave, Friday is the second lowest viewing night [after Saturday]. If you read over many of our Moonlight fan comments from other posts you'd see a lot of "Now why couldn't Moonlight be on a night better than Friday..."

Re: Top Time-Shifted Broadcast Shows, Feb 25 - Mar 2

Bill Gorman — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:18:40 -0000

frankj,Here are the TSCC dvr viewership numbers in reverse date order, enjoy!

1.802m [the week above]
1.776
1.779
1.867
1.841
1.816
1.753 [debut week of Jan 7-13]

Re: NCAA Men’s Basketball TV Ratings, 1975-2008

Bill Gorman — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:30:58 -0000

Ron, kayarn, 1995 was the year Kevin Garnett was drafted directly from high school, the first player to have that distinction.

While I'm not sure we can say that's a statistically significant bit of data, I'm willing to go with it as being the start of the championship game ratings slide.

Re: NCAA Men’s Basketball TV Ratings, 1975-2008

Bill Gorman — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:41:53 -0000

Indeed, Garnett was the first player drafted by the NBA ;)

Re: NCAA Men’s Basketball TV Ratings, 1975-2008

Bill Gorman — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 19:39:35 -0000

Speculation is what keeps us going! ;)

Re: NCAA Men’s Basketball TV Ratings, 1975-2008

Bill Gorman — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 02:39:32 -0000

Wedlock, unfortunately we have no historical data other than what's charted above. The blue line is aggregate ratings data for all games in a particular year through the regional finals. No breakout among rounds.

This year we will get some individual game data at least for the games that CBS has in primetime.

Re: Nielsen Ratings Mon March 17: Dancing is Back

Bill Gorman — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 17:17:15 -0000

CW's numbers for this week [2.35m average viewers], are below both USA [2.86m] and Disney [2.42m] cable networks from last week. (I'll get this weeks cable network aggregate data up ASAP).

Re: Cable Ratings Recap: WWE, SpongeBob, Odd Parents, and Bill O.

Bill Gorman — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 22:45:06 -0000

TV-aholic,

Family Jewels didn't make the cable top 40, which is all we see.

Re: #2. If the NY Times can create a new bestseller list to exclude Harry Potter we can create a list and exclude children's programming. However, we only see the top 40 cable shows, so we may not be revealing much more that interests you. [see the answer to #1]

Re: Nielsen Ratings Thu, Mar 20: NCAA No Deal for CBS?

Bill Gorman — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 11:52:55 -0000

Jake, As far as I know Nielsen does not count out of home viewers.

Re: Nielsen Ratings Fri, Mar 21: Good Friday for CBS

Bill Gorman — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 23:01:31 -0000

Josh, We don't get Overnight data for MyNT, but we also don't get Overnight data for Univision which has ratings about 1.5x CW's ratings this season.

For reference, CW's ratings are about 2x MyNT ratings.

Re: Top Time-Shifted Broadcast Shows, March 3-9

Bill Gorman — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 00:50:48 -0000

frankj,

Although we haven't really assembled any data, when we occasionally have 30 minute breakdowns of the overnight ratings data it's pretty much guaranteed that the second half hour of a show in the 8-9pm hour gets more viewers than the first. I think that's just the tardiness of people tuning in.

And you were correct that TSCC was on average better than Prison Break for both 18-49 and total viewers.

Check the numbers here:

http://tvbythenumbers.com/2008/03/19/fox-on-the...

Re: Top Syndicated Shows, March 3-9

Bill Gorman — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 02:01:47 -0000

Sorry, we only see the top 25 Syndicated show ratings and Ellen's was not among them.

Re: Nielsen Top Shows (Age 18-49): Idol Rules, But All Hail CBS

Bill Gorman — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:38:20 -0000

Patrick, as one who is just barely in the 18-49 demo, I'm not convinced that advertisers focus on the youth demographic is economically rational, but that it is their focus is undeniable.

Re: Season To Season TV Ratings Through March 23

Bill Gorman — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 09:59:02 -0000

Julia, you read it correctly for the overall season to season trend. Fox is the only network that's ahead this season vs. last season.

My analysis above was just about improvements vs. declines in the most recent week. Rereading it after your comment, I needed to be a bit clearer and will edit.

Re: CBS to Jericho Fans: It’s Not Personal, It’s Just Business

Bill Gorman — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 17:16:11 -0000

kacunnin, and others,
It's one thing to think that CBS may have made some bad business decisions with Jericho. They very well might have. Reasonable people can disagree about that.
What is sheer tinfoil hat fantasy is the idea there was some sort of conspiracy at CBS [or elsewhere] to make Jericho fail.
It was in CBS's financial interest to see it succeed, and they act based on their financial interest as best they can. To suggest otherwise is to give up the tether of rational thought and escape into a conspiratorial morass.

Re: Woe Are American Idol’s Ratings? Uh…No.

Bill Gorman — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 17:36:16 -0000

I agree with Robert on the relative success of American Idol. Folks that don't have a new episode of CSI to watch have lots more alternatives for their time than Idol.

If early evidence is any indicator, new scripted shows may do just fine. The first new CSI:Miami this week did quite well on Monday.

However, several new reality shows have proven successful during the strike; Moment of Truth, Dancing with the Stars, American Gladiators.

Those are 3 hours of television that won't be going back to scripted shows anytime soon.

Re: Buck Up Jericho Fans: I’m Often Wrong

Bill Gorman — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 17:56:23 -0000

I'm admittedly not a hockey fan, but I always thought that the point system was confusing, but had to be there to take into account the ties that were relatively common.

When the NHL went to the "no ties" system they could have gotten rid of the third column and the points system altogether and settled on wins and losses like every other sport [that matters] in this country.

Instead they just went to adding an *extra* point to any game that initially ends in a tie. Instead of awarding a total of 2 points, those games award a total of 3 points [2 to the winner one to the loser].

The third column lives, long live the third column!

I await the incoming beat down by NHL fans. ;)

Re: Buck Up Jericho Fans: I’m Often Wrong

Bill Gorman — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 18:03:10 -0000

Christine,
If in fact there are talks going on between the producers of Jericho and SciFi, I think that instead of focusing your efforts on SciFi, fans should focus them on Carol Barbee and the producers and stars of the show.

There is nothing you're going to show/tell SciFi that they don't already know. They have all the numbers on Jericho they need.

My guess is that if there is a deal that is possible, and it is being held up by anything, it's being held up by the monetary demands by the producers of Jericho [or the relevant cast via the producers].

You should be haranging the producers with cries of "accept less money, we want Jericho!"

I'd propose that has a far better chance of success.

EDIT: Not that it necessarily has any chance of success either, but at least it makes sense.

Re: Buck Up Jericho Fans: I’m Often Wrong

Bill Gorman — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 18:15:44 -0000

Guilty as charged, I have not been to the Jericho fan forums!

And christinek, you at least recognize what many of the other fans do not.

It's all about the money.

That answers all the questions you might have.

Re: Is MTV a Bigger Deal Than The CW?

Bill Gorman — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 23:25:05 -0000

MTV isn't a bigger deal on average in primetime than the CW, but USA and Disney are.

Re: TVbytheNumbers.com Salutes Davidson & Stephen Curry

Bill Gorman — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 22:00:26 -0000

I love everything about them except that they cost me my last team in our pool!

Re: Nielsen Ratings - Mar 30: CBS and ABC Split Sunday

Bill Gorman — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:20:04 -0000

Jenny, Last nights Unhitched was the last new episode this season. Inquiring minds wonder if it will be the last episode ever.

It had averaged 5.179m viewers and 3.283m in 18-49, for Fox that's in "renew" territory. At 4.19m viewers [although we don't have the 18-49 from last night], I think it's in the "goodbye" category.

Re: What You’re Watching on Your DVRs (Cable Networks), March 10-16

Bill Gorman — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 11:46:42 -0000

Mia, Yikes! Wisegals was popular, but not that popular! Fixed. ;)

Re: Most Watched Cable Shows - March 24-30

Bill Gorman — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:32:14 -0000

Daniel, My guess is even as cable viewership grew, the old ways both at Nielsen and at the media that covers the TV industry change very slowly.
Nielsen provided lots more information about broadcast when it was the only game in town [30 years ago] and they continue to do the same thing long after cable viewers have grown into the majority overall.
Simple inertia.

Re: TV Bigshot Strategy Blog Discussion

Bill Gorman — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 18:53:32 -0000

You are correct! I will edit and acknowledge!

Re: Top Syndicated Shows, March 10-16

Bill Gorman — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 19:25:44 -0000

spacerangersfan, Startlingly, Jeopardy was not in the top 25 syndicated shows for that week, which is all we see.

Re: Top Syndicated Shows, March 10-16

Bill Gorman — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 19:41:29 -0000

spacerangersfan, NCAA basketball preempted lots of syndicated shows for the week, that seems a likely culprit.

Re: TV Bigshot Strategy Blog Discussion

Bill Gorman — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 19:45:34 -0000

Boy, I'm having a bad week. Correction incoming!

Re: Nielsen Ratings Tue, April 1: Hell’s Kitchen Beats Dancing & 10pm Ain’t So Bad

Bill Gorman — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 14:08:45 -0000

I was born during the Eisenhower administration, Robert remembers only the glory days of Camelot. ;)

Re: CNBC Ratings vs. The Stock Market

Bill Gorman — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 16:19:49 -0000

Anon, I think you very well may be correct on the total vs. demo, but we didn't get the total viewership data for those dates.

I can, however, add in another series of market data, like the Wilshire 5000. I will rework the chart and post that today and see if there is any difference.

Re: Friday Night Lights Back for Season Three; First on DTV, Then NBC

Bill Gorman — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 18:11:46 -0000

Absent any knowledge about the economics which could change my opinion, I like this deal for DTV.
Their competitive argument vs. cable right now is pretty much NFL Sunday Ticket. The "we have more HDTV" is pretty hollow, since the channels most people watch are available in HD from cable as well. They have to differentiate themselves from cable in order to survive.

For NBC, if FNL didn't make economic sense on its own [i.e. without at DTV deal] and if the DTV payments to NBC make up the difference between "doesn't make sense" and "makes sense", then it's a win for them too.

The downside for NBC is that if the broadcast results for the next season of FNL fall even further, part because of DTV airing and Internet leakage as Robert cites, then it might ultimately not make economic sense, but it seems like a reasonable gamble.

Edit: It is also perhaps begins the trend of the broadcast networks no longer being the "top of the TV food chain" from the start, i.e. where original productions air first. Except for the strike disruption of this season, I'm not sure that's ever happened before. This agreement begins from the basis that DTV is first in the pecking order, and NBC is second. That's a big change.

Re: Friday Night Lights Back for Season Three; First on DTV, Then NBC

Bill Gorman — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 22:56:59 -0000

NBC has said that even with a 15 percent decline in ratings next year they will come out ahead with the DTV deal. That sounds like a good deal for them then.

Re: Why Bringing 30 Rock Back Isn’t Crazy

Bill Gorman — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:03:50 -0000

Not to mention that CBS overall has a much stronger line up than NBC and can afford to be a bit choosier with the shows that it renews.

NBC also just renewed Lipstick Jungle, which is the #87 season to date show for 18-49.

Beggars cannot be choosers. ;)

Re: Season To Date Top Shows, Adults 18-49, though March 30

Bill Gorman — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 11:29:19 -0000

Richard, good point. Can my memory be fading so quickly as to have already forgotten that? ;)

Re: Season To Date Top Shows, Adults 18-49, though March 30

Bill Gorman — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 12:43:10 -0000

frankj, Sadly, the numbers above are aggregate STD numbers from Nielsen. I didn't calculate them.

I might have all the 18-49 data for TSCC if it finished in the top 25 each week. I will check.

Re: We Look Back At The Top TV Shows of 1982

Bill Gorman — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 13:33:53 -0000

Am runnning out the door, but remember a HH rating in 1982 was far fewer households than it is today.

Re: Worst Ratings Ever for NCAA Final? Probably Not.

Bill Gorman — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 15:41:56 -0000

Perhaps, for college basketball, name recognition of the schools may be more important than market size for the ratings.

If you asked general sports fans "name the top college basketball programs", my guess is that UNC and UCLA are on most lists. Kansas is likely on plenty, but not quite as many. Memphis is relatively unknown.

Re: Worst Ratings Ever for NCAA Final? Probably Not.

Bill Gorman — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 17:31:46 -0000

Speaking of blowout, couldn't you just hear the CBS suits screaming when @ 7 min to go in the first half of the UNC/Kansas game Billy Packer says "Jim, this game is *over*"?

Re: Nielsen Ratings April 5: NCAA on CBS Wins Again

Bill Gorman — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 10:37:49 -0000

Neil, when any network isn't programming the time, the local station affiliates air whatever they want; local news, syndicated programming, whatever...

Re: Worst Ratings Ever for NCAA Final? Probably Not.

Bill Gorman — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 13:14:37 -0000

I'll leave judging the hype level to others, but the numbers speak for themselves.

The NCAA tourney through the regional finals delivers average viewership just below that of the baseball playoffs with much less advantageous timing, since the baseball games are in primetime or weekend afternoons and are far shorter time periods [thus easier to maintain high average viewership], whereas the first two days of the NCAA tournament are on weekday mornings.

The NCAA tourney final game, even with its recent ratings fall, still delivers numbers on the order of a baseball World Series game.

Re: Nielsen Ratings Fri, April 4: All CBS

Bill Gorman — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 14:03:10 -0000

lauren, We'll definitely know if it was in the top 40 cable shows. That list is out tomorrow.

If it isn't, and that's quite possible, we'll keep scrambling to get it.

Re: What You’re Watching on Your DVRs (Broadcast Networks), March 17-23

Bill Gorman — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:56:26 -0000

Holly, I'll get the Live+SD numbers in later today if possible. Robert's the Live+SD guy and he's out of the office.

Re: Can Comcast Save Jericho?

Bill Gorman — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:57:26 -0000

Rob, I LOL'd.

Re: What You’re Watching on Your DVRs (Broadcast Networks), March 17-23

Bill Gorman — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:41:52 -0000

Holly, it was impossible to fit the entire table with my current tabling system, so I created another table with the Live+SD data. Robert will be back next Monday to do it as he wishes.

Re: What You’re Watching on Your DVRs (Broadcast Networks), March 17-23

Bill Gorman — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:44:20 -0000

Andrea, NA seems to be in the category of "I'll record it and watch it when I can" since most of it's time-shifted viewing isn't the same day.

The other groups of shows I'll call "I'll catch it later tonight" or even "I'm time-shifting *just* to skip the commercials" are the shows with their % SD viewing well above 50%.

Re: Nielsen Ratings -April 6: Viewers Abandon Sunday Night

Bill Gorman — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 18:01:50 -0000

Ike, we get our Overnight numbers from Berman when available, as I believe they were last night.

When not available we sometimes get them from alternate sources.

Re: What You’re Watching on Your DVRs (Broadcast Networks), March 17-23

Bill Gorman — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 18:12:30 -0000

John, you're correct they are from March 17, bad copy and paste on my part, it is now fixed.

Re: No Nielsen Ratings Glory for BSG Season Four Premiere

Bill Gorman — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 11:24:33 -0000

Matthew, good point on the multiple airings.

The data Robert cites is from the single airing of the S4 premiere episode only.

Cable ratings we get do not aggregate multiple shows. Later airings would appear as separate episodes [evidence our many, many Spongebobs].

It's a challenge for the first airing of a show like BSG to make the top 40 cable list [which is all we see, and likely all others report on], subsequent airings have effectively no chance of appearing on our radar.

Re: ABC “On The Bubble”: Oprah, Jim & Eli…

Bill Gorman — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 22:52:36 -0000

Shakia, I'd disagree. I think of the big English broadcast networks ABC is the one that looks like its going *uphill*. They had the best slate of new shows last fall, admittedly not against the strongest of competition.

Re: Nielsen Ratings Tue, April 8: Secret Talents of The Stars? So Secret Nobody Watched!

Bill Gorman — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 13:10:21 -0000

dearme, we don't see any PBS ratings. My guess is that it's because they are not ad supported, because we do see information on all other broadcast primetime shows.

We do have weekly Syndicated ratings, I don't recall Ellen ever appearing in the list.

Re: Nielsen Making Inroads With Anytime Anywhere Measurement

Bill Gorman — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 15:11:55 -0000

Add in Jericho viewing in bars, that's like 100 million people!

Sorry, couldn't resist ;)

Re: Weekly Network Ratings: Mar 31 - Apr 6, CBS On Top

Bill Gorman — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 11:59:19 -0000

Jim, If FOX programmed the 10pm hour, it's very likely their average ratings would drop, but not by a tremendous amount.

I did some quick analysis a few weeks ago that put the overall "penalty" of the 10pm hour at 10-15%. (And even that is a bit chicken/egg, are ratings lower at 10pm because fewer people watch or because weak shows are slotted there which make fewer people watch...)

Average that in with the other 2-3 hours and it's a downer, but not a crushing one.

Now, it might be the case that Fox programmers are so lame that they can barely fill the 15 hours they do now and the extra 7 would end up being filled with shows that would draw 3 million viewers/hour, but we'll never know that until they try. ;)

Re: Sunday Night Football Ratings

Bill Gorman — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 13:54:57 -0000

The full season TV schedule is typically released in late April by the NFL.

So far, only the opening weekend TV schedule has been released.

Re: Nielsen Ratings Tue, April 8: Secret Talents of The Stars? So Secret Nobody Watched!

Bill Gorman — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 14:02:29 -0000

David, you're not even close to the first Nielsen conspiracy theorist to visit, but I'd say you're the most entertaining to have visited recently.

What's more likely:

1. Nielsen has a measurement system that while imperfect is the generally agreed upon metric that the TV networks [sellers] and advertisers [buyers] have agreed to use until something better comes along.

2. Nielsen, the networks, the advertisers [against their will or unknowingly?] are part of a huge carefully planned conspiracy to fool who into doing what? to take who's money? to defraud who?

Each other? So, they're all both criminally clever and stupid at the same time?

The public? When was the last time Nielsen asked you for money? Or NBC? ABC? CBS?

Please readjust your tinfoil hat, it seems to be blocking your vision.

Re: What’s up with the Idol Gives Back Ratings Being Down 33% Vs. Last Year?

Bill Gorman — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 14:10:00 -0000

Daniel, thanks for the info, and I will edit the original post.

Re: TV Bigshot Strategy Blog Discussion

Bill Gorman — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 06:32:07 -0000

As always, you are correct! At least on the finale, I still don;t have a good feeling about the show points.

Re: Final Thursday Numbers: The Office vs. CSI - They’re Both Great, But..

Bill Gorman — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 19:14:24 -0000

Jon, we'll have them as soon as they are available. Since the weekend telecasts aren't primetime, we have to wait until Nielsen releases their update to the Master's historical data which usually comes a week or two after the events.

Re: We Look Back At The Top TV Shows of 1992

Bill Gorman — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 19:50:16 -0000

Andrea, I'm sure they did, but *we* don't have demo data going back to more than last season.

Re: Cane: Renew or Cancel?

Bill Gorman — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 22:01:16 -0000

Felicia, Nielsen most certainly still uses the "people meter" boxes in the larger markets.

They use the diaries in the smaller markets.

They have paid the participants for quite some time.

Re: Masters, NHL and NBA Weekend Nielsen Ratings

Bill Gorman — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:42:00 -0000

As I wrote in the sports post today, we get our non-primetime sports data rather randomly from Nielsen, if we get it for last week, I'm sure it will have the Sox/Yanks game in the list.

Re: Idealistic Dope Tim Robbins Curses Out the NAB

Bill Gorman — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:45:13 -0000

"Idealistic" is way too kind.

The guy is an elitist self-important blow hard chucklehead.

Re: Post-Strike Show Status

Bill Gorman — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 17:21:21 -0000

Ann, still no news on next year for Moonlight, but all the fans that visit here are hopeful. I'd give it better than a 50% chance of coming back.

We get so little cable show data, that we haven't been able to form any opinion on the future of Damages and Madmen, sorry.

Re: CBS to Jericho Fans: It’s Not Personal, It’s Just Business

Bill Gorman — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:36:40 -0000

Sam, yes the CBS/Comcast discussions are rumored to have happened.

The public numbers between GG & Reaper that we see are very similar in terms of viewers, however there could be all sorts of factors which led GG to be picked up and kept Reaper hanging.

Re: Top Sports Shows, March 31 - April 6, March Madness

Bill Gorman — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 11:36:23 -0000

Jenny, in the two games above Kansas and Memphis won rather easily. In the final the following Monday [which we may see numbers on by next week] Memphis squandered a lead in regulation by missing free throws and lost in overtime to Kansas.

Re: Nielsen Ratings Apr 13: Housewives Were Back, But Ratings Look Desperate

Bill Gorman — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 11:37:47 -0000

Dene, DVR numbers will be out in two weeks from today (4/29) for last weeks shows.

Re: Weekly Network Ratings: April 7-13, Fox Edges CBS

Bill Gorman — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 15:46:05 -0000

LindsayW, while we don't have viewer income or gender information, be sure that the networks and their advertisers do.
They do look at both quality and quantity. That's why some shows [like 30 Rock, which supposedly has very good income demographics] are renewed when their overall viewer numbers are terrible.
My "train wreck" remark about the CW season points more to the fact that they're doing more than 20% worse on an average viewer basis this season vs. last season. If 20% of viewers can leave you in a single season, that's not "fiercely loyal".

Re: Nielsen’s Most Watched Shows (Cable Networks)

Bill Gorman — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 16:29:49 -0000

Absorbent and yellow and porous is he!

Re: TV Bigshot Strategy Blog Discussion

Bill Gorman — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 18:02:44 -0000

Thanks again!

Re: Yankees and Red Sox Face Each Other and Lose to SpongeBob

Bill Gorman — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 18:05:52 -0000

Robert, you live in a world where the people you see wear MLB attire.

I live in a world where I see people with Spongebob gear.

I'm not implying any relative merchandise sales numbers, just that your frame of reference wouldn't lead you to see Spongebob gear no matter what the sales levels are ;)

It bears repeating:

Absorbent and yellow and porous is he!

Re: Yankees and Red Sox Face Each Other and Lose to SpongeBob

Bill Gorman — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 19:21:57 -0000

I resist as best I can, but at times the pull of the Squarepanted one cannot be denied.

Re: Moonlight vs. Jericho: CBS Speaks Out Cane & Shark Still on the Bubble

Bill Gorman — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 19:28:21 -0000

Andrea, bingo!

The commercial TV networks produce advertising opportunities, not "art".

Every time someone involved in the TV business starts talking about it as if it were art, my bs detector fires up. ;)

Re: Moonlight vs. Jericho: CBS Speaks Out Cane & Shark Still on the Bubble

Bill Gorman — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 19:48:47 -0000

OK, I think from a writer, an actor or a director there's some legitimate discussion of art in the TV business, but network executives are no more artists than the executives at GM, and their motivations are identical. Produce their product [advertising opportunities, cars] for the greatest profit possible.

Instead of "someone involved in the TV business" I should have written "TV network executives".

Re: Where Did The Primetime Broadcast Audience Go?

Bill Gorman — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:52:29 -0000

Indeed. One of the reasons I did this post was because there is so much wrong information out there as conventional wisdom. Internet time has certainly increased, but not at the expense of overall primetime TV viewing.

Total primetime TV viewing by household is effectively the same since the early 90's, it's just *what* people watch that has changed.

Re: More Battlestar Galactica Nielsen Ratings: They Aren’t Great

Bill Gorman — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 14:53:43 -0000

Polly, Edward James Olmos is quite the hunk, I understand. ;)

Re: Where Did The Primetime Broadcast Audience Go?

Bill Gorman — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 16:37:18 -0000

Ah, the seashore, it must be part of my subliminal motivation.....

Re: Where Did The Primetime Broadcast Audience Go?

Bill Gorman — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 20:48:32 -0000

Daniel, hours spent online and playing video games came from somewhere else, not primetime television viewing, because that's been flat for over a decade.

All Day television viewing was rising until just recently when it leveled off.

Re: Weekly Network Ratings: April 7-13, Fox Edges CBS

Bill Gorman — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 20:50:51 -0000

Jim, Fox definitely gets an advantage not having to program the 10pm hour. However, I did a back of the envelope guess, unfortunately in the comments of a post so I can't search for it, and it seemed that the advantage of not programming that hour wasn't huge, more like 10%.

Unless you think that Fox programmers are so bad they can barely program the 15 hours they do now and whatever they'd add would get 0 viewers ;)

Re: Where Did The Primetime Broadcast Audience Go?

Bill Gorman — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 20:54:06 -0000

You are correct sir!

We have no personal data to rely on, only household data, so there definitely could be different individual patterns today than there were in the past that blend together producing that household result.

Re: Where Did The Primetime Broadcast Audience Go?

Bill Gorman — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 01:56:34 -0000

Daniel, Thanks for the links, we always appreciate when folks can bring in more data for everyone in the discussion.

As Robert said, I'd love to see TV hours per person too, particularly if we could get age breakdowns. I am sure that data is out there somewhere, but my guess is that it's not free.

Robert is also correct in that I played *way* too much World of Warcraft in 2005-7, and your comparison to American Idol is more apt than you may know. That single game has in some ways sucked the air out of other segments of the PC and console game industry, because it is guessed that sales of other games have fallen because *everyone* was playing WoW.

Re: Where Did The Primetime Broadcast Audience Go?

Bill Gorman — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 11:28:09 -0000

Lisa,the data above comes directly from Nielsen Media.

They make available to the press a spreadsheet entitled "Share of Audience". The numbers above are directly taken from the "Broadcast Calendar (TV Season)" HH Prime page.

The HH ratings numbers were taken directly from that page not calculated in any way by me, they are either Live [pre-2005-6], a mix of Live and Live+7 [2005-6], or Live+7 [2006-7].

A HH rating is a 1% share of the US TV households for the particular year. That works great for showing the % shift, but not so much for absolute numbers [i.e. a 1 HH rating in 2006-7 is far more HH's than a 1 HH rating in 1984-5].

So, it is correct to say that on average, during primetime in 2006-7 31.5% of the US TV HHs were tuned to network affiliates [or in the case of that year, watched the shows within 7 days on their DVRs]

Feel free to email me at bill at tvbythenumbers.com if you have any questions.

Re: Where Did The Primetime Broadcast Audience Go?

Bill Gorman — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 11:42:41 -0000

And very insightful by Robert to see that I had dodged the advertising question!

That's why I included my email address. Things start to get lots more complicated when you start talking about how to reach certain % of the public.

Re: CW to Stop Streaming Gossip Girl

Bill Gorman — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 23:27:31 -0000

Angie, I second that emotion.

I think we have a pretty good feel on the enthusiasm level for many shows, and we get effectively zero activity ala "OMG, I *love* Gossip Girl!".

Re: Daytona 500 Viewership, 1974-2008

Bill Gorman — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 11:42:45 -0000

Carl, you definitely sound like you know what you're talking about, but none of our Nielsen information mentions VCR data at all.

If we're missing something, I'd love to see a citation you could link to us from Nielsen, or another authoritative source about it.

Or feel free to email me the information at bill at tvbythenumbers.com

Re: Sunshine, Blue Skies and the ‘Gourmet’ Life at TiVo

Bill Gorman — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 13:42:32 -0000

MegaZone, TiVo is an example of a great product and a terrible business. Most people seems to have trouble separating those 2 concepts in their minds.

I've never met a TiVo owner who didn't love the machine. They are great products.

TiVo has never made a quarterly profit in the life of the business. They have a terrible business model.

Both of those statements are true, yet the combination seems to tie most people in knots.

Re: CW Network Uses Sex, Then Internet to Promote Gossip Girl

Bill Gorman — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 15:27:27 -0000

Peter, channel position is surprisingly powerful, but usually very difficult to change.

That said, a few cable networks regularly exceed the CW's primetime average viewership, and many more are close behind it, and they usually have *much* worse channel positions.

Not to mention Univision, which is crushing the CW this season, likely has a worse channel position than the CW in most markets.

Re: Nielsen Ratings Thur, Apr 17: The Office IS A Hit (Duh!)

Bill Gorman — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 15:31:01 -0000

Not just the begging aspect by NBC, but I think many shows will be back from all the networks because they didn't have as many new options to choose from because of the strike, at least for Fall 2008.

With the pilots/shows flowing again though, I'd expect some really short leashes come this Fall on those shows, and I'd expect a bigger turnover between Fall and early 2009 than usual.

Re: The 15 Hour Advantage, What Does Fox Gain?

Bill Gorman — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 11:16:19 -0000

Jim, Fox may do it more effectively than others, but all the networks program to take advantage of their top show's audiences.

Re: We Look Back At The Top TV Shows of 1972

Bill Gorman — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 15:20:59 -0000

The fact that it was the #8 show, yet was *still* cancelled after less than 3 months is stunning to me.

Re: Nielsen Ratings Fri, April 18: Friday Night Needs American Idol

Bill Gorman — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 15:25:36 -0000

Moonlight's 5.28m isn't terrible for a rerun of a show that last had a new episode on Jan 18.

The real test will be next Friday when the next new episode airs.

I agree with Robert that the 3 CBS shows from last night may have very different audiences. If so, that may be a problem with the CBS scheduling.

Re: We Look Back At The Top TV Shows of 1972

Bill Gorman — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 15:44:10 -0000

Polly, a very good guess, and as is often the case, Wikipedia enlightens all of us,

Despite ranking #8 in the Nielsen Ratings for the 1971-72 season, it was cancelled less than three months after its premiere, because Duncan had to undergo eye surgery. CBS returned the Sandy Stockton character and Miss Duncan the next season in The Sandy Duncan Show.

Re: We Look Back At The Top TV Shows of 1972

Bill Gorman — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 16:42:44 -0000

Daniel, thanks for the heads up on NBC Mystery Movie. I have added a note above to clarify.

And I love the "names" observation! That's the kind of thing I like to catch myself. Well done.

Your guess as to why is as good as anything I can come up with, but I'll keep thinking/looking.

Re: Nielsen Ratings Thur, Apr 17: The Office IS A Hit (Duh!)

Bill Gorman — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 17:39:32 -0000

Jon, no problem with the content of the links, but remember if comments contain more than one link, they automatically get trapped by our spam filter :)

Re: FOX Renews Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

Bill Gorman — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 17:43:40 -0000

I don't understand the worry over Cameron's condition.

That looked to be a very ordinary low velocity explosion in the car. Nowhere near enough to damage her hyper-alloy chassis.

A bit of tissue regrowth, which we know is possible in the storyline, and she's good as new!

Re: The 15 Hour Advantage, What Does Fox Gain?

Bill Gorman — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 06:13:16 -0000

Joe R, touche!

I should have written that they program to take advantage of their top shows as best they can.

NBC's success at 10pm is because of Law & Order and Law & Order:SVU. My guess is that those shows may be too "adult" to air at 9pm.

Re: We Look Back At The Top TV Shows of 1972

Bill Gorman — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 06:36:33 -0000

Polly, you have reminded me that while we've had this chart since our first day online, a data table would have been nice, so I added it!

Here's some more TV household data for your enjoyment.

Re: Britney to Appear Again on CBS’ “How I Met Your Mother”?

Bill Gorman — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 16:57:47 -0000

My guess is that his later quotes were preceded by a briefing from the producer concerning the future/economics of the show and his continued lucrative employment in such.

Re: Britney to Appear Again on CBS’ “How I Met Your Mother”?

Bill Gorman — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 17:19:49 -0000

Indeed. With pretty much any actor in any primetime TV show on any network the end of their current employment is a negative earnings event that is not easily corrected.

Re: NBA Postseason Broadcast Ratings, 1987-2007

Bill Gorman — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 01:42:15 -0000

20 million is way too high a guess for any matchup today. The finals haven't *ever* seen that many viewers without Magic or Jordan, and the new faces don't even come close.

I base my estimate for a Lakers/Celtics on the following factors.

- all broadcast viewership is trending down, just getting to 2004 levels would surprise me
- the Lakers with Kobe *and* Shaq have averaged 17.5m in their finals appearances, against a variety of teams, this time it's only Kobe.
- last years Finals didn't crack 10m, sure the matchup/series was terrible, but I don't think folks bounce back in that fast.

But you've given me an idea. Once the finals matchup is set, we'll have a "you guess the finals viewership" contest. Not that we'll have any prizes, it'll be for pride ;)

Re: NBA Postseason Broadcast Ratings, 1987-2007

Bill Gorman — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 01:53:05 -0000

In 2006 the Wade/Shaq Heat vs. the Mavs was a very compelling series (at least to me), but it had only Shaq, and it didn't crack 13m.

Re: Nielsen Ratings Apr 20: Desperate Housewives Keeps Losing Viewers

Bill Gorman — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 13:40:30 -0000

I watched Friday's Battlestar Galactica on the DVR. Except for Sunday Night Football, there's nothing I'd watch on Sunday night.

Re: Whining About BattleStar Galactica in HD

Bill Gorman — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 13:46:21 -0000

FrankJ, based on lots of net chatter, it's very likely Comcast's bandwidth management not the boxes. The HD boxes themselves *can* handle/show whatever Comcast sends them.

Re: Largest % Time-Shifting Gain For Broadcast Shows, Mar 31- Apr 6

Bill Gorman — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 14:07:50 -0000

Andrea, yes and yes.

I'm still waiting for that email from Les Moonves though ;)

Re: Nielsen Ratings Apr 20: Desperate Housewives Keeps Losing Viewers

Bill Gorman — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 14:10:38 -0000

Guess Who, how anything happens these days at the CW is a matter of substantial wonder.

My guess is they look back at Veronica Mars as being part of the "Good Old Days" and long for their return.

Re: FOX Renews Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

Bill Gorman — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 14:50:51 -0000

FrankJ and Andrea, My guess is that the renewals of a lot of shows from this year are going to be greeted with a certain amount of wariness because of the unique (writer's strike) situation.

I think the attitude of "Well, it did pretty well in the winter/spring of '08 when everything was all screwed up, but how will it do in a normal season?" will often be the case.

Re: Nielsen Ratings Apr 20: Desperate Housewives Keeps Losing Viewers

Bill Gorman — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 18:07:04 -0000

Just to set the record straight, I've watched my share of The Simpsons. My god it's been on for what seems like a generation, how could I have completely avoided it?

On the other hand, I've never seen Family Guy.

BTW, 95% of what Robert claims on the site about my TV viewing is fiction. The fun part may be figuring which 5% is true. ;)

Re: Yes Virginia, VCR Recording is Tracked By Nielsen

Bill Gorman — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 18:13:52 -0000

Polly - TiVo sells their data to customers (primarily advertisers and networks) independently.

All our current data about DVR viewing (and as it turns out VCR recording) comes from Nielsen and is collected just from Nielsen families, although in the past we used to republish the "Top TiVo Recorded" list that TiVo publishes each week.

Re: Yes Virginia, VCR Recording is Tracked By Nielsen

Bill Gorman — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 18:31:35 -0000

TiVo has announced a number of clients that have subscribed to their minute by minute viewing data "TiVo Stopwatch". If I was a network or an advertising agency making big money decisions I'd want all the data I could get.

Do they care about the TiVo numbers? Perhaps they've learned some things of a tactical nature like how to structure commercial pods, etc, but do they care from a big money perspective the way they do about Nielsen ratings numbers, not a chance.

My guess is that TiVo owners likely timeshift more than the typical DVR ownwers, they made early adopter decisions to go out and buy the hardware, most DVR owners got it later from their cableco or satco. But we have little data to go on.

We had an item in February about TiVo timeshifting behavior and the Super Bowl that gave a single datapoint showing that TiVo users time-shifted the Super Bowl about 50% more than other DVR owners.

Re: TV Bigshot Strategy Blog Discussion

Bill Gorman — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 17:38:50 -0000

Deadeye, thanks for the corrections. I have updated.

Re: Nielsen Ratings Mon April 21: Nobody Watched Gossip Girl and CBS is Young Again

Bill Gorman — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 17:39:45 -0000

DeeJay, New show, yes. Growing network, not so much.

Re: Nielsen Ratings: Weekly Top Shows (Cable Networks)

Bill Gorman — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 17:50:34 -0000

kayarn, we have actually gotten weekly sports data from Nielsen for the last two weeks. I hesitate to call it a trend, but look this Friday or next Monday for a list for April 14-20.

Re: TV Bigshot Strategy Blog Discussion

Bill Gorman — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 18:24:25 -0000

Marc, Now that I read your comment, I may have made a mistake with my "correction".

Oprah and Biggest Loser may still reset their prices upwards on Wednesday morning, even though they are finished for the year. I don't know, the rules confuse me at times as well.

I'm going to remove both of them from the post entirely since I'm not sure any longer.

Re: Another Local Ratings Record for NHL’s Washington Capitals

Bill Gorman — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 23:06:31 -0000

kayarn, I would not disappoint you. 22 year DC resident, been to one NHL game in my life.

I know what a goal is, and a puck, past that it gets dicey.

Re: Nielsen Ratings Mon April 21: Nobody Watched Gossip Girl and CBS is Young Again

Bill Gorman — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 02:02:52 -0000

Jon, re: PTI. While Robert and I can barely stand to miss a single show, I have never met anyone else who'd even heard of it. Not that I've asked that many :)

Re: Nielsen’s Most Watched Shows (Broadcast Networks)

Bill Gorman — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 11:34:54 -0000

Heidi, in terms of which is better for the network's bottom line we're the first to admit we don't have enough information to be sure.

They'd want the cheapest to air primetime schedule that would attract the most advertising revenue.

We have no direct data on advertising revenue, but 18-49 ratings are likely an analog to them. We have only the most anecdotal information on the costs of different shows.

Re: Size Does Matter, But…PTI & Around the Horn

Bill Gorman — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:22:45 -0000

One thing is fairly certain. PTI ratings are better than the ratings for the 6pm Eastern SportsCenter.

No other reason to explain the split in PTI where they hold the last 3 minutes of the show until 6:25pm or so.

Re: Size Does Matter, But…PTI & Around the Horn

Bill Gorman — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 18:08:30 -0000

Eric, when Robert says "to the media" he means "free of charge to the media".

If you see cable ratings outside the Top 40 (the cutoff for which is about 3 million viewers) they were made public by a paying Nielsen customer.

Re: What is a “Mainstream” Television Viewer? Part I

Bill Gorman — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 19:28:13 -0000

All the more amazing that in 1972, more than half the TV sets in use at the time (and more than a third of the nation as a whole) watched All in the Family.

Re: Size Does Matter, But…PTI & Around the Horn

Bill Gorman — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:04:30 -0000

Daniel C., I'm with you 100%. I've tried to get into ATH, but I just can't. I also FF past SportsCenter. The 6pm edition almost never has any results/highlights except for afternoon baseball part of the year.

Re: Nielsen Ratings April 23: Waving Goodbye to Jesse L. Martin on Law & Order

Bill Gorman — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:42:00 -0000

Bill, in Nielsen's America the Demo laughs at you!

Re: Nielsen Ratings April 23: Waving Goodbye to Jesse L. Martin on Law & Order

Bill Gorman — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:43:59 -0000

I rarely comment on the contents of a show, but I'm a huge L&O; fan, and I'm surprised they showed Jesse the door with 4 episodes left in the season.

Perhaps, it's to give time to break in the new detective.

Re: Size Does Matter, But…PTI & Around the Horn

Bill Gorman — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 18:04:34 -0000

Mikey, Great info, thanks. And I am with you on th e fill-ins. If it's not K&W;, I'm likely to FF past most of it.

Re: Private Practice: Renew or Cancel?

Bill Gorman — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 23:51:24 -0000

Yamile, Private Practice will return in the Fall of 2008.

Re: TV Bigshot Strategy Blog Discussion

Bill Gorman — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 12:03:33 -0000

Indeed, I had confused the CSI price/results and the CSI:NY schedule position, thanks once again!

Re: Throwing Up Gossip Girl

Bill Gorman — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 12:05:11 -0000

Mandi, I nominate "Gossip Girls however is a mean spirited superficial crapfest" as the best pull quote of the week! ;)

Re: The Phoenix Suns Dash NBA Execs Dream of Shaq vs. Kobe Playoff Round

Bill Gorman — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 01:04:41 -0000

Although I usually skip the players on 5 Good Minutes, I watched Nash and thought the same thing. He almost looked like he was on anti-depressants, he was so monotone/unenthusiastic.

I think the Suns being bounced in the first round is a negative for the TV ratings, but their potential for getting *past* the second round to the conference finals was very low, so at most the NBA loses out on 4-7 games with them in the mix.

The real ratings nightmare would be if the Lakers or the Celtics got upset before the conference finals. It seems very unlikely, but I bet a few TV folks are kept up at night by the prospect.

Re: The Phoenix Suns Dash NBA Execs Dream of Shaq vs. Kobe Playoff Round

Bill Gorman — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 10:54:40 -0000

Rob, I agree with you. My earlier point was it would be a ratings disaster if the Laker were upset *before* the *conference* finals [i.e. in the second round].

Re: What You’re Watching on Your DVRs (Syndicated)

Bill Gorman — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 10:30:54 -0000

Connie, we get effectively all our data from Nielsen Media, both directly and indirectly.

They measure what folks watch on their televisions live and with their DVRs both by electronic people meters (used in the largest TV markets) and paper diaries (in smaller markets).

Re: Nielsen Ratings Sat, Apr 26: A Very Bleh Night

Bill Gorman — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 16:41:45 -0000

dearme, I think that the audience will continue to fracture. Over the last 25 years that has mostly meant a shift from broadast to cable. I think that shift will continue as the quality difference between broadcast and cable continues to narrow [from both directions].
The next shifts will be both time and place. Where and when you choose to watch "video". Robert is at the absolute bleeding edge with the amount of TV he watches on his iPhone, but 10 years from now I think what he does will be pretty typical.

Re: The Office Leads Broadcast Shows w/ 37.6% Time-Shifting Gain

Bill Gorman — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:08:29 -0000

Andrea, that would certainly make logical sense if it was true, but we've never seen any data that would allow us to make that conclusion.

Re: Nielsen Ratings Apr 27: Housewives Desperate for Last Year’s Ratings

Bill Gorman — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:11:02 -0000

viewe, I understand you may feel strongly about the subject, but please do not spam our comments with copy & paste.

Re: DVR Viewers LOVE Desperate Housewives!

Bill Gorman — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 16:09:34 -0000

I think a variety of factors drive DVR recording:

1. Age demo for a show.
2. Competitive schedule timeslot.
3. Night of the week.
4. And for the absolute DVR audience size, of course, total audience size.

Pretty much all DVR use can be explained by those factors.

Re: DVR Viewers LOVE Desperate Housewives!

Bill Gorman — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 17:37:23 -0000

dave, We do know that as of early April, the Office had the 2nd largest % of its season to date audience between 18-49 (for broadcast shows) with 66.8%.

Re: Nielsen Ratings Apr 27: Housewives Desperate for Last Year’s Ratings

Bill Gorman — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 20:52:32 -0000

Ditto Robert's point about it not being entirely clear how much "sweeps" effect national advertising.

Sweeps periods are times when Nielsen diaries are used in all 210 US markets. Normally just the 56 people meter markets are measured. Those diaries help set local ad rates in the non-people meter markets.

Re: Grey’s, LOST and CSI Return, But Idol Still Wins (Nielsen Top 20 Broadcast Shows)

Bill Gorman — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:51:37 -0000

Jim, Fox has 6 positions in the top 20 season to date 18-49 viewer ranking, two are Idol. That's the second most. ABC has 7, and three of those are Dancing With The Stars.

Re: Top Syndicated Shows, Wheel of Fortune #1

Bill Gorman — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:22:50 -0000

Phil, my guess is that the reason you don't see a lot written about them is that the TV writers don't find them that interesting. They're old shows and they're all about raking in the money, not creativity, etc.

That said, they are spectacular moneymakers. The holy grail for half hour sitcom producers is getting enough episodes in the can for syndication.

Also, look at Oprah, she produces her show and the Dr. Phil Show and she's one of the wealthiest women in the US.

Re: Top Syndicated Shows, Wheel of Fortune #1

Bill Gorman — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 21:05:12 -0000

Re: WKND, Anon beat me to it. I will edit in the full word going forward.

Re: O’Reilly vs. Olbermann Through Wednesday, April 23

Bill Gorman — Thu, 01 May 2008 11:21:28 -0000

Yes, I will have the new nightly ratings and long term chart through last night posted today.

I will post tonights ratings with next week's chart.

Re: Nielsen Ratings April 30, 2008: CBS Improves, Boston Legal and Law & Order Suffer

Bill Gorman — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:08:42 -0000

Alhtough nobody at ABC called me, it feels like the Women's Murder Club stint on Tuesday is a "show me what you've got" test.

I think folks at ABC may wonder whether the lackluster Friday performance of the show was because of the day. However, as Robert wrote, it didn't do better in its first Tuesday appearance.

Re: Gossip Girl, It’s No Fuego En La Sangre!

Bill Gorman — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:50:22 -0000

David B., No you are not! ;)

Re: O’Reilly vs. Olbermann Through Wednesday, April 30

Bill Gorman — Thu, 01 May 2008 22:52:14 -0000

Daniel C, there's a lot I could add, but I think this chart's already a bit crowded, at least the long term one.

The aggregate cable news network chart does show all 5 networks average primetime ratings, and honestly it's much more crowded than I'd like it to be.

When we started the site, I did daily posts of cable news ratings with tons of detail. They were very pretty, but a ton of work, and they got very little traffic. As with many things, efficient trumped pretty.

Re: Nielsen Ratings April 30, 2008: CBS Improves, Boston Legal and Law & Order Suffer

Bill Gorman — Thu, 01 May 2008 22:58:07 -0000

tom, excellent point on the timing of ABC's upfronts and the other airings of Boston Legal.

In fact, it's not clear to me that whatever decision is made on Women's Murder Club or Moonlight has much to do with their post-strike results because of the timing of the announcements.

Re: O’Reilly vs. Olbermann Through Wednesday, April 30

Bill Gorman — Thu, 01 May 2008 23:02:58 -0000

Daniel, I do hear you, and honestly the politics of the situation is entirely moot to me. Back in August when we started, I was surprised at the heat behind the rivalry.

Let me play around a bit, what I may do starting next week is abandon the average viewer numbers in order to add the 25-54 numbers for all the 8pm shows. Because the fact is for 25-54 (which is what our industry friends universally say they care about) the race is noticeably tighter.

And maybe the long term charts just go away except for special updates.

Re: TV Bigshot Strategy Blog Discussion

Bill Gorman — Mon, 05 May 2008 01:50:07 -0000

NN, You are correct! I get the Top 5/Timeslot list directly from the TVBigshot folks and didn't even look at that one before I posted it. I'll make sure things get corrected.

Re: TV Bigshot Strategy Blog Discussion

Bill Gorman — Mon, 05 May 2008 11:25:00 -0000

NN, I asked the TVBigshot folks and here's the situation.

Both shows ran a bit past 10pm.

For the 9-10pm hour, CSI won with a 10.66 vs. Grey's 10.65.

However, for the 10-11 overrun Grey's had a 13.52 and CSI a 9.51. The overrun doesn't count for the timeslot points for TVBS though.

The overrun did boost Grey's overall to 10.74 HH rating while CSI had a 10.64, that's how it could make the top 5 without winning its timeslot.

Re: Post-Strike Show Status

Bill Gorman — Tue, 06 May 2008 00:02:46 -0000

Andrea, ABC should be announcing its Fall 2008 schedule within the next few weeks.

Re: The “Big Four” Television Networks Are Continuing to Lose Audience Share

Bill Gorman — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 08:20:00 -0000

http://tvbythenumbers.com While the average gain from Live 7 over Live SD (the New! Live) was less than 10%, some shows had significant gains.

Here's a chart:

http://tvbythenumbers.com/2007/1...ted-sept-24-30/

Re: The “Big Four” Television Networks Are Continuing to Lose Audience Share

Bill Gorman — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 08:20:00 -0000

Re: TiVo points to AppleTV’s future

Bill Gorman — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:12:11 -0000

Very few of TiVo's 1.7 million company owned boxes are likely connected to the Internet. Their DirecTiVo units are not. All their announcements about connected services are for an insignificant number of people.

Very few AppleTV's have even been sold. Have you ever seen a quoted sales number from Apple? I haven't. That almost certainly indicates sales failure for an Apple product.

Nobody is going to acheive mass market status by trying to get the US public to buy an extra box to connect to their TVs.

They may be able to convince the cable and satco's to license their IP and put it in their boxes and achieve mass market that way, but that's about all they can hope for.

Re: Forget the usual PR schtick — what is TiVo really doing?

Bill Gorman — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 12:54:34 -0000

TiVo's trying to stay in business long enough to develop a licensing revenue stream from its IP.

All these new announcements about TV services are a total smokescreen, they apply to so few customers as to be entirely meaningless.

They don't apply to DirectTiVo customers, they don't apply to new Comcast customers who have just begun to sign up for TiVo software on their Comcast DVRs, they don't apply to older TiVo models that can't connect to the Internet or newer models that don't happen to be connected.

They are all a PR smokescreen designed to divert attention from the fact that TiVo *still* has no sustainable business model.

With their recent patent court wins they may still be able to develop one based on licensing their IP, but not if investors stop funding their ongoing losses before they can manage it.

Re: Analyst estimates more than 1 million iPhones are “unlocked”; here’s what it means

Bill Gorman — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 22:49:42 -0000

What's Apple going to do about it? Continue to "break" the unlock process with each new software update. Not much of a deterrent if you just never update your software.

And I doubt many of the unlocked phones are being used in the US. It's one thing to get an unlocked iPhone when you otherwise can't have one at all in your country, but in the US my guess is that most T-Mobile customers would just switch to AT&T rather than bother with an unlocked phone.

Re: TiVo continues expansion, adds YouTube to “television services” lineup

Bill Gorman — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 11:56:28 -0000

This announcement, while certainly headline grabbing, effects almost no customers. It's a case of TiVo trying to stave off irrelevancy.

http://tvbythenumbers.com/2008/03/12/youtube-vi...

Re: Earnings: Comcast Q3 Revs Up 21 Percent; Income Up 2 Percent

Bill Gorman — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 20:27:35 -0000

Comcast revenue from video increased 6% from Q3 2006 due to "growth in digital cable customers and increased demand for digital features including ON DEMAND, DVR and HDTV, as well as higher basic cable pricing.", but not, obviously, new customer additions.

As I have been saying for some time, cable MSOs are in a race to add revenues from their existing customers, because their customer base has been flat to down for some time.