Data Says 2.5 Million Less Watching TV
- From: weberm@xxxxxxxxxxx (Ubiquitous)
- Date: Wed, 09 May 2007 04:25:41 -0500
By DAVID BAUDER
AP Television Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - Maybe they're outside in the garden. They could be
playing softball. Or perhaps they're just plain bored. In TV's worst
spring in recent memory, a startling number of Americans drifted away
from television the past two months: More than 2.5 million fewer people
were watching ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox than at the same time last year,
statistics show.
Everyone has a theory to explain the plummeting ratings: early Daylight
Savings Time, more reruns, bad shows, more shows being recorded or
downloaded or streamed.
Scariest of all for the networks, however, is the idea that many people
are now making their own television schedules. The industry isn't fully
equipped to keep track of them, and as a result the networks are
scrambling to hold on to the nearly $8.8 billion they collected during
last spring's ad-buying season.
"This may be the spring where we see a radical shift in the way the
culture thinks of watching TV," said Sarah Bunting, co-founder of the
Web site Television Without Pity.
The viewer plunge couldn't have come at a worse time for the
networks?next week they will showcase their fall schedules to
advertisers in the annual "up front" presentations.
The networks argue that viewership is changing, not necessarily
declining. Some advertisers respond that they are no longer willing to
pay full price up front to reach viewers that may not tune in later.
This fall, both sides will be watching what happens with families like
Tony Cort's. During prime-time, Cort, his wife and four kids tend to
scatter to computers or other activities in different parts of their New
Jersey home. (Not during "American Idol" or "Lost," though.) They're
definitely watching less TV, said Cort, who runs a Web site for martial
arts aficionados.
"I remember when `24' was on, that was something there was a lot of
interest and excitement about," he said.
News flash: "24" is still on. Its ratings are down, too, amid a
critically savaged season.
More bad news abounds. NBC set a record last month for its least-
watched week during the past 20 years, and maybe ever?then broke it a
week later. This is the least popular season ever for CBS' "Survivor."
ABC's "Lost" has lost nearly half its live audience?more than 10 million
people?from the days it was a sensation. "The Sopranos" is ending on
HBO, and the response is a collective yawn.
Events like "American Idol" on Fox (which is owned by News Corp.) and
"Dancing With the Stars" on ABC (owned by The Walt Disney Co.) are doing
the most to prop up the industry. But still, in the six weeks after
Daylight Savings Time started in early March, prime-time viewership for
the four biggest broadcast networks was down to 37.6 million people,
from 40.3 million during the same period in 2006, according to Nielsen
Media Research.
Millions of missing viewers could translate into millions of missing
dollars for the networks heading into the up-front sales season.
Advertisers don't believe that the drop in viewership is as dramatic as
the numbers suggest, but they're no longer willing to spend what they
once did in the spring market, said Brad Adgate of Horizon Media, an ad
buying firm. Johnson & Johnson and Coca-Cola sat out the spring market
last year?betting they could get lower prices later?and it's likely
other companies will do the same this year, he said.
The early start to Daylight Savings Time has hurt ratings. Prime-time
viewership traditionally dips then as people do more things outside, and
this year folks had a three-week head start to get into the habit of
doing something else. More network reruns during March and April
dampened interest, too.
"We let them get out of the habit of watching television a little bit,
and it's going to take some time to get these people back in front of
their television sets," said David Poltrack, chief researcher for CBS
(owned by CBS Corp.).
Strategic decisions to send some popular serial dramas on long hiatuses
appeared to backfire. NBC's "Heroes," CBS' "Jericho" and "Lost" lost
significant momentum when they returned. Besides HBO's "The Sopranos,"
there are no lengthy countdowns toward the end of very popular series,
unless you count "The King of Queens."
There also are technical reasons that this apparent diminished interest
in television may be overstated.
This year, for the first time, Nielsen is measuring viewership in the
estimated 17 percent of homes with digital video recorders?but it only
counts them in the ratings of a specific show if they watch it within 24
hours of the original air time.
If you recorded "Desperate Housewives" this spring and watched it two
days later, you're not counted in the show's ratings. And you're not
counted by Nielsen under any circumstances if you downloaded a show on
iTunes and watched it on your iPod or cell phone, or streamed an episode
from a network Web site.
Since last year's Nielsen sample contained no DVR homes and this year's
sample does, logic dictates that fewer Nielsen families are watching TV
live this year, deflating ratings.
"People are not consuming less television, they're watching it in
different ways, and the measurements haven't caught up," said Alan
Wurtzel, chief research executive at NBC (owned by General Electric
Co.).
The numbers can be significant. When "The Office" aired on NBC on April
5, Nielsen said there were 5.8 million people watching. Add in the
people who recorded the episode and watched it within the next week, and
viewership swelled to 7.6 million, a 32 percent increase, Nielsen said.
"The Sopranos" is another interesting case study. For its first four
episodes this season, the show averaged 7.4 million viewers for its
weekly Sunday night premiere, down from 8.9 million at the same point
its last season.
But HBO shows each new episode eight times a week. Between the multiple
plays and DVR viewing, each episode this spring gets 11.1 million
viewers, down from 13 million last year. And these figures don't count
people who watch on demand.
Numbers for "The Sopranos" may be down because people can watch whenever
they want. They may not be as interested in the show as they used to
be?or it could be a combination of both.
Television has made billions based on how many people watch a show at
its regular time. That idea may already be obsolete. So should the
industry use DVR viewing when setting ad rates? If so, how quickly must
people watch the shows?within two days? A week? What about people who
watch shows on their cell phones or on network Web sites, which Nielsen
doesn't measure yet? Later this month Nielsen will begin measuring how
many people watch commercials. Should those be used to compute
advertising costs?
Right now, none of those questions have answers.
However, "if we continue to do business assuming people will watch
television as they always have," said NBC's Wurtzel, "it's a dead-end
game."
.
- Prev by Date: Re: Katie Couric is turning into a ratings disaster for CBS evening news
- Next by Date: Re: Favorite "Hero?"
- Previous by thread: Wrestling news: Smackdown spoiler from Pittsburgh
- Next by thread: Re: Data Says 2.5 Million Less Watching TV
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
