I'll watch it later

[JasonEvans]

It takes time, but eventually the TV ratings folks release ratings that include everyone who DVR'd a show and watched it several days later. It makes for an interesting list. Here are the top DVR'd shows from the second week of the TV season (about 3 weeks ago).


Grey's Anatomy - 3.01 million DVR viewers who watched 1-7 days later
The Mentalist - 2.83 million
House - 2.56 million
CSI - 2.31 million
Fringe - 2 million**
NCIS - 1.99 million
Criminal Minds - 1.93 million
Bones - 1.89 million
Flash Forward - 1.84 million
The Office - 1.71 million


** What is really impressive about Fringe's number is that Fringe does not have naely the overall following that these other shows do. For example, Grey's gets 15+ million viewers a week, so adding 3 million more is not that huge a deal. Fringe, on the other hand, only gets slightly more than 6 million viewers a week, so a 2 million viewer boost is an extra 33% add to its audience. That is a huge deal. I read it as meaning that Fringe is a show lots of folks like, but they like something else (Grey's or CSI) at Thu 9pm better. If you put Fringe on a different night, with less stud competition, it would get really big numbers, I predict.

Toward that end, here are the biggest percentage gainers.


Dollhouse - 37.9% increase from DVR viewers
Fringe - 33.1%
Smallville - 27.5%
Heroes - 26.6%
Gossip Girl - 26.3%
Melrose Place - 26.1%
The Office - 23.0%
Vampire Diaries - 22.6%
Glee - 22.3%
90210 - 21.7%


Worth noting-- several of these shows generate such small audiences that it does not take that much to post a big percentage gain.

--Jason "grrrr, I cannot believe folks are still passionate about Heroes-- the horrid storylines really killed that show" Evans

[DevilAlumna]

Not surprised at all by Dollhouse - it's on Fridays at 9PM. Its target audience usually has something else going on then. I've watched every episode, but never ONCE at the regularly-scheduled time.

[hc5duke]

Not surprised at all by Dollhouse - it's on Fridays at 9PM. Its target audience usually has something else going on then. I've watched every episode, but never ONCE at the regularly-scheduled time.

don't lie, us nerds don't have social plans at fridays at 9pm ;)

[Indoor66]

don't lie, us nerds don't have social plans at fridays at 9pm ;)

I thought that was when you nerds sat around charging your batteries on your various devices. :p

[hurleyfor3]

This nerd is usually on an airplane to somewhere more fun.

Do those numbers include people who do watch the show eventually, or just record it? Also, standard-def torrents typically show up 1-2 days after a show airs nowadays. Sometimes they show up before!

[hc5duke]

This nerd is usually on an airplane to somewhere more fun.

Do those numbers include people who do watch the show eventually, or just record it? Also, standard-def torrents typically show up 1-2 days after a show airs nowadays. Sometimes they show up before!

usenet has HD recording before the show airs in the west coast

[hurleyfor3]

usenet has HD recording before the show airs in the west coast

I was wondering whether Usenet was still good for anything. (And we all know where it was invented, right?)

[JasonEvans]

Do those numbers include people who do watch the show eventually, or just record it? Also, standard-def torrents typically show up 1-2 days after a show airs nowadays. Sometimes they show up before!

If you record it but never watch it, it does not count. I do not believe they make any effort to keep track of people who watch more than a week after a show originally aired.

The theory is that, after a week, many of the promos and advertising that were shown in the commercial breaks are so dated as to no longer be useful. Of course, this does not really address the fact that people watching any show that is time-shifted are probably not watching much, if any, of the promos and ads. Advertisers do not pay very much extra for shows that generate a lot of time-shifted viewing for this very reason.

--Jason "aside from live sporting events, I almost never watch any commercials... except for I'm a Mac and I'm a PC (http://www.apple.com/getamac/ads/)" Evans

[DevilAlumna]

don't lie, us nerds don't have social plans at fridays at 9pm ;)

Well, okay, you got me, it's my Netflix DVD night... ;)


I thought that was when you nerds sat around charging your batteries on your various devices. :p

Guilty as charged. Laptop, phone, Zune, camera, dive light. :D

[brevity]

If you record it but never watch it, it does not count. I do not believe they make any effort to keep track of people who watch more than a week after a show originally aired.

For purposes of keeping timely ratings, a 7-day limit sort of makes sense. But it's not practical to those viewers (and I'm sure there are many) who let their DVR collect a handful of episodes of a particular show, and then watch them a month later as a mini-marathon.

These days I have a hard time watching live TV (aside from sports). Even if I could watch a show live, I'll delay the experience 15-20 minutes and gradually catch up.

A better ratings system would include any household that records the show on a DVR, whether or not the episode is played back in a timely fashion. It's not as if a large enough sample size would skew the numbers by recording something they'll never see.

The current Nielsen numbers show, more than anything else, just how outdated and embarrassing that ratings system is. It's no surprise that the top 20 shows are either geared toward live viewing (Sunday Night Football, Dancing with the Stars), weekly group party watching (Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives) or older viewers who still watch everything live (CBS procedural hourlongs).

The TV industry needs to take a page from the music industry's SoundScan (which pretty much invented the modern country music behemoth by eliminating the underreporting of sales by snotty record store owners, circa 1989). They should generate more accurate numbers from all channels, warts and all, rather than estimates and diary-kept sample sizes. We must have the technology, but for some reason keep coddling the old networks.

Basically, I want to see a ratings system unafraid to show that more people watched Brett Favre on a Monday night than David Caruso, because that's what really happened.

[OZZIE4DUKE]

How do "they" know when I watch something on my DVR? If I start to watch something and a few minutes later stop it, does that count? Do multiple viewing, or starts as the case may be, count multiple times?

[JasonEvans]

How do "they" know when I watch something on my DVR? If I start to watch something and a few minutes later stop it, does that count? Do multiple viewing, or starts as the case may be, count multiple times?

They have a little camera installed in your bedroom and a man sitting in a room in Cleveland who makes notes whenever you watch a show on your DVR. It is pretty basic technology ;)

--Jason "I think the use a combination of the diaries and electronic data collected by TIVO and other DVR companies" Evans

[Indoor66]

Guilty as charged. Laptop, phone, Zune, camera, dive light. :D

I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. :eek: :D

[Welcome2DaSlopes]

I surprissed at the numbers The Office are getting.

[YmoBeThere]

I always watch it later and usually much later.

[OZZIE4DUKE]

They have a little camera installed in your bedroom and a man sitting in a room in Cleveland who makes notes whenever you watch a show on your DVR. It is pretty basic technology


They may get some very interesting pictures/movies if there is a camera in my bedroom :eek::eek:, but that's not where my DVR is! Can I get copies of those pictures/movies? :D:cool:

[HaveFunExpectToWin]

I always watch it later and usually much later.

Agreed. The only TV I watch live is sports.

[-jk]

Agreed. The only TV I watch live is sports.

I'll frequently start a Tivo'ed basketball game 30 minutes in so I can zip through the commercials and most of half time.

-jk

[Welcome2DaSlopes]

Watching a recorded sports event just isn't the same.

[Exiled_Devil]

How do "they" know when I watch something on my DVR? If I start to watch something and a few minutes later stop it, does that count? Do multiple viewing, or starts as the case may be, count multiple times?

Nielsen uses diaries - which are pretty flawed - set-top boxes that note what is playing, and also have a technology that allows participating family members bring them around and they pick up what is playing around them.

Those technologies are listed in order of ubiquity - not many people have the 'tv with me anywhere' device. But I think that is incredibly important - the TV watched on college campuses is evidently un-measured by Nielsen, which seems to me to be a major weakness due to the magic demographic age being in college.


All of this info is from a few years ago, when my brother used to recruit families for Nielsen.

[rasputin]

Watching a recorded sports event just isn't the same.

It is for me. I just can't stand the commercials. (Actually, what I really can't stand is the promo's for lame sitcoms, etc., which I don't watch either.) I just start watching the DVR'd game an hour or so in, and catch right up. That's especially useful when you are watching college hoops (and the 127 time outs at the end of the game), and Cardinals baseball (when LaRussa makes a pitching change every five minutes after the sixth inning). Once you get used to the idea, it's no problem that it isn't "live," so long as you don't know the result.

[hc5duke]

It is for me. I just can't stand the commercials. (Actually, what I really can't stand is the promo's for lame sitcoms, etc., which I don't watch either.) I just start watching the DVR'd game an hour or so in, and catch right up. That's especially useful when you are watching college hoops (and the 127 time outs at the end of the game), and Cardinals baseball (when LaRussa makes a pitching change every five minutes after the sixth inning). Once you get used to the idea, it's no problem that it isn't "live," so long as you don't know the result.

As a stats geek I follow sporting events online while watching it on tv... as such, it's difficult to record then watch with delays. I have an idea where I would cache the stats throughout the game with a script and then I can tell it to tell me the stats from 30 minutes ago or whatever, but right now I've been too busy/lazy to actually implement this.

[riverside6]

As a stats geek I follow sporting events online while watching it on tv... as such, it's difficult to record then watch with delays. I have an idea where I would cache the stats throughout the game with a script and then I can tell it to tell me the stats from 30 minutes ago or whatever, but right now I've been too busy/lazy to actually implement this.

I'm with you here, I can't tell you how many times I've paused a game to get up and do something. Then I forget, and look at the stats and wonder how Duke has 5 more points than the TV shows.