Early TV Season Data Shows DVRs Are Changing Idea of Must-See TV
Looking back, maybe we'll realize that the 2010-11 TV season was the one in which viewers really made the big break between must-see TV and must-see-but not-necessarily-tonight TV. While so-called time-shifted viewing, courtesy of the growing number of DVRs, has been slowly changing how people watch TV, that evolution is growing more pronounced.
Here's what's going on. Early in the season last year, time-shifted viewing was averaging out at about 17 percent for the top 10 shows within the first week after the show's aired. This season, it looks like those numbers are creeping up further. According to preliminary data, including time-shifted ratings, for the 18 to 49 demographic -- some series were up by as much as 20 percent. But the data is for a much shorter time frame, of only three days after the show originally aired, so those numbers will go up further still. Here are some examples: Fox's Glee went from a 5.6 to a 6.3 rating; Fox's House went from a 4.2 to a 5.1; ABC's Modern Family leaped from a 5.1 to a 6.1. New shows also fared well -- NBC's The Event went from a 3.6 to a 4.3, while CBS' Hawaii Five-O remake moved up from a 3.9 to a 4.7.
What does it all mean? Among other things, these numbers, weirdly enough, indicate that TV is getting ever closer to its existential crisis, assuming many of those time-shifted viewers are fast-forwarding through commercials. As time-shifted viewing increases, will advertisers demand decreases in rates?
Or will the networks eventually go back to the future in primetime, making more of their schedules live? Though I say that partly in jest, the early ratings actually back that kind of strategy up. As I posted last week, on the first night of the TV season, ABC's live Dancing with the Stars had 21 million viewers; ESPN's Monday Night Football had 15 million. The time-shifted viewing data, meanwhile, shows that a lot of people watched Monday night's dramas after they'd finished watching Monday night's live programming, when, presumably, they had to sit through lots of commercials.
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