DVR Counts Towards Television Ratings?

Is that really how it works now? Is Neilson gone? I guess they're spying on us now. I think the DVR is a more accurate reading of what the public's into. They revamped the music charts to include digital sales, and Vevo views. So, it's the DVR playback that counts, not the recording to begin with? I find this really interesting. Does anything else count towards the ratings? Viewing official clips on the web? Hulu? I believe this year's Superbowl was the first to include gadget viewing (iPhone, iPad), not just television.

• Just make shit up and post it on DL, OP. That makes it a fact.

• DVR viewing only counts toward ratings in Nielsen homes. Otherwise, it means nothing.

• What R2 said but they're counted only up to a point. Advertisers pay for live broadcast plus DVR viewing up to 3 days after. It's called the C3 ratings. Broadcasters would like to persuade advertisers to pay for L7 (live broadcast + 7 days DVR playback).

• Neilsen sends you a book. In that book, you write down what you've watched and what channel it was on, or if it was On Demand, etc. That's how it was done when I was a Nielsen subject.

• I think it does matter. Fran Drescher asks her fans on twitter to dvr Happily Divorced (a really funny show, btw) and to watch it within 2 days of taping... so, I think it does matter. Even the ads on all shows for TVLand suggest "Prepare your DVRs!"

• These people are so stupid to think their ads actually make people want to buy their crap.

• OP, it most definitely counts. As R3 said, the standard for a while now has been to rely on C3 ratings, but the networks are starting to figure out that even that's not all that accurate, given the increasing trend of recording five or six episodes of a given show and then conducting a "marathon" viewing session of them all at once. Convincing advertisers to change standards is a different story, of course; advertisers buy media space based on the number of viewers or "eyeballs" it gets, and it's in their best interest to keep the official "count" as low as possible, even if they know the real numbers are much higher. Btw DVRs and DVRs alone are the reason why Friday night, which was only a few years ago entirely abandoned by the networks and populated with reruns, has become an increasingly popular place to put relatively low-rated shows with a cult following and extremely high C3 and L7 numbers; "Fringe" and "Nikita" are great examples of it (IIRC something like 45% of the viewership for "Fringe" comes from time-shifted viewings). DVRs and Web views (via Hulu or the networks' own Web sites) are similarly the reason why so many shows that *seem* low in the ratings stay on for year after year; "Gossip Girl" is a great example here, since it has one of the youngest viewer ages on television, and the younger a viewer is, the less likely they are to watch a TV show at its scheduled time or even on a television at all, preferring computers instead.

• [quote]Advertisers pay for live broadcast plus DVR viewing up to 3 days after. When I see total viewership numbers boosted by the +3 day DVR results, I wonder how sponsors really value those additional viewers. I never see commercials when watching a show I've recorded, and I'd think that the majority of people fast forward through them. If I were paying a network to broadcast by commercial, I'd weigh the 'live' rating as important in determining how much I'd have to pay for the time, and I'd pretty much disregard the +3 day.

• They're so stupid. What they should be doing is working with retailers so that the only way anyone can find out about any products is by attending a monthly display event at a store where people will be more likely to make impulse buys and they could create paid memberships for customers to be told about the products and some items would not be available for customers who do not have memberships and attend the product introductioms. None of the people in charge know how to think.

• R9, you sound like a real piece of work.

• Twitter is changing all of this and encouraging more people to watch live, so they can interact via social media in real time. TV will need to capitalize on this if it wants to survive as a shared experience, which is where its true power lies. (As was radio before TV.)

• The networks have been experimenting with social media in the hopes of boosting live viewing. So far there's no evidence that Twitter boosts live viewing in any significant way.

• [quote]Just make shit up and post it on DL, OP. That makes it a fact. Thanks for outing yourself as an idiot.

• Tivo reported how many people hit rewind when the Janet Jackson boob incident happened. They do keep track of all users' viewing habits.

• Everything you watch on a DVR is collected. "Are DVR viewings factored into TV ratings?" Since digital video recorders (DVRs) have gained popularity, television networks have had to adapt to the time-shifting, commercial-skipping technology. DVR services, like TiVo, allow viewers to schedule recordings on either a one-time or recurring basis and watch those programs whenever they like. One of the major concerns about DVRs is that viewers will fast-forward through commercial breaks, but tracking viewing habits and ratings for recorded TV is a challenge. A DVR is really just a large hard drive with a user interface that allows you to search for shows and to schedule and watch recordings, and it keeps up with network programming schedules by connecting to a central network where it downloads that information. Some DVRs also record a buffer of live TV, allowing you to pause live action in case you want to grab a snack or run to the restroom. But how do these boxes affect television ratings? The Nielsen Company collects traditional television ratings data by choosing a cross section of sample households and giving these viewers a set-top Nielsen box. The Nielsen box keeps a digital record of what these so-called "Nielsen families" are watching. It's trickier when you throw DVRs into the mix, however, because Nielsen boxes have a tough time keeping track of what you're watching. What many consumers don't know about their DVRs is that in addition to retrieving scheduling information, they also share data about what you're watching and when. You might remember the notorious Janet Jackson "nip slip" during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime performance. After the incident, TiVo released a statement calling it "the most TiVo'ed moment," as TiVo users paused and replayed that clip more times than any other moment in the history of TiVo up to that point [source: Reuters]. While that in itself is interesting, the underlying point is even more revealing: TiVo and other DVRs collect your viewing information, and DVR companies are even using that data to release their own ratings numbers for recorded programs. How do DVR ratings work, and who's measuring them? Let's take a look at the most common DVR ratings services and how they measure viewing behavior. Whether we're talking Nielsen numbers or ratings reported from DVR data, one of the biggest challenges with DVR ratings is that they don't come in right away. If you TiVo "Fringe" on Friday night but don't watch the recording until Tuesday, the network's ratings can't show your viewing activity until that time. Because of the time-shifting nature of DVRs, networks are now interested in ratings during a time range rather than just the date and time that the show aired. Most networks use Nielsen's Live Plus service to track ratings. Live Plus looks at who watched shows on their DVRs within different time frames. Generally, it tracks three major categories: Live-Plus-Same-Day, Live-Plus-Three and Live-Plus-Seven. Each one looks at a broader timeframe, so Live-Plus-Same-Day looks not only at who was watching when the show aired, but also who watched the show that day and the next. Live-Plus-Three and Live-Plus-Seven track who watched within three and seven days of the original airing, respectively. When Nielsen first rolled out its Live Plus service, network executives were uncertain, but it's become an industry standard. These Live Plus ratings can make a big difference when a large portion of a show's fans are watching on their DVRs. In 2007 when Live-Plus-Seven was starting to gain traction with networks, 23 percent of 18 to 49-year-olds watching "The Office" did so on their DVRs within a week of the first run. That's a big ratings boost just from DVRs, and "The Office" isn't the only show that's benefitted from DVR ratings. A January 2011 episode of "Fringe" jumped an entire ratings point based only on Live-Plus-Three data [source: Anders]. The Live Plus ratings system has changed not only how networks report ratings numbers, but advertising as well. DVR viewing is so common now that Nielsen tried lumping its Live-Plus-Same-Day ratings into its live viewing ratings. There were still some Nielsen reports that separated the numbers, but the company began reporting the data all together for its daily releases. The logic was that there's not much difference between a viewer who watches live and one who starts watching 30 seconds or even 30 minutes after the show has started. Advertisers fought this change because the ratings boosts from Live Plus meant higher advertising rates, and Nielsen now reports live and Live Plus numbers separately. Methods for collecting DVR ratings data have been controversial at times between these advertiser complaints and privacy concerns from DVR viewers, but despite resistance, it looks like DVR ratings are here to stay.

  http://people.howstuffworks.com/culture-traditions/tv-and-culture/dvr-viewings-tv-ratings.htm

• C3 ratings only count DVR viewers who watch the episode WITHOUT fast forwarding through commercials.

• [quote] DVR viewers who watch the episode WITHOUT fast forwarding through commercials Do such people exist?

• It's amazing that they've figured out a way to spy on all of us finally. No more Neilson boxes.

• R9 is insane.