commercial ratings data from the week of Aug. 27
From TVWeek.com

In the first official week for the commercial ratings that are shaking up the advertising world, the top 10 shows on broadcast were still the top 10 shows, but their order was scrambled.

Network officials and media are expecting bigger, more unpredictable changes once the figures for the new season’s shows are available, because digital video recorder use has been heavy during premiere week. The way those numbers fall is crucial, because billions of dollars in ad sales are based on the new ratings system.

C3 is the new metric being used this season. It refers to the ratings for average commercial minutes in live programming plus three days of DVR playback.

Currently it takes Nielsen three weeks from the time a show airs to release C3 ratings.

Thus, Nielsen still has not officially released any C3 ratings for the new fall shows.

The week of Aug. 27 marked the first time the C3 ratings became official. Previously they had been marked "for evaluation purposes only."

Nielsen gave some of the commercial ratings data from the week of Aug. 27 to TelevisionWeek last week. It is still deciding how to make that data available to the public and the press on a regular basis.

In that week, the top 10 shows in the live program rating among viewers 18 to 49, the measurement used for ad buying during the 2006-07 season, were the same using the new C3 measurement, which was the standard for the majority of this season’s buys.
But some of the shows switched order, and while some saw ratings decline by more than 7 percent, others rose by as much as 4 percent.
For the week of Aug. 27, CBS’ "Two and a Half Men" was the top show among adults 18 to 49 using both C3 and live ratings, but the C3 rating was more than 6 percent lower.

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Interesting article. It made a lot of sense when it pointed out that C3 ratings will be going down, not up when the final, final number come out. Of course, that won't make the TV show cheerleaders happy since they think the purpose of the Nielsen ratings is a popularity contest rather than an advertising measurement. There will likely be a ton of people asking to see the live+7 total viewers without the commercial viewing factor out just so they can claim their favorite show is watched by a bigger total number of people.

The only part of the article that didn't make sense was the part that claimed ratings for commercials will go up simply because advertisers have to start caring about the commercials. That sounded more like wishful thinking than an accurate prediction about how TV watchers will change their habits going forward. Unless the laws change to prevent commercial skipping, the problem will only get more pronounced as people get used to watching through DVR/timeshift.

Are there a lot of people that willfully watch commercials during DVR playback? The average DVR watcher seeing 40% of commercials seems very high to me.

quote:

Originally posted by spotupj:
Are there a lot of people that willfully watch commercials during DVR playback? The average DVR watcher seeing 40% of commercials seems very high to me.

If I had to guess, I'd guess that only about 40% of commercials get watched during live viewing. People get up and visit the fridge, bathroom, etc... the rest of the time. Likely, people watching on DVR are doing the same thing. As people get more accustomed to DVR use, I'm guessing that the 40% number will go down further, despite the articles hinting at advertisers finding ways to get people to watch the ads at higher rates.

BTW, does anyone know how Nielsen handles channel flipping away from the main show during commercials? Many of us will take a minute or two during the commerical break to flip on CNN, ESPN, etc... I'm guessing that the time spent on CNN/ESPN/etc... doesn't count as anything since it isn't long enough in duration, but it should mean that the C3 viewing for the main show goes down because viewers aren't watching the commercials.

I'll see the occational Commercial during a DVR Playback. Sometimes is a movie ad that I want to see, or a funny ad worth watching. Sometimes, I forget I'm viewing the show via DVR and just forget to fast forward. Or, your watching the show while doing another task (posting on pifeedback.com ) and just let the commercials go.

quote:

Originally posted by spotupj:
Are there a lot of people that willfully watch commercials during DVR playback? The average DVR watcher seeing 40% of commercials seems very high to me.