Comments on: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Dollhouse again lead 18-49 %increase with 7 day DVR viewing

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 21:45:27 +0000

Robert

I’m curious to know whether the networks (or some separate entity) will begin posting online views in the near future. One study I read recently suggested that online viewers are more likely to sit through commercial breaks(which are short online) than TV viewers are (I know this is true for me; I basically only watch the news and sports on cable anymore, but when I do watch TV I get up and go to my treadmill for 2 to 3 min during commercial breaks). I sit through the online commercials.

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 21:45:12 +0000

Hey Robert! In light of this development (for Dollhouse/Terminator), hows about moving this post to the page one headlines? Pretty Please?

By: Very Victoria

Very Victoria — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 21:13:41 +0000

in my personal opinion GW is one of the worst show in television.. it’s not so different from the other crimes on CBS, there is a dead man, an investigation, jennifer’s humps.. every episode is so boring and ‘RIPETITIVE’. maybe all the audience is over 40, my mum included..
supernatural is on the top!!

By: R.G.

R.G. — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 18:00:18 +0000

Is this making FOX money – leading in the genre like this?

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:19:51 +0000

Sigh. I really wish some of those DVR people that watch Heroes would watch it live. All the alternate ways to watch it show there’s still an audience for it, but they’d rather watch it another way. Hopefully next year it can get an easier timeslot.

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 16:16:34 +0000

oh yeah, Will, the privacy advocates will LOVE your solution (sarcasm). Plus, that method currently doesn’t separate out in any fashion which member of the household was doing the viewing. Nielsen does, and it’s information the advertisers hold very dear.

By: Will

Will — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 16:14:44 +0000

One necessary change is to abandon Nielsen families, and instead, have *all* cable and satellite boxes and DVRs send back data about what is being watched. We’ve seen from election polls how wildly off the mark samples are. It is time to replace it with the actual data.

By: Chris the TV sage

Chris the TV sage — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 15:52:44 +0000

Sycore:

Please detail the necessary changes.

By: Sycore

Sycore — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 15:49:38 +0000

Obviously, TSCC will not get a 3rd season, but the point is live broadcast tv is changing, and the networks should realize this make the necessary changes. Nielsen data is totally unreliable as to true viewership and shows should be weighted on many factors instead of just live viewers. DVR, VOD, torrents, dvd sales, hulu etc., while most are for the purpose of eliminating commercials, product placement much more effective then live ads.

By: Richard Steven Hack

Richard Steven Hack — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 09:23:18 +0000

That makes sense, I forgot that they have to code in who the viewer is.

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 08:05:23 +0000

according to Nielsen only one viewing per person is counted. But, if three different people were in the household and one watched live, another one watched on DVR the same night and another one watched 2 days later, they would each count one time for a total of 3. But if one person watches 3 times, it only counts once.

By: John T. Folden

John T. Folden — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 08:02:21 +0000

Jonathan you must be looking at numbers from a dream world where TSCC has more viewers. Season 2 ratings have always been rather depressing, right from the start.

By: Richard Steven Hack

Richard Steven Hack — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 07:59:22 +0000

Live viewing only increased “a little” indeed, and it isn’t every week – just in the last couple of weeks. Really could be nothing more than random variation, too, since the variation has been what, ten percent of less? When TSCC was dropping, it was losing 400-500,000 a week, rather more than ten percent.

Hagi brings up one interesting point – how many people DVR a show to watch it more than once? If that second or third viewing is counted, it means the show is being over counted by some (probably small) percentage. I suppose the advertisers don’t mind since it gives them two or three chances to sell. Or are repeat viewings weeded out?

By: hagi

hagi — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 06:20:30 +0000

Robert yes total dvr viewing of tssc is rather stays constant in every week but live viewing increases a little in every week. It may be possible that this new viewers mainly either fresh viewers or old viewers who regain interests rather than people who previously dvring it.

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 06:11:06 +0000

Ani, I don’t love the sorting of this list or the % increase, But since we’re focusing on 18-49 more, I think it does make sense to do something. I think next week I’ll try sorting it by the most absolute gain in 18-49 ratings and see how that goes. Doing it for the current week, the sorting is a quite a bit different than the overall top 20 most-watched on DVR. There are 21 shows that improved by at least one half 18-49 ratings point from Live+SD to Live+7 and there were four shows that increased by at least an entire point.

that sorting might be interesting and make sense for us and is less likely to be false hope stirring (TSCC wouldn’t have made the top 20 by that slicing, though neither would Chuck – Dollhouse would’ve been #18), but I don’t think it is something that is going to typically change a show’s renew/cancel prospects.

By: ABCFanaticMarch2009

ABCFanaticMarch2009 — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 06:05:09 +0000

ABC ROCKS!

By: AniMatsuri

AniMatsuri — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 05:49:49 +0000

To me all this says is, “Here is some meanless numbers to give false hope to fans of doomed shows.”

This is right up there with the posting of O’Reilly vs. Oberman(sp?) ratings. O’Reilly crushes this guy every week and does anyone care either way?

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 05:46:15 +0000

1st, TSCC’s total DVR viewing isn’t really going up. In fact, it’s down for the 3/13 episode versus the 2/27 episode by more than 100,000. Mostly the DVR #s have held pretty flat.

If someone wants to blame the baseball playoffs and World Series for TSCC’s downfall, what can you do? There are many things I will blame on Major League Baseball’s Bud Selig, but TSCC’s ratings are not among them.

Still, I’d love to see a season 3 just for an episode where Cameron/Summer Glau is on a mission to take down Bud Selig because he’s somehow responsible for Skynet! “This is for creating SKYNET, and THIS is for turning a blind eye on performance enhancing drugs for years and then lying about it just like everyone else!”

It’s even better if there are Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Alex Rodriguez terminators accompanying her.

By: hagi

hagi — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 05:39:42 +0000

RHS, Some of them watch it via dvr because it airs fridays where people generally do not stay home. Some watch it via dvr because they like it and want to watch more than once . Although you’ll disagree with me, in my opinion (and my opinion only) it is one of the best shows in tv and its quality, its writing its acting is so good that i can watch any of its episodes more than once.

and please do not start again by saying 1000th times how bad it is, how JF ruined it etc. we have memorized what your idea about this show is. Thank you

By: Richard Steven Hack

Richard Steven Hack — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 05:27:14 +0000

Hagi, if that’s true, then obviously no matter how many TSCC fans who aren’t Neilsen families watch via DVR, it won’t matter. So why bother?

By: cdn

cdn — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 05:23:48 +0000

Jonathan, if you were an advertiser, would DVR viewers matter much to you?

By: hagi

hagi — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 05:18:42 +0000

“You want to know why the DVR numbers keep going up? Because all the TSCC fans keep telling each other the DVR numbers matter and therefore many of them watch the show live AND on DVR in order to try to push the numbers up.”

I think this is not the case, since DVR numbers are also collected from viewers who have nielsen boxes in their houses.

By: FrenchfanofTSCC

FrenchfanofTSCC — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 05:18:20 +0000

Good News for our Great Show !!! Not Surprise !!!
hope it help get season 3 !!!!

By: Richard Steven Hack

Richard Steven Hack — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 05:13:08 +0000

Jonathan: “because we know they are wrong and have not looked at the numbers: TSCC was performing well on Mondays BEFORE the 3 week break in the middle of the season.”

This site looked at the numbers in the fall and predicted cancellation by May. It was NOT performing well on Mondays and more importantly kept bleeding viewers all season. And there was no “three week break” – it was two weeks and then one week later on, and most shows have that sort of problem.

You want to know why the DVR numbers keep going up? Because all the TSCC fans keep telling each other the DVR numbers matter and therefore many of them watch the show live AND on DVR in order to try to push the numbers up.

Unfortunately the DVR numbers do NOT matter, and thus the fans once again are killing the show they want to save by not realizing that fact.

I believe it’s also been established that GW viewers span the demographics, although they trend to the older demo.

The bottom line is: TSCC is not compelling enough to have large numbers of viewers view it live.

By: hagi

hagi — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 04:53:01 +0000

sorry for posting twice the same comment