Hurray!  The trade publications are finally getting around to writing about “TV Everywhere” and now at least mentioning that the plan is to include the same ad load as on TV.

Advertising Age has a good primer on it, including juicy nuggets like this:

What’s the ad model
A TV-length commercial ad load disables fast-forwarding, due to increased frustration among programmers who are selling top-tier TV shows with a third of their on-air ads online. Jack Wakshlag, chief research officer at Turner Broadcasting, said a typical on-air episode of “The Closer” runs 18 ads*, which is why it makes little to no revenue sense for the network to run the same episode online with a third of the same commercials against it. “If I can get 4.5 times my TV CPM online [the cost to advertisers to reach 1,000 viewers], I’d be happy and wouldn’t need to do anything,” he said. “But nobody’s getting four times TV CPMs online. Nobody at Hulu’s getting twice the TV CPMs. If people who already watch the show see it with a full commercial load, it’s still a chance to catch up on shows they miss.”

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Nielsen Wire has a post up on how children age 2-11 are watching  more TV than they have in years with TV viewing at an 8 year high.  Kids 2-5 are spending more than 32 hours a week in front of a TV screen (includes DVD, video games, etc)

Within the story was a chart I found more interesting on the percentage of commercials seen in primetime by DVR users by age group.  That kids 2-5 aren’t as quick on the fast forward as their older siblings isn’t so surprising,  but I was still a bit surprised by the high level of commercial playback on DVRs according to Nielsen:

One more thing younger kids do more than those age 6-11 is watch more commercials. Young kids also watch commercials in playback mode more than older kids and adults, as well as watch their favorite shows over and over and over on DVD, VOD and DVR.

Update: If I understand the data posted directly by Nielsen, the DVR viewing actually does have a bigger revenue impact than I’d originally thought.  In the post below it seemed the C3 numbers were being compared to live program viewing and not live commercial viewing.  But it looks like I got that wrong, and it does change the way I think about the importance of DVR viewing, though not necessarily the Live+7 DVR viewing.

original post below:

Don’t read too much into these apples-to-pears comparisons where live PROGRAM ratings are compared to C3 COMMERCIAL ratings (live plus 3 days worth of DVR viewing).  When it comes to the Live+SD (same day DVR viewing) program ratings that are commonly reported, C3 numbers went DOWN, not up…

via Broadcasting & Cable:

Nielsen data for premiere week alone has three NFL games at the top of the C3 ratings list for the 18-49 year old demographic group. As expected with live sports none of them got much of a lift from the live number and the C3 number which measures the average rating of commercials in a given show with three days of playback added in.

The top show, Fox’s NFL Sunday Single was up two tenths of a rating point to 6.8. CBS NFL National scored the same, while NBC’s Sunday Night Football was up just a tenth of a point at 6.4.

When it comes to top entertainment programming Fox’s House rose more than a full rating point up to 6.3 from 5.2. ABC’s Grey’s the fifth biggest show on the C3 list for premiere week rose from a 5.1 live rating to a 6.1 rating on C3.

Those all sound well and good, but it’s not as good as you might believe.  Why?  Because  LIVE program viewing is rarely reported. That data isn’t used at all except in the context of DVR viewing.   And here’s what the above story didn’t tell you: based on the Live+SD program ratings that are commonly posted the  C3  commercial ratings WENT DOWN.  House from 6.7 to a 6.3 and  Grey’s from a 6.7 to a 6.1.

The good news is that DVR viewers are obviously watching some commercials — the bad news is there is no real benefit to the networks of adding in a couple of days worth of DVR viewing when comparing the commercial ratings to the live plus same day DVR program ratings.   The Live+SD program ratings appear to be a fairly good proxy of what the C3 ratings will look like.

via THR:

TiVo said time-shifted ratings among its users spiked 75% during the 10 minutes Letterman confessed his sexual dalliances during his Oct. 1 show. That compares to a lift of only 20% among live viewers.

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In its ongoing “The 10 Things You Need to Know About The New Season” series, The Futon Critic chimes in with an important primer on why the Nielsen ratings matter so much and why all the iTunes, Hulu and DVR numbers don’t yet.

The bottom line of course is that TV advertising is still HUGE and there’s not nearly as much money in online advertising for streaming or in ad free iTunes downloads.  As for the DVR numbers, their conclusion like ours, is that the C3 (live plus 3 days of commercial viewing) just aren’t much different than the the program ratings that we generally report.

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Big Brother (or in this case little brother, since TiVo only makes up about 10% of the DVRs) is watching.   Several data tables below, and I scrolled right down to them.  On a glace it seems that TNT’s The Closer could be the best way to unify a partisan nation.

TIVO EXAMINES TV VIEWERSHIP BEHAVIOR BASED ON POLITICAL PARTY AFFILIATION USING ITS POWER||WATCH™ RATINGS SERVICE IN JULY

Highlights how True Targets^TM data affords advertisers a better understanding of television behavioral segments and can help significantly improve consumer targeting and ROI

No Republicans watched a second of Olbermann, No potential alternative fuel vehicle buyers watched a second of O’Reilly in July

ALVISO, Calif. — October 5, 2009 — TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO), the creator of and a leader in television services and advertising solutions for digital video recorders (DVRs), today highlighted how leveraging the combination of an opt-in panel with set-top-box viewing data, such as TiVo’s Power||Watch™ ratings service, can help provide the media industry with more precise information for reaching households that best match the target audience for specific marketing messages.

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Keep in mind this is from a story driven by  TiVo PR, and that TiVo users are only about 10% of the nation’s DVR owners, and quite likely have different usage patterns.

The fact that fewer people might DVR Leno vs. the NBC 10pm hour last season would tend to relatively boost NBC’s 10pm Live+SD ratings, which is what we (and everybody else) typically reports except in stories specifically about DVR viewing. Reducing DVR viewing of the 10pm hour was one of NBC’s stated objectives with The Jay Leno Show.

Time-shifted viewing of NBC’s “The Jay Leno Show” among TiVo users is below the network’s year-ago levels for 10 p.m. programming, but it eats more into the network’s 11 p.m. viewership, including “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien,” according to DVR pioneer TiVo Inc.

After two weeks on the air, an average of 46% of the show’s TiVo subscriber audience opted to record it and watch it later, it found. That compares to an average of 70% of time-shifted viewing of NBC programs in the 10 p.m. slot last season. This has also resulted in less time-shifting for NBC thus far this season at 10 p.m. when compared with other broadcast networks, TiVo said.

via THR.com.

I’m not working myself into a tizzy over Panasonic’s announcement that it has released a 3D television.   I had my first HDTV in the year 2000.  But notably, did not actually receive any content in HD until 2002. DVDs did look very good on it, but there were no Blu*Ray or  HD DVDs available in the year 2000.

Will it take years for 3D to catch on at home?

Business Week went long on writing about Panasonic’s announcement of a new 50″ 3D television, but did get right to the truth about why Panasonic actually cares:

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