As I guessed, the confusion over the Bill Carter NY Times DVR piece is beginning to filter through the TV media.

Here’s Time’s James Poniewozik:

The upshot for now is that the total ratings for a show, including DVR viewing, do still matter.

That’s exactly the confusion I expected and it’s substantially not true. Only a fraction (~10%) of the viewing increase from Live+SD to Live+7 matters to commercial viewing.

I do feel a bit like the Dutch boy putting his finger in the dike

The broadcast network PR machines have been talking to Bill Carter at the NY Times again, and after his article today on how broadcasters love DVRs, I can guarantee massive confusion will ripple across the TV press (not to mention some segments of TV fandom) about the effects of DVR viewing on TV shows.

Read the full story

No surprise that broadcast ad prices are falling at about the same rate as the decline in broadcast primetime demo ratings.

Although fourth-quarter activity may ultimately change TV’s advertising picture, broadcast network TV commercial pricing dropped steeply during the summer: 16% versus the same period a year ago.

The average price for a 30-second broadcast TV commercial dropped to $83,916, according to recent analysis by New York media agency TargetCast tcm. The agency says the decline was at a faster pace than in recent quarters, where pricing was down but in the single-digit percent range.

Fox posted the highest average unit cost of $121,000 for a 30-second commercial. ABC, NBC, and CBS were all in the $70,000 to $80,000 range for a commercial unit.

Likewise, cable rates are up by about the same rate as overall ad supported cable ratings. It’s not rocket science, folks.

While broadcast networks were hurting, cable channels made gains in 3Q. The top 15 cable networks’ ratings were up nearly 5% among adult 25-54 viewers — which pushed up pricing around the same levels to an average $10,000 for a 30-second commercial.

The highest priced networks: ESPN averaged $27,000 for a 30-second commercial, TNT was at $17,000.

via MediaPost.

There must be a schedule within the CBS PR department for pimping the media for stories about how the adults 18-49 demo is outmoded and how new measures (like the radically different adults 25-54 demo?) are more appropriate because they seem to appear on a semi-monthly basis during the broadcast season.

This time CBS PR hits up Business Week for the spin, and even finds two actual people involved in media buying to provide quotes!

Advertisers still pay a premium to reach the 18-to-49 set, say media buyers like Donchin, “but we’re no longer as fixated on that. We look at who gets the eyeballs and who makes the buying decisions in a household.” It helps, too, that viewers aged 25 to 54—CBS’s strongest demographic—watch 90 minutes more of TV a night than 18- to 49-year-olds, says Brad Adgate, a research executive at the ad buying agency Horizon Media.

Fox can still charge advertisers a hefty premium for shows like Family Guy that have built huge followings among young viewers. But CBS’s large audiences have helped it to an additional 10% or more for 30-second ads compared to earlier this year. As a result, estimates industry analyst SNL Kagan, CBS will generate $4.7 billion in advertising revenues this year, allowing it to sneak past NBC.

For years, CBS CEO Leslie Moonves has called advertisers’ fixation on young viewers simplistic. Now, with 18- to 49-year-old Americans among the hardest-hit casualties of the Great Recession, his theory makes more sense. As Moonves told BusinessWeek in an interview: “Someone needs to show me where an 18-year-old consumer buys more than a 50-year-old.” The question for CBS is whether big audiences of graying Americans will jazz advertisers once the economy recovers.

Les Moonves, always on message, which in this case is if you can’t win by the rules in place, try and change the rules!

Advertising Age seemed a little late with this year’s estimated 30 second spot costs, and reports that Sunday Night Football was still the most expensive primetime real estate in the fall (est $339, 700 per 30 seconds spot) were reported over a month ago.

Now there are estimates on the rest, but be warned.  It seems these estimates were largely gathered from the upfronts (and other sources) and they don’t appear to have been adjusted based on early results.  They have Two and a Half Men making more than The Big Bang Theory (even though TBBT has outperformed it in terms of adults 18-49 ratings) and my guess is they have not adjusted for the beast that is NCIS.

Ad Age calculated ad prices for each show by using the upfront prices agreed to by as many as seven different media-buying agencies and other sources. According to our survey, TV prices seem to be on the decline. In the 2008-2009 season, NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” commanded an average of $434,792 for a 30-second commercial, compared with this season’s average of $339,700. ABC’s “Grey’s” brought in an average of $326,685, compared with this season’s $240,462.

As you can see, from the above a lot of shows took hits this year versus last.   Check out Advertising Age’s grid for all shows (including different rates for different nights of Leno that range from $49,000 to $66,000).

Does The Forgotten really make a third more than Leno, even with sometimes lower ratings just because it is scripted?  Count on that answer being no and that just being a result of pre-season estimates that haven’t been adjusted.

At least going into the season, Flashforward was the most expensive new series with estimates of more than $175,000.  That’s much higher than NCIS: Los Angeles which has the better ratings of the two lately.

the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) has 14 charter members committed to annually putting up $100,000 apiece for two years. The group includes seven owners of TV networks; four agency holding groups; and three advertisers.

But CIMM is actively searching for more members, hoping to increase its budget beyond the $1.4 million a year ($2.8 million over two) it appears to have in pocket.

via MediaPost.

Robert’s already covered the fact that the $1.4 million/year budget isn’t going to buy much more than meetings and press releases.

I think the “We’re looking for advertiser members” is completely a smokescreen as well. Since the avowed aim of the group is getting “better” measurement numbers for their audiences (i.e. advertisers aren’t paying enough for what they’re getting), why exactly would advertisers be interested in that?

And note that while 7 network members (of CIMM) is a pretty significant sample (particularly since all the broadcast networks are in), 3 advertiser members is entirely token.

Don’t look for lots of advertisers to join the group hug anytime soon.

There’s a constant stream of folks commenting on the site wishing that viewers outside the adult demo groups mattered to broadcast primetime networks (and advertisers). We’re constantly repeating the same refrain that younger viewers are harder to reach in TV advertising, so they’re more expensive to reach, so the shows reaching them have more expensive advertising and are therefore more valuable.

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Robert already posted about how a peek at the C+3 commercial ratings has confirmed that DVR viewing past what is captured in the Live+SD (Same Day) ratings shouldn’t effect the advertising revenue of individual shows, but here’s a look at C+3 ratings from an overall network perspective vs. last season.

In just-released C3 data (commercial ratings plus three days of DVR playback) for TV’s premiere week, Fox was up 16% higher in C3 ratings among 18-49 viewers versus the week ago, while CBS was 1.3% higher, per Nielsen Company data. ABC was off 13%, and CW was 18% lower, with NBC 19% below its first week of a year ago.

Even with the drop, ABC retained the top spot when it came to actual overall 18-49 viewers in C3, averaging 4.03 million in the first week. Fox was next at 3.93 million, followed by CBS at 3.79 million and NBC at 3.38 million. CW had 1.2 million 18-49 C3 viewers.

lots more where that came from at MediaDaily News.

While we constantly harp on the fact that it’s the adults 18-49 Live+SD program ratings that pay the bills at the broadcast networks, it’s really the C+3 adults 18-49 commercial ratings that pay the bills (although we, and the rest of the press rarely see them). For our purposes the Live+SD 18-49 program ratings provide a very close relative approximation of the C+3 commercial ratings and therefore the advertising potential for a show.

If you want to see how the broadcast program ratings are doing this season click here.