DVR Ratings Bringing TV Networks Money

New York Times:

Against almost every expectation, nearly half of all people watching delayed shows are still slouching on their couches watching messages about movies, cars and beer. According to Nielsen, 46 percent of viewers 18 to 49 years old for all four networks taken together are watching the commercials during playback, up slightly from last year.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[Cryostatic]

The entire line of thinking that DVR was going to stop people from watching commercials was invalidated years ago. Remember the VCR? Same argument back then, and no more valid today.

[Margo Arrowsmith]

I will have to check out Kim Kommando!

However, I am thinking of all those people who passively sit there while the commercials go by..commercials they don't have to watch . This worries me, will these people sit that passively while the teabaggers take over the Republican Party?

Wasn't one of the reasons for the fall of Rome an over entertained and thus passive population?

http://www.squidoo.com/meghanmccain

[Tulka2]

Think of it!

We not only pay for cable, rent the DVD box, and the cable company is also allowed to keep track of what we watch and whether or not we speed through this or that commercial. Then... the cable company sells that info to advertisers. Wow.


Think of the whole of America renting the DVD box for what....? Fifteen dollars a month. That adds up to real money.

Google "Kim Komando". She will tell you how to make your own recorder out of an old hard-drive.

[mediamarv]

where is Nielsen getting this info?

I have a dvr and use it religiously to avoid commercials, as do most of the people I know who have one.

sounds like wishful thinking by a company that doesn't want to report bad news to its clients.

[Tulka2]

My dear. Your cable company very well knows what you record and if you speed through the commercials on playback. I have one too. It's creepy, isn't it?

I throw tantrums about the Patriot act and then let the cable company know if i watch Viagra commercials or not. This about sums up 2009, if you ask me.

[Durango]

Wasn't the promise of cable TV that it would be commercial free?

That we would only buy what we wanted to see, without commercials.

So now we pay and still get bombarded my with ridiculous commercials.

It is a high price to pay just to watch Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

However, I do take great pride in never having watched nor listened to those Sonic fools.

[Tulka2]

Yes! The sold us cable by telling us it would be commercial free. The fact of forgetfullness on the part of consumers has really paid off for cable. On the other hand, you and i remember and we pay them anyway. We have had no government regulation since Ronald Reagan stepped up to take the whole of America apart.

I sat at the next table from a local cable franchise owner. He was drunk. It was Christmas time and he was chortling to the world at large that owning a cable franchise was a 'license to print money".

[HekmabaJuzimax]

There is, in my view, no correlation between watching an ad and buying a product, EVEN IF you are in the target demographic. That said, please watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-457pYItC8

[toocoldout]

Myabe Nielson families are more likely to watch commercials because they want to make sure their favorites shows do well & thus simply becoming a Nielson family makes you less representative of the population you were meant to represent. As the saying goes, the very act of observation changes that which is being observed.

[ilovedessert]

I got my 1st TIVO the day they 1stwent on sale yersago. I NEVER WATCH COMMERICALS, i always zip right thru them.!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

[Nunyabiz1]

My wife and I have had our DVR for about 5-6 years, we RARELY ever watch a single commercial.
That is the whole reason to own a DVR, you can watch 5 hours of shows in about 3 hours because you can zip right through the damn commercials.

[JohnSawyer]

So almost half of the TV viewers in the US are masochists? The Kinsey Institute might have a new way of gathering certain statistics.

[iblogleft]

Whatever they can do to keep ad revenue up, but I certainly don't watch commercials.

I wish they would hurry up and ban max level volume commercials though, when I do watch live television, especially at night, those commercials can wake up my kids, and it seriously pis5es me off.

[lauram]

The second I even sense the ads I coming, I hit the mute button.

[romavictor]

not me! I skip thru those suckers as fast as you could say capitalism!

[iblogleft]

Heh, my first reaction was "Who are they trying to kid", then the answer was obvious.

I have 4 dvrs, 2 HD and 2 regular, and the only time I watch commercials is, em, never.

[Durango]

Those are people too lazy to fast forward through the commercials.

You do have to stay on top of things. If you are not really paying attention . . .

[Imzadi]

Same here!

Maybe those interviewed were keeping the commercials on for "Bio--Breaks"...

[NoPCZone]

I have 2 DVRs and the first thing I do is de-commercialize the content. I find most commercial TV to be unwatchable, with the pop up and superimposed bullsh*t on the program and the endless commercials. I actually pay for content via iTunes that I could DVR for free to be free of the crap the nets crawl all over the screen.

[Durango]

The pop ups. Whose idea was that. And in what level of Hell does that individual belong?

The stupid, stupid one on Fox football is the absolute worst.

Do TV Executives have their own level of Hell?

They should.

[CamBrown99]

Notice how every new technology is going to be the death of TV? It's too bad the networks (and the movie studios and the recording industry) don't have forward thinkers running them who can see new opportunities rather than clamp everything down.

[Dnietz]

technology will be the death of tv (just like it is for radio), but it will happen later than we think and wish for. we usually over estimate the speed of change in society

tv has a hold because they were/are the delivery and distribution system. they used the capital from that to build content (tv shows and news and whatever). so they almost had a monopoly for a few decades.

but now, technology allows for many forms of delivery. the most obvious is web based. satellite and cable and even your cell phone can deliver.

and technology has made the production of content much cheaper. building a tv studio used to cost a million. now just a few thousand can get you all the cameras, processing and editing you need.

tv will die in time. of course they aren't dumb and will hang on. but the end is inevitable and we are seeing it.

[HBHB]

Technology is the death of itself. It's constantly eating itself from the tail end. It's supposed to make everything easier, better, etc... when I've really yet to see that take shape for the majority of things that we plug in.

[msgirlintn]

Interesting. We DVR everything. About the only time we watch something live is a TN Titans game, everything else goes straight to dvr. I don't watch the commercials. We have it down to a science how far into the show we can watch it and be able to fast forward through commercials. Didn't realize they had a way to track that though. Wonder if they can tell if you dvr something and then delete it without watching it? Just curious.

[iblogleft]

What is even more interesting is how they can track usage without explicit permissions. That is probably in the fine print though. But seriously, they should be paying people to track their viewing habits.

[Tulka2]

Yes! We throw tantrums about the Patriot Act... at least i do.. and then pay the cable companies to track not only what shows i tape, but also whether or not i speed through commercials. Yikes.

[Imzadi]

They can indeed track everything.

Remember Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction? According to newsandent­ertainment­.com,

"The TiVo service, which allows users to pause and do instant replays of live television, found that Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" attracted almost twice as many viewers as the game highlights."

[Allison Winkler]

Football games are the worst for commercials. We DVR up until half-time and then start watching but usually catch up in the second half.

[Ranta]

Not me. When people at work talk about some new commercial they all have a good laugh. I remain out of the loop.