I was going to post in the weekly dvr lineup thread but its been almost a year =x. I was thinking about how DVR would affect the rating system that alot of broadcasting companies base the success of shows / time blocks. I personally use DVR to record brand new weekly episodes of certain shows that I enjoy very much, and was wondering if those companies actually log that you recorded the show and count you in with the rest of the statistics. I also know that there are some people that feel as though DVR is a privacy risk because of how companies could easily look at your DVR list to get info on viewers watching habits(I have only heard this, and cant really confirm it). Just curious because I would hate for some shows that I love to go off the air / get cancelled because a majority of the viewers for that show use DVR and watch it at a later time.

1/20/2009 1:31:52 AM

nielsen actually tracks this and reports on it to a great length

for example http://tinyurl.com/2vnfpf talks about the segmentation of DVR watchers and how they have time-shifted prime time TV

http://tinyurl.com/8aqcgg shows the detail of the weekly reporting to some degree

finally, if you look at the footnotes on the ratings for the week of jan 5th found here: http://tinyurl.com/r76gc you'll see they're showing rating as live+SD where SD is same-day (where a day is defined as 3am - 3am) DVR viewing

so, in short, networks know what kind of gains shows get from DVR. I was flipping through an entertainment weekly and saw that one of my favorite shows, Chuck, was in the 60's in normal rankings, but was a top 15 show on DVR. so maybe timeslot battles aren't as critical as they once used to be in terms of keeping a show alive.

as far as privacy, nielsen gets their data through sampling people who are paid to provide their home viewing history

[Edited on January 20, 2009 at 5:14 AM. Reason : .]

1/20/2009 5:06:03 AM

Quote :

"so maybe timeslot battles aren't as critical as they once used to be in terms of keeping a show alive."

yeah maybe, but the shows that are being watched live can get more money from advertising, right.. because nobody watches commercials on DVR

[Edited on January 20, 2009 at 8:02 AM. Reason : .]

1/20/2009 8:02:36 AM

Quote :

"as far as privacy, nielsen gets their data through sampling people who are paid to provide their home viewing history"

yeah - if you're not a nielsen household, it doesn't matter what you watch or how you watch it.

1/20/2009 8:37:33 AM

ah ok, sweet, thanks for the replies.

1/20/2009 11:07:10 AM