DVRs Help Some TV Shows Improve Ratings 297
ubermiester writes "After years of panicked lawsuits by content providers against TiVo and DVR technology in general, the NYTimes is reporting on yet another lesson for the content providers to learn and then immediately forget: '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.' The article also notes viewership increases 'in the range of 7 to 12 percent, with some shows having increases of more than 20 percent when DVR ratings are added. The four networks together are averaging a 10 percent increase."
I don't get why PVR-users watch recorded ads... (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't understand why those with PVRs still watch the ads. I've found that, with the sole exception of the ad-free (but paid-for, of course) BBC channels, the ad breaks are _way_ too long; this is mostly the reason I use a PVR. To skip through the ads.
In addition, the Treat The Audience As If They Have An Attention Span Of Less Than A Minute approach, showing you highlights of what you're going to see soon, then actually showing you it, then showing you a re-cap of what you've just seen; that just encourages more skipping from me, really.
Re:I don't get why PVR-users watch recorded ads... (Score:1, Insightful)
So, am I psychic, or do you idiots really have nothing to offer?
That's the BAD economy! (Score:3, Insightful)
Back then, when TV was mostly over the air and free I watched commercials. Now that I pay for TV I won't tolerate commercials. I DVR any show I watch that has commercials and watch it at a later date when I can skim through the commercials. It is a rare commercial that I watch. I stop only for those that seem interesting, i.e. have pretty chicks featured prominently! :)
Re:I don't get why PVR-users watch recorded ads... (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, who wants to be told (via advertising) that they have the IQ of a boiled-egg and that hypno-toad (*) says to buy the product ?
Having said that I helped my tv move out five years ago and every day my brain has clawed its way slightly further back from the brink.
(*) If only they had people as charismatic as hypno-toad in ads.
Re:That's because they need MythTV (Score:4, Insightful)
Re "seeing a commercial these days just feels odd"... I get the same feeling when I am stuck using a public PC (e.g. at a library) and start seeing ads on the web.
Re:I don't get why PVR-users watch recorded ads... (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Commercials make good intermission points to let the dogs in or out of the house, take a bathroom break, or whatever. No need to do the FF thing when you need to walk away from the boob tube a second (or 30) anyway.
2) Some commercials are:
a) Related to something you may like to buy soon (ie. Thats a nice looking car, etc.)
b) Clever or interesting enough for you to want to view it.
c) Taking advantage of me falling asleep in front of the TV again, so the commercials played without interruptions.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes. Unlike music most broadcast televisions are played only once. So you either make time to be in front of the TV to watch it live, or you record it.
Time shifting makes up for some stupid scheduling decision a TV executive may make.
The point you were trying to make about piracy doesn't make sense in this context...
television was supposed to kill the cinema house (Score:4, Insightful)
then the vcr was supposed to kill the cinema house
now the internet is supposed to kill the cinema house
meanwhile:
http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/ [boxofficemojo.com]
lesson: people fear losing control. as if control had anything to do with making money off media in the first place
in your desperate attempt to retain control, dear media execs, you might want to notice you are wasting a lot of energy over issues that have nothing to do with your bottom line. only your fear tells you this is the case
in your business strategies, you need more zen, less mafia goons
Commercials (Score:5, Insightful)
The only reason I wind up watching commercials is because I forgot I'm watching something on the DVR and I am allowed to fast forward through it! I must be getting old..
Re:I don't get why PVR-users watch recorded ads... (Score:3, Insightful)
How predictable...the first 3 three comments are about how slashdotters don't watch ads on their DVRs and don't understand why anybody does.
So, am I psychic, or do you idiots really have nothing to offer?
Since I am one of those 'idiots', I guess I'll respond with -
This is Slashdot. Exactly what were you expecting?
Re:That's because they need MythTV (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
My guess is that they'll treat the internet the same way they've treated every other technological advance for the last century+: fight with everything available to them to resist changing their business model until their respective corporate shareholders start lighting their torches and sharpening their pitchforks and grudgingly adapt to the new technology slowly but never really taking full advantage of it. Perhaps even snagging themselves a new fangled piece of legislation like the DMCA or ACTA.
Re:That's because they need MythTV (Score:3, Insightful)
If the commercials are better than the TV show you are watching, why are you watching that TV show in the first place?
Re:That's because they need MythTV (Score:5, Insightful)
I am not a magical entity, I am merely a corporation looking to protect my bottom line. I do not like or dislike shows, I do not judge them in any way. I don't have the internet, and I don't read your fan forums. So I don't know how many of you really like the show; all I know is whether you saw my ad or not. I pay your favorite show's bills because people that I trust tell me that you watch my commercials. If I found out that you were not watching my commercials, I would stop wasting my money on you, and your show would die.
Are popular Sci-fi shows canceled because they are more expensive? Probably, the return on investment for special effects and such is not so great when compared to a sitcom. But is the return on investment made even worse because a much larger percentage of their fans torrent, DVR, or otherwise remove themselves from the Nielsen numbers? More than likely.
DVR increases ratings? DUH! (Score:5, Insightful)
They say that DVRs have increased ratings for shows as if it's surprising. Isn't this the whole point of a DVR though? You record it because you would not have otherwise been able to watch the show in its regularly scheduled time slot. So instead of just plain missing the show, you record it and watch it later. Instead of having to pick between two shows where one will get watched and the other will get missed, you record them both, and they both get watched. In the latter, the DVR has increased your potential audience. I'm a little surprised about the commerical watching though. As a MythTV user, I skip commercials altogether without the need for any user interaction. However, in cases where the commercials are not skipped (like if I start watching a show fifteen minutes into the broadcast), it's about a 60/40 split as to whether I'll bother fast forwarding. Someimes I'm really that lazy where lifting my arm to pick up the remote seems like too much effort. Other times it's the perfect bathroom break. Even though MythTV skips my commercials and could potentially pause for a break whenever I want, I tend to do it when there is a commercial simply because the flow of the show dictates a pause for commercial. It's kind of weird to pause in the middle of a conversation and come back a few minutes later. It totally messes with the flow.
Actual Target Advertising Audience (Score:2, Insightful)
It occurs to me to wonder if a person who is strong-willed and motivated enough to take the trouble to skip commercials on a DVR, is of the sort who weren't listening to the commercials anyway even if they did occasionally stare at the screen during commercial breaks before the era of DVR, and further, whether the sort of person who passively listens to commercials with or without a DVR is the sort of person who tends to be influenced by commercials with which to begin. Perhaps worried advertisers and network executives realistically aren't losing nearly as much of their actual, receptive (if hard to measure) audience(s) as they fear.
Re:television was supposed to kill the cinema hous (Score:3, Insightful)
then the vcr was supposed to kill the cinema house
A bit off-topic, but: In my (and my wife's) case, I usually say "Netflix and a LCD television killed the cinema house" - but in truth it was the various cinema houses that killed themselves off. Ridiculous prices for food; Overpriced admission costs, plus (adding insult to injury) 20 minutes of commercials before you get to see the movie; and having to tolerate the obnoxious behavior of some other patrons - or try to deal with it myself - because there's no such thing as an usher anymore.
Re:That's because they need MythTV (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, if the TV Execs and advertisers were smart (I know, I know, we're talking about TV Execs and advertisers, but bear with me), they'd tailor the commercials to the viewers and design their ads to be effective when viewed by someone with a "30-second skip" feature, who will probably only see a few frames of the commercial, randomly phased within the 30 second window.
There are things you can do, like make sure your logo is prominent throughout the length of the commercial, or keeping a hot, scantily-clad female in the frame at all times so that male viewers will back up to watch the whole thing.
I swear, some commercials are doing this already. I predict that in 10 years, all TV commercials will be either static billboard-type ads, or softcore porn vignettes with heavy product placement.
Re:That's because they need MythTV (Score:3, Insightful)
In short, I am all you have left, and I am hanging by a string. Try not to piss me off.
I think you have me confused with a Network Execubot, like your friend Mr. Orca. I am a Broadcast Marketing Execubot. I don't care which network I use; and I don't care how they get viewers. I just pay the one who has the most people who will look at my fine advertisements. Discerning, principled TV viewers like yourself are a statistical anomaly; easily replaced by the hordes watching reality/game shows.
By not watching ads, you don't hurt the advertiser. You hurt the network. When a show's ratings drop below the rate the advertiser paid for, the network has to either refund their money, or give them free advertising against the new rate to make up for what they paid for. The advertiser does not suffer when a show fails, the advertiser simply invests elsewhere.
Re:That's because they need MythTV (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, advertising works.
Sorry, loudness works.
Is "Network Execubot" really a properly respectful form of address for someone so much smarter than you?
Re:That's because they need MythTV (Score:4, Insightful)
^^^ This.
I've recently jumped on the streaming media bandwagon. I setup the scheduler in uTorrent and downloaded the newest version of TED. Now my PC seeks out new episodes of the shows I want and downloads them during off-peak hours. Then I've got Tversity or whatever it is acting as my UPNP server. Each TV has it's own media receiver.
One side effect of this setup is that the TV shows I've downloaded don't have commercials. At first, I saw this as a good thing. But, after the first few shows, I realized I *missed* the commercials.
Some TV watching, I think of as a 100% attention activity. Think 'really good movies' - you don't want interruptions. You don't want any distractions. No talking to your wife, no running to the kitchen to check on dinner, no talking about what is happening in the movie or what you did at work that day.
But then, some other TV watching - most of the TV watching I do...it's more laid back. The TV is on, but I'm also working on the laptop or cooking dinner or whatever. Commercial breaks give are a welcome interruption. It gives my girl and me a chance to make funny/witty/ remarks about the show we're watching or to talk about other stuff or to get up and check on dinner or to grab a coke, or to run to the bathroom, or to do whatever.
It sounds stupid - but I prefer the commercials for a lot of shows that I don't much care about.
The 'pause' button is an option but then you've got *zero* content on the TV. Commercials are more entertaining than nothing. I like them in certain situations.
Re:That's because they need MythTV (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm curious as to how these statistics were collected. Do the Nielsen people have technology installed in the DVRs now? I'd be surprised if our DVRs aren't being data-mined yet.
I actually one of the Nielsen families this year, my wife signed us up and we were selected. I was actually surprised that it was very low tech. You are given a booklet for each TV in your house. You have to hand write in the information. There is a column to fill out if you watch something that was DVR'd. I used that column for almost everything I watched. Since each row is a 15 minute time block, if you took more then 45 minutes to watch an hour long show, you would have either have to shorten the time to 45 minutes or say that it took 60 minutes to watch the show. I assume that if you lengthened it to 60, they said you watched the adds. On 30 minute shows, most people probable did what I did and just marked down that it took 30 minutes. Every couple shows, I would have a 15 minute show so that the time would match up again. on top of all that, there is no way to track the number of times that I paused the shows, to do something else (get a drink, eat, use the bathroom, take care of the kids, etc) So, I would not trust any of the data about commercials at all.
Re:That's because they need MythTV (Score:4, Insightful)
There's two kinds of viewers: those who are going to mute/skip/walk out/ignore/avoid commercials, and those who don't and the same person can be either or both depending on different factors.
Trying to mandate watching commercials is bound to fail. Those who don't want to watch them will go to whatever lengths necessary to avoid them. You've already lost their eyeballs so forget about them, you never had them even before DVRs.
The audience you need to target are those who either enjoy commercials or are not actively avoiding them.
Re:That's because they need MythTV (Score:4, Insightful)
A couple of reasons I guess. First, the girlfriend and I will watch TV together on the couch and often what is happening is that the shows that I really do enjoy watching (cartoons mostly) for her, she doesn't much care about. And the reverse is true - she's got a thing for cops-type shows like NCIS and then reality stuff like the Amazing Race. She also religiously watches Jeopardy.
So, I'll be screwing around on the laptop half watching/half ignoring some show I don't much care for - but she really likes. The commercial breaks give us time for conversation and what not. Yes, I know that *sounds* pathetic, and before I would agreed that it is pathetic; until I went without it.
I think of it like going to a restaurant with a date. Typically, you show up and have to wait a few minutes (annoying). Then they seat you and you have to wait a bit (also annoying). Then, they take your order and you have to wait a bit. Then you get your salad/appetizer or whatever...then you get your actual meal. Then you wait, ask for a check, then you wait, then you get the check, then you pay and leave.
At first glance, it's easy to say, 'Man all that waiting sucks'. But when you remove it; you realize that the breaks actually added to the experience. Certainly, it can be excessive - an hour long wait without being seated and I'd have already left and gone somewhere else. But if you just showed up and were taken to your table with the food already there and you sat and ate the food and left immediately after - the experience would actually be *less* enjoyable even though all you did was remove the annoying parts.
It sounds weird, I guess. But I found this to be true in quite a few places. Take video games. A lot of what you do in video games is annoying (the grind in WoW or other MMORPGs, for example). And you think, if they game didn't have any of this crap, it'd be so much better. Then you jump on a pirated server or you learn the cheat codes or something and the next thing you know you are tired of the game because you already did everything or something. It turns out to be less fun.
So yeah - three months ago, I would have agreed that commercials are nothing but annoying. But once they were gone I missed them.
That's not to say I'd want to watch commercials 100% of the time or that I think they are more entertaining that the actual shows. I just think it's a buffer zone.