How to Value Ratings With DVR Delay? – New York Times The New York Times has an interesting piece out on the ratings metrics for TV viewing and how best to apply them to the growing army of DVR users.
“When the media landscape is fragmenting as never before, with broadcasters losing viewers to cable TV, the Internet and video games, every tenth of a ratings point — and the advertising revenue it potentially represents — matters.”
Fortunately I got on the TiVo bandwagon earlier on and haven’t really watched many commercials for years. I’m not sure how much of a gain advertisers really hope to get by measuring DVR usage, but the spin from the networks is that many people with DVRs actually watch the commercials (yep, just keep telling yourself that guys). Although in typical network executive double speak, they are also quick to remind us that God intended for us all to watch TV live and have gone so far as to suggest that by fast forwarding commercials we are stealing from them.
And now they want to make nice and measure what you watch on your DVR. Like a deer in the headlights, CBS’ chief research officer adds, “This is all coming at us fairly quickly, so measurement of these new devices has to come fairly quickly.”
Coming at us pretty quickly? What rock has this guy been hiding under for the past five years? Isn’t his job to kind of stay on top of things like this?