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Nielsen to track digital video recordings

By CHASE SQUIRES
Published December 22, 2005

Nielsen Media Research officials said Wednesday they are giving customers what they want.

Those customers are television networks, Hollywood publicity machines and local stations, and they apparently want more ways to count viewers and, more important, to spin the television ratings. Starting next week, Nielsen will tally digital video recordings of shows, and in the spring, it will add video-on-demand viewings.

Combined with the multitude of demographic categories already measured, those with something to gain have a whole new slew of ways to put a bright face on viewership.

Starting Monday, Nielsen will report viewership by people who tune in when a show airs, called live views, and by same-day and same-week digitally recorded views. The company is expanding its national sampling pool from 5,000 homes to 10,000, estimating that about 7 percent of the 110-million American homes with televisions have digital video recorders, such as TiVo and devices provided by cable and satellite companies.

DVR sampling will begin with 60 homes, and Nielsen technicians will connect monitoring equipment in about 100 new homes a month until the sample matches the percentage of DVR homes, said Anne Elliot, Nielsen vice president of communications.

In a conference call with reporters Wednesday, Pat McDonough, Nielsen's senior vice president of planning, policy and analysis, said that adding DVR numbers shouldn't affect ratings at first. Most digital video recordings are of top-rated shows. But, she said, Nielsen recognizes that DVRs are booming; they are expected to be in 25 percent of homes by next year.

Eventually, DVR numbers could show support for shows overshadowed by big hits by reflecting how many viewers recorded them while watching another.

Early on, the new numbers will provide another avenue for spin in the arcane world of TV ratings interpretations. Consider this November release (complete with insider jargonindicating ratings points and audience share) that UPN sent to reporters to promote one of its sitcoms: "Everybody Hates Chris remains a force for UPN on the intensely competitive Thursday landscape, scoring dramatic double- and triple-digit year-to-year gains in the time period of 42 percent in adults 18-34 (1.7/5), 54 percent in adults 18-49 (2.0/6), 133 percent in women 18-34 (2.1/6), 130 percent in women 18-49 (2.3/6) and 18 percent in total viewers (5.2 mil), based on preliminary Nielsen ratings for Nov. 10. . . . Versus the same night last year, UPN's new comedy block scored dramatic growth in women 18-34 (70 percent, 1.7/4) and women 18-49 (70 percent, 1.7/4)."

Sounds great. Except Chris is ranked 91st out of 136 prime time shows on network TV.

McDonough said that charting DVR viewership, and eventually on-demand downloads, is a product of the times and another tool for people who provide programming and who use those programs to pitch products to consumers.

"Nielsen must constantly be ahead of the curve," she said. "In order to know what people are watching, we have to know how they are watching it."

- Chase Squires can be reached at 727 893-8739 and squires@sptimes.com His blog is www.sptimes.com/blogs/tv

[Last modified December 22, 2005, 08:35:04]