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Taking an audience measurement course has only confirmed the inanity of the current cable and broadcast advertising environment. Just like Facebook’s response to Twitter, new technology has made the advertisers overreact. DVRs are not destroying the advertising industry; they are just misunderstood. The advertisers’ response has gone directly to apocalyptic fear over simple curiosity. In reality, DVR users are more likely to retain more information from a commercial than non-users. Also, it doesn’t help that Nielson has been broken for years, and yet they’ve been the crutch that’s held up the industry.
Whoa, back the bus up! DVR users can fast-forward through ads, so how can they retain more information?
Good question, self. Before I get into the exacts, I have to admit, and if you don’t know this by now then I am speechless, statistics can and often are manipulated to say whatever the gatherer wants to say. According to the Journal of Advertising (Spring 2008 issue, pages 143-149, written by Kenneth C. Wilbur) DVR users retain brand names 20% more often than non-users. Further statistics, 68% of DVR users skip commercials while 67% of nonusers avoid them through reading a book, leaving the room, or having a conversation: nonusers win. But, stations see a 21.5% audience loss over commercial breaks and 15% of DVR users always remember the commercials they skipped, and 52% sometimes do: DVR users win.
Why?
Well Kenneth (reminds me of 30 Rock everytime) contributes it to viewers trying to make sure they do not start fast forwarding through their show, so their eyes tend to be hooked to the screen. Again, statistics can be manipulated, but I’d like to think an advertising journal would try to skew the statistics against DVRs instead of trying to convince advertisers that DVRs could be a good thing.
Why does that matter?
Well self, it matters because Nielson, in response to DVRs, began recording their ratings as “Live”, “Live plus same day”, and “Live plus seven days.” Just in case these categories aren’t self-explanatory we’ll play the matching game: watched the show on it’s first run, watched a recording of the show within the same 24 period, and watched the show within 7 days of it’s first run. Advertisers, because they are so certain their advertisements are useless once they hit DVR find everything but the “Live” rating as useless data. This hugely affects a show like Lost which may see a 6.3 “Live” rating and a 7.3 “Live +7” rating, that’s a difference of a rating point. Many cable stations would LOVE to have one rating point. That last statement was meant to emphasize the importance of that one point.
Moving on, without even getting into how VCRs were more of a threat.
Thank you self, I didn’t feel like getting into that.
No problem self, I didn’t feel like hearing about. I kind of like hearing about things that are broken, like my soul.
Well…that is awkward. Anyway, yes, Neilson is broken anyway, so it isn’t like the ratings that advertiser’s have been receiving mattered anyway. First of all, rating are based on who was watching in a 15 minute period, and to be counted as watching, a viewer only needs to be watching a show for 8 minutes. Assuming that there is more than 32 minutes worth of show in an hour (I’d like to believe that) then that rating should be useless to an advertiser. The viewer can simply watch 8 minutes, out of every 15, of a program, avoid all of the commercials, and still will be counted in the ratings that stations’ use to charge advertisers. This isn’t a straight 8 minutes either. If I were to watch a station and change the channel, for one second, every two seconds, that would count me as watching the show for 10 out of the possible 15 minutes, and thus I’d be counted towards the ratings.
Our nation is full of people that like to sabotage things for laughter, rather that or it just so happens that everyone I meet is a (insert noun here). One way Neilson collects data is through meters installed to a viewer’s cable or TV, if they do not have cable. If I were ever asked to have one of these meters installed, I’d say yes in a heartbeat. Then, while it was installed I’d disregard my electric bill for a month and leave the TV on 24/7. I’d leave it tuned into something like C-SPAN, or PBS (because I genuinely enjoy their news). I would purposely skew their statistics just because they gave me the ability to. Would you? How many other people do you think would?
Then again, the more that I think about it, maybe advertiser’s are just using DVRs as an excuse to negotiate lower rates, that’s a possibility? They could be turning a blind eye to the facts to save some cash.
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- Nick is:
- - a member of the Web Production team at Review Publishing
- - a candidate for an M.S. in Television Management at Drexel University
- - a graduate of Rutgers University with a B.A. in Journalism and Media Studies
- - a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
