Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

DVR Viewers Push Ad Ratings Higher

Posted by Zonk on from the future-is-now dept.

An anonymous reader writes "It looks like DVRs and timeshifting has finally done what many people said it would do: increased overall viewership! USA Today reports: 'Among the things the report revealed is that many DVR viewers do not fast-forward through ads. The viewer total for broadcast network ads goes up 32% when DVR watchers within three days are included, according to Nielsen. For some prime-time shows, it means that DVR viewing, long seen as a threat to advertising, could even bring higher ad prices. NBC's The Office, for example, had a live-plus-three Nielsen commercial rating of 3.36 — higher than the 3.11 it got for the week of May 6 under the traditional Nielsen program rating system.' Makes me wonder where this will lead for my favorite genre shows which by their very nature have a higher DVR component and have seen declining viewership using the older methodology (BSG, SG-1, etc)."

5 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. perhaps they are recording the ads by Le'BottomEh · · Score: 4, Insightful

    and skipping them when they view it at a later date. That's what my friends do with their TiVo.

  2. Ads by Vexor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ads are used for a lot of stuff. They give you a chance to grab another beverage, run to the bathroom, and so on. These people are probably not viewing them (exception being a particularly funny ad). The better answer might even be they can't find the fast foward button or the pause(for when they do need to get up) on their jumbo multiuse remotes.

    --
    ~Vexed and loving it!
  3. DVR by LordPhantom · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Being an avid DVR-er, my habits are as follows:

    1) Start of commercial - hit fast forward 2) Skip back if/when I see something I'm looking for, or a funny looking add 3) Miss the start of the show, curse comcast for not having "skip ahead 30seconds" (I miss my Dish DVR :( ) 4) rewind 5) start watching show (with 5 seconds of last add)

    In many ways, DVRs are doing to TV what the internet has done to "print" adds. In most papers there are sidebar adds that you can click on if interested, but ignorable otherwise.

    I think that advertisers are going to have to go back to "selling" more and relying on obnoxious/flashy adds less. In the end, people want to know about truly good deals or truly interesting products and will listen to a sales pitch on something they care about, and ignore the stuff they aren't interested in.

  4. Voting System by Yvan256 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is all nice and good, but what I'd like to see is a voting system for TV ads. Digital cable, satellite, PVRs... they all allow some type of feedback, why not implement a voting system so you can vote ads up or down.

    That way, annoying ads would be voted down (companies would stop paying to show it) and fun/good ads would be voted up (companies would know what style works).

    Maybe add a third option to let them know they're showing it too often. Sometimes I like some ads but they appear so often as to become annoying.

  5. Some DVR users may want to watch the ads. by w3woody · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I fast forward--but for some ads I'll skip back and play the ad. The only reason why I don't like most advertising is because of ad saturation: after the first five hundred times I've seen an ad, the product is permanently burned into my brain--(*twitch* Ditech Mortgages *twitch*), and I don't need to see the ad anymore. Cute ads (the latest Apple Ads), ads for new movies, or for products I've never seen--I'll actually rewind the DVR and watch them.

    Hell, with some of the tripe on TV nowadays sometimes the ads are the best part!