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Timeshifted ratings: What we’re watching later on

Supernatural, Private Practice, Survivor, Stargate: Universe, Californication, Bones, Cold Case & Fringe are the top shows we are recording and watching later.

supernaturalSupernatural, Private Practice, Survivor, Stargate: Universe, Californication, Bones, Cold Case, Fringe and Top Gear are the top shows we are recording and watching later, according to early figures released by OzTAM.

Since December 27 OzTAM has begun adding Timeshifted, or Consolidated, figures to its Ratings in a major change to its survey data. It tallies the programmes that are watched up to 7 days after their live airing, now known as the “Overnight” figure. Homes with OzTAM People Meters are now recognising what is watched on recording equipment including PVRs, DVRs and VCRs.

Since Monday networks have been getting their eyes on Consolidated figures -it takes eight days for the results to trickle down. As of yesterday they were able to see the results for shows which aired from Sunday December 27 to Wednesday December 30, Week 1 of 2010 ratings data.

It illustrates how some shows are picking up significant audiences when watched later by viewers.

At the top of the data so far is Supernatural.

It had 394,000 in its Overnight results, but picked up another 41,000 through Consolidated figures, a total of 435,000 viewers. But the news is all the more hollow for fans of the show. TEN dropped it before getting a chance to see Consolidated figures.

Similarly, Private Practice on Seven and Nine’s Survivor picked up another 40,000 each while Stargate: Universe (also dumped) and Californication both grew by 37,000, Bones and Fringe by 30,000 and Top Gear by 29,000. Poirot on the ABC improved by 27,000.

The Consolidated figures also show a spike for some shows that have double episodes, particularly when the second is a late night programme, such as Californication and Cold Case. Many viewers are watching the first and recording the second.

Some shows on digital channels are also nabbing big lifts.

Fringe had 15,000* viewers on GO! on December 30 in Overnight figures. It picked up another 30,000 in Consolidated figures. New Amsterdam had 3,000* in Overnight but picked up a whopping 21,000 viewers in Consolidated -seven times its audience. Reaper and Ugly Betty have also picked up extra eyeballs on 7TWO. No doubt other data from Dec 31 – Jan 2 will show similar boosts.

And it’s not just individual shows that are seeing changes from the Consolidated figures. It has already begun to affect network shares.

From Overnight figures for Wednesday December 30 Seven won the 18-49 demo in Melbourne by 28% while Nine had 27.1%. But after Consolidated figures came through over a week later, Seven’s share had dropped to 27.4% while Nine rose to 27.8%. It was enough to reverse the result.

So far it is yet to deliver national change, but when official Ratings begin on February 7 with more popular shows, the results may be far more dramatic. The industry is still coming to terms with how Timeshifting figures will impact on shows, shares and revenues.

* GO! figures may relate to a repeat screening.

Shows to gain most from Consolidated figures Dec 27-Dec 30 2009:

ABC:
27,000 Poirot Tue Dec 29
23,000 The Queen’s Coronation Tue Dec 29
17,000 Yo Gabba Gabba Tue Dec 29
15,000 Lilies Mon Dec 28
15,000 Play School Tue Dec 29
14,000 My Family Wed Dec 30
11,000 Oliver Twist Sun Dec 27
11,000 Doctor Who (ABC2) Mon Dec 28

Seven:
40,000 Private Practice Tue Dec 29
30,000 Bones Sun Dec 27
27,000 Castle Sun Dec 27
16,000 City Homicide Wed Dec 30
16,000 Cougar Town: Sneak Peek Tue Dec 29
15,000 Air Crash Investigations
14,000 Operation Croc Sun Dec 27
13,000 Reaper 7TWO Tue Dec 29
12,000 Band of Brothers Sun Dec 27
12,000 Band of Brothers Wed Dec 30
12,000 The First 48 Wed Dec 30
10,000 Ugly Betty 7TWO Tue Dec 29

Nine:
40,000 Survivor Samoa Tue Dec 29
36,000 Survivor Samoa Tue Dec 29
33,000 Cold Case Wed Dec 30
30,000 Fringe GO! Wed Dec 30
26,000 Cold Case Wed Dec 30
24,000 CSI Miami Mon Dec 28
21,000 CSI Miami Mon Dec 28
21,000 New Amsterdam GO! Wed Dec 30
19,000 The Mentalist Mon Dec 28
18,000 M: The Pink Panther Tue Dec 29
16,000 The Middle Mon Dec 28
14,000 Superstars of Dance Wed Dec 30

TEN:
41,000 Supernatural Mon Dec 28
37,000 Stargate Universe Mon Dec 28
37,000 Californication Wed Dec 30
24,000 Californication Wed Dec 30
30,000 White Collar Tue Dec 29
27,000 NCIS Tue Dec 29
17,000 Glee Sun Dec 27
16,000 Futurama Wed Dec 30
16,000 The Cleveland Show Wed Dec 30
15,000 Glee Sun Dec 27
12,000 Accidentally on Purpose Tue Dec 29
11,000 Glee Sun Dec 27
11,000 Malcolm in the Middle Tue Dec 29
10,000 The Office Tue Dec 29

SBS:
29,000 Top Gear Mon Dec 28
20,000 Man Vs Wild Mon Dec 28
18,000 John Adams Sun Dec 27
17,000 Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison Tue Dec 29
17,000 The Fixer Mon Dec 28
13,000 The Circuit Tue Dec 29
13,000 Hestons Feasts Sun Dec 27
10,000 Rex in Rome Wed Dec 30
10,000 Inspector Montalbano Sun Dec 27

Week One

Source: OzTAM

48 Responses

  1. “In my deprived childhood, I only had two channels (ABC and a conglomerate of the Melbourne stations).”

    Deprived?… You were lucky, .. I only had the ABC.

  2. I can’t believe they took off SUpernatural!!!! I’ve been looking every Monday for the show and have been very upset when it has not been on. I thought it was just taking a break waiting for the fan’s to get back from holidays and all, but to get rid of it!!!! I’m really pi**ed at ten!!! That was the only reason I watch the channel! Bring back Supernatural!

  3. Completely necessary! It’s great to see them looking at timeshifts and PVR’s, etc.

    I, personally, record Bones every week on Seven and FOX8 (when available) and sometimes watch it live but very rarely. I’m glad to see that ratings will be more accurate in 2010.

  4. @ DP,
    nice one!

    It’s great to have some children’s shows, like Yo Gabba Gabba, on the PVR ready to watch. Today’s children really don’t have a clue what ‘live TV’ means.

    In my deprived childhood, I only had two channels (ABC and a conglomerate of the Melbourne stations). If you missed a show, you missed it. Bad luck! Then everyone talked about it the next day at school and said it was the best show ever!

  5. Supernatural is a genre show.. You can never compare this to other generic shows. The fact is this is pretty good result for a genre show in Australia. Ten launched 2 genre shows (Supernatural and SGU) during the holiday reasons is a bad move anyway. They should have waited until January. Trust me when I say Supernatural fans in Australia are MAD about the decision but can only hope Ten will bring this back before the May Convention in Australia. You’ve got to respect the show and the fans. I’m just saying…

  6. @Andy – a show watched more than once counts only as once. Although – another question this raises is what if a show is watched by 2 or 3 different people in a household at different times – each of these people should surely count as viewers and thus contribute to the ratings.

  7. @Andrew – yes, I thought so as well, but here the data to back it up:

    “…households with PVRs will account for about 25% to 28% of the total panel…”

    Source: bandt.com.au/news/92/0c063b92.asp

  8. David, is the answer to this one known?
    “Out of curiosity, if a house with a ratings box records a show and watches it multiple times during the 7 days, how many times is it counted? I.e. if the same person watches the show twice, does it count for 1 or 2 viewers?”

  9. Best…con…ever. I charge for advertising based on the results of 3000 (I know its true David but what the??) people who watch the adverts in the shows on my channel. But because its the 21st century people wont watch the adverts and I dont want change my business model so I devise a system that allows me to count people who dont watch the adverts but would if I could make them (which i cant). Then I will try and charge more to advertise on the shows that have the most people who dont watch adverts because they have PVR’d them. I love watching these guys operate – its better than the sport on One.

  10. Took a little while thinking what this in fact may give the executives in there decision making particularly with Ten having some of there shows in the list. So you can hopefully think there moving programs or canceling because of there viewers recording and watching later on.

  11. They dropped Supernatural after the Christmas week – i bet any old movie would have rated just as bad if not worse on that night too.

    3000 viewers is nothing and i will never believe that Supernatural doesn’t have more numbers than its given credit for. Yes, it could be denial but with the online attention it gets, i will just not believe it.

    Bring back Supernatural Ten

  12. @ Russell – time shift accounts for DVR’s, DVD Recorders and VCR’s. The older demo may not have hard driver recorders or the like, but you can bet they all use their VCRs regularly.

    It’s for that reason I don’t buy into the theory that the timeshift ratings will boost younger demos for the networks.

  13. Good to see some figures coming now for PVRs and a truer picture of what everyone is watching.

    Lucky enough to be able to record 4 shows simultaneously so I very rarely watch shows as programmed as do a lot of my friends and work colleagues.

    But do these combined figures actually,really represent what we watch – no.

  14. The irony about Supernatural is that a higher population of the Australian population watches it in primetime (i.e not time shifting figures involved) than in the USA.

    Australia – 394,000 viewers (Population 22,107,583) – 1.78% of Australian population
    USA – 2,900,000 viewers (Population 308,444,392) – 0.94% of USA population

    (Population figures come from the Australian Bureau of Statistics & US Census Bureau) (The 2,900,000 USA viewers comes from Episode 7 of the 5th season which has the highest rating figure) (Episode 5 has the lowest ratings 2,470,000 viewers dropping down to 0.80% of USA population)

  15. The timeshifted figures are small most likely because the percentage of (surveyed) people using timeshifting equipment is also small at the moment.

  16. Something like 30% of all households have recorders (can’t remember exact source of the percentage) so I imagine the +7 figures will increase substantially once there is something on TV actaully worth recording. At the moment, there is so little worth watching that many would just watch live.

    As for the US, they have a much higher percentage of households with PVRs, plus they have had TIVO and similar recorders long before we have here.

  17. Everyone talks about watching shows on Timeshift yet these numbers don’t represent that at all. Also look at the figures in the US for timeshift shows and the percentage is higher.

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