With more content making its way from the small screen to your computer screen, it was only a matter of time before television executives realized the number of viewers watching a show on the Internet is probably important too.
At the OMMA Global conference in Hollywood yesterday, CBS Interactive’s vice president and chief marketing officer, Patrick Keane, suggested that perhaps shows should combine television and Internet ratings, reports Online Media Daily.
The case Keane cited was CBS’s show “Jericho,” which was once — and still is — near cancellation. The show’s 4.2 rating (meaning 4.2 percent of homes with televisions in the U.S. were tuned in — more here) is hardly stellar. However, when factoring in the audience watching it online, the rating jumps almost a full point to 5.1. This difference can literally make or break a show.
Another example is NBC’s hit show “The Office.” That show was not always a hit and was, in fact, teetering on cancellation when NBC saw an explosion in popularity via Apple’s iTunes store. That audience has since helped the show translate into a blockbuster on the network as well.
A combination rating would seem to make sense on the surface, but monetization remains somewhat of an issue for online programming — and a show’s life or death naturally boils down to money. iTunes offers direct revenues to networks, but NBC backed away because it felt it was getting a raw deal (somewhat ironic given the above-mentioned salvation of “The Office” via iTunes).
For streaming video, newer services such as Hulu (our coverage) offer a nice online experience with advertisements that are not too intrusive, but the jury is still out on whether it will succeed or not.
Going the other way, a show that originated online, “Quarterlife,” was not able to translate its online success into viewership on a network. The show was yanked after just one airing on NBC last month (our coverage).
[photo: flickr/*USB*]
3 Comments
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Christina Warren said:
Very interesting question, and one that is becoming more and more salient — especially in light of Nielsen counting DVR play counts and whatnot.
A small correction regarding “The Office” — NBC’s then-President, Kevin Reily renewed the show in May of 2005, despite low ratings for the first 6 aired episodes. iTunes started selling episodes in January of 2006. Although the show had was a huge hit on iTunes, it’s arguable if that had any direct effect on the ratings because in January 2006, NBC moved The Office from Tuesday to Thursday - which is still the most watched night for broadcast television. That, coupled with Steve Carrell’s popularity boost due to The 40-year Old Virgin and the changes in the show from season 1 to season 2 probably had as much influence on rating increases as iTunes sales.
Speaking of iTunes sales, while I think NBC made a huge PR gaffe in how they handled the whole thing, the numbers Jeff Zucker reported as making off the downloads was pretty telling that at least in terms of legal downloads, there weren’t that many eyeballs (something like $15 million from all content for the entire duration of the NBC/iTunes agreement was what they made - and that’s just a pittance in TV ad dollars). Plus, I would argue iTunes sales are really at direct competition with DVD sales rather than watching first-run on TV.
I think actually determining how many people are watching full episodes of a show online and not just loading it and then going to another site is the difficult part in doing ratings aggregation for online streams. Downloads are another issue entirely, but for streaming viewers, I think they will eventually be weighted into the overall number (and it’ll have to be weighted because oftentimes people rewatch part of an episode online, rather than watching it for the first time), it’ll just be a matter of time for the statistical agencies to accurately be able to cull that data. Nielsen’s current program is actually pretty spectacular — it might not show at trend immediately, but it will show it within a few months and with frightening accuracy.
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MG Siegler said:
@Christina - thanks! All good stuff you bring up there. I’ve heard that before about The Office as well, though I’ll leave it up there as-is because of the NBC’s execs direct quote on it to Newsday (which apparently isn’t online anymore but reprinted in that link).
Agree as well that for most people iTunes downloads go against DVD sales rather than TV viewing. I’m still betting we see NBC back on iTunes at some point this year whether Hulu is a success or not.
I know accuracy has always been somewhat of an issue with Nielsen in the modern age, so it will be very interesting to see how analytics of online content happens. I’m interested to read your piece on Nielsen.
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Corvida said:
They should definitely be combined! I think it’s only fair. You’re excluding A LOT of people when you don’t. A lot of things are going digital and some people would rather watch these shows online when they have time, then to rush home and drop everything they’re doing just to see it on TV. Watching shows online allow for more flexibility. It’s convenient and should not be left out in the cold. For some, that’s all they can do. They don’t have time to tune in at 8pm every night the show comes on. But maybe on Wednesday at 3pm they’ll have a nice amount of time to watch and enjoy.
