BSG Scores 1.4 Rating Against AFC Championship Game

[nocleversnforme]

http://www.zap2it.com/tv/news/zap-ba...p-tv-headlines

Yikes!

What was Sci Fi smoking when they made the decision to against the AFC Championship Game? Or do they not get CBS at their headquarters?

"We didn't know...we swear, we didn't know..."

Do they know that there's the Super Bowl next Sunday? I really hope they skip that week...I don't want them to cancel or cut back on the budget. This is one of the finest shows on television.

Someone want to fax them a CBS schedule for February 4, just to remind them?

[Zamboni]

What's AFC? New competitor of KFC?

There's a thing called ti-vo. Besides, don't know why people like ball-grabbing more than hot naked Cylons... The show is practically softcore porn with good acting and plot! It's the best thing since sliced bread!

[rejven]

porn?wtf, where did you find any porn in Galactica?But if u want to show some deeper relationship between characters there must be some romance.

[sidhe]

What's AFC? New competitor of KFC?

There's a thing called ti-vo. Besides, don't know why people like ball-grabbing more than hot naked Cylons... The show is practically softcore porn with good acting and plot! It's the best thing since sliced bread!

Unfortunately, tivo doesn't count towards ratings. So unless people tivo the ball game and watch BSG instead, it won't help BSG ratings to tivo it.

[Doze]

Unfortunately, tivo doesn't count towards ratings. So unless people tivo the ball game and watch BSG instead, it won't help BSG ratings to tivo it.

Your right but I just don't get the thinking that TiVo is not worth the count. That's like saying the number of phone calls is down because land based phones are down. There are cell phones and I use an internet phone now at home. People that I work with are now into more shows because of TiVo then they were just a year ago. The rating system needs to keep up with the time. I would bet there were a lot more people that TiVo'd BSG then TiVo the game. You watch a game live and you can always watch a show like BSG when you have the time.

[Chricton]

I have to confess I was watching the game instead of BSG...

[ToasterOnFire]

As far as I can tell, Skiffy will not be running a new BSG episode on Superbowl Sunday. I think it's a rerun of the first two eps in the second half instead. At least they were wise enough to not go up against that powerhouse.

In hindsight, I wonder if Rapture would have gotten better ratings if it had remained on Friday night with far less competition.

[SaberBlade]

OK, so who wants to start taking bets on how long it will take Scifi to cancel BSG? We do know from experience that when they make a mistake, cancelling a show is always best rather than doing something like, oh how about, rescheduling.

I believe that general concensus was that Scifi were idiots for putting it on Sunday, and considering what I know about the Superbowl, my guess is it would be lucky to pass 1.0 in the ratings.

[MediaSavant]

Unfortunately, tivo doesn't count towards ratings. So unless people tivo the ball game and watch BSG instead, it won't help BSG ratings to tivo it.

That's not correct. You are mis-informed...or your information is old.

Nielsen ratings do include DVR owners. In fact there are now three types of ratings issued--Live, Live + Same Day, and Live + 7 Days.

The "Live" ratings only include people who watch the show live on their DVR with no delay. The other two ratings included time-shifted DVR viewing, one for people who watched within the same broadcast day and the other accumulates anyone who watched through 7 days after original airing.

The 1.4 rating noted in this thread is the "Live + Same Day" rating because that is what gets published to the public. Obviously, the "Live + 7" ratings isn't even available because 7 days haven't passed.

The "rub", though, is that advertisers only pay for "Live" viewers because they know that most timeshifted viewers skip commercials. So, even though timeshifters get counted, they don't have any value from a business standpoint. This became a problem for BSG in the Fall because many people were timeshifting the show and not even watching it within the "same day".

All these changes went into place in 2006. They started out with a small number of DVR homes in the panel and have been building slowly so that the rating changes eased in rather than were sudden.

Prior to then, you would have been correct.

[MediaSavant]

I believe that general concensus was that Scifi were idiots for putting it on Sunday, and considering what I know about the Superbowl, my guess is it would be lucky to pass 1.0 in the ratings.

If that's the general consensus, it's not my opinion. The whole move to Sunday is tied into the DVR measurement situation I just spoke about in the post above. It's about increasing the "live" ratings and, compared to the last time it ran on Friday, the "live" ratings for key demos that advertisers pay attention to were higher this past Sunday...despite being against a huge football game. In that aspect, the move was a success.

SciFi knows that they went against tough competition. Frankly, the show did really well despite it. That's counts for something.

It's not running against the Super Bowl.

[ToasterOnFire]

Nielsen ratings do include DVR owners. In fact there are now three types of ratings issued--Live, Live + Same Day, and Live + 7 Days.

Just to make sure I understand this, are you saying that the Nielsen ratings are including just the Nielsen families that use DVR or all families that use DVR?

[Pitry]

That's not correct. You are mis-informed...or your information is old.

Nielsen ratings do include DVR owners. In fact there are now three types of ratings issued--Live, Live + Same Day, and Live + 7 Days.

The "Live" ratings only include people who watch the show live on their DVR with no delay. The other two ratings included time-shifted DVR viewing, one for people who watched within the same broadcast day and the other accumulates anyone who watched through 7 days after original airing.

The 1.4 rating noted in this thread is the "Live + Same Day" rating because that is what gets published to the public. Obviously, the "Live + 7" ratings isn't even available because 7 days haven't passed.

The "rub", though, is that advertisers only pay for "Live" viewers because they know that most timeshifted viewers skip commercials. So, even though timeshifters get counted, they don't have any value from a business standpoint. This became a problem for BSG in the Fall because many people were timeshifting the show and not even watching it within the "same day".

All these changes went into place in 2006. They started out with a small number of DVR homes in the panel and have been building slowly so that the rating changes eased in rather than were sudden.

Prior to then, you would have been correct.

Mmm... two questopms: 1, does this mean the advertisers actually pay as if the ratnigs were lower than the ones advertised? Becuase we don't see the "live" ones, we see the "live + same day". and 2, do you know when did they do the move from publishing "live" to "live + same day"?
thanks.

[MediaSavant]

Just to make sure I understand this, are you saying that the Nielsen ratings are including just the Nielsen families that use DVR or all families that use DVR?

Nielsen's panel is a sample. It's not a census. It is a sample of people with DVR's, not a census of all people who have DVR's.

Mmm... two questopms: 1, does this mean the advertisers actually pay as if the ratnigs were lower than the ones advertised? Becuase we don't see the "live" ones, we see the "live + same day". and 2, do you know when did they do the move from publishing "live" to "live + same day"?
thanks.

1. Advertiser pay only for "live" ratings, which you don't see published. Those ratings are lower than the ones published.

2. They started publishing "live + same day" when Nielsen made the change. That was on December 26th, 2005.

There is an article in Mediaweek today on the very topic of the debate over which ratings to use when paying for the ads:

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/search/a..._id=1003538391

The next thing the ad agencies want to move to is "commercial ratings" based on the ratings during the commercials, not the show itself.

Here's an older article from last January 30, 2006:

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/search/a..._id=1001919744

Key paragraphs:

Starting on Dec. 26, Nielsen began measuring DVR playback through a limited number of homes. It expects to add to that sample by 100 homes per month through the remainder of this year. Brill said each time homes are added to the sample, it could effect playback patterns of the entire sample.

Nielsen now offers three sets of ratings. live, including VCR recording; live, with VCR and DVR playback until 3 a.m. the following morning; and live, plus seven-day inclusion of live, VCR and DVR recording measurement.

Because of that slow roll-out of sample, the impact on the ratings wasn't felt as much in the first quarter as it has recently.

Here's an article about the announcement of "Live + same day" (12/21/05)

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/search/a..._id=1001736321

Key sentence:

Nielsen’s “recommendation” is that the press report live plus same day—there will be a two-week delay in the reporting of live-plus seven day ratings.

[Pitry]

Nielsen's panel is a sample. It's not a census. It is a sample of people with DVR's, not a census of all people who have DVR's.



1. Advertiser pay only for "live" ratings, which you don't see published. Those ratings are lower than the ones published.

2. They started publishing "live + same day" when Nielsen made the change. That was on December 26th, 2005.

There is an article in Mediaweek today on the very topic of the debate over which ratings to use when paying for the ads:

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/search/a..._id=1003538391

The next thing the ad agencies want to move to is "commercial ratings" based on the ratings during the commercials, not the show itself.

Here's an older article from last January 30, 2006:

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/search/a..._id=1001919744

Key paragraphs:



Because of that slow roll-out of sample, the impact on the ratings wasn't felt as much in the first quarter as it has recently.

Here's an article about the announcement of "Live + same day" (12/21/05)

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/search/a..._id=1001736321

Key sentence:

Thankee.
Doesn't this actually mean that the numbers we see published cannot be used to try and base any sort of rating-based hypiothesis/ predictions?
This 1.4 and, let's say, SG1's Flesh and Blood could be completely diffenret 1.4s and no one knows this but the advertisers and SciFi...
*Pitry feeling like an ill-informed lemming now*

[Detox]

Thankee.
Doesn't this actually mean that the numbers we see published cannot be used to try and base any sort of rating-based hypiothesis/ predictions?
This 1.4 and, let's say, SG1's Flesh and Blood could be completely diffenret 1.4s and no one knows this but the advertisers and SciFi...
*Pitry feeling like an ill-informed lemming now*

Not really, the "Live" sample is only important to advertisers.