PressEthic

Nielson Media Research, a company that monitors the numbers of people watching individual television shows, announced in June its intention to track commercial watchers in November. According to an article in The New York Times a “battle worthy of a ‘Survivor’ episode” quickly ensued.

To calm advertisers and broadcast and cable networks, Nielson has labeled its first year of commercial tracking an experiment and will give away the data at no charge free. According to the article:

“TV networks have calculated their own commercial ratings for several years based on raw data from Nielsen. But they say they believe that Nielsen’s commercial ratings will be valuable because they are objective and will be released in an easy-to-read form.”

But:

“Advertisers, which spend about $70 billion a year on television commercials, have been particularly concerned about what they are getting for their money, as more people record shows on TiVo’s and other digital video recorders, allowing them to fast-forward quickly through their spots.

Advertisers have an alternative, too, giving them a bit of leverage in their demands for better information. They can now advertise on the Internet, where they can count mouse-clicks as a sign of an ad’s success."

I wanted to know how this could potentially affect the viewer. Would advertising revenues influence programming?

“Broadcast network executives are confident the commercial ratings will work in their favor. They say their prime-time shows lose only 5 percent of viewers during commercials. A 2005 study by the American Association of Advertising Agencies and the Association of National Advertisers found that a similar average — only 5.6 percent — of viewers 18 to 49 years old actually skip commercials.

But the study, which did not include DVR viewers, also found a lot of variation, depending on the show. In about 4.3 percent of the shows monitored, more than 20 percent of the audience left during commercials, and in about a sixth of the shows recorded, the audience increased during commercials.”

I would think the numbers of people skipping commercial breaks would be higher than this. I usually flip the channel or take a bathroom break. According to the article Nielson “depends on viewers to push a button to indicate when they are leaving the room.” Is that really an accurate way to measure who’s watching? Don’t people forget the button? Or fall asleep? Or talk on the phone during a break?

“Despite all the stumbling blocks, most say they believe the new commercial ratings are the wave of the future. Some advertisers and agencies would like to see individual commercials rated eventually, something Nielsen cannot now do. Some in the industry speculated that one day, commercials might get price breaks from networks if they were entertaining enough to keep viewers watching.”

I don't know. I still equate commercial breaks with snack breaks.