Networks are paying attention to DVR viewing a full week after a show airs, including the data in their calculations for deciding whether to renew a show, and they want to convince advertisers to also pay attention, reports The New York Times‘ Bill Carter.
Advertisers currently pay for the number of viewers who tune in for the first three days after a show airs, but networks are looking at a full week to better get a sense of audience loyalty and interest, the article notes.
"Live plus seven days," as it’s called, helped the Fox drama "Fringe" earn a renewal in late March, for instance. While the show only pulls in about 2.24 million viewers in the 18-to-49 age group on its Friday night broadcasts, that jumps to about 3.3 million viewers in the demographic when considering live plus seven days, the story says.
But it might be a hard sell for advertisers, with Aaron Cohen, chief negotiating officer of Horizon Media, noting that advertisers such as retailers and restaurants are looking for one-to-three-day campaigns, and therefore are interested in ratings for the first three days after a show’s airing.
Come on! People watching after the third day are not likely to be watching the ads. They are quickly trying to clean their hard drive so they can record the next episode. Those numbers might be good for totals to justify continuing another year for syndication potential. But advertisers are not going to fall for plus7.