• by Kirby Thornton , Michele Toller , March 9, 2009

The 2008 fall television season was one of the most anticipated in recent memory. Would viewers tune into their favorite programs after enduring a long writers' strike that resulted in a shortened 2007-2008 season for most shows, and a shortened development time for the new season?

Viewers did come back, but not all of them were watching shows when they originally aired. More viewers than ever had the option of viewing programming at their convenience using playback technology.

Advertisers and their agencies must, now more than ever before, understand viewers' use of DVRs to time-shift viewing of their favorite programs, particularly appointment viewing opportunities like premiere episodes.

In 2008, Nielsen estimated penetration of DVRs at 25% of U.S. households. This percentage is expected to climb to 41% of homes by 2012, according to research conducted by MAGNA Global Research. As DVR usage increases, there are several emerging strategies offered to help advertisers and media buyers reduce skipping of commercial messages.

To better understand the role playback viewing had on premiere viewership, Empower MediaMarketing analyzed Nielsen ratings data for 104 English language prime-time broadcast premieres airing from Sept. 1 through Oct. 31, 2008. The analysis compared the percentage of 18- to 49-year-olds that viewed each premiere live and in live+7 playback.

While only 16% of adults 18 to 49 watched the average network premiere using playback, viewers in DVR homes were almost three times as likely (42%) to view the average premiere in playback mode. While this is no surprise, viewers' programming choices differed considerably.

For example, NBC's premiere of "The Office" delivered the highest percentage of its audience viewing in playback mode among all premieres, with a third (32.4%) of "The Office"'s live +7 audience viewing in playback. In DVR homes, the premiere with the highest percentage of playback viewing was "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles," delivering 70.4% of its audience in playback mode. By comparison, sports and game show programming had significantly lower percentages of their audiences viewing in playback. NBC's premieres of "Sunday Night Football" and "Deal or No Deal" had only about 3.5% of its 18- to 49-year-old audience viewing in playback. News magazine premieres also had low viewership in playback. Premieres of both "20/20" and "60 Minutes" delivered only 5% of their 18-to-49 audience in playback.

Among all adults 18 to 49, the NBC had the highest percentage of its entertainment premieres viewed in playback, with 21.8% of live+7 audience viewing in playback. CW came in second, with 21.4% of its premiere audience viewing in playback. ABC finished third, with 16.4% viewing premiere shows in playback mode, followed by CBS (15.7%) and Fox (14.8%). Generally, the top-rated programs were more likely to be viewed in playback mode. Of the top-10-rated premieres, 20% of its audience viewed in playback. Premieres rated 15 to 25 had about 17% of its audience viewing in playback, while the remaining 79 premieres had 14% of its audience viewing in playback.

When premieres ran against each other, overall playback viewership was generally higher than average. For example, the Sept. 1 premieres of CW's "Gossip Girl" and Fox's "Prison Break" both had more DVR homes viewing in playback than they did viewing live.

When premieres competed against on another, the highest rated show tended to be watched most live, while the lower rated premiere was viewed in playback.

Because premieres are seen as "appointment viewing," it was expected that they would have higher rates of playback viewing than original episodes. In fact, top-rated premieres were timesshifted slightly more than were original episodes. Among the top 10-rated premieres for adults 18 to 49, premieres were viewed in playback 6.5% more than original episodes during a comparable time period. Three shows went against the trend and actually had less playback viewing for its premiere episodes, led by "Dancing with the Stars" with 8.4% fewer adults viewing the premiere episode in playback.

Implications For Advertisers

With more viewers using playback technology, understanding how they view programming, especially "appointment viewing" shows, is more important than ever. Presumably many of these playback viewers are never exposed to most advertising messages.

There are many solutions for controlling or reducing the likelihood of falling victim to viewer ad avoidance via the use of ad skipping technology.

First and foremost, identify with laser precision who and where your target is. Reaching your consumer at a time when they are most receptive is critical. Another necessary component is ensuring your message is relevant to the target.

The daypart and programming mix becomes critical as well. A buy engineered with dayparts and programs with low playback stands to generate better return.

Online episodes continue to gain popularity and offer another strategy to feature advertiser messages in an uncluttered and 'skip free' environment.

There are numerous tactics and approaches being employed by both advertisers and networks. One successful approach, while usually costly, is branded entertainment. Aligning your product or brand message within targeted programming has proven an effective strategy. Another emerging strategy is the use limited or single sponsorship content, an entire program with no commercials other than a single advertiser's message at the beginning and end.

Networks are experimenting with programming models that offer less commercial clutter. Networks are also providing additional opportunities such as enlisting the use of pod-busters to keep viewers tuned in during commercial breaks. These can include questions posed to the viewer at the beginning of a spot with answers to follow, to integration of the commercial into the programming content, to announced shortened breaks. These changes, of course, have revenue implications and advertisers are expected to pay a premium for the less cluttered environment. Another approach networks are adopting focuses on the actual program context with certain scenes tagged as content lead-ins to an advertiser message that is timely and relevant. A basic example might be a scene with a car accident, immediately followed by an ad for car insurance. This approach is new but offers many intriguing applications.

The more advertisers, agencies and networks understand playback viewership, the more they can ensure proper television buying strategies to insure a return on investment and sustain a viable business model for the future growth of the industry.