• by Wayne Friedman , October 9, 2009

Spinning numbers in a new flash-forward TV world, CBS says its shows debuting in premiere week will see big gains when including seven days of DVR playback results.

In an unusual press release, CBS expects that results from viewer tabulations after seven days of DVR playback will kick its shows up significantly from its premiere week.

CBS believes its shows will average 1 million more viewers, and that key demographics -- adults 18-49 and adults 25-54 -- will see about a half a rating point increase.

Nielsen will release live-plus-7-day ratings for the first week of the season on Monday, Oct. 12.

Explaining its future ratings gains, David Poltrack, executive vice president of planning and research and CBS, said in a release: "With the growth of DVR penetration and usage, we can no longer evaluate the performance of programs simply based on ratings delivered the following day."

CBS said DVR playback has reached an all-time high -- up 36% versus premiere week last year, and up 64% over 2007.

With this information, CBS says top shows such as "NCIS" and "The Mentalist" will each gain 2 million more viewers. It also anticipates that 11 shows will see improvements from a 0.5 rating point or more each in 18-49 and 25-54 demos.

CBS did not note how other TV networks programs would fare -- which, according to previous DVR analysis, would seemingly see gains as well.

Live plus seven days of DVR playback ratings, according to most TV researchers, accounts for over 90% of DVR playback. CBS implored the business media, media agency and others to include these results in their analysis, rather than standard daily TV ratings. Poltrack states: "The industry must now switch our collective focus away from the 'partial' overnight audience reports to the full audience reports when they come out some weeks later."