• by Wayne Friedman , September 2, 2005

A new advertising study comparing TV program ratings versus TV commercial ratings showed viewer drop-off, on average, was just under 6 percent between program time and commercial time.

The study from the American Association of Advertising Agencies, the Association of National Advertisers, and Nielsen Media Research looked at some 15,000 telecasts in two periods, April 2004 and November/December of 2004.

Among adult viewers ages 18-48, the drop-off was the least for syndicated TV programs--at just 2.3 percent for 2,543 telecasts. Broadcast networks were next, with a 6.6 percent drop-off for 2,457 telecasts. Cable TV posted the worst numbers--slightly more than broadcast, at 6.8 percent for 10,585 telecasts.

Still, the study showed that there is a wide variety of data. Some individual telecasts lost more than 75 percent of their viewers between program and commercial time. Other telecasts actually witnessed increases when going to a commercial from a program.

Overall, older viewers tend to hang on long than younger viewers. For adults ages 25-54 on network TV, the drop-off rate was 5.0 percent, while adults 18-34 showed a 7.5 percent disappearance rate.

Mitch Berg, president of Syndicated Network Television Association, says smaller commercial-pod time duration on syndicated shows versus that of broadcast or cable network shows is the reason.

"The longer the break, the bigger the decline [in viewership]," he says. "This is very encouraging news for syndication."

The study went on to break down the data further. Morning programming showed a 13 percent drop-off for adult viewers ages 18-49 between program and commercial--the worst of any daypart. Late-night viewing was next, at 8.5 percent. Prime was in third place, at 7.4 percent. One of the better dayparts was with daytime--only a 3.1 percent decline. This would explain a lot for syndication, since daytime is a key time period for its shows.

Over a 24-hour period, CBS was the worst network, losing 8 percent of its viewers ages 18-49. NBC was the best, with only 5.6 percent less viewers with its commercials. Prime time data was much closer between the networks. ABC and the WB were the biggest losers at 6.6 percent; NBC was again the best, at 5.6 percent. Cable networks had a wide range of viewer losses between program and commercials. Hallmark Channel and TVLand, for example, were under 5 percent. But MTV Network--with obviously short-attention-span younger viewers--had a rate of over 15 percent. Fox News scored better than CNN. Fox scored 9.6 percent versus CNN's 13.6 percent for adults ages 18-49.