• by Wayne Friedman , October 3, 2007

So what about that "Heroes'' ratings controversy of a week ago? It turns out that "Heroes" combined ratings of its original Monday, Sept. 24th debut and Saturday, Sept. 29th repeat gave NBC a 7.3 live program same day rating--numbers that were released Tuesday.

That's 12% higher than the preliminary--and unofficial--6.5 rating among 18-49 viewers issued a week ago. This year's individual premiere telecast was up strongly from its 5.9 series rating start of a year ago.

What does this all mean? Not much, since there is nothing to compare it to. Nielsen only instituted the rule change this past July that allowed the combining of ratings on two different nights for the same episode. Now, if a broadcast network re-airs the same episode in the week--with the exact same advertisers in the exact same order--then Nielsen would cume, or add, the unduplicated viewers of both episodes together into one big fat rating.

NBC was able to get this higher number because Nissan had bought all the advertising time as the exclusive sponsor of both telecasts. Since NBC's controversy last week, Nielsen says it may review or change this new rule.

Some competing network research executives and media agency research executives were unaware of the change, and upset with what seem like sudden news just a day into the new season. They believed NBC was up to some ratings trickery, in an effort to boost its ratings.

Nielsen delivered the news of the change to every agency and every network during the summer.

NBC's Alan Wurtzel, president of research and media development, said it was Nielsen's decision--not NBC's--that resulted in the ratings research company changing its rules concerning the repurposing of shows on Saturday night. Nielsen has said it was NBC that requested the cume rating of the "Heroes" episode.

NBC isn't at fault here, say some media agency executives. The deal for Nissan buying up all the commercial time on "Heroes" occurred before the rule change was made--in May/June, during the upfront selling period. From an advertising standpoint, it couldn't profit from this specific show. From a marketing point of view, however, NBC may be able to tout rating gains as its seasonal tallies will be slightly higher.

Other networks could make similar deals. But it's highly unlikely that more than a handful could take place. Networks would have to sell their entire inventory to one advertiser--a rare agreement--or get the same exact advertisers running the same exact commercials in the same exact order in a repurposed episode. That would be remote, say industry executives.

Still, Wurtzel said with the coming of micro-niche audiences on digital platforms, there is more of a need to aggregate viewers for sale to advertisers.

Brad Adgate, senior vice president and corporate research director of Horizon Media agrees: "We have been sticking with this one currency for a long time. Things are starting to change rapidly with time-shifting and place-shifting of shows. This includes Saturday night repurposing of shows." NBC is a client of Horizon Media.

That said, the 7.3 cume "Heroes" rating isn't the final rating for the "Heroes" debut episode, since this year's upfront deals were promised on the new commercial ratings plus three days of DVR playback data. "This number could change again looking at the new currency," said Adgate.

Those numbers aren't released until three weeks after the first week of an airing of a specific episode.