The Thursday 9 p.m. timeslot is arguably the most competitive slot of the week, and now there's yet more evidence to back that up.
The hour is seeing a huge amount of time-shifted viewing, with three shows in the hour ranking among the top four most-DVRed programs on broadcast and four shows in the top six.
That's according to live-plus-seven-day-DVR-playback (L+7) numbers for the week ended Oct. 4, released by Nielsen yesterday.
They show that "Grey's Anatomy" got the biggest bump in DVR viewership for the second week of the season, increasing by 1.4 among adults 18-49, bringing its L+7 rating to a 7.5.
That's a jump of 23 percent over "Grey's" live-plus-same-day (L+SD) rating.
The other Big Four shows in the 9 p.m. slot saw similarly big bumps. CBS's "CSI" was the third-most-time-shifted show, increasing by 1.1, or 27 percent, to a 5.2.
NBC's "The Office" grew 26 percent, up 1.0 to a 4.9, making it the week's fourth-most-time-shifted show. Lead-out "Community" grew 26 percent, up 0.6 to a 3.5, tying for 14th.
Fox's "Fringe" tied for sixth with a 0.9 bump, jumping a huge 39 percent to a 3.2 rating. That was the second-largest jump of any series on the Big Five for the week, behind only the CW's "Smallville" at 40 percent.
The CW's "Supernatural," which also airs in the 9 p.m. Thursday slot, saw a more mild bump of 0.3, to a 1.5 rating. But that was still a 25 percent jump, or more than double the average 12 percent increase for all broadcast shows.
The trend seems pretty clear: Faced with several shows they want to watch in the same timeslot, people are watching one show live and recording the others for later viewing.
Though the trend is most pronounced at 9 p.m. Thursdays, it's being seen in other timeslots, too. Wednesday at 9 p.m., for example, there are four shows that are averaging a 3.0 or better L+SD rating: ABC's "Modern Family" and "Cougar Town," CBS's "Criminal Minds" and Fox's "Glee."
All are gaining at least half a point in DVR playback, as is another show in the slot, NBC's "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit."
TOP 10 LIVE-PLUS-SEVEN-DAY-DVR VIEWING Adults 18-49
Week Ending Oct. 4
Rank
Program
Net
L+7 increase Contribution
L+SD to L+7 Increase
1
GREY'S ANATOMY-THU 9PM-10/01/2009
ABC
1.40
23.0%
2
HOUSE-09/28/2009
FOX
1.30
22.4%
3
CSI-10/01/2009
CBS
1.10
26.8%
4
OFFICE-10/01/2009
NBC
1.00
25.6%
4
MENTALIST, THE-10/01/2009
CBS
1.00
26.3%
6
GLEE-09/30/2009
FOX
0.90
27.3%
6
FRINGE-10/01/2009
FOX
0.90
39.1%
6
PRIVATE PRACTICE-10/01/2009
ABC
0.90
19.6%
6
FLASHFORWARD-10/01/2009
ABC
0.90
24.3%
10
HEROES-09/28/2009
NBC
0.80
32.0%
10
BONES-10/01/2009
FOX
0.80
29.6%
Source: ABC Networks, based on data from Nielsen Media Research
