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| Research | |
being a hot TV show TiVo users fast-forward through ads more often Sep 29, 2009 One of the big observations coming out of last weekend's Emmy awards was that the shows that picked up the big awards, like AMC's "Mad Men" and NBC's "30 Rock," have much lower ratings than many of the other programs that were nominated. Turns out they have something else in common, too: Viewers who time-shift the shows via TiVo tend to fast-forward through their commercials at a higher rate than the average show. That's according to data crunched by TiVo, which found that 83 percent of "Men's" TiVo audience fast-forwards through the ads, compared to an average 73 percent for the scripted drama category. TiVo users are also more likely to time-shift these shows than others. "Rock" was time shifted by 74 percent of TiVo users, compared to 68 percent for scripted comedy generally. This may be because viewers are so devoted to the programs that they want to view them on their own schedule, with no interruptions by anything, including ads. Todd Juenger, vice president and general manager of TiVo Audience Research and Measurement, talks to Media Life about why Emmy winners see lots of commercial skipping, what genres generally have the most, and why some people actually choose to watch the commercials. Is it just coincidence that many Emmy winners see high percentages of commercial fast-forwarding, or is it more? Why? It’s probably a bit of both. It’s certainly true-- we’ve been doing this for over three years so we have some perspective--there’s a pretty strong correlation between the most popular programs and those that people use their DVRs the most to time shift and fast forward the commercials on. It’s not a perfect unbreakable rule, but it is a pretty strong correlation. So to the extent that Emmy-nominated shows tend to be popular, we should expect that they’d fall into that category. There are exceptions to the rule, however. Do these shows also have a higher degree of time-shifting overall? Why or why not? The Emmy winners in almost every case more time shifted than the norm for their genre. That really ties most into people arranging for the best shows to fit into their lives. Why are the most beloved programs often subject to the highest degree of time shifting and commercial avoidance? It speaks to why people who have DVRs tend to love DVRs. When you ask someone why they got a DVR and the best thing about it, the answer that always comes out on top is to take control of the programming schedule, to watch TV on my terms. That’s the No. 1 satisfier of DVRs and that’s why the most beloved programs are most time-shifted. And then, when they’re really paying attention and wrapped up in a show, human nature is you hit the fast forward button when you get to the commercials because you want to know what happens next. What's the primary reason for commercial avoidance? Is it simply to avoid advertising, or is there more too it, like taking less time to watch a show? The answer to why do people avoid commercials--there’s probably 50 or 100 different reasons. It’s different for every individual, but the most obvious or blatant reason is what is a reason you watch a TV show? It’s to watch the show, not the commercials. It’s actually a bit more interesting to ask why people sometimes choose to watch a commercial? There was a point in time when people thought no one would watch a commercial when using a DVR, but they do, so why? But the answer seems to be, it’s really a match between a commercial that’s targeted really well and it seems to be a good match for the audience of the show. And that might explain why there is less fast forwarding on smaller niche shows. What genre of programs tend to see the highest fast-forwarding percentages and why? I would cite the two general genres that see the most as scripted dramas and scripted comedy. The things that see less are news, sports and weather. And highly time-sensitive programming sees a lot less fast forwarding. The data itself we collected tells us what happens but not why. But I have formed some opinions, and I think the biggest I’d point to really surrounds the notion of appointment viewing and the way people with DVRs arrange TV to fit into their lives. The more important a show is to you, what they’ll do is set up a season pass for the show and pick a time that’s best for them in terms of when they can focus on the program. It’s a significant entertainment investment for them. They’re more likely to hit fast forward because they’re really engaged with the show. But that’s a hypothesis. Some things you can do to avoid that is--one Emmy winner, “30 Rock,” had less fast forwarding. And I can’t scientifically explain why but “30 Rock” does a lot of innovative things with its commercial breaks, in particular putting its talent into advertisements. There’s also a lot of brand integration to the point where they make fun of it on the show. Those types of things do contribute to people watching commercials more. What genre has the lowest and why? The ones that stick out are news, sports and then weather, which is just another form of news. With the wide availability with news sources today, it certainly doesn’t make much sense that people would record the news and watch it later. It doesn’t mean there’s no time shifting of the news, we see some of it, but it’s not time shifting as you think of it watching the next day or something. It’s near-live time shifting. For sports, it’s interesting. When DVRs first came to be, one of the big sports magazines called TiVo the best invention ever or something like that, the idea being that you could never miss game, you have your own instant replay, etc. It’s also true that fans really don’t want to miss what’s going on and be late on what’s happening. So what we can see in the data is there’s very little time shifting. There’s some, but not a lot, and when it does it’s usually a near-live situation. About what percentage of all television do TiVo users watch live? The answer differs by network and daypart. But the lowest percentage you ever see is for primetime—it’s about 50-50 between time-shifted and live. If you look at Emmy-winning shows, all of them are over 50 percent time shifted. If you look at a full 24-hour day and throw everything into the mix, it’s just less than two-thirds live and a third time-shifted. During other parts of the day there’s other viewing that’s sort of background viewing, or daytime kids programming, morning news programming, etc. But when you get into the primetime evening hours, then you start to have a lot more people using television and conflicts of what’s on, tougher choices of what to watch. Some people have taken to calling sporting events or topical shows like "The Jay Leno Show" TiVo-proof. These days is there any such thing? [Laughs] No. What most people mean by that is something that’s so compelling and timely you need to watch it live. A great counter example of that might be the Super Bowl. A lot of the Super Bowl is watched non-live in TiVo households. What they’re doing is using they’re TiVos to interact. Even though it’s something you want to watch live, of course, people will rewind and re-watch the commercials, or pause it during their parties, or look at their own instant replays. They’re taking control of the content and getting more enjoyment out of it. People are still watching it when it happens, but they’re also still using their DVR.
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