Metric Rethink: Local TV Surpasses National Time-Shifted Viewing

MediaDailyNews by Wayne Friedman, Yesterday, 12:52 PM Looking to make its case that local TV time-shifted viewing is still going unaccounted -- and unpaid for by advertisers -- the TVB says time-shifted viewing in top 25 TV markets has overtaken national DVR viewing. The TVB, the local TV-focused advertising trade group, says an average of 18 programs per market in the top 25 markets -- which are local Nielsen people meter (LPM) markets -- have 26% higher time-shifting activity than national TV networks average. The study looked at live-plus-same-day time-shifted viewing through the first six weeks of the TV season. Some of the biggest overindexed markets were: Chicago (44 programs), Dallas (44 programs), San Francisco (29 programs), Los Angeles (38 programs) and Houston (37 programs). “High levels of time-shifted viewing in LPM markets reveals a large number of impressions not accounted for when media planning and buying is based on live only data," stated Steve Lanzano, president/CEO of TVB. "Across all 25 LPM markets for the first [six] weeks of the season, 140 million adults 25 to 54 impressions came from same day, time-shifted viewing." As a result, the TVB says the "live-only" rating metric pegged to local TV advertisers deals is shrinking. The TVB adds that 43% of all time-shifted viewing occurs on the same day the programming originally aired. Three years ago, the TVB and other major TV groups backed a new local TV metric for deals with advertisers that included time-shifted viewing -- the live program viewing plus three days of time-shifted viewing. Nielsen had initial plans to institute the L3 measurement in the last six months of 2008. But pressure from major local TV advertisers and their media agencies forced the measuring service to reconsider. Media-buying executives says the L3 measurement did not account for the skipping of TV commercials -- unlike the one for nationally distributed TV networks. National TV networks' advertising deals include time-shifted viewing, but this is under the C3 metric -- commercial ratings plus three days time shifted viewing, where commercial skipping is accounted for. C3 was started in 2007.