DVR Users Zap Fewer Ads on Cable Than Broadcast
TiVo users who watched time-shifted cable shows skipped 51% of the commercials in October 2008, while broadcast commercial skipping hit 64% for the month in 2008.
That’s according to the latest report from the DVR company’s StopWatch ratings service, which aggregates data from 100,000 subscribers for 66 cable and broadcast networks.
Still — the glass is half empty, if viewers are zapping half the ads.
At BBC America, for one, the situation may be even worse than the broadcast average. Network chief Garth Ancier, at an industry conference last month, said just 30% of his network’s ads are viewed on a time-shifted basis, if that.
“Commercial-skipping is severely threatening the economic model,” he said. “This is our biggest challenge…and this is frankly what is killing the broadcast networks as we speak.”
Another finding from TiVo’s StopWatch for October is that cable networks had sizeable year-over-year growth in viewership for total and time-shifted viewing, while broadcast declined. That ran counter to some recent trends in TiVo’s data showing broadcast networks received a primetime lift in year-over-year viewership while cable lagged.
Cable Program/Commercial Viewership Lift — October 2008 Year-Over-Year Comparison
| Program rating YoY change | Commercial rating YoY change | Commercial avoidance, Oct. 2007 | Commercial avoidance, Oct. 2008 | |
| Total | 10% | 9% | 20% | 21% |
| Live viewing (5-second interval) | 7% | 8% | 6% | 5% |
| Time-shifted viewing | 15% | 13% | 49% | 51% |
Source: TiVo StopWatch
Broadcast Program/Commercial Viewership Lift — October 2008 Year-Over-Year Comparison
| Program rating YoY change | Commercial rating YoY change | Commercial avoidance, Oct. 2007 | Commercial avoidance, Oct. 2008 | |
| Total | -12% | -11% | 37% | 36% |
| Live viewing (5-second interval) | -12% | -11% | 4% | 3% |
| Time-shifted viewing | -13% | -11% | 65% | 64% |
Source: TiVo StopWatch
Cable networks included in the comparison are: A&E, AMC, Animal, BET, Bravo, CNBC, CNN, Comedy, Court (TruTV), Discovery, E!, ESPN, ESPN2, ABC Family, FNC, Food, FX, HGTV, Lifetime, MSNBC, MTV, Nickelodeon, Oxygen, SciFi, Spike, TBS, TNT, Toon, Toon Disney, USA, and VH1.
The broadcast networks are: ABC, CBS, CW, FOX, NBC, and MyTV.
Mike commented:
Nobody likes ads. They are usually dumb, boring, annoying and stupid. Ad spending is moving to the web because 1) It\’s not in your face like broadcast Ads 2) It\’s trackable by advertisers 3) Those that get clicked on are usually relevant to the consumer. Find a way to do this on broadcast networks and the trend may stabilize, otherwise your fighting a loosing battle.
Rosa commented:
I'm not surprised by this. I don't have cable or satellite, and when I moved to the US from NZ in 2000 I was astonished to see that by far the majority of ads on television are for pharmaceuticals and cars, especially during national news bulletins. At other times, ad breaks are dominated by nationwide chain stores.
I assume that's because local advertisers are priced out of the market and the demographics show that the majority of people watching over the air television are in the 50+ demographic.
Perhaps some kind of level playing field needs to be created for local advertisers and smaller companies. In a sense, OTA viewers are being denied information that is useful to them by the monopoly the big advertisers have by virtue of being able to shut others out of the media market.
Just a viewer's perspective, obviously!