These are indeed heady times for lovers of good television. If David Simon has his way, a wholesale change in how we watch will take place. The concern, of course, is whether anyone will see it. While households’ viewing time is increasing, television is experiencing the kind of distribution shift that happens only every decade or so. If you believe the media hype, this is either the doomsday scenario pundits have been talking about or the beginning of a renaissance.
The best way to illustrate this is to examine “sweeps week.” Conducted by Nielsen, the exercise samples television viewing habits four times during the year. The company distributes diaries to a sampling of American viewers in order to record what they watch. The diaries are then collected by Nielsen and analyzed. From that data the company calculates ratings for individual shows. If the ratings are good, then network executives can raise advertising rates for those programs. The flaw in this sampling system, however, is that it does not take into account the proliferation of digital video recorders here in Canada and TiVo in the United States. These devices allow people to record their favourite programs, store them, and watch them whenever they want. Beyond the on-demand appeal of TiVo and other dvrs is the ability to fast-forward past commercials. The problem for television executives is that if viewers aren’t watching shows during their regularly scheduled times, it is difficult for a network to measure a show’s audience reach and thus to set advertising rates.
This past spring, Nielsen revealed that virtually every major show on most of the networks set a record for low audience numbers. From Lost to Desperate Housewives, csi: Miami, and even the ever-popular 24, everyone suffered. More troubling was the fact that surefire franchises such as American Idol had their worst ratings in years. But had dvr use been factored in, those numbers would have been significantly higher. A recent study by Solutions Research Group in Canada concluded that seven years from now, viewers in the eighteen-to-thirty-nine age group will consume 80 percent of their TV on demand through an assortment of broadband, dvr, iPod, and other on-demand platforms. In other words, what is referred to as “time-shifting” is blowing the traditional ratings game to bits. In the process, the business of television is trying to make a financial case for some of the best shows it has produced in years.
To combat this, more and more shows are also offering new episodes on demand through the Internet ahead of broadcast air dates, and the move to support an on-demand service is proving to be a boon for shows like The Wire. hbo was one of the first networks to experiment with this approach to gauge the appetite of viewers who might use it. Seeing an opportunity to reach out to their cult audience, hbo picked The Wire as their test trial and discovered something quite remarkable. When given an opportunity to watch the season finale on demand before it aired on television, 750,000 people jumped at the chance. The lesson for Simon was that despite all of the choice on television and the web, viewers will go out of their way to watch a difficult drama about broken-down Baltimore — and pay for it, too.
“The future of American television is going to be like your lending library,” Simon speculates. “Downloads are the future. Nielson ratings will mean nothing. Watch what you want when you want to. The measurement of a show’s popularity will be downloads. Appointment television is being killed, and it’s a good thing for storytelling.”
Of course, if the experiment fails, Simon has an escape plan.
“I will go back to books.”
