Taking the long view on TV ratings

Live stream or on demand figures aren’t immediately available from Nielsen. But CBS research shows they are quickly growing as options. The network’s consumer panel said 12 percent of people reported watching a show via online streaming this fall, up from 4 percent last year. The percentage of people watching shows on demand increased from 2 percent to 11 percent, he said.

Fox last year streamed episodes of “New Girl” online before the series premiered on the network and that decision paid off: word of mouth from people who had seen the show online gave the series strong ratings out of the box.

The network tried the same strategy this fall with “The Mindy Project” and “Ben & Kate” but it didn’t work as well, said Joe Earley, the network’s chief operating officer. The premiere week live numbers appeared depressed because of people watching early.

Now, Fox is trying to encourage more people to watch the show live.

“It’s almost like living in a parallel universe simultaneously,” Earley said “You’re constantly trying to reorient yourself on how this show is doing and how it is doing compared to the competition.”

Television’s current currency _ the ratings figures used to set advertising rates _ is how many people view a show’s commercials live or within three days. The seven-day rating provides a truer look at a show’s real popularity, but it takes Nielsen more than two weeks to compute those figures. Even then, more people are waiting for a full-season DVD to come out to catch up on a show, or stacking several episodes on their DVR and “binging” by watching them all at once.

They are all factors to be considered when networks decide whether or not to move forward with a show. They must also consider whether a show is popular internationally. Whether or not a network owns a show is also figured in to the financial equation.

“It’s going to get more and more complicated,” Bader said.

Since the 1960s, the TV business has been oriented toward getting information on how a show is doing more and more quickly, Poltrack noted. Executives would frequently know before dawn the day after a show is aired what kind of a future it does or doesn’t have. Now often they will have to wait.

“Slowing down a little bit is not a bad thing,” he said. “We could all use a little bit of introspection. We could all spend a little less time processing and more time thinking.”

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.