TV Viewers Disappearing (Sort of)

A look at the latest TV viewing trends and you'll find something missing: TV Viewers. But it's not because they're not watching TV. New data from Nielson shows more TV viewers are watching shows when they want watch them. And when they want to watch is not necessarily when advertisers want them to watch.

Some shows (like NBC's "The Office") see as much as a 30% jump in viewership if you include users who record the show on a DVR and watch it later. This has serious implications for advertisers. What happens if you advertise your Friday sale on Thursday's ER, but 30% of the market doesn't watch ER until Saturday? Or worse, what happens if they skip past all the ads when they do get around to watching?

This paradigm shift from network-scheduled viewing to user-scheduled viewing is moving so fast, nobody has even assembled data on viewers who watch shows on their iPods or PCs.

Advertisers must be savvy and diversify their choice of outlets to reach consumers. Furthermore, ads must be more effective than ever before to compete for viewers' time. Read more about these trends here:

CNN
Nielson