Saturday, December 31, 2011

Verne Gay of Newsday Writes About DVR Playback Numbers

http://www.newsday.com/share/tv-zone-1.811968/modern-\family-sets-dvr-playback-record-1.3414607?qr=1

'Modern Family' sets DVR playback record

Sofia Vergara and Ed O'Neill, who play Gloria
Photo credit: ABC

Sure it's a catatonic week in TV, but under any circumstances, this merits a note: the Dec. 7 original telecast of "Modern Family" scored what ABC is calling an industry record -- 5 million views on DVR playback.

This, as fans will recall, was the Christmas episode (when the fam thought of spending Chirstmas together a week earlier) titled "Christmas Express."

Adding the 5 million views to the so-called "in pattern" viewership of 12 million gave that episode a total of 17 million viewers. Yes, that's a huge number.

The DVR numbers are now a vital part of industry measurement and are added to a show's total after Nielsen tabulates 'em -- usually takes at least a week -- so that all playbacks can be captured and added to a so-called "live-plus"' figure.

Advertisers don't particularly like the live-plus-7 because they assume that their ads have been fast-forwarded (great assumption) but it's still a figure that can mean the difference between life and death for a more modestly rated series, like "Fringe," for example, which gets excellent playback too.

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