DVR Use One Factor in Networks’ Low Ratings

If you ask several of the top programmers in network television what is going wrong with their ratings this season, they offer a litany of answers: jarring schedule disruptions from debates, election night and Hurricane Sandy, for instance, as well as the ever-increasing defections toward delayed viewing and away from the nightly schedules that have defined network prime time since the days of radio. The numbers tell the tale. With seven days of delayed viewing factored in, ABC is down 7 percent in the audience preferred by most advertisers, viewers between the ages of 18 and 49; CBS is down 18 percent; and Fox Broadcasting is down an eye-popping 26 percent. NBC is the only network bucking the trend, with its audience up 23 percent in that category.

“We are definitely in a transition period,” said Paul Lee, president of ABC’s entertainment group, citing the heavy shift toward reliance on DVRs and video on demand to create personalized viewing schedules. Another factor also seems to have been at work this fall: disappointing new shows.

“The point the networks make is that the DVR is revolutionizing viewing,” said Brad Adgate, director of research for Horizon Media, a media buying company. “But that is masking the fact that the new shows they put on this fall just aren’t that good. There are better shows on cable.”