The case of the disappearing TV viewers

By Paul J. Gough

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - It has been a wild and in some cases wacky season for network TV, culminating in a hunt for millions of missing viewers that is so complicated that it's worthy of its own episode of "CSI."

On the surface, it is status quo -- CBS extended its winning streak in total viewers to five years, while "American Idol"-powered Fox bagged a third consecutive season victory among adults 18-49, a demographic coveted by advertisers.

But underneath, a sea change has been brewing.

At the beginning of the season, Nielsen Media Research introduced "most current" ratings, totaling the audiences that watch a show live as well as those that record it on a DVR and watch it up to seven days later.

But even with those additional viewers counted this season, primetime television viewing dropped significantly compared with last season.

The steepest decline was in live viewership, which fell 10% year-over-year among the four major broadcast networks. Adding in DVR viewership, which can boost shows' ratings by as much as 25% or more, the Big Four were still down 5%.

Things turned for the worse in the spring when many of TV's best and brightest fell to season or even series lows. That list includes "Desperate Housewives," "Lost," "Grey's Anatomy," "CSI: Miami" and "ER," among others. Even "Idol" wasn't immune though it hasn't seen a year-over-year decline.

The reasons seem myriad. Explanations include poor comparisons with the Winter Olympics, which boosted viewership levels last year, the lack of stunt counter-programming, a three weeks' earlier start to daylight-saving time, an abnormally high amount of repeats in February and March and a shift in viewing behavior brought on by the DVR, streaming video and the growing number of ways network TV is consumed these days.

"It's never one thing," said Fox scheduling czar Preston Beckman, who acknowledged that the early start to daylight-saving time and the increase in DVR penetration has changed the game.

He thinks that the networks also have learned the hard way that viewers are annoyed by their favorite shows going on hiatus or repeating. It's something Fox took into consideration three years ago when it scheduled "24" straight through. Nielsen said that only 66% of program minutes in March were original compared with 80% a year ago.

Daylight-saving time generally shaves 3% or 4% off viewing, something the networks saw three weeks earlier this year. It particularly hit the 8-9 p.m. hour and such shows as NBC's "My Name Is Earl" and "The Office." But even when things started evening out, the ratings remained down.

"Probably the two had a compound effect and moved people away from their normal March viewing patterns into a lower general pattern of television viewing," CBS research chief David Poltrack said. "We haven't really recovered from that."

Unlike the past two years, when several shows debuted in the winter and spring -- "Office," "The Unit," "The New Adventures of Old Christine," "Deal or No Deal" and, of course, "Grey's Anatomy" -- this year fewer programs were introduced and only three, ABC's "October Road," Fox's "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" and CBS' "Rules of Engagement" stuck.

"And certainly you wouldn't put them in the same class as 'Grey's Anatomy' and 'Deal or No Deal' in terms of strength," Poltrack said. "This was a spring where the networks were not reinvigorated with new programming as in years past. Hence, more repeats. This led to some lowering of overall viewing levels."

Fox's Beckman doesn't think that the decline is as severe as it seems when just looking at live-plus-same day. It's a function of the fact that the average Nielsen home is three or four times more likely to be recording programming and playing it back later than it was a year ago.