The Climate, Week Eight

Had a rather unproductive holiday weekend, so just the normal numbers this time:

Week-by-week:

Week	Ending	TPUT	y2y	bc	y2y	LeAv	y2y
1	9/30/2012	32.4	-6%	9.2	-16%	2.50	-15%
2	10/07/2012	32.8	-5%	8.7	-15%	2.26	-17%
3	10/14/2012	33.7	-1%	8.6	-10%	2.33	-9%
4	10/21/2012	33.4	-3%	8.6	-6%	2.30	-6%
5	10/28/2012	34.2	-0%	9.1	-3%	2.12	-16%
6	11/04/2012	34.5	-0%	9.2	-9%	2.32	-11%
7	11/11/2012	35.1	+1%	9.3	-9%	2.30	-7%
8	11/18/2012	33.5	-5%	8.4	-14%	2.13	-11%

Though week eight almost entirely consisted of regular programming on the broadcasters, the first post-election week was a pretty bad one for TV viewing. It dipped back deeply into the year-to-year negative column, and broadcast viewing had its worst week of the season and its worst year-to-year week since the first two.

Season-to-date:

Week	Ending	TPUTy2d	y2dy2y	bcy2d	y2dy2y	LAy2d	y2dy2y
1	9/30/2012	32.4	-6%	9.2	-16%	2.50	-15%
2	10/07/2012	32.6	-5%	8.9	-15%	2.39	-16%
3	10/14/2012	33.0	-4%	8.8	-14%	2.37	-14%
4	10/21/2012	33.1	-4%	8.8	-12%	2.35	-12%
5	10/28/2012	33.3	-3%	8.8	-10%	2.31	-13%
6	11/04/2012	33.5	-3%	8.9	-10%	2.31	-12%
7	11/11/2012	33.7	-2%	8.9	-10%	2.31	-12%
8	11/18/2012	33.7	-2%	8.9	-10%	2.28	-12%

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Click to expand for more on the "climate" numbers used herein.

TPUT - This is an ESTIMATED average of how many people are watching TV from 8:00 to 11:00.

• I derive these numbers by adding up all the ratings and dividing by all the shares in each of the 42 half-hours each week. That means there is some error relative to the numbers Nielsen actually releases. Sadly we don't regularly have access to those. I always advise not to rely heavily on these numbers for any one show in any one week, but the hope is that the error is minimized across a 42-timeslot sample every week.

• I include the Old Methodology adjustment, which makes the number more like a measurement of how many people watch primetime programming Live + SD, rather than a measurement of how many people watch any TV (including old DVR stuff) from 8:00 to 11:00. This makes the number perhaps less intuitive in a vacuum, but it's pretty much a wash when making week-to-week and year-to-year comparisons, which is what we're really interested in.

bc - This is an average of how many people are watching national broadcast TV from 8:00 to 11:00.

• This does NOT include the 10:00 adjustment used in the True2 calculation which attempts to account for Fox/CW programming and stronger cable. Again, that perhaps hurts the number in a vacuum, because the 10:00 numbers being used only include three networks, so I'm averaging timeslots that are somewhat apples-to-oranges. But again, it's a wash when making comparisons because I treat it that way all the time. It would not really change week-to-week or year-to-year comparisons, and that's what I mostly care about.

• Another important note here is that these numbers include the preliminary averages for "sustaining" programming like presidential debates and commercial-free benefit concerts whose numbers are typically omitted from traditional Nielsen averages. I might eventually omit these from this particular calculation, but they're needed on my spreadsheets to 1) make PUT calculations in those timeslots and 2) create a competition number for the entertainment shows that air against them.

LeAv - This is a measurement of how many people watch the average moment of original entertainment series programming on the big four networks. Meaning, no sports, no reruns, no specials, no movies, no sustaining programming included.