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Sunday, December 16, 2012

Some More C3 Tidbits


Yesterday MediaPost provided some more C3 ratings. These are the "real" numbers used to determine advertising rates. As always, I'm most interested in comparing these numbers with the Live + SD ones that we use every day. The MediaPost numbers best suited for that were the top ten entertainment shows in C3 rating. I lined them up with the Live+SD averages through November 25.

Here they are sorted by C3 rating:

Thru Nov. 25 L+SD C3 SD->C3
The Big Bang Theory 5.03 4.97 -1%
Modern Family 4.80 4.78 -0%
The Voice Mon 4.48 4.27 -5%
The Voice Tue 4.06 3.78 -7%
Two and a Half Men 3.75 3.63 -3%
Grey's Anatomy 3.52 3.63 +3%
Revolution 3.11 3.34 +7%
Once Upon a Time 3.29 3.33 +1%
2 Broke Girls 3.40 3.31 -3%
NCIS 3.41 3.29 -4%

And then by change from Live + SD to C3:

Thru Nov. 25 L+SD C3 SD->C3
Revolution 3.11 3.34 +7%
Grey's Anatomy 3.52 3.63 +3%
Once Upon a Time 3.29 3.33 +1%
Modern Family 4.80 4.78 -0%
The Big Bang Theory 5.03 4.97 -1%
2 Broke Girls 3.40 3.31 -3%
Two and a Half Men 3.75 3.63 -3%
NCIS 3.41 3.29 -4%
The Voice Mon 4.48 4.27 -5%
The Voice Tue 4.06 3.78 -7%

As always, a key note is that the relative landscape does not change much. None of the top ten shows moved by more than 7% in either direction, and the majority of the shows were within 3%. If you simply assume the Live + SD numbers are equal to the C3 numbers, it will almost never be an egregious mistake.

But even within these small changes, a few tiers appear to develop. The sample size is small, so I will continue to refine this based on any additional info that comes in, but here's a rough guideline of how I see the translation from the more accessible Live+7 changes to the more important C3 changes:

The "extreme" DVRed shows (Revolution) get a C3 bump of 5% or a little more.

The "heavily" DVRed shows (Grey's, Once) get a C3 bump of less than 5%.

The "normally" DVRed shows (pretty much everything on CBS) see a small decline of less than 5% in C3.

And the "lightly" DVRed shows (The Voice) drop by 5% or a little more in the C3.

I've heard people posit that shows like The Voice get something of a premium because of the high concentration of live viewing within the Live + SD rating. But the C3 numbers suggest that this is more than cancelled out by the lack of interest across the subsequent three days.

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