Carat Programming’s Broadcast and Video Beat took a look at the fourth week of the television season, week ending October 21, 2007. It also provided a preliminary look at Average Commercial Minute Ratings for Daytime Network Television including up to three days of DVR playback, (C3). The analysis is based on copyrighted respondent level data from Nielsen’s NPower system for the week of September 24-September 30, 2007. Highlights include: "Up until recently, VCR penetration in the United States has hovered at around 90% for nearly 20 years. Currently VCR penetration has slipped to about 79% U.S. as the old recording devices broke down and homes gradually replaced them with DVR technology instead. As you know Nielsen is unable to account for VCR playback, so it still treats recording activity as "live viewing" to programs. In daytime television VCR contribution currently ranges from 3-12% of the average household rating. By the way, Household VCR recording activity also gets ascribed to live demographic viewing. In addition, VCR recording activity counts as staying tuned through commercial minutes.
Based on results from the first week of the television season for key daytime target, Women 25-54, average commercial minute ratings including three days of DVR playback (AKA "C3") outperformed the live television rating for nearly every single daytime show with the exception of Price is Right. 2, which was on par with its live program rating."
TVBR/RBR observation: Carat and other agencies have long complained about the unfair calculations regarding VCR viewing. Eventually, as VCRs are no longer sold, and used less and less, the issue will diminish accordingly. For Charts veiw here
