We’re occasionally asked why we don’t have ratings for PBS shows (except for special events like a Presidential addresses). The reason was that PBS shows were not rated by Nielsen (or to put it otherwise, PBS had not paid for them to be rated by Nielsen).
Now, to provide more information to the sponsors of its shows it has signed up with Nielsen for its shows to be rated and appear in the weekly ratings reports. So while we will not see them in our Overnight ratings reports, presumably their ratings will be in the weekly TV ratings reports we receive on Tuesdays.
The public broadcaster will announce on Monday that, for the first time, it has subscribed to full-time television ratings from the Nielsen Company. The subscription provides PBS sponsors with detailed information about the audiences for “Antiques Roadshow,” “Frontline,” “Sesame Street” and dozens of other programs
[...]
The deal with Nielsen does not entirely level the playing field between PBS and commercial networks. PBS isn’t signing up for overnight ratings; it won’t be comparing “Masterpiece Theatre” with “The Mentalist” anytime soon. Instead, it is ordering weekly ratings, because some of the programs it provides to member stations are shown at different times.
via NYTimes.com.
Wow…I’ve seen a lot of PBS over the years. I think they’re gonna be disappointed to know how few people line up for Masterpiece Theatre.
Case in point: Anyone *ever* seen a torrent for Masterpiece Theatre?
Might this not be a matter of lifting an expense from the backs of the affiliates?
So they’re using my pledge money to sign up for ratings? Is this a good idea? They already run in the red most of the time. Besides, I thought a lot of the shows were presented,at lease in part, due to grants from whatever foundation or company and done for the tax write off? Maybe it’s not such a great plan to show the corps, foundations, supporters and the government how few people are watching Nova and This Old House.
“Case in point: Anyone *ever* seen a torrent for Masterpiece Theatre?”
No, but for good reason: Masterpiece Theatre is entirely comprised of rebroadcasts of British programming. Have I downloaded programming that later turned up on PBS? Absolutely yes.
This evening, Masterpiece Classic rebroadcast “Cranford”… and I’ll bet you a C-note that torrents of that *are* available.
I have seen torrents for Are You Being Served? and Sesame Street though. Both shows PBS shows and were pretty much all I watched other than Mr. Rogers on the station.
Boris, to my knowledge no PBS shows were being rated (or paid to be rated, if you will), so I don’t think it was an expense at all previously.
Cimmer, I interned this summer with an ad sales team at a (non-PBS) TV station. One of the salespeople told me how she used to work for the PBS in town. She said that they call it “sponsorships” or “grants” but it really works exactly the same as selling ads for a for-profit station. Only difference was they had less data to offer the clients.
There have definitely been PBS shows rated outside of presidential debates. Ken Burns stuff for example. My guess is that at least the bigger PBS affiliates are paying, but it is just a guess.
I suppose it is also possible that PBS could’ve ordered up special ratings runs for the Burns’ stuff, but Nielsen doesn’t seem very big on a la carte reporting.
I think the PBS member stations rely on member surveys to decide what shows to keep airing as the shows that get people to actually donate money are all they care about.
PBS getting ratings data for their sponsors makes sponsorship kind of dangerously close to advertising though. What makes PBS any different than say a season premiere of 24 presented commercial free by Ford?
Perhaps PBS is signing up for Nielsen information at the urging of these “sponsors”? Perhaps they want to know what their money is buying? It is already generally accepted that PBS does not attract a large audience (or even a small cable channel audience), but the “sponsors” want the information and this is PBS’s way of giving it to them.
I think this is a very good thing. This is the first step for PBS to finally address the programs that are way outdated and very few have interest in watching. Its unfortunate that they need ratings to tell them that their shows minus a few (NOVA Sciene Now, etc) aren’t great.
The shame is that NPR has already modernized its programs and has a pretty big audience, and its publicly financed with grants/underwriters.
@Cimmer: They aren’t using your pledge money for the ratings. Your pledge money goes to employ people at your local stations, pay the rent and upkeep costs, and purchase rights to air the programs that people watch. Also, I’m almost 99% positive that the money you pledge will not be enough to sign up for ratings.
I see this as essentially a way for PBS to promote their shows.
Without the numbers out there, places like this website and other media don’t really talk much about PBS shows.
Bill Gorman says:
“Boris, to my knowledge no PBS shows were being rated (or paid to be rated, if you will), so I don’t think it was an expense at all previously.”
I could swear that I read a news story in the past week about a PBS affiliate dropping their Neilsen subscription as a cost-cutting measure, with some caveat that more value was really to be had on the comment line, etc.
The vector must have been Current.org; I’ll try to dig it up.
And, yes, that’s not a typo, I put it there.
Oh I guess the CW has competition for the bottom of the barrel then! haha
Aha: http://www.current.org/audience/aud0913notbelievable.shtml
Why TRAC is the middleman I find perplexing, but hence the original question.
Boris, good information, that was news to me.
I wonder though, if that’s talking about local ratings only, and this story is about national ratings only. That would make sense in a “local stations were getting Nielsen ratings” in the past situation, but nationally Nielsen shows were not rated.
PBS would probably be 4th place above the CW and behind NBC once they sign up.
AtCat, I doubt it. My guess is that PBS’ national ratings are tiny.
That’s what you think. But I’d willing to see such a surprise to see that the CW has even less viewers than a boring public TV station.
Though that there was any measurement was not news to me, the TRAC piece was news. I agree with Bill that it is likely “local stations” but because TRAC was apparently doing this in all of the metered markets (not just the top 56) I suppose it was close to national.
TRAC Media Services only does research for public television (http://www.tracmedia.org/). I guess whatever they were providing was not good enough for the sponsors or perhaps it got to the point where it was cheaper to pay Nielsen than TRAC Media.
Edit: or perhaps Nielsen no longer liked whatever financial arrangements it had with TRAC Media that allowed it to make a profit as a reseller in the US?
I’d say it’s kids block would be big hits on that station if it were counted in the ratings. I mean Seasame Street and Barney are such hits with little kids.
AtCat, no, its what I know. Public TV (which could be more than just PBS, I’m not sure) was doing about a 1.2-1.3 Live+7 household rating in primetime during the early part of the 2008-9 season. Our data for them is no more current than that.
The CW is currently doing a 1.6 Live+7 HH rating in the 2009-2010 season.
Come back in a few weeks and you can see how few people watch PBS.
Bill Gorman says:
“I wonder though, if that’s talking about local ratings only, and this story is about national ratings only. That would make sense in a ‘local stations were getting Nielsen ratings’ in the past situation, but nationally Nielsen shows were not rated.”
Would that Trac Media were publicly traded. I don’t get the impression that they collect data. On the other hand, if in fact they don’t, I have a hard time figuring out how they stay in business. I refuse to accept the notion that the shade of Leo Buscaglia is pulling the strings.
Noooooo =/
No, PBS, no =/
I’m seeing the same PBS numbers that Mr. Bill Gorman is tracking – a 1.2/1.3HH range, which I think are calculated as a roll-up of affiliate weekly primetime numbers. By subscribing to Nielsen weekly compilations, PBS will be able to report wider data (viewers, demos).
I’m keen to see how PBS does in the demos, especially A18-49 and upscale homes (earnings > $100K). PBS seems to attract a well-educated, higher income viewer profile, especially with their special series (the documentaries by Mr. Ken Burns) and their mainstay programming (‘Masterpiece’, ‘Frontline’).
When PBS has done special measurements of some of their programs, their audiences have climbed quite high. ‘Civil War’ attracted a 9.0HH/13% and a national audience estimated at 13.9 million P2+ viewers. Some of their ‘National Geographic’ specials have rated highly, as have a few of their theatrical movies.
As someone who has actually advertised on a local PBS station (San Diego) how ad rates were done was interesting. I was given a rate card for the show I was interested in, Mystery! (before it was part of Masterpiece Theater). The ad rates were based on viewer totals that also showed a demographic breakdown.
They did not tell me where the numbers came from, although I asked nor was it clear if the numbers were current – I think they were based on the immediate previous season of the show.
The process was handled by an advertising sales person. It seemed no different than buying ad on any other television or radio station.
It will be interesting to see what numbers PBS generate. However, I think this can come back to bite PBS if their numbers are tiny and that’s what I expect them to be.
I have been pitched a few times by PBS sales reps and everytime they mention numbers, I ask where they got them from. Everytime the reps said essentially “headquarters” and I replied with “And where did they get them from?” No answer to that question. Not once. “I’ll get back to you on that.” and they never have.
They also like to say their audiences are highly educated and affluent but no one has ever backed that up. They take it as gospel. When I ask for proof, more than one time the PBS sales rep was practically shocked that I would question this. Sorry, bud, but in the real world of advertising, we believe medium providers (publishers, networks, etc.) as much as we believe politicians.
The danger I see for PBS is if their numbers are truly tiny and remain tiny. Sponsors could start to dry up and even government support (i.e., NEA, NSF, etc.). But maybe that’s a good thing. Personally, I think the History Channel, Discovery Channel, and so forth do a much better job of educating the public and PBS’ “news” coverage is little more than a snobbish MSNBC.
The only thing I watch on PBS these days is Mystery! and Masterpiece Mystery! (which is simply running a two-part Mystery! together, which I think is a great idea). As for advertising on Mystery! (which is exactly what sponsorships are), I would be more inclined if they produced American mysteries rather than merely rebroadcasting British ones. To my knowledge, they’ve only made one American Mystery! and that’s a shame.
“AtCat, no, its what I know. Public TV (which could be more than just PBS, I’m not sure) was doing about a 1.2-1.3 Live+7 household rating in primetime during the early part of the 2008-9 season. Our data for them is no more current than that.
The CW is currently doing a 1.6 Live+7 HH rating in the 2009-2010 season.”
Even so, it’s close.
The PBS numbers will be bigger than you guys think.
It would be a dream come true, and a sign of hope for the future of humanity, if PBS ends up with even decent ratings. But it’s not going to happen.
I think the ratings in the adult demo groups for PBS in primetime will be particularly low. The numbers I cited above (and DuMont also addressed) are household ratings, which is all I have even on a seasonal basis for “Public” television as a whole. I’m certain that by comparison, PBS’ 18-49 ratings (for example) will be even lower.
Julia says:
“It would be a dream come true, and a sign of hope for the future of humanity, if PBS ends up with even decent ratings. But it’s not going to happen.”
The thing that I’ve never been able to wrap my head around is the sharp disparity between the regular programming and the pledge programming. Judging by WTTW, the Suze Orman crowd lurks around like some weird opportunistic infection until it is called forth to feast upon the pledge drive. Just baffling.
I’m curious how Sesame Street’s ratings hold up against Disney and Nick toons
So, I take it when numbers become available, we’ll see a separate post for PBS numbers for that week?
Jim, assuming we see the numbers included in the weekly broadcast network results, which is a reasonable assumption, though I won’t be particularly surprised if we don’t either, I’m sure we’ll publish the top 10 PBS shows for the first week and for special situations (big new series). As for regular production, I wouldn’t count on it. Though it could be PBS itself winds up regularly publishing such numbers.
A lot of the shows on local PBS stations that do well, based on my observation of pledges (amount and timing of pledges, based on observation of Wisconsin Public Television and Twin Cities pledge drives, since I don’t get to see local Nielsens
) are syndicated programs purchased from sources such as the BBC, which would not appear on the national ratings at all…
…and WPT airs BBC comedies in prime time Saturdays (7:00 Saturdays) – I tried rubbing my lamp for these ratings, but all I got was a green hand
Theoacme says:
“…and WPT airs BBC comedies in prime time Saturdays (7:00 Saturdays) – I tried rubbing my lamp for these ratings, but all I got was a green hand
”
WYIN in Gary airs reruns of the Lawrence Welk Show at 7 p.m. CST Saturday. It’s brilliant.
PBS will set a record for oldest demographic in TV history. Its average viewer is probably 70 years old. Does anybody know somebody under the age of 45 who has actually watched PBS?
I tried to watch a PBS concert special during one of their Beg-A-Thons and the begging breaks were so long and annoying I quit watching. You have to DVR anything that might be of interest on PBS to avoid the Beg-A-Thon breaks.
I can see it now…
“The History of Snow Plowing in North Dakota”
sponsored by tvbythenumbers
and the Bill and Robert “hat passing” fund.
I know several people under the age of 50 that watch including myself. Funny enough, one of those people who is 26 just became a Nielsen household and he is a fervent viewer of PBS. I only watch on occasions.
Finally, we’ll know how many people in this country are at least somewhat educated.
I love PBS.