Because NFL drives such huge ratings, you could potentially promote/launch many shows off the back of it. This only makes sense if the audience you're promoting to (NFL fans) aligns with the shows you're promoting (male-oriented series). So NFL promo is probably most valuable for FOX network.

Another promotional benefit is promoting back to a sister network's sports channel - so for FOX, FOX Sports, for NBC, Versus. And for future negotiations with the Leagues, having a presence as a FOX for one day getting the NFL on FOX Sports or Versus (or whatever NBC is calling it these days).

And definitely airing the NFL might not be the right decision for the broadcast Network. Again, very expensive.

The share was really an interesting metric for the 2.5 Men premiere. I think it said roughly 1 out of every 4 or 5 TVs on, at that moment, were tuned to that.

That's pretty impressive (for 2.5 Men) - roughly speaking, in a given TV market for share: ~30% of the audience is watching broadcast (any broadcast network, also includes PBS affiliates and Univision/Telemundo) and the rest are watching cable networks or playing video games/watching movies, throughout the TV day. For prime the number tilts more towards broadcast, but just to give you a sense.

For a *single* broadcast network to get 20% share alone is astounding.

Yeah, I normally don't pay much attention to that number, but it was specifically amazing for that premiere, and I think even the premiere of 2 Broke Girls still had around 1 out of every 6 TVs on at the time.

Lol at putting Glee after the superbowl, what a waste.

AR - hm, I think the Superbowl is a unique case, because the audience is so broad and huge at that point. (And I think that did in fact help Glee's premiere, can't see how it didn't, but a more male-oriented series is probably helped more than Glee was.)

I was speaking more to regular season NFL games.

Al, I just went back and did a review of the ratings of the 2.5 Men premiere. It had a 10.7/25, with 28.74 million viewers.

So it had a 10.7 A18-49 rating (or 10.7% of 130 million total viewers), with a 25% market share of A18-49 viewers (you can back into A18-49 viewers using a TV at this point).

And total 28.74 million viewers regardless of demo?

(That is how I read what you posted.)

Whoops - ignore above - I see that you have posted "TV Household" ratings, not A18-49.

There are ~290 million total TV viewers (aged 2+ in Nielsen categories). So with a 10.7 HH rating, 10.7% of ~290 million total TV viewers = the 28.74 million total viewers you cited.

And from a share POV - 25% of all people watching a TV at that point were in fact watching 2.5 Men. Lol, insane.

I took that from TV by the Numbers, but I'm assuming that's the A18-49 rating. On their site, I believe they listed that the share means all TVs on at that moment, unless I misinterpreted. 28.74 million viewers is regardless of demo (overall).

nunn - hm, ok so my first interpretation is correct. Not too strange though that the percentages come out pretty close either way you interpret the numbers. When a show gets that huge ratings, the differences between a demo and overall household numbers isn't too different from a rating perspective.

And just for informational purposes - when you see X.X/X in a ratings/share reported - both those numbers address the same demo, which makes sense. Usually that is followed by a "total viewers" stat, which is anyone aged 2+ tuning in.

The only problem for the series is that it has lost nearly half of its viewers from the premiere. That's a good problem to have, though, considering what those numbers are.

Definitely - a good problem to have for CBS - actually I think one of the biggest sitcom surprises (from a ratings perspective), outside of New Girl of course, is how strong HIMYM is doing. I believe it's at all time highest series rating. *Very* unusual for a series that's a bit long in the tooth to get its best ratings ever.

Oh, so it's saying that 25 percent of the 18-49 TVs were tuned into the show? Is that what means?

Believe so - meaning you'd show a rating/share that addresses the same demo.

So if it's A18-49 10.7/25, it's 10.7% of total A18-49 viewers, with a 25% share of the A18-49 demo. It's odd to mix up those stats with different demos when they're reported like that.

You sometiems see "Household" (2+ viewers) reported in the same way - but I think most outlets report A18-49 because everyone knows that's how TV networks monetize.

And usually (IIRC, don't look at ratings too much anymore) you'll see A18-49 X.X/X with X milllions of total viewers (so gives the money stats, and then ends with emphasis on total viewership as a point of reference).

Yeah: http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/201...ted-up/107978/

On this random chart I pulled from Tv by the numbers, that's how they're reporting it (notice ratings/share is tied to A18-49 demo, with a separate column for "total viewers")

And if you're bored for a time period exercise - on that chart I linked above - if you add up the A18-49 share at 8pm for the shows listed, it is 37. That means 63% of A18-49 viewers using a TV were not watching FOX/CBS/ABC/NBC/CW, and either watching another broadcast network like Univision/PBS, watching Cable, or playing a video game/watching a DVD wahtever.

Cool, that's a pretty sizable misinterpretation...lol. I always figured that number meant overall, but it's good to know it is a percentage of whatever the left side of the slash is.

nunn - for the most part, the share numbers for overall households doesn't differ dramatically for the share numbers for A18-49 only (which I sort of illustrated with the 2.5 Men numbers exercise above).

Are you meaning that 28.74 million viewers, or whatever it was, is close enough to the 25 percent (18-49 share) of the 130 million households, for those numbers to apparently not be terribly dissimilar? Or am I still confused?

Yes. Meaning the A18-49 share of 25% is probably pretty close to whatever share 2.5 Men got of total viewers.

28.74 total viewers is the only "total viewer" stat we have. We know there are ~290 million viewers in the universe. So this would give us a rating of ~10.0 (or 28.74/290). Which isn't too far off the 10.7 A18-49 rating.

This suggests the total viewer share is probably pretty close to the A18-49 share of 25%.

(You can of course, if given a rating and share of the same demo - always back into the share number, or total TVs in use for the demo - so in the 2.5 Men example, if there were 10.7 A18-49 rating, there were 10.7% of 130million, or 13.9 million A18-49 viewers. If that represents 25% of the total demo share, then it's an easy calc of 13.9/.25 = 55.6 million A18-49 people watching TV in some manner)

Cool, thanks.

Oh and it's not 130 million households - it's 130 million people aged 18-49 - when you see the word "viewer" it's not referring to households, but an actual estimated eyeball/person.

(As a reference point - there are ~115 milllion TV households in the U.S. per Nielsen estimates).

I may have confused the issue myself by sort of using "household" and "total viewers" interchangeably. But a household rating (where a majority of the household is watching the same thing for the most part) is a decent proxy for a total viewer rating (all people aged 2+). The delta is of course in households where multiple people are watchign different things.

Yeah, even though my wife and I are only two people, we essentially have 3 sets on Monday nights, at 8:30pm, due to DVR conflicts. I'm sure many other people have similar scenarios, and I don't watch as much TV as a lot of people.

If anyone actually cares at all about how Nielsen rates stuff (like their total sample size, what tech they use, the difference between a "local people meter" and "metered market"), they explain their methodology on their website.

I think ratings are confusing to understand because the mainstream press when they report on it 1) don't do it in an easy to understand manner, citing different demo stats in the same breadth and 2) probably don't quite get how ratings work themselves.

As you can see it's very straightforward math based on a known TV universe size, and the ratings/share numbers will only relate to specific universe sizes (whether it's A18-49, total viewers, W18-49 etc).

I know you said you don't really look at ratings anymore, but is there a site you can recommend to everyone (outside of TV by the Numbers) that gives really good ratings breakdowns, in an understandable manner?

Sorry for hijacking the question, but why would you need more than TVBTN?

fwiw I don't go anywhere else for ratings info. Most other places are lolbad. The hollywood reporter for example don't have a clue what they are doing in this regard, reporting shows as 'doing well' because they have a high no. of total viewers but ****ty A18-49 ratings and such.

There are probably other good sites out there, but TVBTN has always met my needs.

nunn - I think TV by Numbers does a very good job IIRC.

They're the only site I've ever seen bother to provide an understanding of the difference between Live + Same Day, Live + Seven day, and Commercial + 3 viewing (these are referred to as the ratings data stream btw).

Anyway I think what I touched on ITT is basically all you need to know when you understand ratings. A lot of other interesting ratings metrics that Network sales people use (like C3, A18-34, A50+, Upscale, College Educated, gender breakouts, etc etc) are not available publicly.

So what you have to go by without a subscription to Nielsen data is really the A18-49 Live Plus Same day ratings (the most widely reported metric), which, in determining the health of a series, is a fine number to use, imo.

(The only additional, interesting piece is the Live +3 or Live +7 day viewing, and I believe TV by the numbers provides Live +7. And reason there is a delay on those numbers is because after the show airs, they have to wait a week, and then crunch the numbers on DVR viewing before reporting to anyone - usually takes ~1 month after the show original aired.)