TV execs are twitching as they note a growing trend among subscribers to drop television but keep high-speed Internet access for watching TV programming. Although the current number of cord cutting households is low, it does appear to be a growing trend. About one in ten (11%) U.S. households do not subscribe to cable, digital or satellite TV, but do have high-speed Internet, according to GfK MRI’s Fall 2011 Survey of the American Consumer.

Nearly one-half (44%) of consumers living in Cord Cutter households also live in cell-only households. That percent has increased from 8% in the Fall 2010 Survey. Even though the vast majority of households (80%) still buy cable, digital or satellite TV, the increase in cord cutting households indicates that this is a phenomenon programmers and cable MSOs are wise to watch closely, since it may impact revenue from monthly cable subscriptions.

TV and Internet use

It seems safe to say that most, if not all, consumers living in households without TV but with high-speed Internet watch television online. Consumers who live in cord cutting households are heavy online users, indexing 163 for being in the highest Internet quintile. They also are more likely than typical adults to use the Internet for viewing movies and TV programs:

• Watched a movie online — Index 271
• Downloaded a TV program — Index 256
• Downloaded a movie — Index 250
• Watched a TV program online — Index 242

More telling, they index 297 for visiting the online video service Hulu.com in the last 30 days.

Although frugality is surely part of the impetus to become a Cord Cutter (who likes to pay for content when they can get it for free?), it may not be the whole story. Cord Cutters might also be motivated by portability and the “wow factor” of new technology. For instance, they have an index of 192 for having watched a movie, TV program or other video on their mobile phones in the last 30 days.

Who cuts the cord?

Cord Cutters are more likely than adults, as a whole, to be young, Asian, well educated, live in households with above average incomes and reside in the Pacific marketing region.

Freelance writer Joanne Zornow has been editing Gfk MRI’s client newsletter, The Source, since 1992. This story originally appeared in the Dec 2011 issue.

It will come as no surprise to regular readers of Mediapost that Joe Mandese is no fan of Nielsen. Mandese, the Editor-in-Chief at MediaPost, has frequently skewered the ratings company for things they have done and much of the time, Nielsen critics applaud his efforts. But researchers say Mandese crossed a line with last week’s story, “Nielsen Discloses Major TV Ratings Glitch, Could Impact Millions In TV Ad Buys” because there was no major glitch — with the possible exception of how MediaPost reported the story.

Researchers were scratching their collective heads about this story which implied that Nielsen’s new online campaign ratings initiative was connected to a relatively obscure Average Frequency calculation error in Reach And Frequency custom analyses when used with ten month old data. “A week after unveiling an aggressive plan to convince the ad industry to use its new Facebook panel as the ‘GRP’ for online advertising and media buys, Nielsen Wednesday began informing clients about a major snafu with the one that generates GRPs for the multi-billion television advertising marketplace,” Mandese wrote in MediaPost on Thursday, September 22.

But users of Nielsen data weren’t buying the connection. “Most advertisers get their post-campaign analyzes from MSA, which is a straight C3 data stream based on impressions,” said multi-platform media research consultant Rande Price.”This has nothing to do with Facebook/OCR,” added another Nielsen client.

Each of the dozen Ad Supported cable researchers polled for this story faulted MediaPost’s reporting on the issue. Most noted that this was not the first time MediaPost had played fast-and-loose with the facts while on a Nielsen-bashing crusade. “Why does Joe hate Nielsen so much?,” asked a 25 year veteran user of these data. “Joe has admitted that he’s a journalist, not a researcher…and is more concerned about the headline than the facts in the story,” commented another researcher.

“Having spent the better part of the morning running this down, it is clear that today’s coverage has blown this well out of proportion, starting with a sensational headline…that is truly irresponsible,” wrote Larry Goldstein, Chief Media & Research Officer at Media Management, Inc. in a comment on MediaPost’s website.

“MediaPost has been taking lessons from the cable news networks and Nielsen is their whipping boy,” said one basic cable researcher. “Sometimes the criticism is deserved, but this incident was minor and the MediaPost story blew it out of proportion.” Research executives worry that the fallout from bad reporting wastes time and focus, with the internal scrambling around to answer questions from panicked network executives wasting resources that should be used to address more serious issues with the ratings monopoly.  “E-mails start flying around.   Everyone wants an explanation and potential impact in the marketplace,” says a broadcast and cable researcher. “Then programming chimes in that all Nielsen data is bad – how can you trust anything they say?” Researchers say ratings-related misinformation undermines everyone’s credibility — including MediaPost’s. Expressing the sentiment heard from many of these researchers, one basic cable source said, “Nielsen is far from perfect, but the state of measurement is better now than ever before.”

The Thursday story was picked up by TVWeek’s TVBizWire and was reprinted verbatim, attributed to MediaPost.

On Friday, MediaPost printed a retraction — sort of. In a follow-up article headlined “Nielsen Plummets, Rentrak Soars On News Of Ratings Glitch, Cuban Investment,” Mandese noted that “Nielsen’s stock price plummeted” and speculated that the previous day’s story may have contributed to Nielsen’s Wall Street woes. “News that Nielsen had disclosed a major TV ratings glitch contributed to a sell-off driving its share value down 9%,” Mandese wrote in an an article which also reported that billionaire Mark Cuban had increased his stake in Nielsen’s local measurement rival, Rentrak. After quoting Deutsche Bank analyst Matt Chesler (“the glitch disclosed by Nielsen would actually have ‘minimal impact’”) Mandese admitted that the previous day’s story was in error. In the seventh paragraph of the article, Mandese wrote that the September 22 story “…incorrectly implied that that the glitch may have impacted Nielsen’s C3 ratings, which are the currency of national TV advertising buys, and the basis of most audience guarantees between networks and advertisers.”

MediaPost put the blame on Nielsen saying that no spokesperson was available on Wednesday or Thursday to comment on the snafu. But it begs the question: what was the rush? As a journalist, is it more important to be right — or to be first?

“Mediapost and other well-meaning industry journalists often misinterpret research data and put out misleading headlines,” says research consultant and agency veteran Steve Sternberg. “Nielsen’s notice on the subject was not as clear as it could have been, and someone not intimately involved in accessing Nieslen’s data could easily have come to the same conclusion.” Because it had no impact on the daily ratings currency which agencies extract from Nielsen “MIT” data, it would not have impacted the “millions in ad buys” which the headline claimed. “It had no impact on audience guarantees,” says Sternberg. “But it is still a major glitch that impacts research analysis often used in making buying decisions,” he said.

One of Mandese’s peers at a rival publication agreed with researchers’ criticisms. “I don’t think Joe really understands some of the research issues,” says one career media journalist. “He never picks up the phone to confirm details.” They added that the MediaPost style has been ‘ready, fire aim’ with an emphasis on attention-getting headlines with less effort invested in fact checking. But this journalist also faulted Nielsen for how they handled the issue, too. “They get into trouble like this all of the time, not anticipating what will happen when a client notice isn’t perfectly clear in its meaning.”

The day following the MediaPost story, Nielsen issued a statement in response on 9/22 to the MediaPost article earlier that day. “Nielsen has informed clients that as a result of changes made earlier in the year for the measurement of multiple viewing of programs in TV homes,  the reporting of Program Viewing Frequency in the NPOWER tool is overstated, affecting the NPOWER-reported Program GRP,” said Matt Anchin, Nielsen’s SVP for Global Communications. “There is no impact to C3 Commercial Data, Ratings and Projections, electronic data files used by other processors or to Reach or any other NPOWER-reported data.”

One of the quirky things about journalists — in all media — is the urge to beat the competition. It’s an odd holdover from the days when newsboys would scream “Extra Extra! Read All About It!” on the streets to generate sales and readership. Even in the 24/7-news-cycle-Internet age, this feeling persists, even though it’s very doubtful that many readers choose publications solely because they “broke” a story first. The average reader would much rather read a story that is right than first. In the rush to break a story, journalists give too little attention to the collateral damage that might be caused by getting things wrong; or in news terms, what it takes to fix what has been “broke.” Perhaps MediaPost — and many other news outlets — should heed the advice of Paul Simon: “Slow down, you move to fast. You’ve got to make this [story] last.”

One of my favorite series this summer is Current TV’s “50 Documentaries to See Before You Die.” Hosted by Morgan Spurlock (Director/writer/star of “Supersize Me”), the series counts down the top documentaries of the last 25 years. Documentarians like Michael Moore and Penelope Spheeris, as well as an expert panel of film industry pros and critics, discuss the impact of the films and tell the stories of how they were made. At this writing they haven’t revealed the top ten yet. I suggest you all watch the series and the final ten next week. There’s a lot we can learn to apply to our own content.

First of all: Passion. All of the documentarians exuded passion for their subjects. No matter whether the subject was Heavy Metal, the rise of extreme skateboarding, or the truth about the Vietnam War, every filmaker believed passionately that their story was one that had to be told.

Second: Go where the story takes you. Errol Morris never thought he’d get a 20 hour interview with Robert MacNamara, which became the center of “The Fog of War.” Andrew Jarecki started to make a film about children’s entertainers in New York and ended up making “Capturing the Friedmans.” Go where the story takes you, and don’t be afraid to tell the truth.

Third: Make it happen. Every project had its own troubles, ranging from a lack of funds, lack of historical footage, inexperience of the filmakers. They didn’t let the roadblocks stop them. The documentarians figured out a way to incorporate the roadblocks in the story or they worked around them. The passion they had for their subjects wouldn’t allow them to give up.

So find a story that fires your passion. Go where that story takes you. Make it happen. In the words of M.B. Ray:

“Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand — and melting like a snow flake.”

Peter M. Gordon is a writer, public speaker, and media consultant in Orlando, FL. This article was originally posted at MyProgramIdea.blogspot.com.

“Here’s the top story we’re following at this hour: For the first time, there’s definitive proof that Fox News, the U.S. cable network that claims to be ‘fair and balanced,’ is neither fair nor balanced. Next up this hour: Experts say temperatures will drop when winter comes. And finally: Eating regularly is key to good health. Stay tuned for more details.”

OK, maybe these aren’t great revelations. But Fox News’ coverage of Comedy Central’s “Restore Sanity/Keep Fear Alive” rally on October 30 is worthy of a second look. The story posted on their Website stands in stark contrast to the pieces published by other media outlets, both liberal and conservative.

Disputing Fox News’ “fair and balanced” slogan is a “man bites dog” kinda story. However, it’s instructive to both lovers and haters of the leading cable news operation because the 1996 launch of Fox News in 1996 is one of the most significant events in cable new history, second only to Ted Turner’s 1980 creation of CNN. So an analysis of how a leading — albeit controversial — news network frames a story can tell us a lot about their journalism. And the people who watch the network.

Here are a few “leads” written by the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, the Washington Times, the Associated Press, Fox News and the Christian Science Monitor. See if you can tell which one fits the Fox News narrative.

Source #1: “Two of America’s best-known television comedians drew tens of thousands of people to a rally on Saturday that was part variety show, part Halloween celebration and part political rally to call for common sense before Tuesday’s congressional elections. Satirists Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, hosts of late-night cable TV shows, poked fun at politicians and media for stoking partisan fervor.”

Story #2: “They came from far and near, some wielding signs and hoping to attract a little attention, others just to watch the show. But what seemed to unite the tens of thousands who converged on the National Mall on a sunny Saturday in Washington for Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear was a genuine desire to push back against the strong rightward tilt of the 2010 midterm campaign.”

Story #3: “In an election season characterized by loud divisions between the left and the right, Saturday’s crowded Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear marked an ironic uprising by those who want to turn down the volume. Three days before midterm elections, tens of thousands of people packed the National Mall to listen to Comedy Central satirists Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, looking for a laugh and a chance to display their disenchantment with what they say is the bitter tone of the nation’s political discourse.”

Story #4: Just three days before pivotal midterm elections, comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert threw a “sanity” rally in the shadow of the Capitol that organizers insisted wasn’t about politics. But there were political undertones to Saturday’s event as the two Comedy Central hosts entertained a huge throng stretched alongside the National Mall by poking fun at the nation’s diversity and its ill-tempered politics. Stewart is popular especially with Democrats and independents, a Pew Research Center poll found. Colbert of “The Colbert Report” poses as an ultraconservative, and the stage Saturday was stacked with entertainers associated with Democratic causes or Obama’s 2008 campaign.

Story #5: In the shadow of the Capitol and the election, comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert entertained a huge throng Saturday at a “sanity” rally poking fun at the nation’s ill-tempered politics, fear-mongers and doomsayers. “We live now in hard times,” Stewart said after all the shtick. “Not end times.”

OK, pens down. Which one did you pick? Maybe it was easy — or maybe it wasn’t.

The pro-business, right leaning WSJ, owned by the same News Corp company that owns the Fox News Channel, wrote “In an election season characterized by loud divisions between the left and the right…”

The Christian Science Monitor published “They came from far and near, some wielding signs and hoping to attract a little attention, others just to watch the show.”

If you chose “Just three days before pivotal midterm elections, comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert threw a “sanity” rally in the shadow of the Capitol that organizers insisted wasn’t about politics. But there were political undertones to Saturday’s event as the two Comedy Central hosts…” you found the Fox in the cable news hen house.

Strangely, the Washington Times, a conservative counterweight to the Washington Post, used the the AP story without sending a reporter to the rally (“In the shadow of the Capitol and the election, comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert entertained a huge throng…”)  Which makes you wonder: if their reporter couldn’t afford the $5 Metrocard to get to the Washington mall, things must be REALLY tough in the newspaper business…

Finally, Reuters wrote “Two of America’s best-known television comedians drew tens of thousands of people to a rally on Saturday that was part variety show…”

(One honorable mention that didn’t make this list: “whilst” surveying foreign news reports for their take on the event, I ran across the The Guardian blog of Richard Adams. His Jon Stewart rally ‘as it happens‘ entry provided an amusing play by play of the event as it unfolded from the vantage point of an outsider looking in. It was very funny with lots of wry Brit observations about American culture.)

What makes the Fox story unfair and unbalanced? Journalists are trained to report what is “new” when reporting the news. Glen Beck’s August rally was news because a conservative political pundit gathered thousands of his followers on the Washington Mall in the same location on the same day as Martin Luther King made his “I Have A Dream” speech. If you were there and didn’t that wasn’t your story, you must have had an another agenda. That *was* the story. The day was about GB and his ability to muster his masses to the Washington Mall. It was an unprecedented event because it had never been done before by a cable TV celebrity — until Saturday.

Using the same logic, Saturday’s story was about how between 60,000 and 250,000 people gathered on the mall (Stewart put the number at “millions” as a pre-emptive strike for those who would try to compare his rally to Beck’s) to see two TV celebrities in the company of Discovery’s The Mythbusters, The Roots, The OJays, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Sam Waterson, Tony Bennett, Jeff Tweedy, Kid Rock, Sheryl Crow, Ozzy Osborne and the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens. Among many others.

If there was a political message, it was relatively weak. Telling everyone to think for themselves and stop believing everything you read on Websites, see on cable news and hear on talk radio isn’t exactly a revolutionary manifesto. It may have been a little hard to write that sentence if you worked on the copy desk at Fox, CNN or MSNBC — the three networks that dominated the mocking clips shown by Jon Stewart — but you’d have to be an idiot to have missed that point. Or, perhaps had an agenda that reinterprets the concept of fair and balanced journalism.

In the second sentence of the Fox News story, the network reported that “there were political overtones…poking fun at the nation’s diversity and ill-tempered politics.” Actually, Stewart and Colbert weren’t poking fun at the nation’s diversity, but at the tendency of the news media to characterize events by who shows up. Fox seemed to deliberately miss the point that the Comedy Central kids were poking fun at news pundits who tune the facts to fit a particular news narrative targeted to their core audience. Writing “news” which rings of truthiness but doesn’t try to capture what happened isn’t news – that’s entertainment.

Google time line for the phrase "fair and balanced." It wasn't much of an issue until FOX News was launched and George W Bush became president.

Which is OK. The “fair and balanced” phenomenon in journalism is fairly new. Biased reporting in newspapers has a much richer history that predates the concept of fair and balanced journalism.

Fox News is to the 65+ audience what MTV is to 18-34’s: a consistent stream of content which tells people in a demo niche what they want to hear. Both networks have relatively small audiences which exert an oversized influence on the American culture. Both Fox News and MTV are extremely good at what they do: aggregating a high concentration of similar people to resell to advertisers. MTV gets heat because they don’t play music videos anymore; Fox gets heat before their definition of news isn’t what many regard to be fair and balanced. It’s a marketing disconnect which occurs when a cultural icon behaves differently than “we” think they should.

Fox News may not be “news” in the tradition of Walter Cronkite and Ed Murrow. But I bet that William Randolph Hearst would be impressed.

Stewart and Colbert are right when they suggest you shouldn’t believe everything you see on TV. As long as that healthy skepticism includes Comedy Central, we should all be ok.

Dave Zornow has worked as a media research consultant and applications developer at TNG Research for 20 years. He publishes MediaNewsAndViews and the hyperlocal Website NyackNewsAndViews.

See also:

• Fox News Freaks Out Over Stewart/Colbert Rally, PoliticusUSA
• Can Fox News be ‘fair and balanced’ if News Corp. gives to Republicans?, CSMonitor.com
• Rally For Sanity: They Also Want Their Country Back, Mediate.com

The partners at Sterling Cooper Draper & Pryce would be happy to know that Mad Men’s audience likes advertising just as much as they do. Their viewers also have a lot in common with Don Draper, Joan Harris and the other “Mad Men.” True to the Emmy-award show’s characters, their audience is considerably more likely than the Ordinary Joe to dress for success, enjoy a shot of whiskey and set out to impress others.

GfK MRI says Mad Men viewers — beyond standard demographics — distinguish them from the typical U.S. adult. For example, they are at least 25% more likely than the average adult to plan on buying a new car in the next year, to be interested in magazine ads and to give others advice on purchase decisions.

Sterling Cooper Draper and Pryce could learn a thing or two from syndicated research:

Peter would know that when prospecting for new accounts, he should pitch auto companies, TV manufacturers and home improvement businesses. Why? Because within the next year, Mad Men viewers are 62% more likely than the average adult to plan on buying a new vehicle, 31% more likely to get a new 27” – 42” screen TV and 37% more likely to remodel their kitchen.

Peggy and Don would use psychographics to develop creative executions that relate to viewers’ desire to be fashion-savvy early adopters, along with their drive to impress others.

Of course if Harry Crane were buying media, well, he would be sure to buy Mad Men, but magazines would fare very well. In fact, Mad Men viewers are 41% more likely than the average adult to agree that advertising in magazines provides them with meaningful information about the product use of other consumers and are 29% more likely to say it provides useful information about bargains.

Joanne Zornow edits The Source newsletter for Gfk MRI.

Comcast announced in late June that they will launch a version of their VOD channel, Fearnet, as a linear, ad-supported cable network. Fearnet’s VOD service is available in 28 million homes, and the linear, ad supported channel will expand its reach. Presumably, the ads and license fees will bring in more money, since the VOD service is available free to digital subscribers. This is a significant development. When Comcast launched Fearnet on Halloween 2006 they hailed the VOD-only channel as a new paradigm in cable service. The days of the linear network were numbered, since consumers wanted to consume their video on demand. Fearnet would be the first in a series of new VOD networks.

A funny thing happened on the way to this future. Linear cable networks continued to launch — news channels, local sports channels, foreign language channels, HD versions of current channels. There are groups looking for funding for several more. Instead of fading away, networks with limited distribution continued to expand. Satellite services like Direct TV and DISH made more networks available to homes and cable systems competed by adding more channels and creating their own proprietary channels. The VOD interfaces that cable networks put in homes turned out to require several clicks to find specific shows. Most consumers didn’t want to work that hard. It was so much easier just to see what was currently on your favorite channels than hunt for specific VOD programs.

Comcast further demonstrated the importance of networks and content last year when they bought NBC for its popular cable channels like USA, and the most old-fashioned dinosaur of them all– a broadcast network. Although an increasing number of people time shift their viewing of shows, they still rely upon networks to schedule programs at specific times so they can record them.

What does this mean for your program idea? It means that cable networks in the U.S. and around the world will be a viable market for the foreseeable future. Selling a program to a cable channel remains a good way to make money and increase your program’s visibility. That doesn’t mean you have to wait for a network to buy your show before you create some video for your web site. It does mean that you should consider a network sale as a viable part of your business plan. And if you’re dreaming of creating a new linear network don’t give up hope. It looks like they will be around for awhile.

Peter M. Gordon is a writer, public speaker, and media consultant in Orlando, FL.

As the Tour de France prepares to climb the Pyrenees, ratings are up while 2010 TDF numbers are down.

Crashes and injuries have forced 20 cyclists to drop out leaving only 178 riders in the race.  But riders’ pain seems to be Versus’ gain. Live morning race coverage on the channel has averaged 501,000 viewers and a .5 household rating through Stage 9 on July 13 — the best start for race coverage in the network’s 10-year history with the Tour.

The cable network also says unique users on its Tour de France Web site in the U.S. have increased 15% overall, while pages per user are up 22%. Unique users’ average time on the site is currently running 13% higher than a year ago.

Versus, like all media companies in big events, is touting its three-screen approach to this competition. In addition to cable and internet coverage, Versus is offering an iPhone app for its mobile component. The Tour app will offer video highlights, standings and route maps.

The three-screen approach just reached a new goal for media conglomerates to strive for with ESPN’s coverage of soccer’s World Cup. ESPN estimated that 132 million persons aged 2+ had consumed World Cup content in the U.S. across all of ESPN’s platforms. ESPN is promoting the notion of 3 with the new website, ESPN3.com. This website is all about watching live streaming sports online.

Sources: Versus, TV By The Numbers 7/7/2010
See also:

• re:Cycling TV 7/12/2010
• MediaPost 7/12/2010
• Rating The Race & The Riders 7/2/2010

Photo: Quickstep’s Sylvain CHAVANEL, Stage 7 on 7/10/2010. Credit:  ©PresseSports/B.Papon

New York, July 7 — Nielsen has announced organizational changes which will give set top box data greater visibility in the ratings company. In addition to announcing STB analyses from Charter systems in St. Louis, Greenville/Spartanburg, and Reno, Nielsen told clients about organizational changes designed to integrate STB data “formally within our existing audience measurement product leadership teams.”

The letter to Nielsen’s clients also announced that Matt O’Grady will be responsible for testing and incorporating STB data into Nielsen’s national and multi-platform products. Cheryl Idell will have integration responsibilities for local products.

Kantar (formerly TNS Media Research), Rentrak and TiVo have existing products and client bases already using these data. Rentrack’s Station Essentials product, using AT&T and Dish Network data, has been adding clients to its sec-by-sec no-demographics alternative to traditional NSI local market data. It’s not clear from the announcement if Nielsen is upping the ante or if they are just publicizing previous efforts.

The July 7 announcement was nuanced so as not to discredit the current local and national TV measurement services which serve all DMAs with a combination of people meters, household meters and paper diaries. “While STB data is incomplete on its own, we believe combining the stability and granularity afforded by this data with the representative quality of our panels will provide enhanced capabilities, analytics and insight,” says Nielsen’s Dave Thomas and Steve Hasker.

The new Nielsen tests will compare the ratings currency to STB data “to determine if the STB data can help supply greater fidelity to our ratings projections and enable more granular reporting, including to additional stations and regional networks.”

Arbitron is going high tech with their portable people meter rolling out a replacement for the 80’s-like pager-looking device with hardware that uses cell phone technology.

The new wireless PPM 360 technology will use a cellular network to collect data from Arbitron’s Portable People Meter (PPM) panel. PPM ratings using the existing cradle technology will be available in 50 markets for the Summer 2010 book.

“We have multiple solutions for data capture and retrieval,” says Arbitron spokesperson Jessica Benbow. “While this version is on a cell phone delivery system, the existing PPM technology retrieves data from the meter through a docking station and sends it to Arbitron through a landline or a cell modem depending on status of the household and the availability of cell coverage. That system will remain intact simultaneously as this system is deployed.”

Arbitron’s president says the enhanced PPM will liberate audience measurement from the home and make it easier to follow the mobile consumers. “This platform is designed to be an integrated component to our existing radio services and drive future innovation for media measurement,” says William Kerr, Arbitron President and CEO.

Arbitron has decided to keep the name of the cell phone carrier secret. Rollout plans for PPM 360 will be announced after field testing of the new system concludes at the end of 2010.

High Definition TV has been good to TV manufacturers, program producers and consumers. HD helps sell more high-end TVs to consumers who like the Big Picture and richer viewing experience. Now new research suggests there might be good HD news for media buyers and sellers, too.

A comprehensive study of commercial viewing to a dozen of the largest network TV advertisers suggests that commercial tuneaway is lower in HD households. Higher audience retention means bigger commercial ratings which might translate into future cha-ching for broadcast and cable ad sales executives.

A new Kantar Media study reports that viewers tune away from commercials about half as often on HD channels compared to the standard definition (SD) feed for the same network. Ad supported HD channels have an average tuneaway of 3.73 percent of commercial seconds compared to 6.8 for SD viewing.

The analysis is based on nearly 124,000 thirty second spots for advertisers in the automotive, communications, retail, QSR, insurance and prepared foods categories. October 2009 data from 100,000 set top boxes in Kantar’s DIRECTView sample were used for the analysis. The complete results will be presented at the Advertising Research Foundation AMS 5.0 conference in NYC on June 22-23.

Broadcast also benefits from HD. High Def broadcast channels have 31 percent less tuneaway compared to the same commercials on SD channels  (2.2 vs. 3.2).

“This may be another measure of engagement,” says Leslie Wood, president of Media Trust and a study co-author. “If a person is watching on the HD channel, they care more about their TV experience.”

The finding could also be a win for set top box providers.  “Return path data can provide important insights into consumers’ digital viewing behavior,” says George Shababb, president of Kantar Media Audiences. “The ability to isolate the tuneaway effect of HD versus SD is unique to these data,” he says.
Wood notes that it isn’t clear if HD makes people spend more time with commercials or if the household characteristics of HD homes  — such as income, family size, etc. — differentiate SD and HD commercial viewing. Either way, it’s good news. “Greater audience retention and its implied higher commercial rating are a powerful rationale for networks considering adding a HD feed,” she says.

Breakthrough research is nice – but actionable findings are what matters most to media buyers. “These data suggest that HD channels reach a more engaged viewer which can have repercussions for our advertisers,” says Kevin Moeller, partner and Insights Director at MediaCom. “If HD programming results in a more engaged viewer it will encourage media communications planning and buying teams to rethink media plans.”

Although these preliminary data suggest an additional payoff to networks’ HD investment, one sales veteran is cautious about cashing in.

“I am not wild about centering a sales effort on the potential of this incremental gain,” says Harvey Ganot, a partner at New Markets Now and former President of Advertising Sales at MTV Networks. Ganot says charging more for HD is a double-edged sword: if HD is worth more, does that mean standard definition is worth less? “Advertisers are getting the HD advantage for free now. Why would they want to pay more?” Logistical issues would also make an HD-only sales effort difficult. “Segmentation and micro-placement of schedules in an HD environment are time consuming and labor intensive tasks,” Ganot adds.

Higher HD commercial ratings may not justify bigger ad sales rates down the road. But if it helps justify networks’ continued investment in high def distribution and technology, it’s bound to help broadcast and cable CFOs sleep better at night.

Dave Zornow is president of TNG Research, a media research and applications development company in Nyack, NY. He is also co-author of the study, “Using Return Path Data to Understand Contextual Advertising Engagement on TV,” which will be presented at the ARF AMS Conference in New York on June 22.