HBO no longer releasing overnight ratings
Starting January 1st, HBO will no longer release overnight ratings for any of their programs. This change for 2015 will cover all programs, including Game of Thrones this spring. The premium channel will instead only provide media outlets with what are known as “Live + same day ratings” (which are issued by Nielsen), as well as VOD and HBO Go viewership numbers.
This move follows FX, which did the same a few months back, and adds to a growing trend of attempting to de-emphasize the instant snapshot ratings from the “live” airing of a show. Game of Thrones is a perfect example of the swing away from this trend, with typical overnight numbers usually showing a viewership of 6 million or so (8 million for the higher watched episodes.) But once Video on Demand viewership, DVR numbers and a week’s worth of reruns got added in, the average viewership numbers per episode often, tripled to close to 20 million.
According to the press release:
“HBO subscribers have available to them an array of entry points to watch our programming – HBO linear feeds, DVR, HBO On Demand and HBO GO –and a single airing is no longer representative of an HBO show’s true audience size,” read the HBO statement. “Today, it is common for final gross-audience figures to grow anywhere from five to ten times viewership after an initial airing. With this in mind, starting in 2015, HBO viewership figures will first be made available by us approximately two weeks after a program’s premiere, compiling [seven days of DVR playback ratings from] Nielsen and preliminary HBO On Demand and HBO GO data.”
With HBO aiming to launch a standalone streaming service next year in time for Thrones‘ debut, it further makes sense that the channel would be pushing away from an increasingly outdated model of counting their viewers. They won’t be able to totally shut down those overnight numbers though (They’re not Netflix.) Nielsen will still provide them, but because Nielsen doesn’t issue Sunday’s numbers until Tuesday, there will be a delay. And those “Live plus same day” ratings usually don’t come out for a week or two after a show’s premiere airing, giving an even longer delay, which HBO can use to jump in and provide a fuller, more accurate picture that includes all the ways their audience now consumes media.
Spoiler Alert!
Please take care to tag spoilers in your comments by wrapping them with <spoiler></spoiler>. Spoilers in comments are hidden by a gray overlay. To reveal, simply hover or tap on the text!