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The shows that nobody Timeshifts

More than half the shows on TV are never Timeshifted by viewers.

1097180_3Timeshifting is the darling of Drama.

While Reality TV, News and Sport sucks us in with Live viewing, increasingly we are watching our favourite Dramas in our own time, removed from the distraction of ads and late starts.

Consolidated, or Timeshifted, numbers register the shows we watch for up to 7 days after their initial broadcast by those in the OzTAM survey panel.

From May 11 – 17, Drama and Comedy titles made up 19 of the top 20 Timeshifted titles including The Blacklist, A Place to Call Home, Revenge, Resurrection, The Mentalist, The Good Wife, Offspring, Call the Midwife, NCIS and Death in Paradise.

The Voice was the only non-scripted show to make the top 20.

But what are the shows that nobody is Timeshifting? There are plenty of them.

Amongst 1622 titles, 883 of them -more than half- attracted a complete 0 in Consolidated numbers.

Another 169 attracted an increase of a negligible 1,000 viewers.

All networks had shows that failed to attract extra viewers, but with 168 hours of content across multiple channels, including repeats, that’s not necessarily surprising.

Here is a snapshot of some of the Primary channel shows* that nobody is Timeshifting:

ABC1
Rage
Insiders
Hebburn
The Drum
National Press Club Address
Poh’s Kitchen
United States of Tara
Football: VFL

SEVEN
Cougar Town
V8 Extra
The Chase
Sunrise
The Morning Show
Deal or No Deal
Saturday Disney
AFL Game Day
The Daily Edition

Coxy’s Big Break
Queensland Weekender
Seven News at 4
Weekend Sunrise

NINE
The Garden Gurus
Nine News 
Who Do You Think You Are?
Nine News: First at 5
Nine News Now
The Middle
Nine Afternoon News
Financial Review Sunday
Mornings
Today
Weekend Today

TEN
The Doctors
TEN Eyewitness News (Sat)
Studio 10
The Talk
Wake Up
Hillsong
The Bolt Report

SBS ONE
SBS World News
Speedweek
Subaru World of Cycling
First Australians
Hong Kong News
Hindi News
Spanish News
Arabic News
Turkish News
German News
My Sri Lanka with Peter Kuruvita rpt
San Remo Song Festival 2014

* OzTAM titles may rank premiere and repeats separately.

Source: OzTAM Top Timeshifted programs, Total People, May 11 – 17 2014.

Top Timeshifted rankings are regularly published here

24 Responses

  1. Thanks for the reply Sylvano, so at least some fast-forwarding comes into play as combined with:

    “Content matching means Unitam looks for the same programs, promotions and advertisements.”

    It seemed like the same ads had to be watched for Unitam to count it as watched on a delay from original broadcast, nice to have a clarification.

  2. Thanks for clarifying that, Sylvano. It’s what I understood to be the case but it’s good to have it confirmed by someone who knows what they’re talking about.

  3. @Cam Reed. OzTAM Consolidated ratings will include any broadcast minutes played back at normal speed within seven days of the original broadcast.

    So, if a panel home plays back 25 minutes of a 30-minute program at standard speed, those 25 minutes will be counted in OzTAM viewing figures.

    Thanks for raising this – we can see how the website info may have been unclear and so we have updated it.

    oztam.com.au/TimeShiftViewing.aspx.

    Cheers,
    Sylvano Lucchetti, Director of Technical Services, OzTAM

  4. As Cam Reed says – the fact that they exclude counting people who fast forward through the advertising as being timeshifted viewers is just laughable, flies ion the face of logic and statistical theory and renders that Oztam data totally meaningless……

    I timeshift just about everything I watch on FTA tv, including Cougar Town and The Middle.

  5. Are there any shows which lose viewers with timeshifting. It’s a quirk of ratings data which occurs here in the UK where the consolidated audience ends up less than the overnight audience once anomolies are stripped out – and with all the overruns on Aussie TV I’d have thought that might be quite common.

  6. I timeshift nothing because I don’t use anything to record digital TV. So I try to watch repeats or just miss out. Really I found DVDs more reliable than recording technology. So with limited time to watch either then DVDs won. The only bummer is I liked to watch recordings of TV show ads I was interested in sometimes to keep and mainly to make sure I got the right information if they were about to show up.

    I had nearly 20 years of VCR experience however before I got access to DVDs. I still mainly watched live. Recorded lots though especially if there was competition or I couldn’t watch because I was asleep or not home. I still watched the TV show ads especially the new ones because I wanted to see the footage or an explanation of why I should watch. There was no EPG. But I also used the TV Guide to program the VCR.

    The necessities are these days TV Guide, EPG, promos in ad…

  7. @Backflip – yup, my bad. Altho’ it’s a bit odd calling a comp “National” when it’s even less national than the NRL!

  8. @Secret Squirrel do you mean the SANFL? SAFL was only started last year and is the Futsal League. (I only just discovered that)

    Channel 7 were granted the rights before the current season. The rights go for 3 years.

  9. If these are timeshifted according to OzTam, then the shows the metered houses are doing that with are only counted if they don’t skip the ads.

    As per: oztam.com.au/timeshiftviewing.aspx

    “Only standard speed (normal) playback is included in OzTAM viewing figures; fast-forwarded material is not counted, nor is material that has been recorded but not actually viewed (played back).”

    So the figures could be low in some cases because those metered houses fast-forward through the ads.

  10. I always timeshift The Chase on Seven because I’m not always home at 3pm on a weekday afternoon to watch it live. I’m actually surprised so many daytime shows are on the non-timeshifted list for a similar reason.

  11. Yeah, I nearly always timeshift Rage as well, When there’s a Guest Programmer or band/artist Special I like the look of I record and watch later .

    Just not practical to sit up all night watching in real time.

  12. These are shows that people watch, because they want to watch TV and they are the most interesting of the 17 things on for them. This is declining as the internet and DVRs give viewers more choice.

    I’m surprised Rage doesn’t get recorded by anyone in the sample though. I record the odd special but I guess for most people it is easier an cheap enough to listen to what you wan’t of the internet.

    Then there are shows that don’t get timeshifted much because people believe they need to keep up with them live to participate in discussions or avoid spoilers.

    Then there is stuff that people want to watch no matter what they are doing e.g. favourite serial dramas, that people watch when they have time to sit down and enjoy them.

    1. Insiders and Drum had nominal timeshifting from ABC News 24 but not ABC1 (7,000 at most). Similarly Bolt Report repeat had 2,000 etc, but not the premiere ep. OzTAM data is title and channel specific.

  13. I can’t think of one show including news that I do not time shift. Everything I watch is anywhere between 10 mins after the start time up to a week or two. I still have the Schapelle movie on my PVR and haven’t seen it yet. I had planned to watch it live until Nine swapped the days at the last moment.

  14. Strange that Sevens Sunrise comes in as a a non timeshifted programme, because why is it I get the impression that ‘so many Cash Cow winners’ who say they enter every day etc., do not seem to be watching Sunrise at that time when they are called, so just when and how do they get the daily code word if they are not recording/timeshifting, to enter before the 4.30 pm ‘daily’ shut off

    Perhaps they are not avoiding the adds, but avoiding the dodgy mixed message performances that seem to accompany Cash Cow promos that co-incidently increase as the jackpot value increases, just one example being when on one friday, after another mulitple ‘Jack Pot’ increase, and especially after the ‘long running’ 4.30pm cash cow daily message, Kochie loudly proclaimed that ‘and you have all weekend to enter’, ( a competition closed message, is still a premium call cost)?????

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