Couldn't The DVR Render The Monday Night Wars Moot?

[Jack-Hammer]

I'm not sure if this should be included in the Monday Night War II thread, no spam is intended or anything. I was just thinking that the use of the DVR could really have an impact to the degree that the Monday Night War might just be an antiquated notion.

While it does take a little longer to receive data via DVR viewings, DVRs have shown to have had an impact on the overall ratings of some shows. Lots of people that contribute to the forum have said on multiple occassions that they're going to watch one show on Monday nights as they happen and then watch the other one later. No matter which show they watch as it happens or watches later, the viewership of the show that's watched later will be added to the tally before its all said and done.

So, with the advent of the DVR, is there really going to be such thing as another Monday Night War?

 

[Davi323]

No more than when the VCR rendered the original Monday Night Wars moot.

To the best of my knowledge, the ability to add DVR'd programs to the Nielsen ratings is not anywhere close to being accurate yet. I know that some cable companies have been experimenting, trying to get it to work right, but, as far as I know, it isn't there yet. Right Now, the ratings reflect people who watch it live, not recorded and then watched later. So, it does matter. If someone has more information as to how Nielsen ratings are reflected by DVRs, I would love to be corrected on that, if needed. But right now, I think ratings are going to be 100% relevant. Besides, even if the ratings get added later, by then its too late. In the 90s, they looked at the overnights, and by Tuesday, you already knew who won that weeks "war". Not everyone will watch their DVR'd recording immediately.

 

[Schizophrenic]

Good question. As stated above the DVR technology hasn't really helped much in grasping the ratings of who recorded what and what is being watched. I think that it may not matter in the rating war as much but I do think it will be easier for both people to watch both shows.

I myself have never really cared about the ratings. I know they mean so much to alot of people, companies, tv execs and studios inparticular but I have never sat there Tuesday mornings and went "Who got what? Who won?" Not really needed Now adays I have seen more of a mentality of "We have to be #1 AND the only game in town. And even if they have a better product or are better than us, we have better rating HAHAHA!" I really don't get people sometimes.

 

[Papa Shango]

DVR viewing isn't really important to something like wrestling. It IS a good way to gauge viewership of scripted television however, because the overall fate of those shows rely more heavily on the ratings. DVR, online viewing, hulu, and DVD sales are much more likely to help a show like Heroes on the air. But ESPN isn't gonna sweat it if Monday Night Football doesn't get DVR'd. The same I think will happen with wrestling. RAW and Impact won't go off the air, IMO, until one of the companies goes under.

There is one other thing to remember; advertising.

Let's assume a worst-case scenario here; RAW kills Impact weekly in the ratings, but Impact still does quite well in DVR viewership. TNA might try to sell that as a plus when it comes time for Spike to decide to renew TNA's contract or not. The thing about it, though, is that people can, and pretty much ALWAYS, fast forward through the commercials on DVR. So, Impact has low ratings, then advertising won't pay for air time during the show. Meaning that TNA Impact is making no money for Spike TV. They can try the DVR reasoning, but still, noone is seeing the advertisments, consumers are still not buying the products, and Spike TV is STILL not making money off of Impact.

WWE should not care about DVR at all, at least not yet. Impact, however, may want to look at DVR in the short term. If they get alot of DVR views at first, that's good, it means people ARE interested in the product, they just aren't committed to ditching WWE programming. But in the long run, if ratings stay the same or get worse, it doesn't matter how many people watch on DVR. Impact will not get picked up again by Spike TV.

 

[Richard]

The one thing that kills the WWE vs TNA war in Australia is the fact that TNA and WWE programming are shown on the same channel, just on different days. RAW is on Wednesday, NXT will be on thursdays I think, SmackDown on fridays, TNA on Saturdays so in Australia, the monday night war II or whatever it's being called won't even matter for Australians anyway.

But, devices used to record TV won't matter because the show that people will prefer to watch will watch it anyway and record the least favourable show so either way the ratings will show up for which show was watched.

 

[Mr. TM]

I don't feel it will leave the Monday Night Wars in a moot point, rather, I feel that it will give the fans the best of both worlds, getting to see each and every television show, even if they are on at the same time.

I heard recently that they will be on at the exact same time. I find this to be a little silly, considering the huge success that TNA had going an hour early. That is the determining factor. If TNA went first, I assume more people would DVR Raw, killing Raw's advertising. If it went the other way, I assume that WWE would pick up over 2/3s of the viewership live, and the rest would DVR it.

 

[vertigolowe]

Just to clarify how Ratings work, there are Neilson boxes out there, but not everyone has one. For the sake of argument let's say that 1 of 100 people have one. They then take those numbers and extrapulate (sp?) how many people are watching the shows. In this new day and age of technology it will likely turn to a system where everyone's boxes send data back as to what they are watching, but as far as I know that hasn't happened yet. This is why back in the day there would be cases where a show was cancelled due to poor ratings and then a letter writing campaign or calling the tv station to complain could help get it back on the air. The reasoning was that people were watching the show but no one with a Neilson box was watching the show.

DVR viewership should not (in my opinion) have any impact on ratings. Ratings are used to show advertisers how popular a show is and how much they can charge for ad space. Since DVR viewers skip over the commercials (as mentioned above) advertisers don't care about those numbers because they have no impact on their business.

One thing that could happen if DVR numbers (and Ratings themselves) become more accurate is that stations could use the DVR numbers to inflate the ratings and try to charge more for ads. This situation could easily lead to a number of problems but I won't bother getting into it here.

As far as 'who won' the head to head matchup each week, then yeah DVR numbers would be necessary, but really not in any compacity other than the ego boost of beating the other fed (which TNA seemed focused on) for that week.

 

[Tastycles]

I don't think it will render them moot, to be honest with you. Whichever one that you find most entertaining will be the one that you watch live, and the other one will be the one that you record. That being said, if we assume that these Monday Night wars will go the distance, then I expect that it will not be too long before DVR technology is included in ratings, which will help both companies actually.