Viewers’ shifting habits redefine ‘TV hit’

23 October 2007, By Gary Levin, USA TODAY

” …Ad-free pay cable channels, however, don’t care when or how viewers watch shows, only that they continue to fork over monthly fees to receive them. So HBO doesn’t consider its sex-fueled relationship drama Tell Me You Love Me a failure, even though it averages just 773,000 viewers who watch it live on Sundays, about one-tenth the audience for The Sopranos.

In fact, the network recently renewed the show and cites Nielsen estimates that grow to 949,000 when seven-day delayed viewing is added and to 3.5 million when other week-long airings are factored in, and add 711,000 more when on-demand viewing is weighed.

“We’re agnostic about how much of that takes place,” says HBO program-planning chief David Baldwin. “The important thing to us is to gauge the intensity of the audience and how it tracks through the season.” … [more]