O’Reilly tells listeners to DVR his show: Update…
Keith Olbermann tagged Bill O’Reilly Worst Person in the World for his DVR ratings request to radio listeners last week.
That Olbermann was going to give O’Reilly the business for this was a given. But what interested me was this whole “Nielsen was furious” statement Olbermann made. The obvious question is how does Olbermann know Nielsen was furious? Presumably, if Nielsen indeed was furious it would voice that privately with FNC. So how would Olbermann know? Did Countdown/MSNBC really bug Nielsen for some sort of response? I suppose that’s possible. It wouldn’t be the first time Nielsen had to step in to referee something between two cable news channels…
Question: If it’s a no-no to talk about numbers why is Olbermann doing it then? If it’s bad for O’Reilly to do it, isn’t it bad for Olbermann as well?
Update: An industry veteran not associated with cable news emailed in that you can talk about beating someone in the ratings but you can’t solicit ratings.
Update 2: From another emailer - Nielsen has to approve all ratings ads – they don’t approve what’s said on the air.
Update 3: An insider tells ICN that FNC has not received any calls from Nielsen Media Research.
If I was an advertiser I would run away from Olby’s DVR results. Guess what happens when I DVR a show? Yup, I fast foward through all the commercials.
Comment by Lurker — September 21, 2007 @ 10:49 am
Same here, Lurker.
Also, how dare Keith make such a comment, what with MSNBC playing around with DVR/Live/not live/demo numbers, etc. Sure, his program could be number #1 if a selected age, political, religious and moral (or immoral) demo is selected, or if DVR numbers and viewing times are manipulated. And that is just what his network is trying to do.
Yet he reams O’Reilly for trying to get in on the game. It figures.
Comment by Missy — September 21, 2007 @ 11:03 am
Why would O’Reilly want to get in on the game if DVR numbers are meaningless?
Whether folks like it are not, the LS numbers are becoming the de facto standard for determining a show’s popularity. If you go to Nielson’s own website to see the Top 10, you get the LS numbers.
It’s obvious why an advertiser would be more interested in the live-only numbers, but I just don’t buy the notion that they’re completely uninterested in the DVR catagories.
As I said in another thread recently, some media (in particular NPR) have reported a number of times over the years about the impact that increasing DVR usage is having on the advertising industry. Advertisers may not like DVRs, but they still try to find a way to make their commercials recognizable even at very fast speed. If they’re going to that trouble, then certainly they are interested in which programs are the most DVRed. As such, I think they might be even more interested in an LS-to-live-only comparison than in the LS numbers themselves, but nonetheless that still constitutes at least some interest in the DVR-inclusive rankings.
As to Spud’s question, I saw the segment and it appeared to me that Olbermann was strongly hinting he himself had called Nielson. And if Nielson is anything like Arbitron, Keith was telling the truth (I used to work in radio, and I remember that direct appeals to listeners to get a station’s ratings up were indeed verboten). So that much is probably true. But I imagine he exaggerated Nielson’s reaction a bit. I’m sure they were interested, but furious? Probably more like annoyed. O’Reilly’s appeal was brazen, but probably not serious enough to warrant anything more than a mild warning from the ratings company.
Comment by berberry — September 21, 2007 @ 11:28 am
Lurker:
Well you’re a step ahead of me. In my house (and I’m sure many others), we have several programs set to “series recording,” meaning that a particular show gets taped whenever it is shown. Forget the commercials; we never seem to get around to actually watching the show at all!
Comment by William — September 21, 2007 @ 11:31 am
Olbermann’s a pathetic liar and hate monger. He’s made a show out of slandering his competitors and pandering to the angry-extremist far-left blame-America crowd. Countdown is a small time ratings success. But it will never find an audience outside of the loony moonbat KosKids that will Tivo every show just so they can play his bile-spewing rantings over and over again.
Comment by TBDave — September 21, 2007 @ 11:33 am
That’s a good point William, but I think it’s taken into account by Nielson. Otherwise, how could they have both LS and L+3? You can’t record a show 3 days after it airs, so clearly Nielson is somehow able to determine which DVRed programs are being watched and how soon.
Comment by berberry — September 21, 2007 @ 11:34 am
I’m not sure how Bill-O’s plea for viewers to DVR his Friday show is that much different than Olbermann constantly telling his veiwers, during his show, when he beats O’Reilly.
Comment by Obama in 08! — September 21, 2007 @ 11:39 am
Why would Nielsen care? O’Reilly was just trying to call Olbermann out, he did.. Olbermann bit, and got caught up in a lie.
Comment by Nobody — September 21, 2007 @ 11:42 am
But you can do that, 7. What you can’t do is appeal to listeners (Arbitron rates radio) directly to help hike your numbers. You can remind listeners to tune in all you want, you just can’t say it like “tune in tonight and help us beat that other show in the ratings” or “don’t forget to listen, we need to beat that other station in the ratings”.
I assume Nielson has a similar rule in TV, and if so O’Reilly definitely broke it. Just not very seriously, in my opinion.
Comment by berberry — September 21, 2007 @ 11:47 am
TBdave, what flavor of koolaid are u drinking? Is it good? KO and BIllo are both guilty of being utterly annoying when it comes to the ratings. I mean how many times does Billo talk about how MSNBC is in disarray and a ratings disaster? I mean Billo had a petition to get Olbermann replaced because KO didnt have good enough ratings in his eyes.
Comment by randy — September 21, 2007 @ 12:02 pm
What you can’t do is appeal to listeners (Arbitron rates radio) directly to help hike your numbers
Berberry: Such as telling listeners; “when somebody asks you, tell them you are listening to WWWW.”
But this is not what BOR said. What O’Reilly basically said was “if you can’t watch my Friday show live, set the DVR, TIVO etc.”
Although it may have been implied, O’Reilly said nothing directly about ratings, people meters, etc.
My guess is that Keith and MSNBC are probably appealing to Nielson to cast dispersions on O’Reilly’s ratings.
Comment by Ira — September 21, 2007 @ 12:39 pm
“than Olbermann constantly telling his veiwers, during his show, when he beats O’Reilly.”
Hey Obama, much as Keith would like you believe that… it’s never happened.
Comment by bigred — September 21, 2007 @ 12:58 pm
Ira, according to this very blog, O’Reilly said something to the effect of “we need to get our Friday DVR numbers up”.
Again, IF Nielson has a rule similar to Arbitron’s rule, then that is indeed verboten. I don’t think it would be regarded as a serious infraction (not as bad as if he’d said something like “MSNBC is catching up with us in the ratings and we need to keep beating them”, but it would still be against the rules.
And by the way, it’s ‘aspersions’, not ‘dispersions’. Dispersions is what Accounts Payable Departments do.
Comment by berberry — September 21, 2007 @ 1:05 pm
The only way Olbermahn THINKS he can compete with Bill is to constantly bring him up on just about every show. This is TOTALLY insane! What does this do? Simple. It brings MORE attention to O Reilly and probably causes viewers to switch the channel.
Also, those DVR ratings are absurd. How can anyone determine how many people ACTUALLY view shows that are taped, especially shows like this??? And why anyone would even care (since I’m sure MOST people who do tape and even watch what they taped probably all fast forward through the commercials so what benefit would this have to advertisers? ANSWER: NONE!!
Comment by Mike — September 21, 2007 @ 1:40 pm
“How can anyone determine how many people ACTUALLY view shows that are taped, especially shows like this??? ”
Because they can, Mike. If the Nielson family is keeping a book, they write down what they watch and probably check a box if it’s DVRed. If electronic monitoring is used, then recording, playback, pauses, commercial-skipping, etc. can all be reported.
Another post reminded me of something about watching a commercial at 32x or 64x: if the advertiser has paid attention that his ad is recognizable at such speeds, then he has your undivided attention for at least that second or two. You have to keep your eyes on the screen in order to know when the commercials are over and your program is back on. Most people can’t multi-task well enough to do something else while ad-skipping. Therefore, those viewers will at least see the advertiser’s logo, and quite possibly recognize the ad from having seen it at normal speed.
Comment by berberry — September 21, 2007 @ 1:53 pm
Patriots: People who Watch (or DVR) O’Reilly. Pinheads: People who don’t.
Our freedom is at stake here people. And their are bad Americans out there who are trying to harm The Factor and in the process harm America.
Comment by DanOregon — September 21, 2007 @ 3:30 pm
berberry… where, on this blog did it say that O’Reilly wanted to get his DVR ratings up?
Link me up, baby.
Comment by ImNotBlue — September 21, 2007 @ 5:14 pm
Seems to me that when O’Reilly said “we’ve got to get our Friday viewership up”, that’s more than just asking people to DVR the show. I don’t think it’s that big a deal like KO (and maybe Nielsen?) do but it does show that KO’s beating him that one Friday really got O’Reilly’s attention. He kinda showed his hand when he made that viewership/DVR statement to his listeners.
I can almost hear him saying that, DanOregon. LOL!
Comment by STP — September 21, 2007 @ 5:37 pm
But where did he say that, STP… where’s the link? Lemme see it.
I just want to make sure we’re not all playing “telephone” here… and the actual words are getting all mish-mashed.
Comment by ImNotBlue — September 21, 2007 @ 5:49 pm
Wow, I check in after eating grabbing a bite to eat and there’s a demand from ImNotBlue…and without so much as a please. I don’t know what you’re playing here but there’s no mish mash from me when I’m quoting another person’s words.
As far as where did O’Reilly say that? Sorry but I thought it was pretty obvious that, as per Spud’s posts, KO’s WPITW and some posters’ comments on the matter, the DVR comments were made by O’Reilly on the radio. In fact, I heard the words come out of O’Reilly’s own mouth with my own ears. And, should you have access to O’Reilly’s podcasts, you can hear it with your own ears too.
Or just click on Spud’s link (tagged) above to hear KO say the exact quote you’re questioning because KO got it right. Or check with Johnny Dollar…he probably has the audio too. But, just in case you can’t take the time to check out any of the above suggestions, I checked the recording of his show and transcribed his viewership/DVR statements for you…or are you going to doubt that too?
O’Reilly said, “A lot of stuff in play there tonight on the Factor. Friday nights is a low television viewing time but we want you to watch the show so if you’re not around DVR it or do what you have to do to see this because we have a great line-up”. He then describes what’s going to be discussed on the show…Giuliani ad, HuffPo, Utah judge, criminal aliens, Geraldo and OJ. Then he says, “We’ve got to get our Friday viewership up. It’s still far and away more than anybody else but we do sock ‘em Monday to Thursday and then all our Factor people go out on Friday and, we gotta, you know, come on, DVR the show. We do extra effort on Friday to give you a show you’ll remember. So that’s what’s going on”. Later in the show, he also says, “We have a very hot show on TV tonight. I you can’t be there to watch it, please tape it. Check it out because you’ll be happy you did”.
And, yes, O’Reilly did say “nights is” when he should have said nights are or Friday is. Not an error in my typing.
Comment by STP — September 21, 2007 @ 7:42 pm
berberry, go back to Physics class if you want to discuss “dispersions”. Accounts Payable types work with “disbursements”.
Comment by Missy — September 21, 2007 @ 7:54 pm
Wow… STP a little sensitive are we? Sorry for not saying please, though… manners are key.
Good now I feel like we’re on the same page. I’ll take your word for it… although, I’d be more hesitant to take Keith’s paraphrasing for obvious reasons.
So all this hullabaloo because he said: “We’ve got to get our Friday viewership up. It’s still far and away more than anybody else but we do sock ‘em Monday to Thursday and then all our Factor people go out on Friday and, we gotta, you know, come on, DVR the show.”
Sounds pretty innocuous to me. Very off handed… not like he was making a plea, but like he was just talking while he shuffled his papers or waited for the music to start or whatever.
If Nielson or Arbitron or whatever gets in a huff because of that… eh… whatever. Doesn’t really appear to be anything sinister… but who knows… everybody’s gotta make a living somehow.
Worst Person in the World for this… perhaps Keith and I have a different definition of what “Worst” means.
Comment by ImNotBlue — September 21, 2007 @ 8:58 pm
INB, the link is at the top of this very page.
And somebody buy Missy a thesaurus. In certain contexts (like the one I used), both ‘disburse’ and ‘disperse’ mean ‘to distrubute’.
Comment by berberry — September 22, 2007 @ 12:56 am
You can call it “a little sensitive” if you want although you’d be wrong in your assessment. Just because this medium is basically anonymous, it doesn’t mean that some semblance of manners aren’t in order.
Just the other day I posted something else that O’Reilly did with Maher. You didn’t believe me then either (“You got a video to show me, STP?”) so I posted a video link proving my point…with no response from you. So, having seen how you’ve worded your past requests, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to see your latest demand of “where’s the link? Lemme see it”. LOL! But, hey, no problem, ImNotBlue, your apology is accepted. Besides, it’s not hard to smack down your prove it challenges.
No, actually, it wasn’t that O’Reilly was just talking while shuffling papers or waiting for music. But then you really aren’t in a position to draw those sort of conclusions since you haven’t heard it. The segment with O’Reilly talking to the audience (which contained the viewership quote in question) was fairly long…a little over 7 minutes with him having no calls, no guests, no clips…just him talking to his listeners about a movie, topics they can call in about, himself, his book and the upcoming TV show that night/the DVR comments. Within that 7 minutes, the part where he chose to talk about the TV show/lower Friday viewership and he made his DVR appeal was 2 minutes long itself and not something I’d consider “very off handed”.
The hullabaloo does look to be about O’Reilly saying we’ve got to get our Friday viewership up and his asking his listeners to DVR it. As Spud’s emailer and berberry posted, it’s apparently a no-no to do that sort of thing. I don’t think what O’Reilly said is anything sinister either nor do I think it’s that big a deal. What Nielsen choses to say about it, if anything, is up to them. However, I do think that O’Reilly’s comment about Friday viewership/DVR taping was deliberate (because of KO beating him the Friday before) and was worth a mention.
You and KO have different definition of WP? You don’t say? LOL! And just because it’s KO commenting on something, it doesn’t mean his comment can’t be true.
Comment by STP — September 22, 2007 @ 1:22 am
Hey Bill! “Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who’s the most egotistical blow-hard of them all?”
Comment by Roger C. — September 22, 2007 @ 11:20 am
Berberry-
There are 3 links at the top of the page. One is to an “MSNBC clarifies ad…” story… sot that’s not it. Another is a story that has an the original story… but includes no actual quotes or a transcript. And the final is the video of Olbermann himself from MSNBC… and forgive me if I don’t trust Olbermann’s ability to accurately quote O’Reilly… especially when he chooses to read the quote, not play the clip.
STP
I didn’t respond to the Maher one… I remember watching the clip… and I thought I wrote something about it… but I could be wrong. If you want to throw me the link (if you still have it… or remember what we were talking about) I’ll go back and comment on it.
But again, you’re being too sensitive. It’s not a challenge… it’s a, “Let me see what you’re talking about so I have all the information.” I want to make sure we’re talking about the same thing… and not just a persistent fallacy. I want to make sure the before I spend my time talking about something, it’s been presented accurately… am I wrong for that?
You are right… I didn’t hear the clip… but then again, I never said I did. It was my opinion, that’s what it sounded like… off handed. Not like he had made specific notes to mention it. The language used struck me as the same that he uses to toss the TV show to H&C… you know, “Check out the website… we’ve got some great new hats and shirts… great gifts for dad…” That kind of rambling to fill the extra time.
I think you’re inferring that the Bill must have been talking about KO, because you want him to be talking about KO. There is nothing in what he said that links this to MSNBC, Olbermann, or anyone else for that matter. But I guess you and I BOTH have a different idea of what the WP means… after all we agree that what Bill said wasn’t a big deal… and if it’s not a big deal, how could he be the worst anything for it?
And as I told berberry above, I’m not readily going to believe anything KO chooses to “read aloud” instead of either posting the exact quote or playing the clip for. I’ve read and heard too much of KO fudging the facts, changing the quotes, or just making stuff up to fit his particular spin, to go ahead and just take his word for it. There are plenty of people around here who feel the same way about O’Reilly… I happen to feel it about Olbermann.
Comment by ImNotBlue — September 22, 2007 @ 11:56 am
LOL, ImNotBLue, you crack me up. No, you didn’t actually say you heard the clip but you sure drew conclusions like you heard it yourself. And, like I said, as someone who heard it, his comments were not simply off handed, shuffling the papers, tossing off to H&C kind of remarks. You don’t know that he didn’t make specific notes to mention it nor do I know that he did. But I’ve listened to O’Reilly on the radio for a long time now and I’ve never heard him bring up low Friday night viewership or ask the listeners to DVR his show. You can couch your link requests as simply wanting to be informed (instead of your challenging me to prove it) but I’m not quite buying it. Twice in less than a week you demand me post a link of of something I posted about O’Reilly. That’s not being sensitive…it’s more me being skeptical of your motive. I’ve been here long enough to know that you don’t much care for it when another poster shows O’Reilly in a negative light…even if their point is valid. Sorry but your wanting to be informed looks more like you’re hoping for a gotcha moment…like you’re hoping I just pulled the O’Reilly statement out of my a$$ which would then allow you to go “ah-ha, O’Reilly didn’t actually say that so you lied” (or something to that effect).
You would also be wrong with your conclusion that I wanted O’Reilly “to be talking about KO”. While I think it’s comical that O’Reilly goes out of his way NOT to say KO’s name and KO goes out of his way TO say O’Reilly’s name, I don’t really care one way or another if O’Reilly talks about KO. Personally, I’m not a big fan of either of the guys…each have a certain audience they play to and they’re good at what they do. But I do think it would be incredibly naive to think that KO’s beating him the Friday before with DVR numbers didn’t have a huge part (if not the only reason perhaps?) to play into why O’Reilly decided to make the specific comments he did about Friday viewership/DVRing. I mean, come on, the timing of his comments (on a Friday afternoon after KO just beat him the Friday night before) was very telling. I know you like O’Reilly a great deal but you have blinders on when it comes to him.
You can refuse to believe anything KO reads aloud if you suits you but, like I said, it doesn’t mean KO wasn’t telling the truth. When KO read that O’Reilly said, “we’ve got to get our Friday viewership up”…the statement in my post that you were questioning…KO had it correct. It might pain you to admit that and it doesn’t fit into your scenario in which KO is not to be believed but, sorry, KO got it right. Do you believe that everthing O’Reilly says is true…even when he doesn’t use exact quotes or play all the clip? I wouldn’t if I were you. I’ve heard him incorrectly paraphrase, pull out a specific parts of something but leave out other parts that tell the whole truth or play only a snippet of a clip when he should have played all the pertinent parts of a clip. He and KO are more alike in their behavior than they are different…both spin and fudge facts and quotes. Just like there are people who never think O’Reilly believable, there are lots of people around here who feel the same way KO. It would actually be refreshing if people set aside their partisanship more often so that they could look more honestly at what both KO and O’Reilly say and do but that sort of thing doesn’t happen around here too often..and that’s their (and your) perogative. I mean, you probably didn’t chose to call yourself ImNotBlue just because you liked the sound of it. Sometimes these boards seem to be more about defending a partisan perspective and the talking heads tied to that perspective…to the detriment of the truth and real discussion about our country’s news industry.
Comment by STP — September 24, 2007 @ 7:44 am
Look, I’m not going to believe anything that any news host reads aloud without showing me the quote… O’Reilly, Olbermann, or whomever. Quotes are too easily fudged, meaning is too easily changed, and I don’t want to get caught believing something based on bad info.
Which is why I asked for the link… you don’t have to believe me, I don’t really care. If you think it’s such an imposition for someone to ask you to back up what you’ve said with evidence… then go ahead… continue to throw you little hissy fit. Truth is, where I work had a 3-alarm fire last week… and I spent much of my time driving between two facilities trying to get things back up and running. I didn’t have a lot of free time to watch, read, or listen to anything… so asking for the evidence was so that I could comment coherently.
And again… I said what the clip looked like to me. I said it may not have been correct… I said I didn’t hear it… I said I was only reading what you were posting. If I got it wrong… well, I got it wrong… I never said “THIS IS DEFINATLY HOW IT HAPPENED”… just that this was the impression I got.
But this is enough of this. I’ve had enough debates with you to know that you’re just going to repeat what you’ve already said again, thinking you’re making some sort of new point each time. This bores me. I refuse to waste my time repeating myself to you.
And furthermore… as I’ve said time and time again… my name has nothing to do with politics. It has to do with my ACTUAL NAME. I’ll spell it out for you… “My name ISN’T BLUE… because my name is _____.” Get it?
Comment by ImNotBlue — September 24, 2007 @ 11:02 am
It’s good to see you actually acknowledge that O’Reilly as well as KO can fudge and change quotes because I haven’t seen you calling him out at this site the way you do KO. Please don’t put words in my mouth, ImNotBlue. I didn’t say that I think it’s an imposition to give you a link. In fact I said “no problem” and that it “wasn’t hard”…no hissy fit was thrown so don’t spin it like there was. In my response to you, I was noting your poor online manners and, that both times you asked for a link, it had to do with O’Reilly.
“I refuse to waste my time repeating myself to you”. Really? Hmm, could have fooled me. Go over your own posts here and you’ll see that you’ve already repeated youself with several points. I guess that makes you a bore too. LOL! And when I do repeat a point, I don’t think I’m making some sort of new point as you so ridiculously claim. If you notice, I’ve even used the phrase “like I said” which shows that I’m aware it’s not a new point. Duh.
Sorry but I don’t recall having seen your explanation of the name you use here. If I had known that you had already explained it, I wouldn’t have even mentioned it. Well, at least it’s nice that it works out so that your name is also able to reflect your political perspective too even if that wasn’t your intention. It’s pretty telling that you will not admit that KO was right on this or that O’Reilly could have been influenced to say what he did because of KO’s ratings win. Very telling indeed.
You’ve had enough of this? No problem. At least I now realize you’re more the type that likes to dish it out but, apparently, can’t take it. By all means, please feel free not to respond to any more of my “boring” posts here at ICN. That will free up more time for you to join in on the KO bashing. LOL!
Comment by STP — September 24, 2007 @ 5:21 pm