A daily chronicle of creativity in film, TV, music, arts, and entertainment, produced by Southern California Public Radio and broadcast from November 2014 – March 2020. Host John Horn leads the conversation, accompanied by the nation's most plugged-in cultural journalists.
There was a time when a TV show’s success was determined by same-day Nielsen ratings — those people who watched the show when it actually aired. While those numbers are still very important, they don't tell the whole story. We simply don't watch TV that way anymore.
Now, the watchers of those-who-watch-TV take into account delayed viewing on DVRs (digital video recorders) and VOD (video on demand). They have new measurement terms such as L+3, which refers to "live plus 3 days" viewers and L+7 --"plus 7 days." And it's those numbers that reveal how many millions of us watch shows at our convenience.
Vulture's West Coast editor
told The Frame host John Horn that while DVR numbers can't necessarily make a poorly-watched show a huge hit, they can make a hit much bigger. ABC's "How To Get Away With Murder" started strong with 14 million viewers when it premiered. But then over the following three days, six million more people watched it on their DVRs. That is a record for a broadcast show. Still more watched it via video-on-demand.
Other new shows that started strong and got stronger when the delayed viewers were counted included:p "Gotham," "Madam Secretary" and "black-ish."