NBC has released its multiplatform measurements the last five weeks of the fall season, once again demonstrating that most people watch TV on TV. Around 80 to 90 percent of the network’s prime-time audience watched its fare on TV, according to NBC’s Total Audience Measure Index, or TAMI. The network launched TAMI last summer when it saturated the Internet with Olympics coverage. TAMI measures veiwership in three buckets--TV; the Internet; and video-on-demand, mobile and downloads combined.
Until the multiplatform index was launched, networks had no systematic way to quantify Internet viewing in the ratings. The ’Net provides about a 10 percent hike over TV alone, although the ad proposition is separate. Commercials that run on TV are generally stripped out of streamed episodes, which are often supported by a single sponsor. But it makes the network’s overall numbers look a little better, which doesn’t hurt NBC, the laggard of the big broadcast networks.
Between late October and early December, the five episodes of NBC’s “Chuck” cumed more than 113 million views across all platforms, according to the TAMI numbers. TV captured 97.5 million, streaming caught another 15.5 million and VOD/mobile and downloads added just under 24,000.
Online episodes of “The Office” contributed around 25 percent of the total views for the five-week period. More than 42 million Web watches were recorded out of a total of 172 million.
The five “Heroes” episodes also had a fairly substantial online following, around 25 percent of the total 190 million views. TV contributed 142 million, the ’Net, 47 million, and VOD, etc., 826,000.
Web watching boosted “Heroes” to the top of NBC’s prime-time for the period, above “The Biggest Loser,” a reality-type premise where large individuals are starved and exercised into sveltedom or something like it.
“The Biggest Loser” beat “Heroes” on TV, with 173 million views, but lost overall with a total of 176 million total compared to “Heroes” 190 million. “Loser” pulled in online views of 2.6 million.
