Posted by chicagomedia.org on September 30, 2009 at 14:00:55:
MyNetworkTV exits ratings game
Nielsen to distribute numbers in syndication report
By MICHAEL SCHNEIDER, VARIETY
Posted: Tue., Sep. 29, 2009, 6:49pm PT
Now that it's no longer a network, MyNetworkTV is out of the nightly ratings game.
Nielsen informed its clients Tuesday that MyNetworkTV has stopped supplying program information to its daily reporting service effective this week.
Instead, MyNetworkTV will now receive its numbers as part of the weekly syndication ratings report, which is released every Tuesday.
Move comes as MyNet officially morphed on Monday from a network into a programming service, airing off-net programming and movies as well as "WWE Smackdown" on Fridays.
Twentieth Television, which runs the programming service, will continue to sell MyNet's ad time based on those syndie numbers.
Although it will no longer receive daily national ratings, MyNet will still get some semblance of a daily report card via overnight ratings for Nielsen's 56 metered markets (although those numbers are generally ignored by network execs, who receive more accurate fast national ratings in the morning).
Twentieth execs were pleased with the early results from Monday night's back-to-back airings of NBC U's off-net "Law and Order: Criminal Intent." The two hours were up 43% in the metered markets vs. the same night a year ago, when MyNet aired the two-hour "Celebrity Expose."
MyNet's sked also includes "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader" and "Deal or No Deal" on Tuesdays, back-to-back segs of "The Unit" on Wednesdays and movies on Thursday.