Let’s say a program is scheduled for airing at 8pm on a Tuesday, but people delay watching it until later. Does this effect the initial ratings?
There’s a whole bunch of different tracking mechanisms now, but the main is Live+3 and Live+7, which is basically the live airing plus 3/7 days.
In fact, here’s a story on how Colbert’s ratings for his final Late Show broadcast improved in the Live+3 ratings.
Is this still true in the streaming age or are we strictly talking old-school network TV? I mean, I may not get around to watching a show until a while after it’s released. Certainly I’m not bingeing an entire season in a week for shows that release all at once, at any rate.
I don’t think streaming services like Netflix need ratings services like Nielsen. They know exactly how many people watch their shows.
As noted, Nielsen ratings only cover “scheduled” programming: the old-school over-the-air TV networks, as well as cable networks (though they do now tabulate delayed viewing of programs which have been recorded on those networks).
Nielsen does not cover nor provide ratings numbers for streaming services, which each maintain their own statistics on streaming viewership, and which are often not released publicly, AIUI.
Not according to here:
Nielsen Top 10 | Streaming, TV, Advertising, Game Ratings
Sure, but they don’t know how many people are watching other shows on other services, which is something I’m sure they’d like to know.