Singing shows are network ammo in DVR war

One week into the 2012-13 TV season, the singing showpocalypse has gripped the nation.

Two broadcast networks have flooded the prime-time landscape with performances by potential new recording artists on four nights; viewers already are suffering from an acute case of karaoke fatigue.

More from Lisa de Moraes

Pulitzer Prize winner, Peabody recipient, Medal of Freedom honoree -- Lisa de Moraes is none of these, but she is an authority on the bad direction, over-acting, and muddled plot lines being played out in the TV industry's executive suites.

Archive

• Live Q&As
• @WaPoTeamTV

Gallery

Fall TV: A guide to 2012’s new shows: TV critic Hank Stuever grades 22 of fall’s pilot episodes. Some primetime winners include “Call the Midwife” and “The Mindy Project,” while others like the “The Mob Doctor” and “Made in Jersey” tank.

Gallery

‘Dallas’ and more top picks for summer TV: TV critic Hank Stuever’s guide for what’s worth watching this summer, including some promising new additions and old favorites.

Both NBC’s “The Voice” and Fox’s “The X Factor” have returned to prime time with ratings smaller than they previously enjoyed, but they are perhaps the two most important players on the new fall schedule. That’s because people watch these shows as though they’re live sporting events: Viewers catch them in real time, with little DVR’ing, and no jumping over ad breaks and Ford music videos.

And that’s why advertisers pay a premium for ads in these shows — and why Fox’s other singing competition show, “American Idol,” has been prime-time TV’s most expensive ad buy.

This season, “The Voice” — airing two hours on Monday nights and one hour on Tuesdays — is winning the face-off.

Thanks to “The Voice,” NBC — the network that was barely worth mentioning last fall in any discussion of Monday-night ratings — was the ratings leader during Premiere Week’s Monday among 18-to-49-year-old viewers.

And Tuesday’s “The Voice” was that night’s No. 1-ranked show in that age bracket, which is the currency of ad sales for entertainment programming.

Both nights of “The Voice” landed in Premiere Week’s Top 10. And overall, “The Voice” averaged 12 million viewers.

“The X Factor” is playing catch-up. Its two editions, airing Wednesday and Thursday nights, hovered at No. 14 and 18 in the 18-to-49 age group during Premiere Week.

The two “X Factor” editions averaged fewer than 10 million viewers overall.

Even so, Fox won Wednesday with two hours of “X.” And an “X” repeat did better on the first Friday of the new TV season than did the season debut of J.J. Abrams’s “Fringe” on Fox.

But neither show is shaping up to be the next “American Idol.” And the era of the monster-hit singing show that obliterated its competition appears to be over.

Yet even as it declines as a force to be reckoned with, “Idol” has remained the most attractive ad buy in Madison Avenue’s eye.

Last season, the cost of a 30-second spot during “Idol” hit a half-million bucks, according to the publication Ad Age, which compiles data from as many as six media-buying agencies and other sources for an annual survey of broadcast TV show ad prices. And that ad rate rose as “Idol’s” competition progressed: Ad Age found that some 30-second ads in the show were going for as much as $640,000 in the show’s later weeks.

Last season, “Idol” gained just 11.5 percent of its overall audience from DVR viewing. That’s compared with pack leader “Modern Family,” which gained nearly 40 percent more viewers via DVR viewing. The 28 most DVR’d broadcast television series last season, in fact, all had one thing in common:

They were scripted.

One week into this TV season, “The Voice” and “The X Factor” are proving to be similarly DVR-resistant — even though DVR-ing overall is up significantly, Premiere Week to Premiere Week. Some industry navel-gazers (who spoke on the condition of anonymity) speculated that at least part of the DVR bump might be because viewers record programs so they can watch the heavy load of singing shows live.