If you've been noticing a little bit less of SpongeBob on Nickelodeon, Snooki on MTV, or Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central, it's by design: Viacom is squeezing more commercials into every hour of programming. That's the bad news. The worse news is that it's not working.
Men, who have endured slightly higher unemployment rates than women, have been taking on more of the household shopping, according to a recent report. The trend hasn't boded well for stores: On average, men spend less than women on each trip.
In this economy, cash-strapped consumers have become more budget conscious and less concerned about appearing cheap. As a result, better-known brands have steadily been losing ground to store-branded food products.
Almost a quarter of Americans and Canadians say they expect to work past the age of 70, and 6% say they'll likely retire after their 80th birthday -- two years longer than the nations' life expectancy. That's according to a recent Nielsen survey, and it's not just a North American trend.
Super Bowl XLV, which aired on Fox on Sunday, attracted 111 million viewers, making it the most-watched television program of all time, Nielsen said Monday.
Two recent reports suggest that there's great variation in global confidence levels, both in the U.S. and abroad. And the U.S. isn't exactly the home of the confident. Latin America, led by a booming Brazil, leads the world in confidence these days.
MTV's controversial new teen drama Skins won't set any of its young viewers on the road to ruin, and it isn't pornographic. It is in bad taste, and MTV must have known would offend some audiences. Still, with 3.26 million viewers for its debut, Viacom is getting exactly what it wanted from the show -- publicity and viewers.
Oprah Winfrey's new cable network is commanding some of the highest ad prices on cable, and it justified those rates with its heavily watched debut. Now, OWN will have to prove it can maintain its viewership levels throughout the year.
Here's a nice surprise for television advertisers: Digital video recorders are actually increasing, not decreasing, the number of viewers who are watching the commercials. Nearly half of the DVR owners in the critical 18- to 49-year-old age group watch the commercials, which boosts ratings, Nielsen says.
Here's one reason why U.S. teens and young adults are luckier than their international counterparts: Unlike in many other countries, most American youths don't have to pay their own cell-phone bills.
Bristol Palin helped boost the viewership for "Dancing with the Stars" when she made it to the final round, while her mother's show, "Sarah Palin's Alaska" got half a million more viewers in the same week.
The new show "Sarah Palin's Alaska" attracted a record number of viewers for its debut on the TLC network Sunday night. According to Nielsen figures, 4.96 million viewers watched the show, double the average viewership for the channel's Sunday prime time shows.
Politicians exposed Americans to a record number of political advertisements last month as candidates spent big to court undecided voters in advance of the Nov. 2 midterm election.
Networks broadcasting midterm election results attracted 11% more viewers than they did during the 2006 elections, and about a third more than the 2002 midterms, indicating the heightened level political interest among Americans concerned about House and Senate races, Nielsen reported Friday.
