The Year in Media

The Year in Media | Comedy’s Comeback on TV

By BILL CARTER

Staff members of The Times’s media news department are highlighting the most significant developments this year in the industries they cover.

On the morning of Sept. 20, the hierarchy of CBS sat by their smartphones awaiting information that might be, in the jargon of television, a game changer.

Viewers had been expected to show up in big numbers to watch the hit comedy “Two and a Half Men” following the clangorous exit of Charlie Sheen and his replacement by the Twitter-mad Ashton Kutcher. But nobody expected the results CBS encountered that Tuesday morning. The reconstituted “Two and a Half Men” had attracted 28 million viewers, an unheard-of number for scripted television shows. In the financially vital category of viewers from the ages of 18 to 49, it hit a 10.3 rating, a gain of 110 percent over the previous year.

CBS’s night of comedies was off to a spectacular start, one that coincided with a drop of more than 30 percent for one of television’s mightiest unscripted shows, “Dancing With the Stars” on ABC. The moment signaled an incipient shift in the tastes of television viewers — away from the reality shows they had come to love and back toward the golden oldie of television entertainment: the sitcom.

Not only did new hits like “New Girl” on Fox and “Two Broke Girls” on CBS emerge to underscore the comedy comeback, but several long-running comedies, including “Modern Family” on ABC and “How I Met Your Mother” on CBS, saw ratings surge to all-time highs.

Viral Spiral, 2006-11

Living helix of passed-along ads reveals the exponential growth of video sharing on the social web

By Tim Nudd

Unruly is interested in the sharing of online video, not just the viewing of it. And the Viral Spiral really illustrates—in a much more powerful, visual way than a set of numbers—just how much video-sharing is growing on the web. For example, look at the Dove "Evolution" spot from 2006 or the Cadbury "Gorilla" spot from 2007. Those were considered viral juggernauts at the time, but had just a tiny fraction of the shares of any of 2011's top five.

The other great thing about this infographic is that it lives and breathes. Hovering over any circle brings it to life—and clicking on it opens the full video in a new window. Also, the share numbers are updated three times a day for all videos, going all the way down the spiral. It will be interesting to see whether this growth in sharing continues at quite this pace in 2012.

15% Of Online Videos Viewed In November Were Ads

By Megan O'Neill

People are watching more video ads than ever before.  Earlier this month new statistics showed that in the third quarter of 2011 online video ad growth surpassed online video view growth and online video revenues are set to triple in 2011.  New data from comScore just adds to the proof that online video is bigger than ever.  According to comScore’s November 2011 U.S. Online Video Rankings, video ads accounted for 15 percent of all videos viewed in November and 1.3 percent of all the minutes spent viewing online videos.

comScore reports, “Americans viewed 7.2 billion video ads in November, with Hulu generating the highest number of video ad impressions at more than 1.3 billion, followed by Tremor Video in second with 1.1 billion.”  Adap.tv, BrightRoll Video Network, Specific Media, CBS Interactive, TubeMogul Video Ad Platform, Microsoft, AOL and SpotXchange Video Ad Marketplace finished out the list of top U.S. online video Ad properties, according to the number of ads viewed.

Although Hulu clocked in with the most video ads, Tremor media delivered the highest duration of video ads.  Tremor aired 594 million minutes of ads while Hulu aired 565 million minutes.  The top 10 ad properties reached 52.4% of the U.S. population with their online video ads.

Joshua Cohen of Tubefilter crunched the numbers and found out that we’re each watching just under 16 minutes and 49 seconds worth of video ads per month, on average.  This, he reports, “is about one minute and 11 seconds shy of the amount of commercials and promotional spots you watch in one hour of television.”  That’s a statistic that makes me feel a little bit better about the amount of online video advertising we’re watching now, but also fills me with dread at how much more advertising they can cram into our online video viewing experience before we catch up to TV.

Do you feel at all overwhelmed with online video advertising yet?

TV 2011: By the numbers

The numbers don’t lie. People cared about two things this year — football and Snooki. See for yourself. Three charts rank what we watched on TV, what we talked about and what we read about in the past year.

Most watched TV programs of the year

1. “Super Bowl XLV-” -Fox-Feb. 6 - 111 million viewers

2. “AFC Championship” -CBS - Jan. 23- 54.9 million viewers

3. “NFC Championship” - Fox - Jan. 23 - 51.9 million viewers

4. “AFC Divisional Playoff” -CBS - Jan. 16 - 43.5 million viewers

5. “NFC Wildcard Game” - Fox -Jan. 9 - 39.3 million viewers

6. “Academy Awards” - ABC - Feb. 27 - 37.9 million viewers

7. “AFC Divisional Playoff” - CBS - Jan. 15 - 34 million viewers

8. “NFL Playoff Game 2” - NBC - Jan. 8 - 33.3 million viewers

9. “NFC Playoff” - Fox - Jan. 16 - 32.5 million viewers

10. Dolphins vs. Cowboys -CBS - Nov. 24 -30.9 million viewers

11. “NFC Playoff” - Fox -Jan. 15 - 30.8 million viewers

12. Packers vs. Lions - Fox - Nov. 24 - 30.2 million viewers

13. “American Idol” - Fox - May 25 - 29.3 million viewers

13. “Two and a Half Men” -CBS - Sept. 19 - 28.7 million viewers

Source: Nielsen

Most read TV stories of the year @nypost.com

1. “Bottoms up!” — US Supreme Court’s decision to vacate the $1.21 million fine levied against ABC after a 2003 episode of “NYPD Blue” showed actress Charlotte Ross’ naked bum opens the way for more nudity in primetime.

2. “CBS reporter speaks gibberish on-air” — Strange case of an LA reporter’s breakdown during the red carpet arrivals at the Grammys.

3. “Couric offered ‘60 Min’ ” — CBS attempts to keep Katie Couric in the fold.

4. “Rosie to rescue?” Oprah Winfrey’s struggling cable networks bets its future on Rosie O’Donnell’s new talk show.

5. “Comedian Ricky Gervais ‘crossed the line’ with snarky jokes, Golden Globes boss says” — Gervais poking too much fun at celebs.

6. “New photos reveal slimmed-down Snooki”— Her weight-loss sucess.

7. “They’re back!” — “Beavis and Butt-head” return to MTV after long vacation.

8. “Florence mayor gives ‘Shore’ cast rules for filming” — What the “Shore” crew could and couldn’t do in Italy.

9. “ ‘Jersey Shore’ star almost takes bridge plunge”— Snapshots of Deena Cortese getting a little too up-close and personal with Florence’s River Arno.

10. “Rutgers University pays Snooki more than commencement address speaker” — For two Q&As with the “Shore” star, school paid $32,000, which was $2,000 more than Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison.

Most-talked about TV events of the year on social media

1. “William & Kate: The Royal Wedding” April 29, 20115,641,263 viewers

2. “MTV Video Music Awards” Aug. 28, 20115,567,954 viewers

3. “Super Bowl” Feb. 6, 20113,037,241 viewers

4. “American Music Awards” Nov. 20, 20112,876,243 viewers

5. “Grammy Awards” Feb. 13, 20112,529,717 viewers

6. “Academy Awards” Feb. 27, 20112,015,118 viewers

7. “BET Hip Hop Awards” Oct. 11, 20111,519,794 viewers

8. “BET Awards” June 26, 20111,317,938 viewers

9. “Emmy Awards” Sept. 18, 20111,109,629 viewers

10. “Latin Grammy Awards” Nov. 10, 2011840,112 viewers