CBS announced Wednesday that it will begin releasing projections for live-plus-seven ratings with its daily live-plus-same day fast-affiliate numbers.
“L7 and C7 are the metrics that more accurately account for how viewers watch our shows and how we get paid for our programming— both in advertising and content licensing,” said CBS Corp. President and CEO Leslie Moonves.
The L7 rating includes live viewing plus seven days of delayed viewing. The C7 is a similar metric not released by the networks, that includes delayed viewing in which the advertising is seen.
The move makes CBS the latest network to change the way it releases ratings to the media. In July, FX announced that it would no longer release ratings information until live-plus-three data is available. Fox has included delayed viewing projections in its daily ratings releases since September, 2013.
“To report audience results for programs the day after they air live is comparable to reporting the results of a baseball game after the fifth inning,” said CBS Corporation chief research officer and CBS Vision president David Poltrack. “The only way to accurately compare the audiences across all programs is to include more time-shifted viewing.”
