News flash! Netflix still hasn’t provided numbers about “House of Cards.”

There was a brief suggestion to the contrary on Wednesday, when the Hollywood Reporter published an interview with Netflix content boss Ted Sarandos. In the Q&A, Sarandos compared the audience for “House of Cards” to that of AMC’s “Walking Dead,” which caused a few of us TV-watching-watchers to wonder if Sarandos was saying that “House of Cards” had a similar number of viewers as “Walking Dead.”

If so, that would be a pretty big deal, since “Walking Dead” is one of the most popular shows on TV. The cable TV show drew nearly 12.5 million viewers for its season finale this year, and frequently beat out big broadcast shows throughout the spring.

Netflix, meanwhile, has about 30 million U.S. subscribers, period. It would be amazing if nearly half of them were watching a single show, right? And it would also say a lot about the future of TV.

Maybe one day, it will. For now, though, we will have to keep guessing about the “House of Cards” audience.

Via email, Netflix PR head Jonathan Friedland said that Sarandos was not talking about aggregate numbers when he said that “viewing is much more on par with the large-scale mainstream things like ‘The Walking Dead.’”

Instead, Friedland said, Sarandos was talking about the show’s demographic appeal, which Netflix said is wider than it might have thought. “He was saying that the viewing audience is broad, in the same way that ‘Walking Dead’s’ audience is larger than horror fans,” Friedland wrote.

That makes sense. It would be much more surprising if Netflix decided to deviate from a pledge it made loudly and often a few months ago.

For the record, here’s the full excerpt of Sarandos’s chat with THR’s excellent Lacey Rose:

THR: You’ve been reticent to share ratings data, but tell us what you have learned about the “House of Cards” audience.

Sarandos: The major international appeal for “House of Cards” was kind of a surprise because it’s a very American show. What we learned is that American politics is very American, but greed and corruption and all of that is very global. Corrupt politics is not new in Latin America, as it turns out. (Laughs.) Within the U.S., you could have argued that most people who watch “Mad Men” would watch “House of Cards.” But the viewing is much more on par with the large-scale mainstream things like “The Walking Dead.” It was much younger than we thought. One of the things that surprised me was that women love the show because they love Robin Wright. And younger people love Kate Mara. Everyone is able to gravitate to this show for very different reasons.

Broadcast and cable networks, including NBC, Fox, ABC, Univision, Discovery and A+E, have signed up for the pilot program for “Nielsen Digital Program Ratings,” which will happen over the next few months before a broader commercial rollout later this year.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

At first blush this seems like the best-case scenario for Viacom and every other Big Media player: Netflix, et al, pay a lot of money for shows the networks have already aired, and that money is almost pure profit.

And in some cases the story gets even better, as Netflix claims that for shows like AMC’s “Mad Men,” the reruns it carries boost the ratings for the show’s new episodes, as binge watchers/catch-up watchers become new fans.

But Bernstein analyst Todd Juenger is convinced that, at least for kids’ programmers, and Viacom in particular, the Netflix deals are bad ones, because they train Netflix subscribers and their kids to watch the shows on the Internet instead of on TV.

This makes intuitive sense to people like me, who have kids who watch a ton of Viacom shows — and almost never watch them on TV. Viacom has said that this isn’t the case, but today Juenger has a new note making the same argument, with new data.

Here’s what happened to ratings for kids’ programming last year, split up by homes that have Netflix and those without. Note that the only case where a network did better in a non-Netflix household was Time Warner’s Cartoon Network, which didn’t have a syndication deal with Netflix until January 2013:

Apple doesn’t like a scandal, especially concerning anything genitalia-related. And it seemed the immediate solution was to cut Vine from the prominently featured list of “Editor’s Picks” in the App Store.

But that wasn’t enough. On Tuesday evening, Vine pushed an update to its app for download. Now, when users download the Vine app or update for the first time, they’re faced with a “17+” age-restricted material rating.

That’s a big bummer for Twitter, but it seems it wasn’t avoidable. We’ve been told by people familiar with the matter that Apple reminded Twitter of Clause 3.8 from the App Store guidelines, which says:

“Developers are responsible for assigning appropriate ratings to their apps. Inappropriate ratings may be changed by Apple.“

In other words, Apple gave Twitter a nudge, implying Twitter might want to change its maturity rating in order to keep within the confines of the App Store guidelines. Otherwise, Vine could have faced ejection. Twitter did it, albeit begrudgingly.

Apple declined to comment on my report, and Twitter isn’t responding to requests for comment.

To some degree, we should have expected this. Apple cut Twitter a lot of slack when the porn scandal first broke — at least, by Apple’s standards. (This, after all, is the company that deep-sixed a comic-book-app version of Joyce’s “Ulysses” for depicting cartoon boobs.) Why? Probably because Apple and Twitter are elbow-rubbing pals, with deep ties into one another’s companies and software.

But as we argued last week, Vine doesn’t have a porn problem per se — it has a porn discovery problem. That gnarly porno found on Vine was all too easily surfaced in the app, due in part to the nature of the service itself. Search a hashtag keyword for sex, penis or what have you, and you’ll be taken straight to the hardcore stuff. That’s not as easy to find in, say, YouTube, which has a more mature engine for filtering out objectionable content. Or even Tumblr (though Tumblr is also rated 17+ in the App Store).

The prudish Apple can deal with the fact that yes, we are human, and yes, we watch porn (lots of it). And to some degree, it will always exist across the Internet. It’s a fact of life. But what Apple can’t deal with is said porn front and center, easily discoverable for any and all to see. It’s why SnapChat has a 12+ rating, and why Vine doesn’t.

In other words, think of yourself as a teenager to Apple’s repressed mother — you hide your porn under your mattress. You don’t leave it out on the coffee table.

This is no doubt a bad thing for Vine and Twitter. Video and photo sharing apps are some of the fastest rising among the teenage group. That’s the category that SnapChat is currently dominating, where Tumblr is killing it, and the age group that every social media company needs to dominate. Slapping a mature rating on Vine automatically eliminates any youngsters who have parental settings turned on from downloading it, potentially a large swath of the teen population.

Twitter might be advised to hurry up and release that Vine Android app post haste — Google isn’t as uptight with its app market.

IAC chairman Barry Diller would like to help. His Match dating unit is rolling out Crazy Blind Date, a mobile app that promises to provide just that: A fix-up with someone you’ve never met, and haven’t been able to see.

The basics: You tell the app (iOS and Android) when you want to go out, and where, and it finds someone with the same (basic) requirements. Both of you get a scrambled picture of each other, which should be enough to let know if your date has horns or tribal tattoos. But that’s about it.

Then you’re supposed to go meet up for 20 minutes.

Weird, right?

I can’t imagine a soul I know who would rely on a mobile app to fix them up on a blind date. But, then again, I don’t think I know many people who would go on a blind date, period. And I’m now so old that I’m frequently baffled by all sorts of digital social interactions — Snapchat let you do what? Why? Really? — and that makes me wary about handicapping any of this stuff.

Update: Thanks to Erin Griffith for pointing out that this isn’t a new concept: OKCupid, which IAC bought in 2011, tried this out, sans app, in 2007.

What’s really interesting about Crazy Blind Date, though, isn’t the overarching concept, but the reputation system it is trying out.

The app is free, and so is the matchmaking service. But once you’ve gone on a date, you’re encourage to rate your counterpart. And if you want to give them a thumbs-up — “kudos,” in the app’s parlance — you have to pay to do it, via an in-app purchase.

The ratings have nothing to do with whether you get a second date — the app will help you message your date after the fact, but the rest is up to you.

But those ratings will carry weight with the app’s algorithm, says Match CEO Sam Yagan. People who accumulate more kudos are more likely to get fixed up on future dates — as are people who pay for lots of kudos.

“Your value to the community is both the amount of money you make, and the amount of money you raise for other people,” he says.

The notion takes some explaining — I ended up going over it with Yagan several times — and I’m not sure how obvious it will be to Crazy Blind Date’s users. But it’s basically a “tip jar” approach, except that the tipper also gets credit.

And your approach to the incentive system may differ based on gender: Yagan imagines that men might spend money on women in hopes of impressing them (I keep thinking of dudes “making it rain” in strip clubs); women may spend money on guys they went out with because of pity/guilt.

We’ll see! The idea, beyond generating revenue for IAC, is to play around with commenting/rating systems we’ve become used to online, which are both helpful and notoriously unreliable.

So the notion of forcing people to put their money where their mouth is, or would like to be, is worth watching. Even if you’ve got a full social calendar.

Case in point: The latest “buy” rating coming from J.P. Morgan Chase, complete with a shiny new price target raised to $35, up six bucks from the firm’s previous figure. That’s courtesy of Doug Anmuth, JPM’s Facebook analyst, who has been bullish on the social giant’s prospects since early on. In his latest research note, Anmuth echoes Facebook’s common refrain: Facebook’s ad prospects are still in the early days.

This comes as Facebook continues trying to convince investors that its mobile monetization strategy will eventually yield strong returns, given consumers’ massive shift to mobile devices in recent years. Facebook isn’t there yet, mind you, as the company still continues to see the lion’s share of its revenue come from desktop ads. But not for long, according to JPM: The firm expects Facebook’s mobile revenue to surpass that of desktop revenue by 2014.

For the time being, Anmuth is impressed with Facebook’s recent inroads. Facebook’s Exchange product makes good use of third-party data; that hopefully should result in better ads being shown to users, and better returns to advertisers overall. And he believes that Facebook’s most recent push into e-commerce with “Gifts” paid off significantly, bringing in a new revenue stream just in time for the holiday season.

Despite the bright outlook from J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley — its three largest underwriters — Facebook’s stock hasn’t lived up to initial expectations. Share prices were cut in half during the first six months of trading, down from an opening price of $38 per share.

But Facebook has fared better on the market in recent days, hovering around the $26 to $28 range over the past two months. Shares closed at $26.62 on Monday, the last day of 2012 trading. The bulls expect that number to keep going up in the New Year.

Now Facebook needs to make its own New Year’s resolution: Proving those analysts right.

It’s an exclusive multiyear agreement, dubbed with the fancy “Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings” title, coming in a partnership between the two companies. So official, in fact, that the two call it the “industry standard metric” which measures all the Twitter activity and conversation focused on television shows.

Obvious move here. Twitter remains much lauded for its “second-screen” experience; while a television event of high interest — like the presidential debates or a big sporting match — is on the tube, Twitter sees large spikes in activity between users talking about the show. So to have an “industry standard” makes sense if Twitter wants to make its pitch to advertisers that Twitter engagement data really does matter.

That pitch, which Twitter has long trumpeted, is that, yes, traditional TV ratings systems of measuring viewers who tune in still matter. But engagement on Twitter focused on the show also matters, and translates to something that ad buyers should care about.

Not everyone is sold on that idea quite yet. Still a question for the ad dudes to mull.

The new partnership isn’t completely unexpected, either. Twitter and Nielsen already have history with each other, having paired up to work on Twitter advertising surveys earlier in the year. And Nielsen bought social tracker SocialGuide last month, so it’s no surprise that Nielsen cares about social analytics.

I doubt that everyone in the Twitter ecosystem is stoked on this, though. Especially companies like Bluefin, Trendrr and Viggle, which earn their meat and potatoes measuring social television analytics and selling that data to advertisers. My guess is that Twitter is offering direct access to its fire hose — the ever-flowing stream of tweets that pass through the company’s pipes every day — straight to Nielsen, what with this exclusivity agreement and all.

If Twitter is setting the API access system up like it has with partners Datasift and Gnip, the new deal is a bummer for the Bluefins of the world, who may have to go through extra hurdles to get that data from now on. I’d imagine that everyone else in the ecosystem would have liked to have the deal that Nielsen got.

Update, 10:51 am PT: That was fast! Bluefin CEO JP Maheu provided the following punchy comment: “Bluefin Labs remains focused on driving new innovations in social TV analytics, not just by focusing on one dimensional ratings and rankings, but by providing rich and actionable multi-dimensional analytics [affinity data] to brands and TV networks.”

This whole thing has to smart a bit for Facebook, too. Nielsen calls it the Twitter TV ratings system, not the social TV ratings system. Ouchy.

Expect the new ratings system to roll out at the start of the 2013 television season.

But four days later, the reality is setting in that downloading Google Maps won’t result in the same experience as before — that’s because Google Maps is not the iPhone’s default maps program. Apple continues to hold that coveted position.

The arrival of the app on Wednesday was first confirmed by AllThingsD.

Understandably, this disparity could lead to some consumer confusion.

Google Maps was the default application since the smartphone first launched, and remained so until it was kicked off in September as part of the iOS 6 software update.

Now, as users download Google’s map application, they may think that it should function just like before.

After reading reviews in the App Store, the biggest complaint so far has been that contacts are no longer accessible inside of Google Maps.

“Why can’t I access the contacts on my iPhone,” one user asked. “I checked the privacy menu in settings on the phone and maps hasn’t even tried to access them. All of the new features and it won’t let me get directions to my contacts!!” Another user, who goes by the name of Memphis-Drew, wrote: “Since this isn’t a native app anymore, it doesn’t feel fluid. Expected more from Google.”

Overall, Google gets four-plus stars based on nearly 20,000 ratings, so the complaints are relatively minor.

It’s unclear if Google could have included access to the contact list, or if that’s a function that is blocked by Apple, but it should be noted that some of these issues are simply out of Google’s control.

For me, what’s noticeable is how clumsy it is when navigating to an address saved in my calendar. A one-step process has turned into four: To find directions to your next appointment, you must copy the address from the calendar, close the app, open Google maps and paste the address into the search bar. That’s not something I should attempt while driving.

Following the release of Apple Maps, Apple CEO Tim Cook formally apologized to users for MappleGate, and, since then, both mobile software head Scott Forstall and maps manager Rich Williamson have been ousted.

But hoping that Google Maps will be more tightly integrated into some of the operating system’s core activities, like it once was, seems like a stretch for a company that was clearly trying to decrease its dependence on Google with the launch of its own map app.

Is Cook willing to go the extra mile to ensure the user’s happiness by at least giving the consumer a choice of which map it wants to use?

Another thing that consumers will likely notice is that Apple Maps will continue to appear in a number of navigation-heavy applications, like HotelTonight, Yelp or Redfin, just to name a few. In those cases, for directions to a hotel, a restaurant or an open house, the easiest map to use is the one embedded in the application — and by default, that’s Apple Maps.

However, that could be changing soon.

Perhaps as important as the app itself, Google also released a software development kit this week, allowing other app makers to build Google Maps into their programs. Developers interested in doing so can register to get access to the APIs to easily enable their users to search and get directions using Google Maps.

But for now consumers will end up using Apple Maps for a lot of activities, especially if patience is a factor.

That’s especially true since Apple-built applications cannot be deleted from the phone’s operating system. For very diligent people, I found this hack that allows users to hide unwanted Apple applications without jailbreaking your phone. (Note: I did not attempt this myself!) Alternatively, you can also move the app into a folder and bring the Google Maps app to your homepage to make jumping between things easier. That’s pretty simple.

Regardless of your own personal preference, one thing I did learn from the reading dozens of the reviews in the App Store is that a lot of people didn’t find Apple’s mapping application so horrible to begin with. Now that Google is back, they even appreciate some of the new features brought to the table by Apple. As one reviewer said about Google Maps, “All hype, little substance.”

That is: You were watching NBC’s coverage of the Olympics alongside a good chunk of the U.S. population. More of them than ever, actually.

The broadcaster says the games were the most popular TV event in U.S. history, pulling in 219 million viewers across 17 days. That’s just above the 215 million that tuned in for the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

If you’ve been following NBC’s statements during the games, then today’s news won’t surprise you. Short version: The network says that despite the nattering nabobs, its coverage was a ginormous success.

The longer version comes via a press release which credits the network’s coverage with curing cancer, turning lead into gold and levitating the Pentagon. You should eventually be able to read it here.

The most interesting statistic is that NBC pulled in an average of 31.1 million viewers in prime time — the time the network dedicated to showing heavily edited versions of events that had occurred hours earlier. NBC’s vociferous critics argued that by keeping marquee events off the air until later, NBC diminished their value. But results like this will make it difficult to sway the network brass.

To harp on this point one more time: Last night’s closing ceremonies, in which no sports of any kind occurred, also aired hours after the fact. And even that non-event drew an average of 31 million people — about a third of all TV viewers. (Alternate theory: We are vastly underestimating the Jessie J fan base.)

And yes, there was streaming, too. NBC’s press release is full of gaudy statistics comparing this year’s streaming usage to Beijing, but that seems besides the point, since Beijing had next-to-no live streaming.

Relevant stat here: Pay TV subscribers “verified” some 10 million devices (PCs, iOS, Android), meaning they could watch live events on NBC’s site and apps. And they collectively streamed 13.6 million hours of coverage.

The network said on Sunday that ratings for the opening night of competition were its best ever. With 28.7 million average viewers for its evening coverage, NBC said it had nearly five million more people watching than for the Beijing games and two million more than for the 1996 Atlanta games, the prior best.

Among the markets it tracks, NBC said Salt Lake City, San Diego, Calif., and Kansas City saw the highest ratings.

Some of those viewers were clearly the disgruntled ones that learned of the results via Twitter — or even from “NBC Nightly News,” which gave all the key results ahead of the primetime coverage — but watched the coverage, nonetheless.

NBC’s decision to delay the opening ceremony also came under fire, but nonetheless drew in tons of primetime viewers.

Plus, unlike in past games, NBC is offering the ability to watch every event live online and on mobile devices, for those that don’t want to wait.

As for that streaming, NBC told AllThingsD that it delivered 7 million live streams and 13.2 million total streams on Saturday. It delivered 943,000 streams of Saturday’s swimming session alone.

In Beijing for the first day, NBC served up 1.6 million live streams and 5.2 million streams in total.

The peacock network said that ratings for its daytime and late-night coverage also soared, though the initial coverage has come on a weekend, meaning more people were off work to watch it.

Updated, 3:45 p.m. PT with Web streaming stats.

But how do Netflix users actually use Netflix?

For at least some of them, the answer is: They use it as an $8-a-month babysitting service.

That’s the takeaway from a focus group Bernstein Research conducted with a bunch of San Francisco moms last month. Bernstein is particularly interested in how moms use Netflix with their kids, because the team there believes that kids’ shows on Netflix are a problem, or potential problem, for kids’ cable programmers like Viacom and Disney. And the discussion they had with these moms supports their thesis:

Our panelists who subscribe to Netflix largely originally did so for themselves, but are now using the service primarily for their kids. The content selection is perceived to be significantly better for kids than for adults, and the lack of commercials and ability to control the viewing choices are seen as positives.

And the quotes and paraphrases from the focus group are excellent, and ring at least partially true. At least to this non-San Francisco-based kid-watcher:

• We found that most mothers originally subscribed to Netflix streaming for themselves, but eventually the service is used primarily by their children.
• Some mothers like that Netflix streaming allows them to watch older content, but many consider Netflix as a service better suited for children because of lack of interesting content for adults.
• Mothers like that Netflix does not have commercials and contains programming their kids enjoy (citing Dora, SpongeBob, etc.).
• Many mothers cited instances in which their children watched the entire episode library of a given show (e.g., SpongeBob) on Netflix.
• Almost universally, the mothers found that kids do not tire of watching the same programs over and over again. …
• When asked if Netflix was an adequate substitute for cable, Group 2 erupted in a chorus of nos.
• Regarding the types of shows one child watched on Netflix, one mother stated, “Mostly she watches the shows she’s seen a million times [already] on Netflix.”
• “My kids do binge viewing through Netflix. I never turn on Netflix.”
• Regarding the availability of older content: “The Columbo’s we don’t own, we watch on Netflix. Columbo, Columbo, Columbo, Columbo.”
• “I think I use it more for the kids than I do for myself.”

But it’s equally important to note that most of the Bernstein panelists don’t say Netflix is their primary source of kids’ entertainment: Most of them also rely on some combination of DVRs, pay-TV on-demand offerings and other services.

And, a bit oddly, when Bernstein conducted a similar panel of moms in New York this month, it found that most of them had no idea how the service worked. Which again means they didn’t talk to my family or most people I know.

Unlike our panel in SF, this group of mothers had surprisingly little knowledge of the Netflix value proposition. They did not use Netflix for their kids as much as the SF panel suggested since most knew almost nothing about the product.

• When describing what the product offers for kids, some uninformed mothers did not see the need for the use of such a service, as they mostly needed programs that are downloadable. They felt that OnDemand and DVR fulfilled the majority of their programming needs.
• When asked what form of entertainment service the mothers would give up first, invariably it was Netflix.
• When asking about pricing for Netflix, one mother asked, “Is it $30 a month?”

Of the 18-odd banks involved in the underwriting process, nearly half of them gave Facebook a “buy” rating on Wednesday, the first for these firms since the end of their mandatory 40-day quiet period following the offering.

But one such underwriter, BMO Capital, wasn’t having it. The firm gave Facebook an “underperform” rating with a price target of $25, nearly a 35 percent reduction from the stock’s initial $38 IPO price. It stands alone as the most negative rating against a backdrop of cautiously optimistic new estimates.

BMO cites reasons that many — including Facebook in its S-1 filing — have already raised as cause for concern, including a decreased outlook on user growth as the site reaches close to one billion users. There’s also the problem of Facebook’s questionable advertising model, made especially problematic by the migration of active users moving toward mobile devices, a platform yet to be monetized effectively.

They’re a valid set of concerns, and ones that Facebook seems to be taking seriously. The company has been on an acquisition spree for mobile applications and talent, potentially aiming to bolster its small but promising e-commerce system with the recent acquisition of Karma.

Facebook’s stock was down 2.63 percent at the close of business on Wednesday at $32.23, though it’s still up seven points from its all-time low of $25.52.

Eventually they settle, and you, the pay-TV customer, ends up paying more.

And that’s what’s happening in the latest dustup between Dish Networks, the satellite TV service, and AMC Networks, the programmers now best known as the guys who bring you “Mad Men,” “The Walking Dead” and “Breaking Bad.”

The slight twist here: For argument’s sake, at least, Dish is saying that because AMC is selling digital versions of those shows to other outlets, its hit shows are worth less to Dish subscribers. “It’s actually devalued,” says Dish chairman Charlie Ergen.

The fact that networks are selling or giving away their stuff online has been a minor but growing issue in carriage fights for a while now. But this is the biggest stink that a cable/pay TV provider has made about it, at least in public.*

Dish first brought this up via a press statement last week, but Ergen went on about it at length today during the Dish earnings call.

It’s worth reading. I’ve cleaned up his comments just a bit for clarity (note that AMC Networks includes multiple channels, including AMC, IFC and Sundance):

We have very, very specific viewer measurement. Much more granular than somebody like Nielsen might have. So we’re able to watch our customer base and — we realize we skew a bit more rural — between [AMC Networks] programming, they have very, very low viewership, outside of a few obviously popular [shows] on AMC.

But those particular channels are also available to our customers on a variety of other sources, like iTunes, Amazon, Netflix and so on.

One of the things that programmers have done is that they’ve devalued their programming content by making it available in many multiple outlets. So, when someone asks for price increases …

We just look at it. Our customers are not really saying “We want to pay more money,” they’re saying, “We want more flexibility in our programming, and we don’t want to pay more.”

And when you look at that from a timing perspective, that’s just a contract that we can change. And we believe that the product is actually devalued. Not that there’s not some good programs, but that they’ve been devalued, because you can get it in multiple ways. And customers are asking for more flexibility, or have more flexibility to get the programming. So it’s not quite the same as something that was exclusive.

So we look at it and say, “This is a good opportunity to make a good business judgment call.” And obviously there’s a price where an [AMC Networks] product makes sense. We just don’t think that’s where we are today.

First things first: Obviously it makes the most sense to dump all of this into the “posturing” bucket, and treat it accordingly. The easy money here is to bet that, yet again, Dish and AMC will strike a deal, which Ergen, at the end of his remarks, explicitly says is on the table.

That said, a couple of points:

• Most of the big TV programmers seem to agree with Ergen’s point when it comes to free repeats of recent shows. Which is why they have been taking stuff that they’ve been giving away via outlets like Hulu, and either pulling them off the Web entirely, or requiring that customers “authenticate” — prove that they’re paying for cable or satellite TV —  in order to see them without delay. Note that Dish was the first pay-TV service to participate in the Fox authentication plan last summer. (Fox is owned by News Corp., as is this Web site.)
• TV programmers don’t seem to think that iTunes’ and Amazon’s a la carte sales of shows that aired the night before are devaluing their product. Because they’re still selling them, and by all accounts there doesn’t seem to be a ton of volume for those episodes. If there was, advertisers would squawk long before pay-TV providers would.
• The really touchy subject here is what happens to prior-season episodes of AMC hits like “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad” on Netflix. Netflix has been arguing that these episodes are big draws for its customers, and that this is good for networks like AMC, because people discover the old shows on Netflix and then watch the new ones as they air. There is some evidence for this, too.
• But there is also evidence that Netflix repeats hurt some cable programming — like kids’ shows — too. And that leads to speculation that Viacom and Disney will pull back their shows from the service or raise prices when their contracts expire — even though Netflix is already paying big dollars for them. Netflix will have its hands on “Mad Men” and other AMC shows for at least a couple of years more. But it will be interesting to see what Dish’s complaint means for the renegotiations.

*There is also a wrinkle involving a lawsuit between Dish and a former AMC subsidiary, but that’s par for the course, too. All of these guys sue all of these guys, all the time. No recession, ever, for TV attorneys.

But people are still watching a whole lot of TV — perhaps as much as ever. So the more nuanced answer is that some people are swapping out the Web for TV, some of the time. And other times Web video consumption may end up leading to more TV-watching.

Here’s some evidence supporting that idea: New data from Bernstein Research that tracks TV viewing habits for Netflix streaming subscribers. It shows a drop in kids’ TV viewing — but an increase for networks like AMC and FX. Presumably that’s because Netflix users are discovering old episodes of shows like “Mad Men” and “Sons of Anarchy” on Netflix, which is prompting them to watch new episodes of those shows on cable.

This chart shows a dropoff for programming on kids’ networks like Disney and Nickelodeon:

And this chart shows spikes for AMC whenever the network shows new episodes of shows that have old episodes on Netflix:

Bernstein put its research together using data from TiVo users. So on the one hand the numbers are pinpoint accurate, since they’re tracking actual TV usage. And, on the other hand, it may not be representative of the entire country.

Still, it makes intuitive sense, and certainly syncs up with the way the Web gets used in our house: Our kids are unaware you can do anything with an iPad other than watch “Backyardigans” and “Dinosaur Train.”

Meanwhile, I just plowed through the first four seasons of “Breaking Bad” on Netflix (and iTunes) last month — and am going out of my mind waiting for the fifth season to start on AMC this summer. Let’s cook!

The credit firm cut long-term and short-term debt ratings by one notch. Moody’s also said its outlook was negative, meaning further downgrades are possible.

“While volatility by quarters is not uncommon, Moody’s believes that the structural challenges facing Nokia’s Mobile Phones segment may not be easy to address, such as the market share gains recorded by makers of very low-end phones or new phone promotions by Chinese carriers,” Moody’s said in a statement. “This precipitous decline is of particular concern considering that Nokia’s Mobile Phones segment was still the core income generator for the Nokia group in 2011, when it contributed 1.5 billion Euros to the group’s operating profit of 1.8 billion Euros.”

Moody’s also noted that the company’s shift from Symbian to Windows Phone-based devices “is proving more challenging than expected given that sales of Symbian-based devices are falling off very quickly while Lumia sales are only ramping up slowly.”

The ratings move follows Nokia’s warning last week that its business was weaker than expected and that it sees another rough quarter ahead. Nokia is slated to deliver its full earnings report on Thursday.

For its part, Nokia said it is “quickly taking action” to address concerns about its business.

“Nokia will continue to increase its focus on lowering the company’s cost structure, improving cash flow and maintaining a strong financial position,” CFO Timo Ihamuotil said in a statement.

Nokia was hit with downgrades last year after announcing its plans to focus on Windows Phone.

Moody’s did note that Nokia “has maintained a strong liquidity position and capital structure” and had about twice as much cash and marketable securities as it did debt as of the end of March.

I removed the tweet at the request of Nielsen. I intended no harm and apologize for the reference.

– Oprah Winfrey, in a statement to the New York Times, referring to a tweet she published Sunday night encouraging Nielsen viewers to tune in to OWN, in violation of Nielsen’s policy

Why the spike? A good chunk of it, I assume, has to do with the death of Whitney Houston the day before, and viewers who wanted to see how the biggest stars in music responded to the loss of a peer.

But the rise also fits nicely with an increasingly popular digital narrative: Big, live TV events are big events on Twitter and Facebook, which generate lots of online chatter and drive more eyeballs back to the TV screen, where they inspire even more chatter. Cue virtuous cycle.

Last night’s show generated 13 million “social media comments,” says “social TV” tracker Bluefin Labs. That’s even more than the previous week’s Super Bowl (which attracted many more TV eyeballs than the Grammys).

And you could argue that the Grammys were less digitally friendly than the Super Bowl. The game was streamed live on the Web, and the awards show was broadcast-only*, and was broadcast on a three-hour delay on the West coast.

CBS, though, argues that it worked hard to generate online interest for the show. It says it attracted a million visitors to the various sites and iPad/iPhone apps it operated over the three days leading up to the show. It says it attracted a peak of 165,000 concurrent viewers to a livestream of pre-Grammys red carpet coverage Sunday afternoon.

And it says it worked hard, along with Twitter, to get music stars at last night’s show to talk up the event to their own social networks.

“You’ve got to look at the ratings and say that there’s got to be a correlation,” says Marc DeBevoise, who heads up entertainment for CBS Interactive. “We wouldn’t be doing it if we didn’t think it was there.”

*Digital rights clearances make streaming a music show much tougher than a game — note that the Super Bowl’s halftime show with Madonna was also kept off the Web.

U.S. TV networks marked the official end of the TV season on Wednesday with a flurry of widely viewed send-offs, including the last episode of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and the season finale of “American Idol.” But those big programs are closing out a TV season in which few new shows became hits, and ratings for the four most-watched networks fell.

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However, Moody’s also expressed concern about how the company’s business will weather its transition to Windows Phone as the primary smartphone operating system. Nokia has said that at best it will have its first Windows Phone model out late this year and that it expects all of this year and next to be “transition years.”

Moody’s also lowered its ratings outlook for Nokia to negative, saying even the lowered rating assumes that Nokia can maintain a cash-flow-neutral position. However, it said it hasn’t lowered Nokia’s rating further at this point because of its large business and the overall industry growth of the smartphone industry and Nokia’s strong balance sheet, among other reasons.

Plus, the company will also be getting billions of dollars in support from Microsoft in the coming years.

Still, Nokia is counting on continued sales of Symbian-based smartphones for quite some time, though clearly it will face the challenges of waning developer and enthusiast interest in a platform that has been marked for eventual extinction.

Its forecast calls for a further 150 million Symbian-based phones to be sold in the coming years, even as the company shifts much of its development efforts to Windows Phone. Nokia just introduced a version of its Symbian-based C7 phone for T-Mobile USA and is planning to announce the latest efforts to improve on Symbian in a webcast on Tuesday.