TV Ratings, Recordings & Sci Fi

[ebusinesstutor]

The Neilson ratings I believe are based on a combination of meters and manual surveys of only 25,000 homes.

No wonder great shows keep getting canceled. I know in many cases, companies are surprised at high DVD sales of TV shows they thought few people liked.

I wonder how recording affects things as well. I watch almost no "live" tv now, instead I record everything and watch it later. I skip through most commercials and only watch a few that catch my eye. (I always watch the Mac vs PC guys commercials).

So if in some of these 25,000 homes people are watching a recorded show from a week ago, what does the meter say is being watched? And if they are watching a DVD of a great show that was unfortunately canceled instead of new crappy shows, would anyone even know?

I heard that when the ratings company tried to move to more meters instead of surveys, the networks were horrified to find that the cable stations were ranked much higher than them, so they made the rating company chang it back so that their advertisers wouldn't know how poor their ratings were.

You would think Science Fiction lovers would be a good target audience. We are the early adopters, the gadget buyers, and most of us do buy DVDs of shows and movies we love.

Perhaps the problem is that the ratings is that:

• They are based on too few households to give a real picture of how much people like a show
• They miss niche target markets like Science Fiction lovers who are good marketing prospects but a smaller group than the general populace
• They don't also monitor how many people are watching the show by recording or DVD.

With so many shows out there, many of us miss them for the first season or so and then have them recommended to us later.

For example, I missed Heros entirely and purchased Seasons 1-3 recently and am watching from the beginning.

So now I am a loyal fan, but just a few years behind. If many people are like me, many great shows get canceled because we don't find them right away.

 

[23skidoo]

You're preaching to the choir. The Nielsen ratings has been out of touch for years. I read somewhere that the ratings for the original Trek series back in the 1960s, had certain numbers been given more weight than others, would have been enough to keep the show on the air after 1969. Erin Gray of Buck Rogers once mentioned at a convention I was at that her show was extremely popular in certain demographics and could have been kept on the air based on those numbers alone.

Certainly since the advent of the VCR ratings have become increasingly irrelevant. Advertisers and networks need some way of gauging how many people are watching their expensive shows -- this is very true -- but the fact is until fairly recently they have held on with a vice grip to a business model that dates back to the 1950s if not earlier (there were rating systems for radio in the 1930s that were almost identical to what is still in place today for TV).

Only recently have other factors been taken into account, but even so the networks are reluctant to legitimize any form of viewing that doesn't support advertisers. (In other words, if 50,000 people watch a show on broadcast, but 50 million download the same show illegally, they only want to count the 50,000, and maybe the few thousands more who visit the "official" online sources for the material. And they cancel the show on the basis that no one is watching it. I exaggerate the numbers, but there are plenty of examples of this.)

Clearly a new system is needed. But short of going the full Orwell route and tying in with every TV and computer to show what people are really watching at any time of the day or night (and with the new generation of video players and TVs being designed to work while hooked to the Internet that could happen), I don't know what that might be.

One thing for certain - I wish people would stop equating ratings with quality. Time and again I'm hearing people using it to justify their hatred of a show - or their personal like. For example, Leno's return to the Tonight show trounced Letterman, which people are using as justification to say Conan was garbage. Or all those people who jumped with glee whenever Enterprise's ratings took a hit, or a Russell T Davies Doctor Who episode stumbled a little. Just remember anyone who equates poor ratings with bad quality has no choice but to consider any and all prematurely cancelled series they may have loved (hello Firefly) as bad shows, too.

One thing the UK has I wish would be brought to the US and Canada is the Appreciation Index, which is a rating system independent of viewing numbers that is used to indicate how much viewers (whether 50,000 or 50 million) like a given show. As such a show can get huge ratings, but be hated, or low ratings and be loved by those who viewed it.

Alex

 

[nx1701g]

DVR recordings have been coming more into play with keeping some shows on the air. During Season One of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (and Season 2.0) Fox broadcasting did take the DVR recordings into consideration when deciding to keep the show or not (they just didn't do it for Season 2.5).

Here was how they rated it.

Live viewing was the best version

Under DVR
- Watched within 24 hours (Above Average)
- Watched within 72 hours (Average)
- Watched within one week (Below Average)
- Watched within one month (Poor)

 

[Starbreaker]

Nielsens are dumb. Some guy watching The Biggest Loser and The Bachelor religiously supposedly represents a million of us nerds watching Chuck.

 

[Braxton]

How is 25,000 a good enough sampling for ratings when this country has over 300 million people? Seems to me they need to drastically increase the number of homes they get ratings from in order to get a better number.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

If you look at the listings of the most DVR'ed shows vs shows that are rarely DVR'ed, the suspicion is true - sci fi shows are more commonly DVR'ed than average. (And you'll see the likes of Grey's Anatomy and Ugly Betty on the DVR list too, so it's not lockstep.)

Networks are trying to get advertisers to pay something for DVR viewing. Since not all ads are skipped, they have a valid point. But DVRs give advertisers an excuse not to pay up, and if they have an excuse, and the leverage to enforce it, they'll use that excuse. As the people with the money, of course advertisers have the advantage in all such negotiations.

So sci fi shows are being hit disproportionately hard by DVRing and that does impact their survival to some extent. I doubt it's a huge factor, but it's undeniably a factor.

Here's what I think is a bigger factor: networks are losing audience heavily to cable. Since cable has the advantage of a non-advertising revenue stream through subscriptions, they can undercut network TV's audience by providing more targetted content, like the "premium, groundbreaking" shows on HBO or "HBO lite" on AMC or "quirky, fun, lighthearted dramedy" on USA.

Cable locks in a loyal audience by having the luxury of not needing large audiences and being able to target their content more effectively. Networks are stuck having to survive off sheer volume. They churn out police procedurals because they can't afford to produce anything for a niche audience, and sci fi is by definition niche (especially if there are spaceships involved.)

Take a look at the 2010-11 pilot season for evidence: it's at least 1/3 cop shows and variations on cop shows. That's a sign of an industry hunkering down with the most conservative approach for sheer survival.

The solution is for cable to start doing more sf/f. Skiffy is of course largely hopeless but HBO greenlighting Game of Thrones and AMC's The Walking Dead are good steps in the right direction.

You would think Science Fiction lovers would be a good target audience. We are the early adopters, the gadget buyers, and most of us do buy DVDs of shows and movies we love.

None of that does any good if ya don't watch the ads for the gadgets!

And if they are watching a DVD of a great show that was unfortunately canceled instead of new crappy shows, would anyone even know?

DVD sales and rentals are certainly tracked but networks don't see any of that revenue so why should they care about it?

They don't also monitor how many people are watching the show by recording or DVD.

They know the DVR data and they know how many ads are skipped.

but even so the networks are reluctant to legitimize any form of viewing that doesn't support advertisers. (In other words, if 50,000 people watch a show on broadcast, but 50 million download the same show illegally, they only want to count the 50,000,

Neither networks nor advertisers will ever count any form of viewing that they get no revenue from. Why should they? It doesn't help them make their goals that their bosses tell them they have to reach or find themselves another job.

Clearly a new system is needed.

There's a thread about that in this forum somewhere, but I predict the current trends will continue and two parallel systems will emerge:

1. Free broadcast TV pitched to large audiences that do not skip ads, or who will watch live because the content has a quick expiration date. Examples: reality TV, police procedurals, sports, talk shows, news shows.

2. Paid or subsidized content targetted to niche audiences. Examples: basic and premium cable, paid download. Almost entirely, sf/f shows will fit under this model.

One thing the UK has I wish would be brought to the US and Canada is the Appreciation Index, which is a rating system independent of viewing numbers that is used to indicate how much viewers (whether 50,000 or 50 million) like a given show.

Isn't that what TrekBBS is for? Except it's more like the Depreciation Index around here.

How is 25,000 a good enough sampling for ratings when this country has over 300 million people? Seems to me they need to drastically increase the number of homes they get ratings from in order to get a better number.

I fell asleep during statistics class but whenever anyone who understands statistics pokes their nose into a thread like this, they have a good explanation why that number is perfectly sufficient.

Anyway, I believe the ratings trouble for sf/f shows are valid because I do know that they are disproportionately DVR'ed and they're not a mass audience genre so they belong on cable, not network TV. The larger trends explain the Nielsens drop, so why not accept the drop as valid? I'd be more suspicious if there were no drop, in defiance of the trends.

 

[chrisspringob]

How is 25,000 a good enough sampling for ratings when this country has over 300 million people? Seems to me they need to drastically increase the number of homes they get ratings from in order to get a better number.

25,000 is plenty. Doesn't really matter if you're sampling from a population of 300,000 or 300 million or 300 billion. It really doesn't affect the sample size you need. If you want a detailed explanation of why, here's a decent overview:

http://what-are-the-chances.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-big-sample.html