These Neilsen Ratings?
- Thread starter Crewman47
- Start date
No..I wasn't thinking of illegal at all. I was thinking of someone like me who watches t.v. programs on the network websites (for example, I've watched The Daily Show on Comedy Central's website). I was just trying to think of other ways to have everybody counted, that's all.
OK, but like I said, they already count that. They already know exactly how many people watch their stuff online on the official website, and that's used to set ad rates online. But the Nielsens are specifically for setting the ad rates for the TV broadcast itself, so that's a separate thing.
Why do network executives seemingly kill off many shows by moving them to unsuitable timeslots? The most egregious recent example was when CBS decided to move Shark Sunday evenings for some unfathomable reason.
Well in most cases Networks don't want shows to die. Typically the move shows to an day that one they fell will either match other programming or is effective programming against the other networks. They also get detail on how they shows perform, if a show performs poorly in test groups then its probably going to get a rougher slot. If they have problems on set, or with staff most likely that show is going to get a harder spot. If a show underperforms in comparison to the rest of its lineup, then that show is what is going to put in spots where they will lose less.
While most likely everyone has one or (dozens) of shows that they loved that for whatever reason never caught the attention of the primary viewing audience. But as a business the networks can not afford to give shows many chances to succeed (the market isn't the same as it was ten years ago, 20 years ago, ect).
As for Shark, it's demo was older, its viewer totals weren't very strong (for CBS at the time), and it was losing ground week to week. Add that the show had real problems with the lead actor, James Woods, and its quite reasonable for them to put it late on Sunday.
Well here's an interesting story: TiVO launches competition to Nielsens.
Here's the catch:
In theory, even with their skewed audience, TiVO could correct for the skew so that the underrepresented demographics in their user base are weighted more heavily in the data. They know what their user base is, they know what the US population is. Just make em match up and suddenly they're real competition for Nielsens.
And being able to hone in more effectively on actual ad viewing vs. show viewing should make TiVO more attractive to advertisers.
Which really isn't a benefit since Nielsens' sample sizes aren't "too small" and TiVO's sample isn't represenative (explained below).
Advertisers should love that.
Here's the catch:
TiVO still can't offer advertisers a representative sample of the TV audience. Until it does that, it can't really compete with Nielsens. And how is it going to offer demographic data (which is vital information for advertisers) unless it abandons the anonymous system?
In theory, even with their skewed audience, TiVO could correct for the skew so that the underrepresented demographics in their user base are weighted more heavily in the data. They know what their user base is, they know what the US population is. Just make em match up and suddenly they're real competition for Nielsens.
And being able to hone in more effectively on actual ad viewing vs. show viewing should make TiVO more attractive to advertisers.
That only works if they can break their overall sample into demographically selected subsamples. Otherwise, how do you know what to weight? It's just not going to work unless they start having users provide demographic details.
OTOH, they could do a rough approximation of this based on geography, as TiVo knows the home addresses of its users. We know that wealthier people tend to live in Neighborhood A, while poorer people live in Neighborhood B. So we could weight the TiVo results based on where people live. I guess that's how you could make it work.
The reason Shark was losing ground because it dumped in a shitty timeslot to begin with, for no logical reason, although James Woods being difficult explains the sudden cancellation. Vindictive network/studio politics did kill the hit Space: Above and Beyond.
Demographs being inapropriate seems a tad fishy since the Nielsen system is deeply flawed and older adults are more financially secure anyway. Also Shark wasn't exactly being massacred when it was beating ER in its original slot, while having slightly higher ratings than Ugly Betty and Law & Order on Sunday evenings.
It is a bad sign when the stocks are plummeting and the CEO is a pig at a trough (in regards to Leslie Moonves).
