MickeyNumbers
Bloggers log: The following refers to ratings systems used in the United States. I am aware that other countries would have different methods but just don't feel like doing the research to dig them out. I'm not disinterested, just lazy.
In 1941 Bulova paid a whopping nine whole dollars to air a 20-second advertisement. This was the first-ever TV ad, paving the way for television to blossom into a full-fledged industry. These days a half-minute of commercial time on a good show can reach over a million dollars- and that's merely to show the ad. Production costs routinely reach far higher than that.
And the advertisers will pay- though they do check to make sure they're getting value for money. The all-powerful ratings, as spoken by the Great God Nielsen, show how many of what type of people were watching a given show... in theory. Ratings are a statistical study, and for very low numbers of viewers there just isn't a large enough sample for any accurate number-crunching. This is why marginal cable channels (and the old UPN) would advertise based on "reach," the number of households that could possibly watch their programming if the batteries in the remote failed.
The ratings are generally presented as two numbers, the Rating itself (each rating point being close to a million viewers), and the Share, meaning that of all TV sets actually turned on at the time, what percentage were tuned to that particular show. Ratings tend to slip after midnight as normal folk turn off the TV and go to sleep, but shares can still stay quite high.
Now simply counting warm bodies isn't enough; advertisers want to know more specific information (often called "demographics," from a Latin phrase meaning "Okay, we're still wrong- but now we've got way more numbers to back us up!") on age, sex, number of children, income, etc. Especially the viewers in their 20s. The young folk with the disposable income are ratings gold, since advertisers assume that anyone past their 20s are irrevocably locked into unbreakable brand loyalty. Yes, I know it's stupid, illogical and as f#%@ed-up as our foreign policy. It's also one of the cornerstones of the television and advertising industries.
But the inaccuracy is only just beginning! To make the detailed demographic numbers year-round would cost more than the industry is willing to pay out, so the most detailed ratings analysis are done during the "Sweeps Months" of February, May, July and November. Now the entire industry knows which months are the Sweeps, and so everyone crowds their schedules then with the big specials, movie premieres, stunt programming and so forth. The result is that while the Sweeps are the most influential numbers in the ratings game, they're also the least accurate since the network programming is so very atypical then.
And so this is the numbers game which decides which shows live and which die. Inaccurate? Of course! Outdated? You betcha! It's a crooked, bent and at times significantly-less-than-sane game... but until someone wants to pony up some serious cash to kick-start a different system, it's the only game in tinseltown.
In 1941 Bulova paid a whopping nine whole dollars to air a 20-second advertisement. This was the first-ever TV ad, paving the way for television to blossom into a full-fledged industry. These days a half-minute of commercial time on a good show can reach over a million dollars- and that's merely to show the ad. Production costs routinely reach far higher than that.
And the advertisers will pay- though they do check to make sure they're getting value for money. The all-powerful ratings, as spoken by the Great God Nielsen, show how many of what type of people were watching a given show... in theory. Ratings are a statistical study, and for very low numbers of viewers there just isn't a large enough sample for any accurate number-crunching. This is why marginal cable channels (and the old UPN) would advertise based on "reach," the number of households that could possibly watch their programming if the batteries in the remote failed.
The ratings are generally presented as two numbers, the Rating itself (each rating point being close to a million viewers), and the Share, meaning that of all TV sets actually turned on at the time, what percentage were tuned to that particular show. Ratings tend to slip after midnight as normal folk turn off the TV and go to sleep, but shares can still stay quite high.
Now simply counting warm bodies isn't enough; advertisers want to know more specific information (often called "demographics," from a Latin phrase meaning "Okay, we're still wrong- but now we've got way more numbers to back us up!") on age, sex, number of children, income, etc. Especially the viewers in their 20s. The young folk with the disposable income are ratings gold, since advertisers assume that anyone past their 20s are irrevocably locked into unbreakable brand loyalty. Yes, I know it's stupid, illogical and as f#%@ed-up as our foreign policy. It's also one of the cornerstones of the television and advertising industries.
But the inaccuracy is only just beginning! To make the detailed demographic numbers year-round would cost more than the industry is willing to pay out, so the most detailed ratings analysis are done during the "Sweeps Months" of February, May, July and November. Now the entire industry knows which months are the Sweeps, and so everyone crowds their schedules then with the big specials, movie premieres, stunt programming and so forth. The result is that while the Sweeps are the most influential numbers in the ratings game, they're also the least accurate since the network programming is so very atypical then.
And so this is the numbers game which decides which shows live and which die. Inaccurate? Of course! Outdated? You betcha! It's a crooked, bent and at times significantly-less-than-sane game... but until someone wants to pony up some serious cash to kick-start a different system, it's the only game in tinseltown.
