Revised television article

I'm sick today. So instead of reading, I worked on the second draft of my television article, which is here, for your enjoyment. I'll be back to reading tomorrow.

Hopefully, the library will call me about that Keen book too!


Dude, where’s my TV show?
How ratings miscount television viewers, no matter how they’re watching


In the 2006-2007 television season, the much-hyped program “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” premiered on NBC at #22. This means that for that week (Sept. 18), it was the 22nd most-watched regularly-scheduled television broadcast. Almost 13 million people watched it; roughly the same as the population of Illinois. For 2006, it was the No. 1 program recorded on digital recording systems (like TiVo) for “timeshifted” viewing. Three months later, however, in December, NBC announced the show would share its timeslot with another show, and in February 2007, announced that the last episode would air mid-month. Why the sudden change? How did a fairly popular show go from 13 million viewers to cancellation? One way: ratings.

From 1928 (when the first experimental television images were broadcast) until 1951 (when Nielsen started publishing ratings), television operated without much real, concrete knowledge of who was watching. In 1951, Nielsen announced that the Texaco Star Theater, a variety show featuring star Milton Berle, was the most-watched program on television. Why was this data important? Well, aside from the curiosity of broadcasters, it satisfied a need for advertisers. Broadcasters could more effectively price their advertising space. If more people were watching Texaco Star Theater than anything else, then advertising on that show should cost more. Ever wonder why commercials on the Super Bowl are so expensive? Super Bowl broadcasts are some of the most-watched telecasts. In fact, out of the top-20 prime-time telecasts of all time, half are Super Bowls. In 1982, more than 40 million households watched Super Bowl XVI, and a 30-second commercial cost $324,000. The prices are set by analyzing previous ratings, projecting how many people will be watching when the commercial airs and then charging accordingly. And the shows that nobody’s watching? Well, they get cancelled, since the network can’t sell advertising on shows without audiences. It really is a popularity contest. But how to they determine which shows are being watched?

In the beginning, the system was simple. Nielsen sent you a diary and you wrote down what you watched. Nielsen would send diaries to enough people to produce a statistically accurate sample to estimate the nationwide counts. But, in spite of its simplicity, there were numerous problems with this system. People didn’t send the diaries back on time, or didn’t fill them out at all, or lied when they filled them out. Why did they lie? Sometimes to make themselves seem smarter (it’s been published that people say they watch a lot more PBS than they really do), or to try to protect certain shows from being cancelled. In 2004, Nielsen came under fire for testing “Peoplemeters,” special remote controls each household member used to track demographic use, and a special box that sent all the information to Nielsen. You couldn’t lie and you couldn’t cheat, but somehow, the Peoplemeters were giving drastically different information than the diaries were, and most of the changes involved television shows with minority casts. The Peoplemeters were scrapped after testing revealed their flaws, and Nielsen has gone back to the (also flawed) diaries. The bottom line is that the ratings numbers aren’t right. They’re not only susceptible to fibbing viewers and bad counting, but samples are only measured for home viewing. Plenty of televisions are watched in airports, bars and restaurants, and those viewers aren’t accounted for. And what about all the rest of the ways we watch television programs, like on DVD or the Internet? Can they affect a show’s fate? Why, yes, they can … at least sometimes.

The animated comedy show “Family Guy” proved that networks are paying attention to the DVDs we buy. “Family Guy” was cancelled twice, in 2000 and 2002, but DVD sales figures and high syndication ratings convinced the FOX network to bring it back in 2005. According to USA Today, this was the first time a show was reinstated after cancellation due to DVD popularity. So, at least the networks are paying attention to what we buy, but how about what we rent? Or what we download? The simple answer is that they aren’t. As evidenced by the fact that “Studio 60” was the No. 1 “timeshifted” (that means TiVo-ed) program of 2006, but was still cancelled. The answer is simple: you can skip the commercials on TiVo, so it doesn’t matter to advertisers if the viewers are counted. Why pay for advertising on a show most people don’t watch ads on?

Some networks are capitalizing on the “timeshifting” idea and profiting by showing streaming video of shows on their Web sites and charging for advertising there. For example, you can watch the season finale of “Studio 60” on NBC.com, brought to you by the T-Mobile Sidekick. The episode is split into five short streaming video segments, each preceded by a commercial for T-Mobile. According to a recent article in TV Week, total advertising revenue for streaming video like this should hit $1.31 billion this year. It’s clear that advertisers know who’s watching, or they wouldn’t be paying more than a billion dollars for advertising on streaming video. The networks are counting too. NBC announced that it had delivered more than 300 million streams this season alone. It still isn’t enough to save some shows. Shows with steep production costs (like “Studio 60,” or another NBC hit “ER”) have to make up their costs in ad revenue, and sometimes they just can’t. Spending $40 on a DVD box set is one thing, but paying $1.99 to download a single missed episode from iTunes just won’t add up the same way. And there are no profits at all for illegally-downloaded episodes. Even though you can build a strong and dedicated fan base that way, to the networks, it’s just more lost revenue.

The good news is that, according to Nielsen, new methods are being developed to measure what is being watched on portable media devices like iPods and cell phones. This is called “placeshifting,” Nielsen plans to study ways to accurately track not just what people are downloading to watch on these devices, but actually what they are watching. One of the many potential problems here, which would affect more than just one show, is there’s no accidental viewing. For instance, when you’re watching a television show on television, there’s a chance you can accidentally happen upon another show (the show before or after what you’re watching, or on a nearby channel). You might find your new favorite show this way, or at least something else to watch. With downloading, however, you only download the shows you want, so there’s less of a chance you’ll ever try anything new. Which only adds to the possibility of new shows being cancelled from low ratings, because people won’t download them on a whim. Of course, there are many more potential problems, and I’m sure the Nielsen researchers will try to overcome them, but it just might not be enough.

Of course, there are still the old-fashioned ways of trying to protect your favorite show from cancellation: letter-writing campaigns and petitions, but they aren’t working anymore. Letters and petitions aren’t dollars, and when there are so many media competing for our eyes and ears, money is the only thing that talks. In the 50s, the original Nielsen company didn’t have to deal with cable television options, satellite radio or the Internet stealing away their television viewers. Even show quality doesn’t necessarily matter. “Studio 60” was just nominated for five Emmy awards (in casting, directing, cinematography, and two for guest actors), but even that won’t save it from cancellation. Sadly, shows that aren’t winning Emmy awards are consistently rated at the top. For 2006, the top three most-watched shows were Tuesday and Wednesday’s “American Idol” and “Dancing with the Stars.” It seems like quality is being sacrificed left and right for high viewership numbers, and it’s all about the money. Being a Nielsen test subject and watching the show is the only way to make a difference, Just like always, you’ve got to put your money where your mouth is.