Archive for January 20th, 2011
TV ratings vs. SF – the reality
by Doc on Jan.20, 2011, under Television
Craig Engler from Syfy wrote an excellent article about the reality of television ratings, online viewership, DVRs, DVDs and even piracy – and why shows get canceled. I think it should be required reading before anyone complains about how “their” shows get canceled.
Now, I have questioned at times how Nielsen selects its 20,000 “families”. A long time ago we were selected as a test family. We had to fill out the logs manually for a week. At the end of that, we were told we were not the “type” of family they were looking for. Um…we watched plenty of TV that week, so I don’t know what they were looking for, but it sounded fishy. If the families are not selected truly randomly, then I think at some level the ratings will be skewed. 20,000 also seems like an awfully small number – but the TV networks, Nielsen and the advertisers seem to think it is enough, and we have to live with it.
(continue reading…)