Posted on 12/19/2007 9:25:32 AM PST by pabianice
Per the website Savejourneyman, this excellent, trend-setting show will not be renewed for another season. Fans are fighting-back. Another example of the low brain-power in the network broadcast suites.
I finished Daybreak online - the online posting was delayed due to legal issues with music rights. I assume that they had talent contracts that guaranteed full broadcast fees even when the show was pushed online. As such, the show was held up for months before going on.
Alienating drama viewers with mid-season cancellations - just another reason viewers are now only tuning in for dance and cooking competitions.
That certainly sounds better than admitting to having alcoholic blackouts...8^)
No way! Pushing Daisies is back in Jan. 2008. Right? ;-(
While there are definite problems with how ratings are determined the ratings determine the ad cost. I’ll certainly never defend Neilsen, their system was antiquated the minute the first home VCR shipped, but their numbers are the numbers that are used so no matter how little they reflect real world viewers they are the numbers that legitimately decide which shows stay and which go.
Like I said, that was a different time, NBC had some serious hit shows on that were making vast quantities of money, they could afford to hang onto a loser for a while until it found an audience. And Cheers was seriously loved by the critics and got lots of awards, there was good reason to believe it was going to find an audience. And finally Tartikoff liked it, when the big man that’s put a lot of big hit on the network likes a show the show gets to stay for a while not matter what the ratings are. That world is gone, NBC doesn’t have any big hits generating fat cash, Journeyman isn’t going to win any awardss, and Tartikoff is dead.
The reason these guys get paid the big bucks is because they get fired all the time. There are very few people in this world with less job security than a network TV exec (big studio film execs would be about it) championing one high priced flop is all it takes. Subsequently they’re very risk averse and tend to pull the plug quickly.
Perhaps.
I know my invisible (to everyone else) friend Al will help me pull through.
Yeah in the end. Of course even I had to look that one up, I think when the ripped off show reaches a certain level of obscurity it stops counting.
But that IS the point these decisions are based on numbers that are at best a "guess" which is more than absurd in this day and age.
Any Desktop recording unit like TIVOs and DVRs as well as Cable Boxes (non record/time-shifting ones) and Sat Boxes have the capability to accurately measure Exactly what is shown on the TV screen. And such a system would eliminate much of the Bias built into Nielsen's system. But inertia STOPS the usage of this new technology (also there has been a move in the minority communities to stop a changeover to the more accurate system being that Nielsen over samples many of the minority communities to escape criticism.)
Basically the Nielsen system is akin to a cartel controlling exactly who gets the goodies. Its far from the "free Market" because the scoring methods are faulty and in some cases down right biased.
But that doesn’t matter. Here’s the basic reality: the Nielsen numbers decide the ad price, if the Nielsen numbers are bad the show gets canceled, whether the Nielsen numbers have anything at all to do with the number of people watching the show is completely besides the point. Those numbers are ALL that matters, and until a network decides to get their numbers and manages to convince their advertisers that the other way is at least as good as they think Nielsen is nothing else matters, nothing else even comes close to maybe mattering.
It is a free market, the numbers decide, just because you and I and everybody else on the planet that not in the business thinks the numbers are a fiction doesn’t change the basic facts.
I see, so when there is an underground system of pay-for-ratings (those that fill out the viewing booklets can Sell their choices for cash) this is considered a Free Market? Maybe a RIGGED Market but it certainly is not Free. And if the factors like race, age, and economic status are fudged to satisfy the PC crowd this would be considered a Free Market? And there is even rumors of a built in system to make sure the "right types" of programs get rated properly to make sure the proper message is sent to the masses.
Nah its not a Free Market, its a carefully controlled system and it is used to manipulate public opinion, time and time again. The thing that is different now is, there is real evidence showing Nielsen's system is wrong and rigged (TIVO DVR data) and there is a movement afoot to squash any challenges to the system.
Check out the campaign to scare people who use DVR/TIVO and their program choices are being monitored. In this scare campaign it is never revealed that there is no personal data attached to this monitoring system, just the basics like demographics and such. Same as Nielsen does.
You’re investing way more emotion into this than it deserves. We’re just talking about TV shows here, which ones stay and which ones get canceled isn’t actually a situation that effects the world.
Of course in some ways the TIVO and DVR data is meaningless. The job of the networks is to deliver eyeballs to commercials, people watching by DVR by and large skip commercials, therefore those viewers are not really contributing to the bottom lines, those eyeballs are not being delivered to commercials.
I have no idea what campaign your talking about, and frankly don’t care. Any such campaign was done by stupid people, and only paid attention to by even stupider people, stupid people scaring stupider people is a situation best left ignored by everybody else.
One way or the other though, it is still a free market, no matter how worked up you get about it. All the shows have to put up with the same flawed number gathering system, everybody involved is satisfied with the results of the numbers, and complaining about them is an exercise in pointless oxygen destruction.
One way or the other though, it is still a free market, no matter how worked up you get about it. All the shows have to put up with the same flawed number gathering system, everybody involved is satisfied with the results of the numbers, and complaining about them is an exercise in pointless oxygen destruction.
You do realize that a majority of the adult and teenage population of the USA use TV as touchstone on how to live and act? Right? (Even if it is mostly not a conscience effort to do so.)
Much of our political system is manipulated by issues that are presented on TV. (Though more and more the Internet is taking away the power of the Lamestream media to control the information much to their chagrin)
The power of TV to control the masses is still considerable even though daily the Internet peels away that power. And the people who control what is shown on TV should be scrutinized closely because of the power of the medium. And when there is clear evidence the system is manipulated to achieve a result (Nielsen has admitted they oversample certain demographics to avoid criticism) then that system should be subject to investigation by the public as well as any legal entities. (We are talking considerable sums of cash awarded based on ONE agencies control of viewing numbers.)
If viewing numbers are fudged to appease certain elements of our society then it gives bias to certain types of programs and people involved in them, if so then by definition the market is NOT Free. And being that Nielsen has admitted to such (even going as far as releasing their demogrpahic breakdowns) that particular argument is settled.
You do realize that the days of the big networks being the monolithic source of televised American culture ended 2 full decades ago? Right? That’s one of the reasons the networks are struggling so hard for ratings right now, they now share the American population with over 100 cable channels, PCs and 3 major game systems. I doubt highly a given TV show ever was the touchstone for the people on how to live and act, but assuming for the sake of the discussion that it ever was true those days are gone forever. We no longer live in a world where America stops breathing to watch the last MASH episode.
The viewing numbers aren’t fudged to appease anybody, at least not anybody that isn’t capable of forking over 9 digits of cold hard cash to get it done. You seem to be laboring under the 100% false illusion that Nielson works in a vacuum. The networks do quite a bit of their own monitoring through various means, if their numbers ever differ dramatically from Nielson’s in a way that costs them money they take it up with Nielson. That’s why Nielson is constantly tweaking their methods. Anything Nielson does to avoid criticism isn’t done to avoid criticism from you and me, it’s done to avoid criticism from the people that pay them a lot of money to do what they do, the TV networks and the advertisers. You and I might wind up part of the ratings but outside of that we just don’t rate, they don’t give a crap what you and I or Jess Jackson think of their system; they care what The Mouse, Viacom, Universal and Madison Ave think of their system. Those are the ones that rate.
The market is free, that’s a simple fact, you might not like how that freedom works but it IS a free market that freely decides some shows are not getting the eyeballs and therefore they get canceled. You need to grasp that basic simple fact.
i'm bummed... my hubby and i love this show... we enjoy sci-fi and shows about time travel... i like the guy who plays the brother... he used to come on Homicide--Life on the Streets...
he mainly travels to the past...
I think you should start looking what a set of Journeyman DVDs.
I see, maybe you are confused on the Term Free Market.
"A free market is a market in which prices of goods and services are arranged completely by the mutual consent of sellers and buyers, determined generally by the natural law of supply and demand.
Yet if someone skews the defining numbers of the market saying that x number of this demographic of people watch a certain program based on our sampling of 10kish viewers then by definition your market is far from Free being it is having an outside control. The people who produce and write a show have no way to directly exchange with the customer without aide of the Network, the Network deals with the advertisers who use a skewed system of measuring results. So the Television market is a highly controlled one and does not even come close to the definition of a Free Market.
Especially being that the measurement of that exchange is vested in a single entity which controls the sampling numbers. (Why would Nielsen over-report certain demographics if they were seeking to provide an unregulated market being that engaging in such activity immediately invalidates any such premise?)
> Never heard of it. Can someone provide a very brief synopsis of the show?
It’s like Quantum Leap but not as good.
But the buyers and the sellers are more aware of any potential problems with the Nielson’s numbers than you and I could ever be, the buyers and the sellers both spend serious money supplementing and verifying those numbers, and they agree that the numbers are good enough to determine the dollar value of their exchanges. So clearly by definition the market is free, whether you’re willing to accept the truth of that fact or not.
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