Quote:
Originally Posted by Destor
The problem is the data collection. Neilson is a dead metric. This is cavemen that havent discovered fire yet.
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Nelson ratings have always been a misrepresentation. It takes a very small percent of the audience, and then assume that the viewing pattern of that small sample size would equate exactly to the viewing habits of the entirety of the United States.
Nielson has roughly 40,000 households with boxes that monitor viewing habits. Nelson estimates there are 120 million households with tvs, and about 305 million people that watch tv.
They take those 40,000 houses, break it down to age groups and census data for the number of people living in the houses, then use whatever formula they use to determine how much each person in the household means to their rating, i.e. a house with 5 people will count as 5 viewers, since they can't actually say who in the house watched a specific show, then they multiply those numbers by a percentage to represent that 305 million, and that gives you a rating.
So when Nielson says a show gained or lost 200,000 viewers, it's probably about 30 people who watched one week but not another.
It is a very small sample size that networks base so much on.
It's why they have evolved to look at other factors.
It's why Fox's deal REALLY isn't as big as everybody makes it seem. They bought 520 hours of live tv for just over a $Billion. That is roughly $2 million per hour of TV.
That is rock bottom prices for a network show, let alone a live one which in this day and age is more desirable.
Fox will have no overhead with Smackdown, they will cut a $4million check every week for 2 hours of TV they don't have to worry about or put any real effort into.