Subject: Re: Unfair TV Ratings - Lousy choices
From: giovin@risky.ecs.umass.edu (Rocky J Giovinazzo)
Date: 1991-08-28, 13:13
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv,alt.tv.twin-peaks

In article <1991Aug28.131005.33038@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> 2fowgodson@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:

> >It just seems to me that [new tv shows] are variations on a theme.
> >More of the pie-in-the-face Lucille Ball humor.  Understand
> >that I have nothing wrong with Lucille Ball or that type of
> >humor, but since they removed the really interesting shows
> >(30-something, Twin Peaks, etc.)  the trend has been toward
> >making shows of less intellectually captivating genre.

> >I don't know about the rest of you, but it hurts me that
> >the basis for a show's greatness is the Neilson families, 
> >and the decisions based on them.

It's even worse than you mention.  A large number of the fall programs
are "real TV" programs similar to Cops and Emergency 911 which involve a
minimal (if any) amount of creativity since they are usually just
narrated news-like stories.

> >As far as advertising, it seems to me that the majority
> >of people who watched TP were upper middle class (based 
> >on TV guides estimates), so what is the problem?

The problem is that 4000 "households" are being used to 
represent the opinions of 92,000,000 households-- which is
being used to represent 200,000,000 viewers (so says Bob Iger).
This means that all of those boxes together speak for
0.002% of the US TV viewers.  (Yet people get on my case when I 
say that the Nielson's are skewed and misrepresentative of the
population.)

Rocky Giovinazzo