Subject: Re: Unfair TV Ratings - Lousy choices
From: gwangung@milton.u.washington.edu (Just another theatre geek.....)
Date: 1991-08-28, 14:49
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv,alt.tv.twin-peaks

In article <1991Aug28.201327.4230@risky.ecs.umass.edu> giovin@risky.ecs.umass.edu (Rocky J Giovinazzo) writes:
> >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.

Because they're DIRT CHEAP.  You can accept a lower rating for such
a show than a show that costs more.

> >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.)

That's the point of STATISTICS and PROBABILITY.  

Mere numbers don't skew the Nielsens. Anybody who trots out that
old chestnut just shows that they don't know what they're talking about.
What skews it are the assumptions behind the stratified sampling.





-- Roger Tang, gwangung@milton.u.washington.edu; Uncle Bonsai Memorial Fan Club "Originally, I got into theatre to pick up girls. Unfortunately, all I found were women."