I think that the tv companies should recognise the implicit covenant they have with the viewers/fans and make it a hard and fast rule than any show running to more than x episodes (the value of "x" is up for discussion) should be guaranteed a resolution, whether it be the conclusion of a season or a TV movie to bring together any loose ends.Murder One?Among other shows, I remember catching late night UK screenings of "Prey" and being somewhat peeved by the last episode. I like my late night pulp tv and felt that I was owed a little more than a guy locked up in a cage! The same goes for "Brimstone" i.e. cheesy but a guilty pleasure I'd've liked to've stuck with for longer. I guess we now have "Reaper"!

I believe the biggest problem is the Nielsen rating system itself. The Nielsen people need to seriously look at increasing the number their metering boxes from 1,500 to as many as 50,000 and go to year-round "sweeps period" style monitoring, something that is now in easy reach with cheap electronic components and cheap high-volume computing power.

I wouldn't be surprised if this happens within the next 3-4 years. With an improved, higher sampling rate for viewership, Nielsen can identify smaller, but much more devoted viewing audiences that have a strong pull on advertisers. (It's been said if Nielsen had implemented their viewership sampling change done in the late 1970's in the middle 1960's a series like the original Star Trek would have lasted at least two more seasons on-air).

Higher sampling will mean little. The sample size could even be less and draw the same conclusions. Now if you mean that the sampling pool could be more diverse, I would have to agree. It's very difficult to capture a cross-section, regardless of the size. If you increase the size of the sample pool, you also magnify the bias.

I have to agree. I'd far rather see a competitor wire up another 1500 households in their attempt to get a good cross-section. That way, we could at least compare the two.

That's exactly what I'm looking for with 50,000 metering boxes. With that many boxes out there, you can look at Nielsen data with greater accuracy and that could show that some low-rated programs could actually be hits because they have a highly-devoted audience, something that advertisers strongly covet.