http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/bu...er=rss&emc=rss

That's common practice to retitle shows during lower viewing periods (like holidays) so the ratings won't count in the average. Every network/TV station does it.

Crazy! Just because of this, I'm not going to start watching Good Morning America.


Well, I wasn't going to anyway, but I feel better about it now. :P

Well, that explains A Very Special Game of Thrones Christmas Special.

Ratings. I wish they didn't matter.

Of course they have to matter. Who the hell wants to spend $3-5M per episode for a TV show that noone is watching?

I didn't know TV shows did that, so thats interesting to me

What's the point? Ad buyers, cable companies, Variety readers, etc.. know about these shenanigans so they will adjust the prices they are willing to pay. Regular viewers don't really care about ratings especially day time numbers. It seems this is more about the network trying to pat themselves on the back.

Sorry but that's the kind of thinking that leads to all this bargain basement reality tv.

Cheers was dead last in the ratings the first season but the network stuck with it.

Seinfeld was uber low for ratings for years till it caught fire when it was placed after Cheers.

M*A*S*H* did so low in the ratings in hit's first season that it took the wife of the CBS president to save the show from being cancelled because it was her favourite.

I'll agree that ratings have to be part of the game to keep a show going but it shouldn't be the sole deciding factor nor do the networks do themselves, or anybody else, a favour by yanking a show asap just because it's lagging in the ratings.

Things are much different today than they were in the 70s-80s when these shows began. Shows are much more expensive to produce, and there is much more competition from cable, etc.

I hate reality TV with the fire of a thousand suns and tend to love genre TV that gets quickly cancelled, but the idea that TV shows with low ratings should be kept on the air is laughable. TV is a business, and if you're losing money (which low-rated shows are doing), it makes perfect sense to cut it loose.

Meh, I lost interest once Diane Sawyer left anyway.

Television is a business. In order for the networks/channels to stay alive they need to make a profit, and profits won't come from shows that nobody is watching. Which is the sad truth. The only time a series will be renewed without ratings is when there are other factors like fringe (got its fourth season so there would be enough episodes for Syndication) and Gossip Girl (got there current fifth and probably will get a sixth because of iTunes sales and international DVDs).

This is all assuming that ratings actually represented the number of people that were actually watching a show.

No. People watching bargain basement reality TV leads to that. If no one watched, nobody would produce shows liek that. After all Ratings = people watching. The higher the ratings, the more people watching, the more people advertisers wil reach, the more money they will be willing to spend on ads, the more money the network can make.

I know Nielsen ratings are statistically supposed to be accurate, but not being a Nielson household myself (and not knowing any), it still feels like it doesn't matter what I watch or who I try to influence, the ratings won't budge an inch. Plus even though they collect data from Tivos, they don't use that data because advertisers don't want it included (and I can understand that, because hey, they can skip commercials, or not watch the show until after the commercial is relevant). So I can only imagine that they don't collect data from anyone using a DVR. Won't this mean a ratings bias against "nerdy" shows where you'd think statistically a bigger portion of the audience would be more tech-savvy and use DVRs/Tivos/alternate methods of watching tv?

Why in this day and age do we need neilson ratings? Can they just have a tracker on all televisions to see what people are watching?

Actually they do, but I think it only counts if you watch it within 24 hours of the original broadcast.

They do collect data from DVRs. It counts towards the Live +7 ratings. You have to watch it within 7 days of it's broadcast and you cannot fast forward through commercials. Alot of shows get big boosts from the DVR numbers.

However, most ratings nuts say that Live +7 doesn't matter and only the overnights matter.

Who has a DVR and doesn't fast forward at least once in a recording?

I guess the key here is if you really like a show, play it in the background over and over without fast forwarding in the first 7 days after broadcast.

Losing money is a lot different than not making as much money. My understanding was scripted TV still made money in the 90's but the profit margin was so much better for reality because it was much cheaper to produce.

I agree it's a business; I wouldn't contend otherwise but I would contend they're being shortsighted. Little of these reality shows will make it into syndication or have years of replay sales on DVD/iTunes/Netflix/Unbox etc - they're disposable content

They're also discouraging people like me from even having cable (and I don't) since the little that is put out that I want to watch on cable I can pick up on DVD much cheaper - and commercial free.

Advertisers really missed the boat by the FCC not allowing DTV converter boxes to have the ability to PVR as long as it couldn't FF through commercials qualify for the converter box coupon.

So, during the episodes of Good Morning America that were renamed "special programming," do advertisers pay lower ad rates? If I were the advertiser, I'd certainly demand that. After all, it's not GMA, it's some crappy special programming whose ratings aren't as good.

I'm sure they do because the ratings were expected to be lower. Do advertisers pay lower rates for reruns, for example?