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shadowkat1. I spent some time trying to explain the complicated way advertisers and networks determine who is watching what and how much. And why, how much or how often or whether you watch a series is irrelevant unless you have been contacted by a marketing data service with the request to monitor your television viewing habits. They can't and don't have the ability to track what you watch without your consent -- at least not at the moment.
Subscription channels are a bit different -- they can track how many subscribers they have and may be able to track how many people watch certain shows.
In the US, most, not all, television series are supported by advertising dollars. Advertisers decide where to put their dollars based on which shows get the most viewers who would be interested in buying their specific products. Most of the television shows in the US up until maybe a month or so ago, when Netflix went nuts and decided to put forth 700 new series, were not subscription based but advertising dollar based.
For example: "Soap" Operas got their name based on the fact that many advertisers decided that the viewers who watched daytime melodramas or operas would want to buy soap or household cleaning products, mainly because it aired during the daytime and most of the people watching it tended to be housewives who cleaned. (Daytime Melodramas aka Daytime Soaps started in the 1930s on radio and then jumped to television in the 1950s. At that time, many women were housewives not working. And it was targeted at them.)
Another example: The Superbowl has the most expensive ads. A co-worker who used to work in advertising told me that ad space for the Superbowl goes for over $1Million. We're talking a one-minute ad here. It's premium space because the advertisers know that over 100 million will watch.
And the demographic is men from 18-65, who are big spenders. Typically the male head of a household controls the spending -- and they will spend money on things like cars, vacations, television sets, electronics, and snack foods. (This is marketing and advertiser thinking.)
The key demo group -- from a marketing and advertising standpoint -- is the 18-35 year old demographic. Why? This group doesn't care about saving money, and tends to spend more on technological gadgets, food, cars, vacations, movies, entertainment, etc. The 35-45 is a bit more conservative, and the 45-75 is in retirement and health issues.
This group is tracked by various marketing data research firms. You'll see their representatives from time to time on streets or malls taking surveys. Sometimes they call you and ask a bunch of invasive personal questions. They break the group up into various sectors, suburban, urban, etc. And Professionals to non-professionals, high school graduates, to college. And determine who are the big wage earners and spenders.
For television, radio, internet -- they track this group and others via random selection and monitoring of viewing habits. Not everyone is tracked. Actually only a small portion of the population is tracked. They will contact you, ask you a bunch of questions, have you fill out various forms and then decide if you are needed for their survey. Do they have another person within your age range and demographic, more than twenty in your area, or do they need you too?
How Stuff Works - Neilsen Ratings
As I stated above, I was approached once for it, but after reviewing my personal data, they decided they didn't need me. They already had someone similar to me in their sample -- someone with different tastes than I did. While a friend of mine who did not share my tastes in television and watched completely different series was added based purely on age, what she did for a living etc. She was a legal secretary, I was a contract negotiator, she made less than I did, I made more money and spent more...but they chose her because they needed someone in that sector with that background. ) If they choose you, they will ask you to sign a consent form, give you a dairy and set up a box that will monitor what you watch on tv. In the dairy, you are to write everything you watch. Also, they may ask you to list what you have bought that week. Although not always. They do this for the internet too -- I know they contacted me once way back in the early 00s and I told them no.
My grandmother was selected once, as were my parents. My mother thought it was funny that she was selected for just one sweeps period because at the time they rarely watched television. It really is random and based on age, etc. (You can be selected for a few years, one sweeps period, several, or just a week. It varies. Mostly it is for a short period of time.)
I took a marketing class once on it and remember asking how any of this can be reliable or even remotely accurate. The professor said that it isn't. It's all guesswork. If marketer's could actually figure out what people loved to watch or where they would go next and why, and could bottle it -- they'd make millions. All they do is collect data from random samplings, and hunt for patterns, utilizing statistical analysis.
Advertisers determine which shows to place their ads with based on the following criteria:
* Neilsen ratings taken during sweeps periods. Fall is pretty much the period between mid-October and Thanksgiving. Then there's February -- which is the period between well the tail end of January and last week of Feb. Then we have May -- which is the tail end of April and towards the middle of May.
And the fourth period is the tail end of June through mid July. Basically the four seasons.
Go here for more on that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nielsen_ratings
And here: Nielsen Ratings - Solutions and Measurement for Television
Advertisers hire Neilsen to provide them with the ratings breakdown and advice on where to place their ads, which shows will attract the most consumers for their products.
* Focus Groups, often they will select a group of people from random areas and have them watch shows to determine what they like or don't like. Advertisers find the people and set up the group.
Networks Use Focus Groups to Choose Shows
Screen Engine Focus Groups
Television City Research Focus Groups
A Focus Group is sort of like reading your story for a writing group or having a bunch of people read a fanfic online -- to see if it is working.
* They may use other services to track, but at the moment Neilsen is the biggest game in town and they've expanded to use Twitter and FB as trackers, along with streaming devices.
Neilsen Expanded to Use Social Content Ratings Measurement
-Note they can't use it without consent, and have to be careful about how they track it.
[See? Evil Marketing People rule the world. If you want to shut down a television show? Go after it's advertisers -- which is what the Parkland Students did. If you want to save one? Go after the advertisers. That's actually how fans saved Cagney and Lacey years ago. Netflix's save of Sense8 - wasn't ad dollar related it was subscriber dollar related, so different tracking. Also, I'm considering kicking broadcast channels and cable to the curb and just going streaming soon. Streaming is in some respects cheaper. ]
2. List of Shows Renewed and Cancelled for 2018-2019
Cancelled Shows
Shows I watch and liked that got cancelled. (Although I no longer get that upset, I stopped investing a while back. Mainly because I don't have mainstream taste -- I tend to like shows that the representative random sampling doesn't like. And despise the ones that they do like. So, throughout my life -- I've dealt with ..."oh, damn it, why they cancel that brilliant show and leave this piece of stinking crap on the air. Those frakking bastards."]
* Rise
* Lucifer
* Mozart in the Jungle
* Deception
[Apparently also the Expanse, although it's not on this list.]
I'm not surprised that any of them got axed. And to be honest the only one I'm somewhat upset over is Lucifer. But...
Shows that got saved and no time to list all of them.
* The 100 (which I gave up last year but I'm happy for those who still love it)
* Arrow (gave up on four years ago, seriously ...)
* Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (which is odd, considering it has the worst ratings, but obviously someone at the network is in love with it or the showrunner has dirt on them, one or the other. Also CW is generous, it is hard to get killed at CW. You have to work at it. But I liked it for the most part, so am sort of glad it did? I'd have rather had another season of Lucifer. I think Crazy Ex ended in a good place and I'm unlikely to continue watching, because it was beginning to get on my nerves.)
* The Good Place (already knew about, and am relieved)
* Good Girls (really?)
* Instinct (seriously? That show is horribly written, it even plagiarized Bones. I mean come on, when you have to use Bones to get story material.)
* The Orville (sigh.)
* Supernatural (what is this? 14 or 15 years???)
* Grey's Anatomy (yeah I like the show, but this is it's 15th season. Folks. Hello.)
* The Walking Dead (sigh)
* Transparent (apparently Jeffrey Tamor didn't kill the show after all)
* Van Helsing (this is still on? Why?)
* Runaways (Hulu - good I wanted to see the second season)
Many of the ones that have been renewed, I've never seen or heard of. Which is interesting.
Also, there are a lot of television shows people are watching that are basically copies of each other..such as Chicago Fire, Chicago Med, Chicago PD, Project Runway, Project Runway All Stars, Voice, American Idol, all of which feel like franchises.
There's a few that have been that I may try -- mostly on Netflix and Hulu.
Jessica Jones and The Punisher got renewed. Haven't been able to watch either this year. Not in the mood.
Shows that I've loved that were cancelled in the past often on cliff-hangers:
* Wonderfalls
* Angel
* Now and Again
* Firefly
* Earth 2
* Battlestar Galatica (v.1)
* Farscape
* Sense8
* Fame
There's others I'm sure. Those are just the ones I can remember.
Subscription channels are a bit different -- they can track how many subscribers they have and may be able to track how many people watch certain shows.
In the US, most, not all, television series are supported by advertising dollars. Advertisers decide where to put their dollars based on which shows get the most viewers who would be interested in buying their specific products. Most of the television shows in the US up until maybe a month or so ago, when Netflix went nuts and decided to put forth 700 new series, were not subscription based but advertising dollar based.
For example: "Soap" Operas got their name based on the fact that many advertisers decided that the viewers who watched daytime melodramas or operas would want to buy soap or household cleaning products, mainly because it aired during the daytime and most of the people watching it tended to be housewives who cleaned. (Daytime Melodramas aka Daytime Soaps started in the 1930s on radio and then jumped to television in the 1950s. At that time, many women were housewives not working. And it was targeted at them.)
Another example: The Superbowl has the most expensive ads. A co-worker who used to work in advertising told me that ad space for the Superbowl goes for over $1Million. We're talking a one-minute ad here. It's premium space because the advertisers know that over 100 million will watch.
And the demographic is men from 18-65, who are big spenders. Typically the male head of a household controls the spending -- and they will spend money on things like cars, vacations, television sets, electronics, and snack foods. (This is marketing and advertiser thinking.)
The key demo group -- from a marketing and advertising standpoint -- is the 18-35 year old demographic. Why? This group doesn't care about saving money, and tends to spend more on technological gadgets, food, cars, vacations, movies, entertainment, etc. The 35-45 is a bit more conservative, and the 45-75 is in retirement and health issues.
This group is tracked by various marketing data research firms. You'll see their representatives from time to time on streets or malls taking surveys. Sometimes they call you and ask a bunch of invasive personal questions. They break the group up into various sectors, suburban, urban, etc. And Professionals to non-professionals, high school graduates, to college. And determine who are the big wage earners and spenders.
For television, radio, internet -- they track this group and others via random selection and monitoring of viewing habits. Not everyone is tracked. Actually only a small portion of the population is tracked. They will contact you, ask you a bunch of questions, have you fill out various forms and then decide if you are needed for their survey. Do they have another person within your age range and demographic, more than twenty in your area, or do they need you too?
How Stuff Works - Neilsen Ratings
To find out who is watching TV and what they are watching, the company gets around 5,000 households to agree to be a part of the representative sample for the national ratings estimates. Nielsen's statistics show that 99 million households have TVs in the United States, so Nielsen's sample is not very large. The key, therefore, is to be sure the sample is representative. Then TVs, homes, programs, and people are measured in a variety of ways.
To find out what people are watching, meters installed in the selected sample of homes track when TV sets are on and what channels they are tuned to. A "black box," which is just a computer and modem, gathers and sends all this information to the company's central computer every night. Then by monitoring what is on TV at any given time, the company is able to keep track of how many people watch which program.
Small boxes, placed near the TV sets of those in the national sample, measure who is watching by giving each member of the household a button to turn on and off to show when he or she begins and ends viewing. This information is also collected each night.
The national TV ratings largely rely on these meters. To ensure reasonably accurate results, the company uses audits and quality checks and regularly compares the ratings it gets from different samples and measurement methods.
Participants in Nielsen's national sample are randomly selected. Every U.S. household with a TV theoretically has a chance to be a part of the sample. The sample is also compared to the general population, and at times Nielsen calls thousands of households to see if their TV sets are on and who is watching.
This research is worth billions of dollars. Advertisers pay to air their commercials on TV programs using rates that are based on Nielsen's data. Programmers also use Nielsen's data to decide which shows to keep and which to cancel. A show that has several million viewers may seem popular to us, but a network may need millions more watching that program to make it a financial success. That's why some shows with a loyal following still get canceled.
As I stated above, I was approached once for it, but after reviewing my personal data, they decided they didn't need me. They already had someone similar to me in their sample -- someone with different tastes than I did. While a friend of mine who did not share my tastes in television and watched completely different series was added based purely on age, what she did for a living etc. She was a legal secretary, I was a contract negotiator, she made less than I did, I made more money and spent more...but they chose her because they needed someone in that sector with that background. ) If they choose you, they will ask you to sign a consent form, give you a dairy and set up a box that will monitor what you watch on tv. In the dairy, you are to write everything you watch. Also, they may ask you to list what you have bought that week. Although not always. They do this for the internet too -- I know they contacted me once way back in the early 00s and I told them no.
My grandmother was selected once, as were my parents. My mother thought it was funny that she was selected for just one sweeps period because at the time they rarely watched television. It really is random and based on age, etc. (You can be selected for a few years, one sweeps period, several, or just a week. It varies. Mostly it is for a short period of time.)
I took a marketing class once on it and remember asking how any of this can be reliable or even remotely accurate. The professor said that it isn't. It's all guesswork. If marketer's could actually figure out what people loved to watch or where they would go next and why, and could bottle it -- they'd make millions. All they do is collect data from random samplings, and hunt for patterns, utilizing statistical analysis.
Advertisers determine which shows to place their ads with based on the following criteria:
* Neilsen ratings taken during sweeps periods. Fall is pretty much the period between mid-October and Thanksgiving. Then there's February -- which is the period between well the tail end of January and last week of Feb. Then we have May -- which is the tail end of April and towards the middle of May.
And the fourth period is the tail end of June through mid July. Basically the four seasons.
Go here for more on that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nielsen_ratings
And here: Nielsen Ratings - Solutions and Measurement for Television
Advertisers hire Neilsen to provide them with the ratings breakdown and advice on where to place their ads, which shows will attract the most consumers for their products.
* Focus Groups, often they will select a group of people from random areas and have them watch shows to determine what they like or don't like. Advertisers find the people and set up the group.
Networks Use Focus Groups to Choose Shows
Screen Engine Focus Groups
Television City Research Focus Groups
A Focus Group is sort of like reading your story for a writing group or having a bunch of people read a fanfic online -- to see if it is working.
* They may use other services to track, but at the moment Neilsen is the biggest game in town and they've expanded to use Twitter and FB as trackers, along with streaming devices.
Neilsen Expanded to Use Social Content Ratings Measurement
-Note they can't use it without consent, and have to be careful about how they track it.
[See? Evil Marketing People rule the world. If you want to shut down a television show? Go after it's advertisers -- which is what the Parkland Students did. If you want to save one? Go after the advertisers. That's actually how fans saved Cagney and Lacey years ago. Netflix's save of Sense8 - wasn't ad dollar related it was subscriber dollar related, so different tracking. Also, I'm considering kicking broadcast channels and cable to the curb and just going streaming soon. Streaming is in some respects cheaper. ]
2. List of Shows Renewed and Cancelled for 2018-2019
Cancelled Shows
Shows I watch and liked that got cancelled. (Although I no longer get that upset, I stopped investing a while back. Mainly because I don't have mainstream taste -- I tend to like shows that the representative random sampling doesn't like. And despise the ones that they do like. So, throughout my life -- I've dealt with ..."oh, damn it, why they cancel that brilliant show and leave this piece of stinking crap on the air. Those frakking bastards."]
* Rise
* Lucifer
* Mozart in the Jungle
* Deception
[Apparently also the Expanse, although it's not on this list.]
I'm not surprised that any of them got axed. And to be honest the only one I'm somewhat upset over is Lucifer. But...
Shows that got saved and no time to list all of them.
* The 100 (which I gave up last year but I'm happy for those who still love it)
* Arrow (gave up on four years ago, seriously ...)
* Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (which is odd, considering it has the worst ratings, but obviously someone at the network is in love with it or the showrunner has dirt on them, one or the other. Also CW is generous, it is hard to get killed at CW. You have to work at it. But I liked it for the most part, so am sort of glad it did? I'd have rather had another season of Lucifer. I think Crazy Ex ended in a good place and I'm unlikely to continue watching, because it was beginning to get on my nerves.)
* The Good Place (already knew about, and am relieved)
* Good Girls (really?)
* Instinct (seriously? That show is horribly written, it even plagiarized Bones. I mean come on, when you have to use Bones to get story material.)
* The Orville (sigh.)
* Supernatural (what is this? 14 or 15 years???)
* Grey's Anatomy (yeah I like the show, but this is it's 15th season. Folks. Hello.)
* The Walking Dead (sigh)
* Transparent (apparently Jeffrey Tamor didn't kill the show after all)
* Van Helsing (this is still on? Why?)
* Runaways (Hulu - good I wanted to see the second season)
Many of the ones that have been renewed, I've never seen or heard of. Which is interesting.
Also, there are a lot of television shows people are watching that are basically copies of each other..such as Chicago Fire, Chicago Med, Chicago PD, Project Runway, Project Runway All Stars, Voice, American Idol, all of which feel like franchises.
There's a few that have been that I may try -- mostly on Netflix and Hulu.
Jessica Jones and The Punisher got renewed. Haven't been able to watch either this year. Not in the mood.
Shows that I've loved that were cancelled in the past often on cliff-hangers:
* Wonderfalls
* Angel
* Now and Again
* Firefly
* Earth 2
* Battlestar Galatica (v.1)
* Farscape
* Sense8
* Fame
There's others I'm sure. Those are just the ones I can remember.
no subject
Date: 2018-05-13 07:42 pm (UTC)Actually, it's all monopolized is the problem. We got the booklets for two spring sweeps week periods some years ago. Someone would have to be very diligent to get it filled out properly for even a week at a time. Ours was technically inaccurate in that we watched everything from the DVR so the time periods meant nothing but at least we got our votes in for certain shows.
But these days there is a wealth of information through On Demand and DVR recordings (quite aside from streaming services like Hulu that connect to current broadcasts). It will not, of course, be truly representative since it will favor certain demographics, but it will definitely be more accurate than the booklets. They just need way more TV meters -- I've never understood why so few are used when Nielsen has had no competition for decades.
no subject
Date: 2018-05-13 08:11 pm (UTC)It might be a coincidence but even though we aren't in the target demographic, and we hardly watch any television at all, of the shows we did watch that year, every single one got renewed.
no subject
Date: 2018-05-13 08:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-05-13 09:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-05-13 09:38 pm (UTC)I agree. There's no reason why they can't track via computer and DVR downloads instead. This old methodology is inane.
And hardly reliable.
Advertisers are picking up on it slowly. Fewer and fewer of the coveted millenial audience is watching broadcast television -- they watch streaming (it's cheaper and more versatile, in that they can watch during lunch at work or via their commute or elsewhere). My brother gave up cable ages ago and is all streaming, so are all my co-workers under the age of 45. And they outnumber us by the way.
So the Nielsen's aren't really tracking the key consumer group, which is NOT watching Roseanne, NCIS, or any of those shows. They are watching Black-ish, Empire, Legion, Lucifer,
Arrow, Supergirl, etc.
no subject
Date: 2018-05-13 08:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-05-13 09:21 pm (UTC)And Rise was going to do plays in the fall, and muscials in the spring, with a clear ten episode arc. It was innovative and different. But no, let's renew paint-by-numbers and safe reality series instead.
But sigh. I can see why it wasn't renewed. It got very preachy and hard to watch at times.
no subject
Date: 2018-05-14 07:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-05-14 04:51 pm (UTC)I was wondering what they were doing overseas. It's really an unreliable system.
no subject
Date: 2018-05-14 01:55 pm (UTC)I am FUCKING UPSET about The Expanse. This season has been brilliant.
no subject
Date: 2018-05-14 04:53 pm (UTC)Yeah, can't say I'm that upset about The Expanse. But I also am about twelve episodes behind. I may just delete to save myself the pain and disappointment. Not sure why the Expanse got cancelled and The Magicians is still going, I know more people who love the Expanse. No one talks about The Magicians.
no subject
Date: 2018-05-14 10:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-05-15 01:02 pm (UTC)