Scifi article

[PillowRock]

Farscape was not picking up sufficient women viewers. The underlying love story was not sufficient, over 5 years, to continue to attract them.

Based on what I have seen on message boards and what I have read about convention attendance, Farscape was doing just fine at hooking and keeping the female audiance. This included lots of the people the article described as "Escapists", the people who say "I generally never watch or read science fiction, but ....".

There is the issue of whether SciFi's had figured out how to market it so that larger numbers of those people would sample the show. There is also the problem that the way the show was programmed tended to lose viewers. The months long periods without even any reruns always produced a regular stream of posts to the SciFi bboard asking about Farscape's cancellation (this was before it was canceled), and that was from people who were interested and computer literate enough to go find the network's message boards. There isn't anything the show (its writers, producers, etc.) can do about those issues.


Actually, given the breakdown of fans in the article and the idea that Farscape's target audiance was the "sci-philes" and the "escapists", what I have seen on the message boards would lead me to believe that if the show was pushing away a group it was more the sci-philes than the escapists. Some people complained that the J/A relationship had become too much of the focus, and others (what some would refer to as the "hard SF" fans) complained about how fast and loose Farscape played with their science.

 

[PillowRock]

Farscape was not picking up sufficient women viewers. The underlying love story was not sufficient, over 5 years, to continue to attract them.

Based on what I have seen on message boards and what I have read about convention attendance, Farscape was doing just fine at hooking and keeping the female audiance. This included lots of the people the article described as "Escapists", the people who say "I generally never watch or read science fiction, but ....".

There is the issue of whether SciFi's had figured out how to market it so that larger numbers of those people would sample the show. There is also the problem that the way the show was programmed tended to lose viewers. The months long periods without even any reruns always produced a regular stream of posts to the SciFi bboard asking about Farscape's cancellation (this was before it was canceled), and that was from people who were interested and computer literate enough to go find the network's message boards. There isn't anything the show (its writers, producers, etc.) can do about those issues.


Actually, given the breakdown of fans in the article and the idea that Farscape's target audiance was the "sci-philes" and the "escapists", what I have seen on the message boards would lead me to believe that if the show was pushing away a group it was more the sci-philes than the escapists. Some people complained that the J/A relationship had become too much of the focus, and others (what some would refer to as the "hard SF" fans) complained about how fast and loose Farscape played with their science.

 

[A_M_Swallow]

Since the fan categories have only just been published I suspect that Farscape was cancelled before the categories had been invented. With something this new the Sci-Fi suits may not actually be using it yet.

 

[A_M_Swallow]

Since the fan categories have only just been published I suspect that Farscape was cancelled before the categories had been invented. With something this new the Sci-Fi suits may not actually be using it yet.

 

[A_M_Swallow]

First, the basic ratings numbers are percentages of households, not numbers of people. So all your math above is irrelevant.

Second, the 300 stations includes many regional and specialty stations that simply aren't a factor in national ratings because they're not available to enough people in the first place. The typical cable household has significantly fewer than 100 channels available. (Satellite and digital cable haven't yet spread widely enough to affect this.)

That is a good way of cooking the books; assume that every family home has only one TV. The 1950s are over.

To convert from people to households simply divide by 3 or 4. To convert to percentages just multiply by a fiddle factor - it saves having to write the word “millions” each time.

 

[A_M_Swallow]

First, the basic ratings numbers are percentages of households, not numbers of people. So all your math above is irrelevant.

Second, the 300 stations includes many regional and specialty stations that simply aren't a factor in national ratings because they're not available to enough people in the first place. The typical cable household has significantly fewer than 100 channels available. (Satellite and digital cable haven't yet spread widely enough to affect this.)

That is a good way of cooking the books; assume that every family home has only one TV. The 1950s are over.

To convert from people to households simply divide by 3 or 4. To convert to percentages just multiply by a fiddle factor - it saves having to write the word “millions” each time.

 

[MartinRoth]

That is a good way of cooking the books; assume that every family home has only one TV. The 1950s are over.

Huh? "Cooking the books"? What are you talking about?

In the US, the primary TV Ratings have been based on Household numbers since time immemorial. That's what the advertisers seem to want, for a variety of reasons. (Whether or not those reasons make sense doesn't matter.) It's also easier to measure and probably more accurate than a count of people, since the Nielsen meters are attached to the televisions and not to the people. It has nothing whatsoever to do with how many television sets are in a household -- in fact, it is theoretically possible for the total ratings for a timeslot to be greater than 100% for exactly that reason. (Doesn't happen often.)

And, yes, this will result in different percentages than if you counted people. Ratings based on people are also available to the stations and advertisers, but they aren't generally used except when talking about specific demographic age/sex breakdowns, where the "households" concept doesn't fit.

This isn't "cooking the books" in any sense of the phrase. It is simply looking at a different type of data, which the people paying the bills consider more important than the numbers you seem to prefer.

I'm well aware that in the UK and elsewhere in the world, ratings are calculated and used differently. But that's entirely irrelevant in this discussion, since we've been discussing the US Sci-Fi Channel.

 

[MartinRoth]

That is a good way of cooking the books; assume that every family home has only one TV. The 1950s are over.

Huh? "Cooking the books"? What are you talking about?

In the US, the primary TV Ratings have been based on Household numbers since time immemorial. That's what the advertisers seem to want, for a variety of reasons. (Whether or not those reasons make sense doesn't matter.) It's also easier to measure and probably more accurate than a count of people, since the Nielsen meters are attached to the televisions and not to the people. It has nothing whatsoever to do with how many television sets are in a household -- in fact, it is theoretically possible for the total ratings for a timeslot to be greater than 100% for exactly that reason. (Doesn't happen often.)

And, yes, this will result in different percentages than if you counted people. Ratings based on people are also available to the stations and advertisers, but they aren't generally used except when talking about specific demographic age/sex breakdowns, where the "households" concept doesn't fit.

This isn't "cooking the books" in any sense of the phrase. It is simply looking at a different type of data, which the people paying the bills consider more important than the numbers you seem to prefer.

I'm well aware that in the UK and elsewhere in the world, ratings are calculated and used differently. But that's entirely irrelevant in this discussion, since we've been discussing the US Sci-Fi Channel.

 

[MartinRoth]

Since the fan categories have only just been published I suspect that Farscape was cancelled before the categories had been invented. With something this new the Sci-Fi suits may not actually be using it yet.

If the "categories" you describe are the ones we've been discussing, they would appear to have been invented by Bonnie Hammer, the most important "Sci-Fi suit" in this discussion.

They're certainly not terms that are common in the industry.

 

[MartinRoth]

Since the fan categories have only just been published I suspect that Farscape was cancelled before the categories had been invented. With something this new the Sci-Fi suits may not actually be using it yet.

If the "categories" you describe are the ones we've been discussing, they would appear to have been invented by Bonnie Hammer, the most important "Sci-Fi suit" in this discussion.

They're certainly not terms that are common in the industry.

 

[Jade Jaguar]

Martin, when Neilsen hooks up a household, do they only put a meter on one of their TVs, or do they put the device an each TV in the household? The later would seem to make more sense to me, but as you say, they will use what they want.

 

[Jade Jaguar]

Martin, when Neilsen hooks up a household, do they only put a meter on one of their TVs, or do they put the device an each TV in the household? The later would seem to make more sense to me, but as you say, they will use what they want.

 

[A_M_Swallow]

Huh? "Cooking the books"? What are you talking about?

In the US, the primary TV Ratings have been based on Household numbers since time immemorial. That's what the advertisers seem to want, for a variety of reasons. (Whether or not those reasons make sense doesn't matter.)

That just means that it is an old recipe.

It is also why I mentioned the 1950 - in those days households only had one TV. Many had none.

 

[A_M_Swallow]

Huh? "Cooking the books"? What are you talking about?

In the US, the primary TV Ratings have been based on Household numbers since time immemorial. That's what the advertisers seem to want, for a variety of reasons. (Whether or not those reasons make sense doesn't matter.)

That just means that it is an old recipe.

It is also why I mentioned the 1950 - in those days households only had one TV. Many had none.

 

[A_M_Swallow]

Since the fan categories have only just been published I suspect that Farscape was cancelled before the categories had been invented. With something this new the Sci-Fi suits may not actually be using it yet.

If the "categories" you describe are the ones we've been discussing, they would appear to have been invented by Bonnie Hammer, the most important "Sci-Fi suit" in this discussion.

They're certainly not terms that are common in the industry.

All of which I was assuming.

An US wide industry with 4 distributors (TV stations) would automatically use categories with at least 10 million in them. Probably the A B C D groups used by the automobile industry in the 1930s. Now they need smaller categories.

 

[A_M_Swallow]

Since the fan categories have only just been published I suspect that Farscape was cancelled before the categories had been invented. With something this new the Sci-Fi suits may not actually be using it yet.

If the "categories" you describe are the ones we've been discussing, they would appear to have been invented by Bonnie Hammer, the most important "Sci-Fi suit" in this discussion.

They're certainly not terms that are common in the industry.

All of which I was assuming.

An US wide industry with 4 distributors (TV stations) would automatically use categories with at least 10 million in them. Probably the A B C D groups used by the automobile industry in the 1930s. Now they need smaller categories.

 

[MartinRoth]

Martin, when Neilsen hooks up a household, do they only put a meter on one of their TVs, or do they put the device an each TV in the household? The later would seem to make more sense to me, but as you say, they will use what they want.

To quote from the Nielsen Media Research website:

Nationally, there are 5,000 television households in which electronic meters (called People Meters) are attached to every TV set, VCR, cable converter box, satellite dish or other video equipment in the home.

 

[MartinRoth]

Martin, when Neilsen hooks up a household, do they only put a meter on one of their TVs, or do they put the device an each TV in the household? The later would seem to make more sense to me, but as you say, they will use what they want.

To quote from the Nielsen Media Research website:

Nationally, there are 5,000 television households in which electronic meters (called People Meters) are attached to every TV set, VCR, cable converter box, satellite dish or other video equipment in the home.

 

[MartinRoth]

That just means that it is an old recipe.

So? What's your point?

The ultimate purpose of ratings is not to determine how many people are watching a TV program. The ultimate purpose of ratings is to provide a method of determining where and how advertising money is spent.

The spenders of that advertising money want the ratings in the particular format of households, because they have determined that households are the best thing to measure when they want to sell their products. Therefore, the ratings are in that format.

This has nothing to do with the number of people, or the number of televisions, or the number of channels, or the price of tea. There are lots of people all over the industry who research these things, and this is what they've chosen as best for their purposes, regardless of whether the numbers have any meaning to anybody outside the industry.

 

[MartinRoth]

That just means that it is an old recipe.

So? What's your point?

The ultimate purpose of ratings is not to determine how many people are watching a TV program. The ultimate purpose of ratings is to provide a method of determining where and how advertising money is spent.

The spenders of that advertising money want the ratings in the particular format of households, because they have determined that households are the best thing to measure when they want to sell their products. Therefore, the ratings are in that format.

This has nothing to do with the number of people, or the number of televisions, or the number of channels, or the price of tea. There are lots of people all over the industry who research these things, and this is what they've chosen as best for their purposes, regardless of whether the numbers have any meaning to anybody outside the industry.