<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Somehow I dont think crunching numbers and formulas here is going to sway things one way or another.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Of course not, that isn't the point of doing it.
A) It gives us something to do while we're waiting.
B) It gives us
some basis for guessing whether things look horribly bad or at least
slightly hopeful for a
Rangers series.
The initial reports looked pretty damned ugly, with that 1.7. Then the couple of "spot listings" from the west coast feed actually made things look a little
worse. If twices as many people on the west coast watched as the national average, how big a bomb
was the movie in the east? If you assumed a 50/50 split it looked like the east coast ratings would have to be
much lower than the football game alone could account for, like
nobody wanted to watch
Rangers.
Now it looks the rating might have been closer to a 1.0, using some fairly reasonable assumptions and understanding that
all of this is a rough estimate. But
anything would be better than the calculated value of 0.01 that a 50/50 spilt would leave you with.
More important than the raw ratings, of course, would be the demographics and the share, and we have no access to that data.
Still, look how much nervous energy everybody's burnt off in this one thread alone. Since it is likely to be awhile before we know anything further, this can only be a good thing.
BTW, has everyone written their letters? That's another good way to kill some time and doing something that at least may be helpful.
Joe
[edited to add]
P.S.
I rather doubt that anyone from Sci-Fi reads this board, although you never know. But even if they do,
posting here isn't going to influence their decision. Posting at
their own website probably won't, either. This board was
named for the movie for Pete's sake,
of course most of the people who post here are going to want a sereis. Same with their board. And it is too easy in both cases to create a lot of bogus IDs and stuff the ballot box.
Their decision is going to be based mostly on the numbers, to a degree on the fan reaction, (which they've mostly seen by now), a bit on reviews and on various things that have nothing directly to do with the movie. (What other shows are they considering? What is their total series budget? Will Bonnie Hammer have a fight with her husband over breakfast the morning the final decision gets made?
Lots of intangibles.)
The only thing we can do that might have any slight effect, more of a nudge than a push, is writing letters to the network and the sponsors. If it comes down to a coin-toss between
Rangers and another potential series - cost, demos, audience appeal and everything else being equal - that might tip the balance. But if everything in the world tells them, "Don't do this show" a
million letters won't get it made - and if everything says, "Make this show" a million letters are redundant.
All we can do is add our mite to the scales, and then wait patiently for a decision.
------------------
Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division
joseph-demartino@att.net
[This message has been edited by Joseph DeMartino (edited February 05, 2002).]
