GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

A ratings question

POSTED BY: CHRISTHECYNIC
UPDATED: Monday, June 16, 2003 13:58
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VIEWED: 2429
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Sunday, June 15, 2003 3:15 PM

CHRISTHECYNIC


Unless I am wrong, which I have been many times in the past, Firefly had better ratings than both Angel and Buffy, which are regarded as very successful and popular shows. To me that would intuitively mean that Firefly was being both successful and popular. Extending the logic a bit would say that it was quite well received because it wasn’t established, and the shows it was beating out were.

So, now we reach my question, what constitutes good ratings? If a show being watched by many, almost universally accepted as popular, capable of spawning a successful spin off, and many toys/games has such incredibly bad ratings that a show with higher ratings gets canceled for having low ratings I clearly don’t understand the rating system.

I thought that ratings were a statistical model used to estimate the viewership of programs based on a sample group from which the shows watched were measured. If this were the case than a show watched by as many as Buffy would have high ratings, because it would need a high viewership to maintain what it has. And if that were the case then a show doing better in the ratings would likewise have high ratings. However it is not only Fox which says it had low ratings but just about every news item I have seen on it, so I believe it had low ratings, so could someone explain to me what are low ratings?

As I said all of this is intuitive, and intuitive solutions only seem to work on simple things (fixing some stuff, basic math, non-trigonometric simple calculus of one variable, et cetera.) So if someone could kindly explain what the reality behind it is, and what low ratings actually means, I would appreciate it.



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Sunday, June 15, 2003 5:09 PM

ZEKE023


It did better than any non-mainstream station (WB, UPN, etc..) show except for smallville.

FOX however, expects higher ratings from its shows.

The question should be, why didn't one of the smaller stations pick it up?

-Zeke

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Sunday, June 15, 2003 5:37 PM

SLOWSMURF


It'd be pretty rare for a network to pick up a show when its canceled on another network for any reason. It just has bad press.


Also, none of you seem to mention one thing I think was a significant factor. Firefly was expensive, 2 million per episode. That isn't of course the most expensive show or anywhere near it, but I think for the amount of ratins it got, thats fairly high up in cost.

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Sunday, June 15, 2003 6:00 PM

LOTV


I'm not entirely sure on the ratings deal, but I think it basically works like this:

Buffy & Angel -> lower ratings, but large fan base of the younger age group, which means that these shows hook the audience most likely to BUY stuff, thus earning Fox a profit through merchandise (Fox does still own the rights to Buffy, correct?)

Firefly however, being a new show has a smaller fan base, even if watched more, and aims at a more mature audience, that even though they have more money to buy things, they are far less likely to buy goodies, and thus, makes LESS money for Fox... bastards...

Combined with the cost of each episode, for the Fox executives that makes a bad equation, thus with the end result of our beloved show being axed.

LOTV: Ima-who-whata-whoichy-whoda-whazza--huh?

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Sunday, June 15, 2003 8:46 PM

MANIACNUMBERONE


I thought that "ratings" was talking about "Nelson (sp?) Ratings," which are based on input from a select few households spread across the nation that have a Nelson box installed. Supposedly, the "Nelson Families" are picked based on their ability to fit into the randomness and the demographic of watcher-types. I highly doubt it though. I suspect favoritism.

----------------------------------
Who's winning?
I can't really tell, they don't seem to be playing by any civilized rules that I know.
----------------------------------

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Sunday, June 15, 2003 11:16 PM

MRZOINK


I was a Nielson family for 1 week, a few years ago. I didn't have a set top box, but I know that's how Nielson collects most of their data.

Instead, I had a "Viewing Diary." I got it a few days before my viewing week started, and I spent a few hours "voting" for all the shows I liked. Not that I really got around to watching all of them.

When my week was up, I mailed it back.
I wonder if their model takes that into account?

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Monday, June 16, 2003 6:32 AM

PBGAINES


Quote:

Originally posted by LOTV:
I'm not entirely sure on the ratings deal, but I think it basically works like this:

Buffy & Angel -> lower ratings, but large fan base of the younger age group, which means that these shows hook the audience most likely to BUY stuff, thus earning Fox a profit through merchandise (Fox does still own the rights to Buffy, correct?)

Firefly however, being a new show has a smaller fan base, even if watched more, and aims at a more mature audience, that even though they have more money to buy things, they are far less likely to buy goodies, and thus, makes LESS money for Fox... bastards...

Combined with the cost of each episode, for the Fox executives that makes a bad equation, thus with the end result of our beloved show being axed.

LOTV: Ima-who-whata-whoichy-whoda-whazza--huh?



You're sorta right for kinda the wrong reason. What FOX wants is an audience that they can predict, because advertisers (FOX's customers) want a definable group of viewers (FOX's product) with a handy list of demographic info to advertise to. The fact that Firefly is a new show and the audience is not yet researched etc. means that advertisers won't pay a premium because they don't know whether the makeup commercials will be seen by a pimply teenagers, Star Trek geeks, or some new group.

Newspaper sections, TV show programming, and most movies are produced with advertisers in mind.

BTA,

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Monday, June 16, 2003 9:00 AM

RUXTON


You all are presuming the Fox decision makers knew what they were doing. I presume they did not.

......Ruxton

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Monday, June 16, 2003 9:07 AM

CHRISTHECYNIC


Quote:

Originally posted by ManiacNumberOne:
I thought that "ratings" was talking about "Nelson (sp?) Ratings," which are based on input from a select few households spread across the nation that have a Nelson box installed. Supposedly, the "Nelson Families" are picked based on their ability to fit into the randomness and the demographic of watcher-types. I highly doubt it though. I suspect favoritism.

----------------------------------
Who's winning?
I can't really tell, they don't seem to be playing by any civilized rules that I know.
----------------------------------



That would be a random sample, provided that the sample is random the predicting you can do for the overall population is quite impressive. For that reason there are professional randomizers, for example if I need lab rats I can’t simply garb a bunch, because if I’m testing on if such and such causes cancer I would risk that I grabbed a bunch with high risk for cancer.

I’m not sure how the Nelsons ensure their randomness but the math behind it is the same.

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Monday, June 16, 2003 10:04 AM

EMBASSY


My take on this issue is that fox has higher ratings expectations than UPN or Frog, where Buffy and Angel live.

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Monday, June 16, 2003 1:58 PM

LUPA


Yeah, because Fox has this complex, where it really wants to be one of the Big Three (ABC, NBC, CBS) but knows it never will. This knowledge has made it all paranoid and crotchety and caused it to cancel a variety of quality shows (Firefly, Futurama, Andy Richter) that were critical darlings that would have been bigger hits if they were on a bigger station.

"I don't get it. Is it Avant Garde?" Principal Snyder, BTVS

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