THE TKTV NEWSLETTER
Season 2, Episode 15 aired April 12, 1999

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CONTENTS
1. Intro
2. Letters from the viewing audience
3. Rob's Soapbox
4. Don't miss
5. Favorite quotes of the week
6. The Nielsen Ratings and Why Everyone's Upset
     -by guest writer Allan Jenoff
7. A totally unrelated link

1. Intro

Sadly, today we are missing our favorite columnist, Kim Spears. Her column is taking a short hiatus while she gets some things in her life in order, but she promises that she'll be back. Hopefully, she's already sparked enough conversation about commercials to keep us going for a few weeks. We miss you, Kim!

Luckily, I did have one viewer write such a long and in-depth response to Allan's guest article from last week, that I decided to give him Kim's column space for the week. Check out Rob's Soapbox. With any luck, we might be able to get this theater-lover-who-rarely-watches-TV to write more regularly.

And, of course, we have another totally different guest article from Allan this week. He writes about the Nielsens, and provides some very illuminating facts and insights.

I was sick last week, so I don't have many interesting things to say. The momentous occassion in my life of the past week is that my snakes have started eating full-grown mice. (For those of you that don't already know, I have three corn snakes that are not yet full-grown.) The snakes are only three feet long, and still very skinny, but they're fast, and they're strong, and boy, can they open their mouths wide! Anyway, Jagger, Pearl and Cedar send their regards to the viewing audience. Perhaps if I get my act together I'll put up a picture of them on the site. Enjoy the newsletter!

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2. Letters from the viewing audience

From Rachel:
I am so pleased to see Sports Night getting its due accolades, at least in this venue. Tuesday's episode was so powerful. I knew that Isaac had been delayed by a stroke, but watching them all find out was great television. This show is ground-breaking in a way that not many people will appreciate until it's off the air.

Speaking of ground-breaking shows, I have to put a tentative plug for Homicide out there. As often happens, this once incredible drama is now dying a slow horrible death, but last Friday it resurged for one shining moment. It's hard to watch an aging favorite, but every now and then they surprise you!
From Sam:
Who is this crazy Kim who doesn't like the Trident Advantage ad?! That ad is dope! At the end when the guy faints from the mention of studying gums--that's the jam.
From Laurel:
In reference to the phone commercials, there is one commercial with Al Bundy I like. It's the one with the guy getting rained on. I think it's quite amusing. But seriously, the phone commercials with David Arquette are really funny!!! Most of these make me crack up! He seems to be a pretty funny guy, and maybe we can confirm this in his upcoming movie "Never Been Kissed" with Drew Barrymore. I think he has good comedic potential!!!
Letters from the viewing audience are always welcome. Please email any opinions, questions, comments, or random thoughts to TK at tk@tktv.net with the subject of "letters." Letters may be edited for length or content.

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3. Rob's Soapbox (in response to Allan's guest article from last week)

I think Allan may have a key into my dissillussionment with the majority of TV, and my love of the new(ish) trends towards animation.

Television is, in the end, striving for naturalism. Even when it involves a premise that doesn't fit into our current, natural world, (i.e. Mythical Heros, Space Aliens, rich and incestuous Oil Magnates, etc.), the writing almost always strives for a naturalistic bent. So, if an ordinary person were to encounter a Borg, what would he/she say or do? If you watched teenagers/young 20's college students in their dorms, what would they say? Ad naseum.

I love the Simpsons because there are no natural limits. Homer, Bart, Marge, Maggie, Lisa. None of them ever do anything normal. (Well, Maggie and Marge do sometimes act fairly naturally...) The Simpsons spoof any notion of a potential "realism" in the unlocated Springfield. When the town rich man attempts to take over, he is not foiled by his fellow wealthy, but by a couple of little, bratty, funny children.

Shows like Buffy sort of manage to straddle the line of real - from Allan's description (I've only seen it once or twice), these teens inhabit a John Cusack sort of reality - where teenagers often have witty comebacks, and Ferris Bueller really did exist. It certainly sounds better TO ME than the other stuff.

Perhaps that is why I never could get into Melrose Place, or Party of Five, or any of the majority of prime time fare.

The other side of that coin, of course, is that, when naturalistic television is the only fare available, I want it to be REALLY good. I like NYPD Blue for its intensive delving into characters, motivations, life. I'm sure words like "gritty" were originally tagged onto that show in reviews. Work like that is exciting in its own way, because it gives us a little bit of insight into a (fictional) human being, a little view into the character of life in another body.

NYPD Blue is the David Mamet of TV. (Mamet wrote: Glengarry, Glen Ross; American Buffalo; Sexual Perversity In Chicago [which was poorly adapted into "About Last Night" for film] and the highly controversial Oleanna, about sexual harrassment in a college environment.) It's got an edge, usually a sense of a finger on the current pulse of street feelings (I'm wondering if they'll deal with the Diallo situation here in NY. It's certainly affecting our city's relationship with it's supposed guardians), and a solid glance towards human motivations.

So that's Dramas.

What about sitcoms? They tend to frustrate me most of all - they aim for realistic people, grant them an unerring ability to say the perfect line at the right time, and only seem capable of having their viewers laugh via the addition of a laugh track.

Again, I turn to the Simpsons. No laugh track. No striving for identification with real people. There are elements of all of us in these characters, but they simply could never exist. They are uber-characters (I know, german seems pretentious, but it's the only way to say it with the proper meaning. In English, the word is super - but then you think of superheros. It's more means ultimate - the distillation of all that is Homer, or Bart.) They have so many quirks, and they indulge them so extremely that they step outside the boundaries of humanity.

In theatre, their parallels lie all around. In Becket's works that have been around for 50 years. And in the Blue Man Group's Tubes. In some productions of William Shakespeare's work, where a director helps us see the truly blind greed of Prince John or King Richard III, or the unparralled evil of Iago. In Carol Churchill's bizarity of setting and character in her "Cloud Nine."

Whenever a writer gives us a distillation of a human being, or even of a single human characteristic, he or she grants us either profound insight, or just some really funny stuff.

So, I'm rambling from my digital soapbox. Sorry to take up so much bandwidth.

I'll stop.

But thanks to Allan, for triggering off enough food for my thoughts.

Oh, and this is not judgemental stuff - I don't love naturalism, that's all.

It doesn't mean it isn't good. It just isn't what I want to pay for....

TKTV is always looking for new guest writers. Do you have an idea for an article? Write to TK at tk@tktv.net with the subject of "guestwriter."

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4. Don't miss

For details and lots more fun TV to look forward to, see
http://www.tktv.net/index.html?/upcoming.html

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5. Favorite Quotes of the Week

From "Ally McBeal"
"Is this guy really that cute?" -Renee
"Spanky-toy." -Ally

From "Spin City"
"Okay, sir, you got a full day ahead of you. We start with a rousing budget meeting from nine to ten forty-five. From there we rocket into a symposium on air-quality management. And just when you think you can't take anymore excitement... Bam! Four more hours of budget meetings." -Mike

From "7th Heaven"
"You don't want to be shallow, do you?" -Mary
"I might. I could be worse things." -Lucy

From "NYPD Blue"
"Excuse me, stubbing my toe on your huge moral standards." -Sipowicz

From "The X-Files"
"Dear Diary: today my heart leapt when Scully suggested spontaneous human combustion." -Mulder

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6. The Nielsen Ratings and Why Everyone's Upset by Allan Jenoff

The odds are you've heard of the Nielsens, you see them published every week, and you know your favourite show got cancelled because of them. You've probably heard that they don't work, they aren't accurate, and they're ruining television. Well, here are a few facts to clarify the situation.

What Nielsen Does

Nielsen collects ratings in two ways:
  1. It places meters on TV sets in what are referred to as the metered markets. These are the major markets. These meters record what channel the TV is tuned to at any given time. Of course, they don't tell you who is watching, but the information is sent to Nielsen immediately and is accurate as far as it goes.
  2. It polls people - either through interviews or through a diary system. Of course, some people lie about their viewing. Others may be confused about what they saw on which channel. On the other hand, most don't lie and aren't confused and you get a more accurate impression of what they actually watched while method 1 just tells you when the TV set is turned on.
Nielsen selects people for meters and interviews using the same methodology other pollsters and market research firms use. And this methodology is proven to be successful. After all, the pollsters have correctly predicted pretty well every federal election since polling began.

Why the Networks Complain

Not surprisingly the networks at the bottom of the ratings are the biggest critics of the Nielsen ratings system. But they aren't alone. A lot of people with nothing to gain don't like the system. Here's a summary of the most common complaints:

The system isn't well geared to dealing with people who tape a show and watch it later. Especially if they watch it outside of the ratings week. And more and more people use their VCRs in this way.

People who fill in diaries probably do so not when they are watching TV but later, perhaps days later. Since the major networks spend a lot of money advertising their programs, those names tend to stick in people's minds. Non-network programmers believe people sometimes misremember having watched shows because of advertising. Nielsen is attempting to correct this problem by increasing the number of metered markets. Although the national ratings have statistical validity, local ratings rarely do. This is especially true in less populated jurisdictions where only a handful of people may be polled. Local stations rely on the ratings for their advertising charges, but many of those local ratings may be quite wrong.

Nielsen provides demographic information, breaking down its ratings in terms of age and gender. This is quite useful for advertisers who prefer certain demographics. A show with good demographics can charge higher rates. But the population of North America is aging. And Nielsen conducts its ratings on a cross section of the population. That means the preferred demographic - relatively young people - makes up a minority of those polled. And that means the preferences of that demographic - especially at local levels - may not be accurately represented by the ratings. Fox - which aims much of its programming at key demographics - may well be suffering in the ratings because of this. Fox has suggested Nielsen poll a disproportionate number of people in the key demographics. Of course, since Nielsen is unlikely to significantly increase the total number polled - for obvious financial reasons - the overall numbers would be prejudiced by such a move. And networks such as CBS - which has a lot of programming geared toward older demographics - would likely suffer.

Why We Shouldn't Change Anything

I'm one of those few people who believes the system works and the proposed changes - at least those that don't involve incredibly inflated costs - will just make it worse.

There are two key things to remember when considering the ratings:

  1. If the ratings are unfair, they are equally unfair to all shows.
  2. The ratings only really matter to advertisers and if they were seriously wrong, advertisers would notice.
The first point is often overlooked. While minor differences between shows can be attributed to errors in the data collection system, no program gets cancelled because it is a few tenths of a point below the competition. Shows get cancelled because of dramatically poor performance or a long history of weak performance. In particular, downward trends in ratings usually lead to cancellation. While the specific numbers may be questioned, the trends - especially those which continue throughout a season - cannot.

The second point, however, is far more important. Advertisers shell out a small fortune for top rated shows. And advertisers have certain expectations from their ads. They expect an increase in sales or at least in opportunities for a sale. And they, too, have market research people. If the ratings were significantly faulty, they would have noticed. And they wouldn't be shelling out those millions. This, by the way, is why people who tape shows and watch them some time later get ignored. Advertisers need you to see their ads within a given time frame. Watching the ad a week or a month later is as good as not watching it at all from their perspective.

The Big Fallacy

Now, usually at this point people ask, "If the networks really believed in the ratings why would letter campaigns be so successful in saving shows?" The answer is they aren't. In fact, I suspect no show has been saved by a letter writing campaign since the original Star Trek. And I'm not certain about that one.

When a network cancels a show, ratings are only one issue. Sometimes corporate politics play a role. Sometimes, they just want to make room for something else. Sometimes the show - despite solid ratings - has just become too expensive to produce. But there are also occasions when a network doesn't really know if it wants to cancel a show. It may suspect the show needs some tinkering or that it has been poorly marketed. Letter campaigns may influence such decisions. Of course, a lot of those campaigns are actually fostered by the producers as a way of indicating to the networks than a fan base exists. And network executives are bright enough to realize that 10,000 letters don't mean much in an industry where it takes millions of viewers to break even. And they mean even less in an era of word-processors and email. And, pretty well every show which runs for more than two weeks will end up with a letter campaign trying to save it or bring it back.

In the long run, the ratings are a far better measure of a show's success than letters or gut feel or talking to your friends. The ratings may not be perfect, but they are better than any alternative we've had suggested so far.

For more wisdom from Allan Jenoff, check out his web site, Peripheral Visions.

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7. A totally unrelated link

Mighty Vitamin

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The fact that no one understands you doesn't mean you're an artist.