Battlestar Galactica Metapoo: Internet & TV

Books, comics, TV, music
1

Holy Shit, its almost a Wagner James Au title!

Anyway, I’m wondering how much of a hit the Sci-Fi channel is taking by giving SkyOne a 3 month headstart on the episodes. I’m sure that many people here have seen the Suprnova numbers for how many people are downloading the episodes. It’s got to be in the tens of thousands, and I’m sure that quite a few people here on this board that would otherwise be watching the episodes on SciFi (and sitting through Army commercials) are just downloading them.

I wonder if networks are going to move to a more global release schedule just to combat this, or if the larger markets (read: US) are going to throw their weight around to make sure that at least the North American markets watch their shows on their channel.

If you check the SciFi.com channel boards, you’ll see this is quite a hot-topic. I’m actually surprised that the SciFi channel board mods even allow posting of the topics about the episodes that haven’t been aired on their channel yet. (Aside: Everyone on the SciFi.com BG board think that Universal Execs hang out on the board. Hahahah!)

Perhaps we’ll start to see a little less of the country-specific divide that we’ve got. Perhaps we’ll end up seeing multinational TV networks?

Admittedly, Battlestar Galactica is an edge case. It’s a science fiction show on a cable network – not a mass-market Friends or ER-type series. Perhaps nothing will really change, and network execs will just write off the fringe of internet file sharing and deploy constant legal resources to fight those people.

As another aside, I think its really obvious that file-sharers don’t have a lot of hope if their ISP is one of the big names. Verizon/Comcast et al are definitely going to be receptive to the big media companies legal initiatives. If you want to fileshare, you’re going to have to run with the smaller ISPs.

Alright, enough of this metapoo and back to killing this bottle of cheap white wine. Barefoot Cellars. Only reason I got their wine is because their corporate HQ is in the office park next to my place of work.

2

Honestly, the hit will be pretty close to zero, mainly because of the way viewership numbers are calculated here in the US.

Numbers, obviously, come from a relatively small number of “nielsen homes” which are supposed to represent the rest of us slobs and our viewing habits. The only way for BSG to lose numbers here is for some of the nielsen viewers to download and watch those episodes over the internet, but not do so when the episodes air on the Sci Fi channel here in the States.

But is it honestly likely that someone who knows their viewing habits are tracked and make a difference will like a show enough to track it down and download it just to catch it early, yet wouldn’t go out of their way to watch it when it came Stateside in order to keep the numbers up?

3

That’s a good point. Around the cancellation of Farscape, I remember someone saying it was something like “3 or 4 Nielsen homes” that was the difference between cancellation and renewal.

Crazy. I mean, I suppose the Nielsen corporation has some super smart statisticians working for them, and I suppose that my belief in math and the competency of other people makes me believe that the Nielsen ratings are accurate, but still… 3 or 4 people make a difference?

Man.

I suppose you’re right Derek – it doesn’t make a difference… scarily enough.

2 glasses of wine left and the bottle is done. Man, this is a big bottle. I think I’ve posted more to QT3 in the last 2 hours than I have in the last 2 months. My gf is on the phone right now with an old friend, so here I am watching BG episodes I’ve dled off of BT.

Shit, I’m going to wake up tommorow and look at these posts and cringe, aint I? Tim Elhajj’s going to call me an attention whore too. Crap.

4

I never really trusted the Nielsen system of ratings. A relatively small amount of people are literally controlling what we watch. They claim the sample size is large enough to adequately cover what everyone would watch… and it is, if it were random. Their methodology is hopelessly flawed, seeing as a lot of shows with a lot of buzz and strong fan following get cancelled for ratings reasons.

5

It turns out that “The system by which TV is judged” is hopelessly rigged and corrupt.

It’s a statement so rich in irony that it almost sounds stupid when you point it out.

6

You downloaders are being naughty! Stop now! :lol:

http://mboard.scifi.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=284022&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1#284022

7

Networks are starting to look at other sources as well, though, such as DVRs.

Everyone who wants to see more Galactica should season pass the episodes on their Tivos, whether or not they actually plan to watch them again…

8

Haha, perhaps if the network weren’t so retarded as to release an American produced/acted TV show in the UK before the US, there wouldn’t be a problem. I think it’s stupid to ever delay a show like this, for any reason.

9

I don’t have a Nielsen box.

Therefore, I don’t matter.

10

Exactly. How is my watching it on scifi next month going to help them any if I’m not setup with Nielsen? Is it a box or a survey thing you fill out and mail in? I thought I read somewhere its like a scantron time card you fill out and mail in every week.

11

Buzz and strong fan following != enough eyes to keep advertisers paying the network to produce the show.

Their methodoology may be hopelessly flawed, but what you’ve mentioned isn’t conclusive proof.

12

I think everyone will want to see it on TV. The internet downloads are like a promotional tool.

13

Buzz and strong fan following != enough eyes to keep advertisers paying the network to produce the show.

Their methodoology may be hopelessly flawed, but what you’ve mentioned isn’t conclusive proof.[/quote]

Round and round we go. Their methodology is flawed, therefore advertisers aren’t given accurate information, therefore advertisers pull out of shows with FAR larger followings than they believe. The Nielsen ratings are a complete crock of shit and it bugs me that they dictate what is and is not on television.

14

You’re begging the question. Your proposition is that Nielsen’s methodology is flawed (ie the results they produce are wrong), but your evidence is that their results are wrong.

I am completely willing to entertain the idea that the Nielson ratings are crap, but the evidence you’ve shown isn’t enough to convince me (not that you have to convince me, of course). Instead of talking about alternate rating systems that give different results, skewed demographics, admitted rating rigging by Neilsen participants, differences between journaled ratings and People-metered ratings, etc, you just point to buzz and fans verses low ratings. But that doesn’t inherently prove that the Nielsen methodology is wrong, it could mean that people ignore buzz and the fan base is too small to support the show.

I know these examples are from movies, but at least we can get some hard figures from them, instead of guessing at figures for TV shows. While Solaris had a lot of buzz, it only took in $14m domestic (vs. $47m budget), and Star Trek has tons of fans, but Nemesis only took in $43m domestic (vs. $70m+ budget). Buzz and fans don’t always result in huge numbers of viewers.

So I guess my question to you is, without pointing to results you don’t like, how do you know that the Nielsen methodology is flawed?

(Edit: My apologies if this comes off too snippy, I’m just curious at how you arrive at your conclusion that the ratings are so flawed.)

15

Bit off topic but Solaris had a lot of buzz?
Because the only buzz I actually got was more along the lines of “Hollywood remake boo”.

16

There are a number of studies from marketers over the years that show that Nielson’s ratings system is far from perfect. And there’s usually an article a week in one of the many marketer-centric magazines and websites moaning about their methods.

One big problem? Time-shifted programs don’t count with many of the ten different models of monitoring equipment they use across the country.

Nielson is looking into possibly partnering with TiVo to collect anonynous statistics from boxes, but doing so eliminates the ability to determine which exact demographic was watching the program.

17

You’re begging the question. Your proposition is that Nielsen’s methodology is flawed (ie the results they produce are wrong), but your evidence is that their results are wrong.

I am completely willing to entertain the idea that the Nielson ratings are crap, but the evidence you’ve shown isn’t enough to convince me (not that you have to convince me, of course). Instead of talking about alternate rating systems that give different results, skewed demographics, admitted rating rigging by Neilsen participants, differences between journaled ratings and People-metered ratings, etc, you just point to buzz and fans verses low ratings. But that doesn’t inherently prove that the Nielsen methodology is wrong, it could mean that people ignore buzz and the fan base is too small to support the show.

I know these examples are from movies, but at least we can get some hard figures from them, instead of guessing at figures for TV shows. While Solaris had a lot of buzz, it only took in $14m domestic (vs. $47m budget), and Star Trek has tons of fans, but Nemesis only took in $43m domestic (vs. $70m+ budget). Buzz and fans don’t always result in huge numbers of viewers.

So I guess my question to you is, without pointing to results you don’t like, how do you know that the Nielsen methodology is flawed?

(Edit: My apologies if this comes off too snippy, I’m just curious at how you arrive at your conclusion that the ratings are so flawed.)[/quote]

Okay, that was a lot of information, and no you didn’t sound snippy.

My conclusions about Nielsen were reached almost a decade ago, and offhand I can’t point to all the information I’ve read. What I can recall is as follows:

Nielsen uses something like 5,000-10,000 people as full time Nielsen homes. The Nielsen box is a box that sits on top of your TV, when you enter the room and watch TV you use a remote to say that you are watching TV. They have the information of everyone in the house, so this is how they track demographics.

During 4 months of the year, they send out little journals to another few hundred thousand people to simply write what they have watched.

Are these people enough, statistically, to track the viewing habits of over three hundred million people? I don’t think so.

There are many reasons. Foremost, is that any time you rely on people to tell you what they’ve done, you are not going to get accurate information. We are going to forget, or we’re embarassed. What about Billy Joe Masculine who REALLY likes the show Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, but would die of emabarassment if anyoen found out. He would not report he was watching the show. The show would get fewer ratings that it deserves.

Conversely, say he really likes something else, but isn’t there to watch it every day. He can just turn on his tv, log in, and pretend he was watching. He’s now skewed the actual viewership away from reality. Since he is from such a miniscule pool, that can be significant.

So, we have too few people as our study set, and those people must SELF REPORT to Nielsen. They gather ratings like this. If this doesn’t say "hopelessly flawed’ I don’t know what does. I think the only real way of gathering ratings would have to be partnering with various Cable, Satellite, maybe TiVo to gather anonymous statistics. Maybe we won’t know which demographic is watchign what, but we could draw from a far larger statistical sample as to what is actually being watched, and what isn’t.

That will never happen, because the industry is too set in it’s ways.

18

I should have clicked Dereks link first. It says what I say but far better.

19

Ok, I’m ashamed for asking, but it was starting to bother me…

Does anyone know the name of an 80s comedy that had a show’s producers send out a bunch of Nielson families on a cruise in order to break into their houses to skew the results? I even think the show was up against the Super Bowl or something.

20

This is true. Both TiVO and Replay provide data to the networks. So if you have a PVR, your “viewing” habits DO matter.