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Television Media

Our Ratings, Ourselves 475

Posted by Zonk from the deep-thought dept.
Ant writes "This long New York Times article (10 pages; no registration required) reports on the mismeasure of television (TV)." From the article: "One of the great contradictions of modern American life is that almost everyone watches TV while almost no one agrees anymore about what it really means to watch television....when it comes to figuring out how many of us are watching these shows, and whether we're paying attention while we're watching and even whether we're actually noticing the advertisements among the shows we may or may not be watching -- well, this is where things get tricky..."
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Our Ratings, Ourselves More

Our Ratings, Ourselves

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  • The Dumbing-Down of America (Score:5, Funny)

    by TripMaster Monkey ( 862126 ) * on Sunday April 10, 2005 @07:28PM (#12196596)

    From the article:

    For the past decade or so, watching television in America has been defined by the families recruited by Nielsen Media Research who have agreed to have an electronic meter attached to their televisions...


    Obviously, these 'Nielsen' boxes are emitting some sort of toxic radiation that slowly poisons the brains of all in the area.

    No? Well, then, YOU explain reality TV shows!

    • Re:The Dumbing-Down of America (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bonch ( 38532 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @07:34PM (#12196629)
      No? Well, then, YOU explain reality TV shows!


      Phoney human drama that is cheap to produce. No screenwriters or plotlines needed. Just find various "personalities" that will grate on each other, stick them together, and film it. Reality TV is so prevalent because it's so cheap and easy to make. Compare to, say, Law & Order, where you actually have to hire actors, write stories, and go film at various locations.

      Even friggin' TLC has reality shows now. It's insane. And sad (anyone remember when TLC was shown in schools because it always ran educational content?).
      • You're exactly right, though some reality tv isn't all that cheap to make, example, The Amazing Race, which I watch because I find it interesting not just the team dynamics but all the absolutly beautiful places they go around the world. On the other hand, there is plenty of crap, as there are always exceptions to a rule.

        • Re:The Dumbing-Down of America (Score:5, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 10, 2005 @08:37PM (#12196976)
          Congratulations! You've managed to rationalize sitting on your ass and staring and something completely worthless for a large portion of your day.

          (Yes, I realize the irony in posting this to Slashdot.)

        • Re:The Dumbing-Down of America (Score:5, Insightful)

          by CastrTroy ( 595695 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @07:41AM (#12199433)
          Of course its cheap. Compare that to a sitcom. The stars of "Friends" were paid $1,000,000 an episode for the last few seasons. That's $6,000,000 an episode, just for 6 actors. Find me a reality show that costs them that much. Even "Extreme Makeover" where they tear down and rebuild an entire house every episode doesn't cost that much. A bunch of plane tickets for crew doesn't cost even close to what actors cost.

      • Re:The Dumbing-Down of America (Score:5, Insightful)

        by TripMaster Monkey ( 862126 ) * on Sunday April 10, 2005 @07:40PM (#12196665)
        Reality TV is so prevalent because it's so cheap and easy to make.

        While this is certainly true, it doesn't really matter how cheap a show is to produce if no one will watch it. Somewhere out there, somebody is watching this crap. And they're fucking it up for the rest of us.

        • Re:The Dumbing-Down of America (Score:5, Interesting)

          by bonch ( 38532 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @07:47PM (#12196717)
          They're watching it because programming execs have made it the only thing to watch. They love that it's cheap to make. You can film it in a month and already have it ready to go. These things don't get mammoth ratings (with an exception or two like American Idol, which thankfully isn't saturated everywhere like Survivor was), but the ratings they do get is enough to justify the cheap cost to make them. And since it's so damn easy, why bother starting a new sitcom with actors and writers when you can just put an ad in the paper for college kids and stick them in a situation to film it?

          • Re:The Dumbing-Down of America (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Osty ( 16825 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @10:20PM (#12197490)

            with an exception or two like American Idol, which thankfully isn't saturated everywhere like Survivor was

            American Idol isn't saturated everywhere? It's on three nights a week! It's advertised everywhere! All I want to do is watch an episode of 24, or House, and I have to deal with American Idol. I have to hear about it at work. American Idol winners have made movies. Radio stations have parodied the American Idol formula, as have porn movies. American Idol is everywhere, and I can't recall Survivor being spread around this much.

          • This is very very close to the mark. Other things to consider when looking at the drivel that "rates" is to look at when this stuff is aired.
            Prime time usually coincides with the typical family dinner time and an hour or so afterwards, in otherwords when people plonk themselves in front of the tube and shovel down their evening meal. The next rating slot is set for after the kids go to bed and mom and pop veg on the couch.

            Almost anything will rate in this timeslot. The trick is to have one or two good show

        • Re:The Dumbing-Down of America (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Umbral Blot ( 737704 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @07:57PM (#12196765) Homepage
          Although I don't like reality tv it doesn't bother me that it exists. Its not like I am exceptionally happy with the other kinds of tv out there. All I want is my battlestar galactica, and if some people out there like reality tv, more power to them. Dropping reality tv will not make good shows appear.

          • Re:The Dumbing-Down of America (Score:5, Insightful)

            by OAB_X ( 818333 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @08:32PM (#12196941)
            > Dropping reality tv will not make good shows appear.

            Well, it does, because the good expensive shows that dont have high enough ratings are canceled to make way for the shovelware.

            • Re:The Dumbing-Down of America (Score:4, Insightful)

              by Koiu Lpoi ( 632570 ) <koiulpoi@gma i l .com> on Sunday April 10, 2005 @08:58PM (#12197087)
              How many time has family guy been canceled?

            • Re:The Dumbing-Down of America (Score:4, Insightful)

              by SerialEx13 ( 605554 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @09:15PM (#12197168)
              > Dropping reality tv will not make good shows appear.

              Well, it does, because the good expensive shows that dont have high enough ratings are canceled to make way for the shovelware.

              This is presuming that in order for a show to be good it also must cost a lot of money. There is no reason why a show cannot be low-budget but be a good show due to it's great writing.

              You can throw all the money you want at a bad show, but it doesn't mean it'll become great.
              • Exactly!

                Quite a few foreign shows ended up excellent, despite the budget of what seems to be what the producers pulled out of their couch. Red dwarf (uk), corner gas (ca), etc.
                • Quite a few foreign shows ended up excellent, despite the budget of what seems to be what the producers pulled out of their couch. Red dwarf (uk)

                  And notably, Red Dwarf went significantly down hill as soon as the beeb started shovelling money at them. The tackyness was part of the comedy and they just completely lost that part of it (also didn't help that the writers split up causing the script to turn to crap).

                  Having said all this, I haven't seen a good piece of comedy come out of the Beeb since Red Dwa

        • Re:The Dumbing-Down of America (Score:5, Funny)

          by solios ( 53048 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @08:04PM (#12196799) Homepage
          The problem isn't cable, the problem is having a Nielsen or other ratings-relvant "family" in an area where reception is limited. For example- due to several factors, the ONLY channel you could get in via antenna in the area I grew up in (northcentral PA) was the CBS affiliate out of Binghampton, NY. The only game in town, as it were - if you wanted to tube out, you watched WBNG TV12 or you watched Off.

          It being CBS, they're broadcasting bullshit like Survivor to what's more or less a captive audience.

          I did learn about demographics indirectly through growing up with that station - their target market was apparently over sixty. Golden Girls in syndication, and shitloads of commercials for preparation H, Depends, and Cadillacs.

          Made my stint through a college filled with kids who'd been able to watch stuff that hit their demographic head-on fairly... weird.
        • Reality TV is so prevalent because it's so cheap and easy to make.

          I think another reason reality TV is so popluar is because it's still somewhat anew genre. I mean has the sitcom really changed much in the last 40 years? Is there much of a difference between I Love Lucy/The Brady Bunch/Friends?

          I think people want to watch good TV (there isn't much of it) and they think since reality TV is new it must necessarily be good.

          Though is there anything wrong with watching TV? I think we all have a choice to ma

        • Re:The Dumbing-Down of America (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Hans Lehmann ( 571625 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @09:31PM (#12197241)
          If a show costs zero dollars to produce and air, then ir will turn a profit even if it only got one viewer.

          I'm 47, so I spent my high school & college Saturday nights watching Saturday Night Live. It was good then. Thirty years later the show sucks, and has sucked immensely for at least the last 15 years. Why is it still on? Because it still gets high enough ratings in relation to it's production costs, and bacause there's nothing else on in that time slot that really competes with it. If Jay Leno ever decided to do a show on Saturday nights, the 30 year reign of Saturday Night Live would quickly grind to a halt.

      • Re:The Dumbing-Down of America (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Jardine ( 398197 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @07:49PM (#12196728) Homepage
        Even friggin' TLC has reality shows now. It's insane. And sad (anyone remember when TLC was shown in schools because it always ran educational content?).

        What exactly am I supposed to be learning from TLC now? All I ever see on TLC is decorating shows and cameras following pregnent women around. Do they even show documentaries anymore?

        Even Discovery Channel has turned away from what used to be its core programming. Motorcycles, Monster Garage, and Mythbusters. Early episodes of Mythbusters concentrated more on the myths and testing them. New episodes seem to like to show build competitions between the two hosts with lots of "conflict" between them. What does any of this have to do with science, technology, and history?
      • TLC used to stand for 'The Learning Channel'; not too much profit in that. Then they discovered bored housewives. Now when I flip through the guide I see them playing, in order, 'The Makeover Show', 'The Wedding Show', and 'The Baby Show'. That pretty much encapsulates everything that too many women aspire too; attract a man, get him to marry you, and have his baby (though not necessarily in that order.)

      • RIP Junkyard Wars (Score:3, Interesting)

        by edremy ( 36408 )
        I remember the first time I saw this show. I was totally hooked. Nutty people, hosts who knew enough to ask interesting questions, and a whole pile of basic engineering in simple crayon animations. What a briliant idea. Then again, it was from Britain.

        Then the american version appeared. Louder, noisier, with inane hosts and manufactured "conflict" between the teams where there used to be good natured competition. Less and less science, more and more "garage cam". Builds where clever engineering was f

        • Re:RIP Junkyard Wars (Score:3, Insightful)

          by eyeball ( 17206 )
          Then the american version appeared. Louder, noisier, with inane hosts and manufactured "conflict" between the teams where there used to be good natured competition. Less and less science, more and more "garage cam". Builds where clever engineering was forgotten in favorite of getting the best planted junk.

          This trend disturbs me so much. I don't watch that much TV, but I caught a commercial for "Impossible Heist" on court TV. Looked interesting, teams would compete do all kinds of "Oceans 11" types of stag

      • TLC (Score:5, Funny)

        by YrWrstNtmr ( 564987 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @10:07PM (#12197418)
        Even friggin' TLC has reality shows now. It's insane. And sad (anyone remember when TLC was shown in schools because it always ran educational content?).

        TLC has gone from The Learning Channel to The Ladies Channel.

      • No? Well, then, YOU explain reality TV shows!

        Phoney human drama that is cheap to produce.

        I think that, combined with the fact that many people crave social interaction in an increasingly isolated society, is why reality TV is popular. Only televison is a one-way communication, therefore not really an "interaction." But it IS easy to sit there and think to yourself, "I sure know who I would have voted off the island!" and maybe even talk to co-workers about it around the water cooler the next day.

    • Americans love punishment (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 10, 2005 @07:42PM (#12196679)
      Americans love watching punishment. So many of these reality shows have as their basis a climax which determines who amongst the contestants will be punished, either by banishment, being fired, or being told to eat disgusting things.

    • Re:The Dumbing-Down of America (Score:4, Funny)

      by myowntrueself ( 607117 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @09:42PM (#12197291)
      "No? Well, then, YOU explain reality TV shows!"

      I'm just waiting for the next logical step in reality TV shows;

      Networks start offering *free* cable and/or satellite, as much as you can 'eat', all you have to do is get a 'webcam' installed in your lounge.

      Of course, all that will be on TV will more reality TV; the view through everyone elses 'webcam'...

  • My experiences with advertising (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DarkHelmet ( 120004 ) * <.mark. .at. .seventhcycle.net.> on Sunday April 10, 2005 @07:28PM (#12196598) Homepage
    and whether we're paying attention while we're watching and even whether we're actually noticing the advertisements among the shows we may or may not be watching -- well, this is where things get tricky...

    As someone who is recently starting to advertise (see below), that's one of the things that I'm finding much more difficult to determine.

    For instance, advertising on google adwords, I see that my link gets 4,000 or so impressions. Does that mean that the person is even looking at the sponsored links on the side of the page? Taking it a step further, I had one day on google syndication that had 100,000 impressions. Only 60 or so people clicked through. I think a lot more internet viewers nowdays just glaze over ads.

    I started doing advertisement by promoting on StumbleUpon [stumbleupon.com]. How do I know that the people reaching aren't annoyed with being redirected to a page they have absolutely no interest in? After all, on StumbleUpon, my page ends up fitting under web development. I'm sure all those people who are looking for things like SQL, CSS, or PHP tutorials must love me. 1600 hits. 0 emails. 0 signups. Maybe if they added a hosting section.

    I'm thinking of moving my campaign off the internet, and into print / radio. But even then, how many people are just going to glaze through the ad when it's being played on the radio? For how many people I *might* appeal to, how many people will I *not* appeal to?

    Ultimately, I guess advertising comes down to how much money I spend, versus how much I get back, relevance be damned. And I guess that's why spammers are around, after all. No, I will not start spamming people. That's just evil. Then again, Bill Hicks said, "Those of you who are in marketing and advertising, kill yourselves. You are satan's little helpers."

    I really wish there were a way to just have my ad pop up for people who actually are interested in what I have to offer. Then I can leave everyone else the hell alone.

    • Re:My experiences with advertising (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bonch ( 38532 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @07:39PM (#12196661)
      I really wish there were a way to just have my ad pop up for people who actually are interested in what I have to offer.


      Well, I'll give you a little friendly advice. Whatever you do, please do NOT have your ad "pop up"! Pop-ups suck.

      Why do they suck? Because it's forcing its message on me instead of me seeking it out. The only times I've ever interested in ads are when they are off to the side as a normal part of the site, often a text ad. "Here are some Thinkgeek shirts." I automatically tune out "FREE t-shirts! Click here!"

      I tune out exclamation points, capital letters, and anything else that is actually done to get attention.

      I like text ads. I will tolerate small banner ads, or benign ones that don't try to look like Windows dialogs and shake with a "YOU HAVE 1 NEW MESSAGE" message.

      Without actually being able to see your ad specifically, it's harder to give you suggestions. But take it from a consumer you are targetting--don't make it look like an ad. Make it look like a bit of handy information. "Here's a good web development page" or whatever it is you're advertising. Don't do "WEB DEV--starting at $12.99 per month! Click here." I like to be told in a friendly way about stuff that is out there. I don't like it thrown at my head.

    • I think a lot more internet viewers nowdays just glaze over ads.

      I'm pretty sure that's been the status quo since the first banner ads started making their way about the internet. The best you can really hope for is some brand-name recognition later on. Adwords doesn't catch my attention at all, image banners do slightly, unless they're flash based or animated in some way, in which case they agitate me to unparalleled heights. In that case, I make it a point to remember that particular company and to

    • I really wish there were a way to just have my ad pop up for people who actually are interested in what I have to offer. Then I can leave everyone else the hell alone.

      Those who are really interested in what you want to offer, are seeking for you.
      Those who are not seeking for you, but instead are reading some website, or watching tv, or listening to the radio, are right now not interested in you.

      If you honestly only want to target people that are interested in you, you could for example try placing an add

    • Re:My experiences with advertising (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SharpFang ( 651121 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @08:01PM (#12196786) Homepage Journal
      A real good way to draw attention is actually to DO provide some valuable free content. Give them some of that SQL, PHP or CSS, enough to draw links, enough to go up in pagerank, enough to prove your competence. From 5000-10000 people a day who will roll through your help files, 50-100 will actually need a place to host their content as well, and 5-10 will think "Oh, the guy who made these great instructions provides some decent webhosting space! How convenient".

      I'm "banner-blind". I just don't notice most of banners on pages I quickly click through. But if for some reason I'm "forced" to stay on one website for a few days, I start noticing banners they display. The place gets familiar, I start noticing less visible elements, features, extras. I may throw a glimpse at the credits in the footer. I may check some other pages of the site, than the ones I just needed. And I start to see banners - usually sites display a small family of banners and I start recognizing them. Sometimes I will click them too, if I find them interesting (but not "smartass" - be sure I won't click on a banner that reads "don't click this banner"). I got a free shell account once. I was using it frequently and I liked it so much, that when the server went commercial, I started paying for it...
      So - draw persistent attention to your website - make people stay there, provide quality free service. There's enough incompetent jerks who just look to rip people off, to trust my money to someone who has just empty words to support his claims. Penis enlargement pills are risk free too. And the price is quite low as well.
    • I've found the best way to get me to buy products is to make it worthwhile.

      Comparing your service to the VPS I use - your Silver plan is equal in cost, yet provides one tenth the hard drive space, 33% less bandwidth, and is a simple web hosting service rather than a full virtual server. I could go pay my VPS another $10/mo, provide two people with your entire service, and still have a lot of hard drive space left over.

      And that's assuming I don't want to risk oversubscribing.

      I realize your target audience
    • Well, here's some free advice. As with all free advice, consider what you paid for it. :)

      First off, what kinds of keywords are you looking at? The web hosting market is one of the most saturated markets out there. If your keywords are all generic, then you're not likely to differentiate your service from any other service. So, try and find something that you're insanely great at. Maybe it's hands-on Perl/PHP scripting advice, maybe something else.

      Once you've found that, target those keywords but don'

    • what you are missing (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bluGill ( 862 )

      You (and most internet advertisers) are missing one important part of advertising: name recognition. McDonald's is well aware that nobody suddenly says "I'm hungry, lets go to McDonald's" when their ads come on. They just need me to remember them when I am hungry latter.

      If they thought the ad was a factor in the decision they wouldn't waste their money advertising outside of meal hours. There is no reason to think I will go to McDonald's at 3pm when their ad comes on. They just want to be sure when I'm

    • I'm thinking of moving my campaign off the internet, and into print / radio. But even then, how many people are just going to glaze through the ad when it's being played on the radio? For how many people I *might* appeal to, how many people will I *not* appeal to?

      Well, ya hit the nail right on the head missed by the NYT article (of course they have their own bias).

      With almost any form of Internet advertising you know EXACTLY how many people paid attention to the ad. Nobody clicks on an ad for something

  • Message to advertisers - dont overdo it! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by firehorsey ( 867123 ) <firehorsey@gmail.com> on Sunday April 10, 2005 @07:28PM (#12196599) Journal
    Just last night we watched a movie on free to air and there was a 2-3 minute commercial break every 8 minutes. It was absurd (but a reminder why we pay $85 a month for Foxtel - which still gives you adverts, but not quite so often]).

    We had plenty of time to go to the toilet, get drinks, fix snacks, let the cat in, feed the cat, let the cat out - cripes, and check emails.By the end of the movie we were so sick and tired of these products that we actively resolved to not ever by the damn things again.

    Advertising works, but if you try and force feed and literally brainwash your potential customers we will eventually say - up yours!
  • RFID first, apparently - they're determined to mainstream it, either mixed under the audio (as detailed in the article) or Ad-ID [ad-id.org]...

    <grrr>

  • american television = propaganda (Score:4, Interesting)

    by orufet ( 873172 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @07:36PM (#12196636) Homepage
    okay, so that's not totally true, but for all intents and purposes, it is. and what isn't propaganda is mostly shows for stupid people ("lets see who'll get voted off the island next!") or for people who need to be told what they like ("you'll love this new mccdonalds deal").

    • Re:american television = propaganda (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Eternally optimistic ( 822953 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @08:57PM (#12197086)
      That describes television in most countries.

    • TV propaganda evolved the American culture (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Cryofan ( 194126 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @09:48PM (#12197317) Journal
      American television is in the business of farming, farming willing consumers, farming willing corporate citizens, farming conformance. THey are in the business of breeding, of evolving a particular brand of American, one who works a lot and consumes a lot. One who is patriotic (translation: is easily manipulated by trigger cues appealing to sentimentality). One who is for the most part apathetic about voting and who accepts authority. One who accepts people of different cultures/races in the workplace (the better to flood the labor supply, my dear). One who is easily scared by TV propaganda so that military power can be used to invade and open new markets for the corporations that own the TV stations and networks.

      Just as prehistoric hunters, pastoral peoples and farmers domesticated cattle and sheep and dogs, etc., so too has the economic elite (through TV, primarily) domesticated a certain breed of homo sapiens. Just as those humans of long ago bred their domesticated animals generation after generation for certain desirable characteristics, so too has the economic elite produced us Americans by altering our culture. THey didn't evolve us physically, but culturally. And TV is the primary tool.

  • I with honor can say... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by jvd ( 874741 )
    I do not watch TV! -- Oh believe me, Puerto Rican TV stations suck man! You sit in your sofa, get confortable to watch TV and after 3 minutes you go like "Oh-ah, sckk!!" and pass out. Seriously, stay way off the Puerto Rican TV channels!

  • As long as it's on... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by djinn2020 ( 874365 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @07:40PM (#12196663) Journal
    If it's on, anywhere in your general vicinity, you are "watching" it

    Whether or not you're doing it consciously is debatable, but I know that when it's on in the background I zone back in to it and all of a sudden have a craving for Whataburger... mmm, Whataburger...

  • "Free" TV is a terrible deal (Score:5, Insightful)

    by btempleton ( 149110 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @07:40PM (#12196667) Homepage
    One of the reasons for the failure path of advertising is that free, advertising-supported TV is a terrible deal for the viewer.

    Common CPM for TV ads is $10, meaning one cent per viewer. The network gets a penny to show you a 30 second ad. If you watch 5 hours of TV, you will see an hour of those ads, and they get $1.20.

    In other words, you get $1.20 worth of programming for watching an hour of advertising. $1.20 per hour is an illegal wage by a long margin in most places these days, and a terrible deal. It's no wonder we want to reject it.

    The other big mistake the TV industry has made was in thinking the grail was full video on demand. Tivo and Netflix have shown that delayed-gratification video is more than satisfactory, and a lot cheaper to produce.

    Some of these ideas are explored in my essay on the future of TV advertising [templetons.com] and Poor Man's Video on Demand [templetons.com], which you may want to read.

    • Re:"Free" TV is a terrible deal (Score:4, Insightful)

      by RichDice ( 7079 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @08:30PM (#12196928)
      While your posting has given me a lot of insight into the economics of TV advertising that I didn't have before, there is something you wrote I have to take to task:
      In other words, you get $1.20 worth of programming for watching an hour of advertising. $1.20 per hour is an illegal wage by a long margin in most places these days, and a terrible deal. It's no wonder we want to reject it.

      Another way of looking at this is that I get several millions of dollars' worth per hour of advertising I watched. After all, it cost that much to make those 4 hours of TV.

      TV productions, once made, are non-rivalrous. That is, your having a zero-marginal-cost copy of it doesn't diminish the value of my copy of it. If it cost $10 million to make, and you and I each get a copy, then we only have to spend $5 million apiece to get $10 million worth of TV. What it sounds like in your advertising model is that we've got 8 million people sharing the cost, each paying about $1.20 for $10 million worth of production. That's a pretty good deal. (A similar economics is in play with cars: the marginal cost of a car is $20,000, but in buying it you receive the benefits of $100,000,000s worth of R&D effort. Economies of scale make the world go 'round.)

      Cheers,
      Richard

      • You too make a good point. But I think the grandparent was saying this: instead of watching that hour of advertising, you work for an hour and make anywhere between $5 and $50 dollars. Beyond that, fuck you. You send that money to the TV networks, and they give you not just 5 hours as they would had you sat in front of the TV watching ads but something more like 50 hours for the same amount of time.
    • Common CPM for TV ads is $10, meaning one cent per viewer. The network gets a penny to show you a 30 second ad. If you watch 5 hours of TV, you will see an hour of those ads, and they get $1.20.

      In other words, you get $1.20 worth of programming for watching an hour of advertising. $1.20 per hour is an illegal wage by a long margin in most places these days, and a terrible deal.

      By that logic, if networks upped their fee to 25 cents per ad per viewer (which amounts to $30 per hour of ads per viewer), th

  • Invisible advertising (Score:5, Interesting)

    by darnok ( 650458 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @07:40PM (#12196669)
    One thing I've noticed over the past few years is that TV advertising just doesn't register with me any more. I'll be watching TV with my partner, ads will come on and she'll ask me what I think about product X. I'll ask "What brought that question on?", she'll point at the TV and the ad will still be showing. It simply never registered with me at all.

    After 42 years, it seems I've developed an excellent TV content filter, that just needs a bit more tweaking to filter out reality and "talent contest" programs to make me happy.

    I'm curious: is anyone else in the same boat? Has advertising become effectively invisible to you?
    • Definitely. Another thing that I find happening is that I'll see an ad for the 50th time or so, but I'll still have no idea what it's promoting until the end. Even the ones that are actually funny or enjoyable in some other way.

      This may just be another result of the extremely short attention span TV and the internet have given me.
    • It could be possible that you're not actually blocking the ad, but instead allowing it in without being aware that you have.

      The ultimate advertisement would get into your subconcious without you realising it.

    • Anyone remember when there were 2-3 seconds of black silence between commercials? I remember noticing it, as the years passed, decrease and decrease. Now, there is no gap at all. One commercial blasts away, ends, and the next one comes immediately blasting away.

      At least let me take a breather between "commercial messages!" I genuinely think commercial watching was a more pleasant experience just ten years ago. There are a few gems ("It's so easy, even a caveman can do it"), but for the most part even
      • Anyone remember when there were 2-3 seconds of black silence between commercials? I remember noticing it, as the years passed, decrease and decrease. Now, there is no gap at all. One commercial blasts away, ends, and the next one comes immediately blasting away.

        This is a wholly uninformed guess, but -- I'd imagine that is a result of technological improvement in TV studio equipment, not a policy change.

        I didn't used to feel this way. There used to be a time I'd sit through commercials and didn't mind the

        • Re:Another weird thing I've noticed (Score:5, Insightful)

          by MyLongNickName ( 822545 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @08:14PM (#12196848) Journal
          Commercials used to be more informative, that's for sure. Now commercials are designed to elicit emotions more than the brain. I'm not too old (early 30's)... but I had to do a small research project where I was looking at old 50's television. The commercials were plain bad from a cinemographic point of view, but I actually got facts about the product, not "you need this to look cool, and if you don't you are a loser that will be made fun of by all of your coworkers and neighbors".

          But, that is just my two cents :)
    • Another aspect is that, more than any other form, TV advertising seems to target *only* e.g. 12-15 year olds. I'm sure that's been the case for some time, but the advertising seems to have become more skewed away from other age groups over the past few years. Or maybe I've just gotten older ;->

      It always amazes me that this age group is targetted above any others. At my age (early 40s), I've actually got money in the bank to spend (unlike many teenagers). My income is higher than 99.9% of teenagers,
      • If you're an advertiser, what pays off in the long run? Building brand loyalty for life with a 12 year old, or a 42 year old?

        Ford vs Chevy, Coke vs Pepsi, these meaningless ways the average person uses advertising campaigns to define themselves, these loyalties are formed in the teen years. That's why cigarette and alcohol companies can't help but keep advertising to kids, even though it's now illegal. It's the only advertising that pays for itself for decades.

        • Re:Invisible advertising (Score:4, Informative)

          by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @10:10PM (#12197433)
          I found this thread interesting enough to look for some info, and I'm responding to what you wrote because it confirms what you said.

          This is not from some media critic, or academic, but from the "Cable TV Ad Beaureau" [cabletvadbureau.com]:

          Our audience is deciding what they want. MTV's median age is exactly when a majority of young American adults begin to form life-long brand loyalties. Young adults 15-17 are excited consumers and extremely impressionable. Now is the time to influence their choices. 12-34 year olds have higher brand recall and more recognition than 35-49 year olds. In fact 69% make their purchasing decisions based on brand name, not price.
          In short, they're looking to build lifelong loyalties, and hitting up the demographic with the highest cash-to-brains ratio.

  • Conflicts of Interest & a House of Cards (Score:5, Insightful)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @07:41PM (#12196672)
    So many aspects of marketing are so squishy that it is easy for everyone to fool themselves into thinking that the ads are effective. All of the participants have a vested interest in spinning the impact of ads -- TV stations, ad agencies have obvious conflicts of interest in promoting TV ads. But even the marketing execs at companies do to as they judge their personal "size" by how many millions they spend on big ad campaigns.

    I have no idea if TV ads are really seen or not or if they really work or not - they may well create some subliminal warm fuzzy about some heavily promoted product or brand.

    I do know that ads can backfire. When a major (potato) chip maker launched a multi-million dollar "taste-test" TV ad campaign against its biggest competitor, the competitor's sales went up because the campaign got people thinking about the chips and they bought more of the competitor's brand. This anecdote suggests that ads are seen, but may not have the intended effect.

    I suspect that the real problem is that companies are so desperate to reach and influence buyers that they will try anything.
    • I recently did some web work for a big, evil pharma company via a marketing firm, and I found it amazing how much money they're willing to throw away on "marketing websites" that get virtually no traffic.

      I submitted a "6month website status report" last week (because detailed webstats weren't wanted for some reason), and for all the thousands they've spent and will continue to spend on maintenance, the site only averages 12 unique visits per day (including SE bots)... and they're happy with this. *shrug*.

  • TV? Who needs it? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mincognito ( 839071 )
    "What percentage [of viewers] were young white men? .... The marketers -- the people who want to make sure they're reaching the right fragment with the right ad -- would love to know. But it's been getting hard to say." As a member of that particular demographic I'd wager it's less than they think. I cancelled my cable a few years ago and barely watch TV at all anymore. Most of my friends don't watch as much TV as they used to either. My entertainment hours are mostly spent on gaming and movies. I get

  • Impact of TV on my life (Score:4, Insightful)

    by John Seminal ( 698722 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @07:44PM (#12196695) Journal
    TV is the worst possible waste of time a person can have. Episodic television is mind numbing. It is designed to have somoene sit in front of a television while countless hours go away, never to come back. For example, what good has come from Sinfield on humanity? Yada, yada, yada. Point made.

    The only reason television exists is because of advertising, for companies to sell you stuff you don't need. They don't care about you, and in many instances insult you. You don't need a doctor to diagnose you, instead we'll tell you what you need and you shop to find a doctor to write you a prescription.

    I wish I had back all the hours I had watching TV. It has harmed me. It lowered my attention span. It made me blow my money on crap I don't need, and really did not want, but was so taken in by models who look so hot convincing me I really do need it.

    How many people come home from a long day at work, pop open a beer while tossing a frozen pizza in the oven, and then spend the rest of the night laughing at 3rd grade jokes?

    And even for the good things that TV can do, it has failed us miserably. Did anyone catch Dean's comments to Democrats? Dean said democrats need to get better at the 10 second soundbyte, more catchy phrases, and to mainstream their message. The TV could be so much more. Chances are you can get more from the editorial section of the newspaper than in a half hour news program. And where is the science and history on TV? Maybe we will get a science channel once cable hits channel 700. *sigh*

    How do I get all those hours back? How do I go on living knowing my formative years were spent watching the Dukes of Hazzard?

    • In Partial Disagreement With the Above (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Staplerh ( 806722 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @08:03PM (#12196793) Homepage
      I'll admit that you make several valid points, but overall your post reaks of intellectualistic superiority. First of all, it's dangerous to condemn the 'masses' for enjoying television after a long day at work. I'm sure you waste your time on something as well, although slashdot.org may seem like a more stimulating pursuit, for example, it is still really not accomplishing anything.

      The TV could be so much more. Chances are you can get more from the editorial section of the newspaper than in a half hour news program. And where is the science and history on TV? Maybe we will get a science channel once cable hits channel 700. *sigh*

      Perhaps it's because I'm up here in Canada, but it seems as if we have plenty of quality programing. Documentaries on CBC constantly interest; a recent one documented a National Guard battallion deploying to your ongoing War in Iraq. Television as a media can convey things that you can't read about to the same degree, and television allows lower-quality productions.

      As for history, our History channel here does occasionally present valuable historical documentaries, although I'll conceed that their presentation of 'JAG' three times a day does diminish their esteem. But heck, sometimes it's fun to kick back and watch 'JAG', ridicule the rediculous plotlines and turn off the brain.

      So while I do understand your argument, and conceed its validity in some parts, I find it hard to pass blanket condemnation of television.

    • Re:Impact of TV on my life (Score:5, Insightful)

      by 0racle ( 667029 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @08:08PM (#12196813)
      It lowered my attention span. It made me blow my money on crap I don't need, and really did not want, but was so taken in by models who look so hot convincing me I really do need it.

      You can whine all you want, it doesn't make it true. Ever heard of personal responsibility? Self Control? Watching TV didn't make you do anything, you chose to.
      • You can whine all you want, it doesn't make it true. Ever heard of personal responsibility? Self Control? Watching TV didn't make you do anything, you chose to.

        The television producers and stations hire psychologists to think of ways to make people keep watching. Plus, they hook you as a kid.

        Television is addictive like smoking cigarettes. You can get hooked to stupid storylines. They do use simple emotional manipulation to keep interest.

        So no, it is not about personal responsibility because it is no

    • TV is the worst possible waste of time a person can have.
      [SNIP]
      It is designed to have somoene sit in front of a television while countless hours go away, never to come back.
      [SNIP]
      I wish I had back all the hours I had watching TV. It has harmed me.

      And so says Slashdot user John Seminal [slashdot.org], who has already posted 15 times to slashdot today within the past 8 hours, and at least 9 posts yesterday (there might be more posts prior to those 9, slashdot cuts off backposts after some number).

      How do I get all those

    • And where is the science and history on TV?

      In Las Vegas those channels reside in the following locations:
      • Discovery Channel (though it is generally lacking now - OCC anyone?): 25
      • History Channel (love it): 43
      • Discovery Science (what the Discovery Channel was supposed to be): 102
      • Discovery Times: 104
      • Military Channel (Discovery CHannel for military history, etc): 105
      • Discovery HD (digital subscription): 700
      • PBS HD (same as above): 730 (?)

      There are others, I'm sure. I just don't watch enough TV to reme

  • I used to watch TLC. But now TLC is a bunch of reality show BS. I used to watch Star Trek. But Next Generation has become Enterprise, and I don't care for homogenized crap. I used to watch Stargate, but it got to the point where I didn't care if the Wraith killed all the humans or not.

    Of course at that point I found that, contrary to my previous experience, there was such thing as good Anime. Ever since I discovered this, I haven't watched a single second of TV... /me flips back to Ghost in the Shel

  • OMG long article (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Cytlid ( 95255 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @07:44PM (#12196698)
    Well, I read the first few pages. Let me start out with a disclaimer, lately, I've come to hate TV. There's very few shows I watch and most are a waste of time.

    I've always thought... isn't there some technical way to find out what people are watching, anonymously? Like, from PVR prefs or recordings, draw on broadcast antennas (radio or broadcast tv/cable)? I mean, I know my website sucks because it gets like 150 hits a month if I'm lucky. And that's only the ones I probably do myself.

    Hell throw out incentive. My grocery store gets my "vote" for what sort of laundry detergent I like because our family buys it all the time, amd obviously its popular because there's tons of coupons for it. Can't they do that with TV? I'll sign up for HBO if you knock a couple of bucks off the bill every month for having me do some (online and accurate) poll.

    Maybe this is some kinda weird test by the NYT. Since when did they start having articles you could read without going through their silly registration process?

    • Re:OMG long article (Score:2, Informative)

      by thebes ( 663586 )
      Maybe this is some kinda weird test by the NYT. Since when did they start having articles you could read without going through their silly registration process?

      It's called partner=rssnyt. Why more don't post NYT articles with it is beyond me.

  • Living without a tv is entirely possible (Score:3, Insightful)

    by BassZlat ( 17788 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @07:49PM (#12196727) Journal
    I'm sure many others will say this.

    I've been living without a TV for almost 2 years now, and honestly I missed it badly only during the first few months. After that, I discovered that I'm actually getting much more rest while at home, feel generally less-stressed, and most importantly - can concentrate on strenous coding tasks for longer stretches at a time.

    And following the tv show "you can't live without" is just as easy thanks to bittorrent.. ;-)

  • I'm an oddball (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm a teen, yet I never (NEVER) watch TV. Ironically, I have one in my room.. It gets used as a blue light source but nothing else. Honestly, I don't miss it. Programming is crap from what I'd experienced, and it bores me. I'd rather chill out with any book on my shelf. (Several Jim Morrison biographies and The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry right now)

    TV is boooring. Get my news online, get my entertainment from playing guitar, writing poetry, reading, listening to music, playing games, hanging out with m
  • Due to an unusual work shift, I have to record any TV show I want to watch. I converted an old system into a DVR (using SageTV [sagetv.com] and couple Hauppauge [hauppauge.com] tuner/capture cards). Works great.

    When it comes to playback, I copy the files to my main system. I strip out the commercials using Pegasys [pegasys-inc.com] TMPGEnc MPEG editor [pegasys-inc.com]. Knowing that most commercial breaks are three minutes, I can just jump around the timeline until I find where the show resumes. Then I watch the shows on the pc or burn them out to a DVD-RW for later TV

  • Americans need a serious wake up call (Score:4, Insightful)

    by antifoidulus ( 807088 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @08:00PM (#12196780) Homepage Journal
    I saw something at Best Buy the other day that really stopped me in my tracks: A refridgerator with a television built in. I thought to myself, "Who the fuck watches television to the point that they need one on their fridge?" And yet there it was, manufactured by LG(Koreans taking us down!). Now, I'm not saying that TV is totally worthless, I personally enjoy the Daily Show and South Park, but I think Americans are way too addicted to the television....it's time to back away before it's too late....

    • Re:Americans need a serious wake up call (Score:4, Interesting)

      by robstamack ( 786429 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @08:20PM (#12196882)
      Actually, I used to make the exact same comments about the exact same refrigerators until a (not so close) friend moved to Korea. Apparently the living space in the majority of apartments there is excruciatingly small, thus they learned to combine appliances to reduce wasted space.

      Inevitably an international company is going to inject new products into a foreign market with the hope that the recipient country will be as receptive as the domestic market.

  • I am not a Nielsen! (Score:3, Funny)

    by iminplaya ( 723125 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @08:05PM (#12196803) Journal
    I am a free man!

  • Slashdot ratings for TV? (Score:4, Funny)

    by nxtr ( 813179 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @08:18PM (#12196868)
    FOX News Channel
    Score: -1 Flamebait

    Family Guy
    Score: +5 Funny

    Golf Channel
    Score: 0 (who the hell watches it?)

  • Paid at both ends (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FullCircle ( 643323 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @08:30PM (#12196927)
    What really pissed me off (thus no more cable) is that I'm paying for cable channels and after prime time almost all of them are infomercials!

    Why should I pay for content that I'm not getting while these TV spammers pay to show their commercials all night?

    I think we deserve 50% off for those 12 hours of infomercials.

    Don't even get me started on 8 minutes of content between commercials. You barely get interested again before the next break. Then they run another lower third animated graphic over the top of the current show telling what comes on later.

    Greedy bastards.

  • Thanks for that (Score:4, Funny)

    by dimator ( 71399 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @08:34PM (#12196960) Homepage Journal
    "This long New York Times article (10 pages; no registration required) reports on the mismeasure of television (TV)."

    Thanks for letting us know that "TV" refers, in fact, to "television" in the article synopsis. I was ready to pull up Webster's, had you not interceded.

  • YOU ARE THE PRODUCT (Score:5, Informative)

    by disposable60 ( 735022 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @08:46PM (#12197021) Journal
    Never forget, YOU are the PRODUCT being sold to the advertisers. The shows are produced to maximize sales. Of you. To advertisers.

  • My wife watches TV as background noise.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by the_rajah ( 749499 ) * on Sunday April 10, 2005 @09:15PM (#12197171) Homepage
    When she's gone the TVs in the house are OFF. If she's gone for several days, the TV is OFF for all that time. When I'm in a room by myself, the TV is OFF. When we started living together six years ago, she had a TV going 24 hours a day including while we were sleeping. I finally convinced her that she could sleep if it was off and she told me the next day that she had not slept so well in years, I said, "DUH!".

    I get my news from the Internet and I get it when I want it and in the degree of detail that I select. I don't want things predigested into a 30 second story and force fed to me. Entertainment on TV? Blech!! There's no entertainment worth watching on TV. "Reality" shows are NOT reality, they are garbage. The various series are uninspired nowadays, or maybe I'm just jaded, but what's the difference?

    I don't know if there's much hope for TV, but given the braindead majority of the population, it'll probably go on like this for decades to come. I'm just glad those of us who are capable of thought have options like the Internet, books, live performances and lots of activities that don't involve TV.

    "Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain

  • Watching the Detectives (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Sunday April 10, 2005 @09:16PM (#12197176) Homepage Journal
    They're measuring the wrong test point. There's no real understanding of the causal relationship between watching an ad and buying the product, let alone watching a show containing an ad and purchase, or hearing a show and making a purchase. It's all statistical correlation, which implicitly takes many causal paths into account, like word of mouth. They should stop pretending they have the mechanics understood, and just need some data about the human/receiver interface. They should instead study the mass psychology, sociology of ad messages, and other statistical dynamics that actually help predict the group behavior they're trying to control. But of course they won't: Arbitron and Neilsen are in the "measurement" business, and don't know how to sell anything else. However, as measurable webcasts become more of the media market, they'll get their data easily at the servers, and their model stil won't be complete. So they'll eventually have to turn to the statistical analysis anyway. Bottom line: TV will continue to suck indefinitely, and misinformed TV execs will continue to think they're geniuses.

  • I had a Nielsen STB. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by azmeith ( 705329 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @12:11AM (#12197945)
    Thats 'set top box' for those not in the know. They paid me and my roommate 50 bucks for every six months we had it and handed us a remote. Everytime one of us turned on the TV, the person(s) were supposed to press a number on the remote. If there were any outsiders, they were to press yet another number. We kind of did it for about a week, after that we sort of _lost_ the remote. And its crap anyway. My roomie would leave CSPAN on all day and night on Saturday just to _quote_ fuck with the eggheads ... with MBA's _quote_. Since then I have met a two more people who had the STBs and did pretty much the same, although their sentiments regarding that were expressed differently.

    And I still havent figured out how they can extrapolate from the miniscule (relatively speaking) slice of society that they listen in on (a large %age of whom would most probably behave like us). I am no expert in polling, but even assuming that they have a statistically relevant set of subjects as in a scientific poll, it still seems flaky at best. And yes I know that estimating properties/behaviors on a collection is far easier and more accurate than estimating properties of an individual entities. Its just that humans are not atomic particles who have to obey the laws of physics, and AFAIK group pschycology still has some way to go.

    I do not doubt the fundamental correctness of their assumptions, algorithms and techniques, but somehow I have a feeling that someone quite like Karl Rove figured out that they could fleece a shitload of money off of PHBs in tv land by using fancy math/science words, which they knew the PHBs wouldnt understand (and probably wouldnt care about), while promising them the marketing dept's holy grail, did it, and are still getting away with it.

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