I guess Nielsen counts just fine for Monday Night Football and Desperate Housewives, but when it comes to Dirty Sexy Money and Pushing Daisies, perhaps not! So suggests ABC chief Steve McPherson via our friend James Hibberd:
Critics asked about the fates of Wednesday night dramas “Dirty Sexy Money” and “Pushing Daisies,” which were knocked prematurely off the schedule last year because of the strike and returned to fatally low ratings.
“I really loved the shows, the producers delivered what they promised,” he says. “For us it was a frustration that we couldn’t get a larger audience – or that Nielsen says we couldn’t get a larger audience.”
McPherson adds that ABC still wants to make remaining episodes of both shows available, though producers were not able to craft satisfying series finales.
“We’ve like to air the ending of those shows,” he says. “I wish we had been able to give the producers series-ending notice so they could really have a finale.”
After the panel, McPherson says the network hopes to put the episodes online.
Read the rest via Hibberd’s the live feed.
ABC is better than this..
Jericho & Moonlight
ingfans contact this man immediately, he may be a sympathetic ear for your Nielsen conspiracy theories!The funniest part is that the specific complaints he made (earlier in the article) was that Nielsen’s didn’t measure viewers in bars and hotels….The bars thing only really makes sense for sports (or did large groups of people meet at bars every Wednesday to watch Dirty Sexy Money?).
Good for McPherson! At least he knows the right place to blame! Nielsen sucks! All they follow is whatever crime or reality crap fest CBS puts out, gobbling it up. Short-sighted with the attention span of gnats. But, I guess that is what the Nielsen’s are looking for. I still say they are under Witness Protection or work for the government. You never hear of a Nielsen viewer coming out and saying what they watch.
“Moonlighting” ended in ‘89 I believe. Blame Cybil Sheppard for the pregnancy story line which killed that show.
Gee, how horrible, people are daring to watch what they want. How dare they like shows that you don’t. Despicable! They should all be shot for not having the same taste in TV shows as you.
I’ve met Nielsen people in real life. It’s not something that comes up in normal conversation, which is why you have never heard of someone actually being a Nielsen family, but when you are in a classroom discussing how Nielsen works, it does, and they really do exist!
Geez! The monkeys at ABC finally spoke.
Well FYI to you ABC: if you didnt stop the promotions those shows would still be on the air.
Good luck failing(still) with your crappy Scrubs, Homelands,etc…
Blame nielsen? Than STOP following the Nielsen sytem you idiots!!!
The way to get viewers is by promoting, which these idiots stopped.
Suck on an egg ABC! You’re the one to blame for those cancelations.
But now they very huge sucessfull hits like Scrubs don’t they? Oh wait, they dont, thats a complete failure too.
Haha that’s funny. ”Blame ABC”? Is that the best they can come up with?
Bill, while I do respect your columns I think compared to any smart or modern system Neilsen is antiquated and out of date. I read an article where Eddie Izard talked about the cancellation of The Riches. He said that when he saw how the ratings were done and looked at in America he couldn’t believe it. At this point there has to be a better way than selecting a handful of people to be representative of the rest of us. I actually filled out a pre screening survey for Nielsen but got it in late and that pretty much ended any chance. I don’t think they should screen first either. It appears they are looking for “normal” viewers and I am not sure what that is this day and age. I and most of my friends (I am 29 by the way) watch alot on internet and DVR. I may watch one show live a week if that. I think Neilsen’s days are numbered, although it will take 10 yrs or so, because the TV industry loves holding on to things past their time (look at According To Jim).
I should clarify I mean Neilsen’s current system not the company, as they do much more than just TV ratings.
Stephen, they need to prescreen, because if they are having people fill out diaries (which most of the country still does) and you work for a TV station or something, you could very easily just lie about what you are watching.
Nielsen’s days are not numbered. Nielsen itself does need to make changes, which it has been working on. Nielsen and Arbitron (the Nielsen of TV) have both been trying to find a solution to certain problems like watching TV out of the home. Arbitron came up with a beeper sort of thing which you wear at all times, and it picks up any radio signals you are tuned to in the car, or hear in a restaurant, etc. It’s been in the development stage for a while. No idea if they will ever actually use it. But Nielsen and Arbitron are both trying here, and aren’t about to be replaced even in the next 10 years.
As for DVR and internet, Nielsen does track DVR viewing, though it doesn’t count for too much since you and everyone else who uses a DVR skip the commercials. The networks themselves have all the information on how many people are watching legally via the internet, and don’t need Nielsen to track that. If it actually made any difference in terms of profit, you’d hear about it.
Stephen, Part of the reason they screen potential Nielsen viewers is because they aren’t after just viewer numbers, they want all sorts of demo breakdowns (age, race, finances, education) as well. Truly random selection could end up with very skewed demographics (i.e. it would be possible to randomly select viewers in a city and (by chance) not include any black viewers or any viewers with an income over 100,000/year or have a random selection that has an inordinately high percentage of male viewers).
Ah, yes, that, too.
Stephen, I don’t think Nielsen as a whole could say it’s “days are numbered.” But the current ratings system, and the current broadcast TV, advertising-based business model are indeed getting long in the tooth. Cable is becoming more and more popular, as cable outlets develop original series now much more than in years past. The digital transition, in February, may be another boost in the cable/satellite popularity direction. I haven’t seen the statistics, but I know in local advertising I’ve seen cable and satellite making a serious push that “you don’t have to by a converter box, just subscribe to our service and you’re covered!” Couple that with special offers, and we may see more folks migrating to cable television, and more folks making use of leased DVR boxes from cable/satellite companies.
As for ratings, DirecTV has already begun using their own ratings service in conjunction with TNS Corp. The “DirecTView” service has 100,000 opt-in customers, whose viewing habits are monitored by a set-top-box (STB) data collection agent. A few advertising bigwigs, such as Starcom, have bought into the DirecTView system. It’s only a matter of time, IMHO, before more advertisers choose to purchase the information they need from non-Nielsen sources such as this one. Nielsen is playing the role of “fast follower” here, trying to launch more STB style data collection mechanisms such as the Local People Meter. It may be a while before Nielsen reaches that 100,000 people mark. They rely pretty heavily on repeating their mantra of “we’re statistically accurate the way we are, and the math is too complicated for you to understand so we don’t need to prove our accuracy to you.” The execs are well aware that if you repeat something enough times, people accept it as fact.
I have not read the Eddie Izzard comments you mentioned, but I intend to search for that interview. He has a point, in that Britain has a system entirely different from ours. The BBC “broadcast” equivalents are there, and satellite is popular I think. As far as ratings, I think WPP corp. is the frontrunner in ratings gathering in Britain? I am uncertain how they conduct their data collection.
Correction: TNS, who is now merged with GfK of Germany, is a leading audience measurement service in the U.K. Not sure how much Nielsen and WPP do there – but those tow bought each other out of some stuff last year too
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Save Dirty Sexy Money…
http://www.petitiononline.com/dsm123/petition.html
Don’t forget he badmouthed Melissa George and Brooke Smith stating they were just looking out for themselves when they spoke to the media. Neither of them said anything bad about the show.
McPherson said: So again, that was an actress who was trying to talk about something in a manner that would serve her and not the reality.
—
Melissa George said this: “It was my choice. I love the show so much. I’ve made some beautiful friends. I love T.R. Knight. I love Patrick Dempsey, Justin Chambers … I adore Ellen Pompeo. I think she’s a strong, incredible woman. And Katherine Heigl is the most beautiful creature on Earth.”
“Arbitron came up with a beeper sort of thing which you wear at all times, and it picks up any radio signals you are tuned to in the car, or hear in a restaurant, etc. It’s been in the development stage for a while. No idea if they will ever actually use it.”
The Arbitron PPM has already been deployed and commercialized in some markets.
Looks like Nielsen declined a joint venture with Arbitron for PPM metering of television data in the U.S. But PPM television monitoring is already in effect in Canada in a TNS joint venture:
http://www.arbitron.com/portable_people_meters/home.htm
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=81644
I wonder if DirecTV might consider airing the shelved episodes? They’re airing the long-cancelled ABC series “Wonderland” now, in its entirety, including episodes ABC did not air. For DSM and PD fans…here’s hoping they could do the same for your unaired episodes
They weren’t able to craft good finales? I thought they said they were. Someone over there needs to get their story straight.
Julia and Holly are you both working for Nielsen?? LOL. J/K and I do get your point but I disagree. I think clutz is right on the money.