For those who follow information responsibility, here’s a story that has a little bit of everything:
- A widespread tolerance of cynical data distortion, all to manipulate ratings and rankings.
- Distortion of category boundaries to exclude unwanted data points.
- Distortion of category boundaries to include desirable data points.
- Manipulation of idiosyncratic metrics.
- Abuse of the news cycle.
- Anemic enforcement of ethical standards.
- An exclusive set of informed consumers who are not hoodwinked.
Details on each of these bullets follow. All quoted excerpts are from this article in today’s New York Times.
- A widespread tolerance of cynical data distortion, all to manipulate ratings and rankings.
“This is the kind of programming sleight of hand that executives seize on as they seek to gain every possible edge in the television ratings game, at a time when each tenth of a point or two enhances their standing in the nightly ratings and the ability to pitch to advertisers who spend billions of dollars a year..”
- Distortion of category boundaries to exclude unwanted data points:
“But as far as Nielsen ratings were concerned, four of the shows that week weren’t ‘Good Morning America’ at all. They were labeled ‘special’ programming by ABC, which told Nielsen that it would be called ‘Good Morning Amer.’
“ABC made the switch so that the final week of the year — typically the lowest rated of the year because of the holidays — would be ignored in the national ratings. The change allowed the network to claim — and it did — that ‘Good Morning America’ finished the year closer to NBC’s ‘Today’ show than it had in 16 years.”
- Distortion of category boundaries to include desirable data points:
“NBC took the opposite path of ABC with the use of the term ‘special’ in its presentation of the Republican primary debate on Jan. 23. Careful viewers noticed that the debate was labeled a regular edition of the network’s ratings-challenged newsmagazine program, ‘Rock Center with Brian Williams’ — one that, as it turned out, just happened to double the show’s usual audience to just over 7.1 million viewers.”
- Manipulation of idiosyncratic metrics:
“The manipulation of where national commercials are placed in a show has become one of the favorite shell games networks use to try to enhance their numbers. Shows receive national ratings from Nielsen only up to the point when the last national commercial is broadcast — after that, the numbers simply do not count.”
- Abuse of the news cycle:
“Another ratings tactic that is now routine involves extending the duration of more popular shows, allowing them to run a minute or two past their scheduled end time. That means the show that follows — usually one a network wants to enhance with the best possible introduction — gets a ratings lift in early national ratings reports that are often widely reported by news outlets.
In December, for example, Fox ran its singing competition ‘The X-Factor’ a minute long to provide a strong entry for ‘I Hate My Teenage Daughter,’ the low-rated comedy that followed it.
In the initial national ratings that Nielsen reports every morning, these later-starting shows receive inflated numbers in their first half hour. Those numbers are corrected by the late afternoon, but by then media reporters intent on getting news up as fast as possible, have often bestowed some measure of success on the tagalong show.”
- Anemic enforcement of ethical standards:
“Unless the gimmick results in something egregiously false, Nielsen does not step in. The worse that might happen would be a sternly worded letter.”
- An exclusive set of informed consumers who are not hoodwinked:
“The tricks themselves are familiar to most in the business: smart commercial buyers know when the ratings are being spun for a better story in the media or a claim in a print ad, and they insist on paying for the real ratings, not the artificially enhanced versions.”
Networks Resort to Trickery in an Attempt to Lift Ratings - NYTimes.com
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