The "Buzz" facter with in the Power Rankings is a joke.
how do you acurately mesure "Buzz"? Or even come close?
If a program has ver few viewers, how can its "Buzz" be higher? Plus, BUZZ is relative to within the group you are in. Just a Joke.
I would like to see a system of a flat rate for advertisers, based on the ratings. 1 Viewer - $X 1 Female Demo = $Y 1 Male 18-34 Demo = $Z and so on.
Then you would get a true value of the show and its commercial time and if a show begins to slip, the advertiser is protected by paying a little less for those episodes.
I agree with you completely TV-aholic regarding the 'joke'-ness of this ranking.
On the other hand, 'buzz' is real on some level because many of the shows with 'buzz' do end up commanding higher ad rates (at least initially) than their viewer levels indicate.
As for data I'd like to see: add in itunes/web broadcasts/DVD sales because they do matter to a show's overall worthiness towards future investment. A show like According to Jim or Scrubs has almost zero 'buzz' these days, but the residual income value has propelled those shows towards further production.
But Buzz does not = ratings. We have seen that time and time again.
Adding in the DVD sales, Downloads, onlince viewing, need to be kept seperate. Ratings are there to know where to set ad rates. Know the DVD sales does nothing for an advertiser. Nor does Downloads.
I would like to see seperate charts for each of these categories, but to group them together into one chart is not needed and would be a mess.
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Originally posted by Obveeus: I agree with you completely TV-aholic regarding the 'joke'-ness of this ranking.
On the other hand, 'buzz' is real on some level because many of the shows with 'buzz' do end up commanding higher ad rates (at least initially) than their viewer levels indicate.
As for data I'd like to see: add in itunes/web broadcasts/DVD sales because they do matter to a show's overall worthiness towards future investment. A show like According to Jim or Scrubs has almost zero 'buzz' these days, but the residual income value has propelled those shows towards further production.
Originally posted by TV-aholic: But Buzz does not = ratings. We have seen that time and time again.
Of course, but first season ad rates are based partly/largely upon BUZZ because no ratings exist yet. Advertisers will pay more for a show that follows DwtS than for one that follows AtJ and they will pay more for a show airing Thursday than one airing Friday, but they still take 'buzz' into account for that first season.
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Adding in the DVD sales, Downloads, onlince viewing, need to be kept seperate. Ratings are there to know where to set ad rates. Know the DVD sales does nothing for an advertiser. Nor does Downloads.
I didn;'t suggest combining everything into one 'score'/list. Advertising rates are based upon packages that are sold to the advertisers. Those packages are increasingly tying together TV ads with ads postiioned on network websites or streamed during the online viewing. You cannot just look at TV ad sales since the TV ads are not 'sold seperately' anymore.
DVD sales or syndication deals don't help bring in ad money, but it does effect how willing the studio is to reduce the cost for the current network airing the show (so, those studio income sources do frequently reduce the network's license fee for the show going forward.) Reducing the cost to air a show is just as 'profitable' as increasing the ad rate for that show. If people would realize that, maybe they would stop making farsical statements about 'show X has been on the air for a long time so it HAS to be more expensive than any show with a shorter episode count'. Just seeing the odd renewals for According to Jim and Scrubs are proof enough.
Of course, but first season ad rates are based partly/largely upon BUZZ because no ratings exist yet. Advertisers will pay more for a show that follows DwtS than for one that follows AtJ and they will pay more for a show airing Thursday than one airing Friday, but they still take 'buzz' into account for that first season.
True. Time slot is important. But, given how badly the Nets and Advert's were burned by the "highly Buzzed" shows this past fall, I wonder if that will tone down the influence of "buzz"?
Remember, Bionic Woman, VL, Gossip Girl, Chuck, Cane, Private Practice, DSM, Pushing Daisies, Big Shots, K-Ville, Back to You and even Cavemen all had a lot of Buzz surrounding their premieres. Only PP delivered and Chuck is slowly getting there.
Yet, shows like BBT and Life, grew to have nice followings and stead/rising ratings.
I think there is WAY TOO MUCH emphasis on Buzz within this industry.
Originally posted by TV-aholic: But, given how badly the Nets and Advert's were burned by the "highly Buzzed" shows this past fall, I wonder if that will tone down the influence of "buzz"?
I don't know. Was there any 'buzz' for Studio 60 the previous year?
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Remember, Bionic Woman, VL, Gossip Girl, Chuck, Cane, Private Practice, DSM, Pushing Daisies, Big Shots, K-Ville, Back to You and even Cavemen all had a lot of Buzz surrounding their premieres.
I think the buzz for Cavemen and Viva Laughlin was pretty negative buzz, though. In the shows you list above, I think only Bionic Woman, Private Practice, Gossip Girl, and Back to You had any significant 'buzz' going in. The rest just had standard new show promotion.
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I think there is WAY TOO MUCH emphasis on Buzz within this industry.
It is an industry with a customer that frequently won't ever watch a program if they don't start watching from the first episode. So, initially, 'buzz' is everything.
As someone who enjoys TV numbers, I'd love to see a serious attempt at a "grand unifying statistic" that measures a show's relative worth and renewability, like the RPI that measures teams in college basketball or that incredibly complicated VORP that measures baseball players. A TV version would have to be based on ratings, timeslot competition, lead-in/lead-out aid, production costs, Internet revenue, syndication/DVD value, week-to-week and year-to-year trends, buzz, strength of the rest of the network, compatibility/brand issues, and probably many other things. This article's attempt is indeed a rather lame and simplistic one.
Unfortunately, there are just too many unknowns right now for there to be any real outsider attempt at this. There isn't widespread access to all the statistics or an insider knowledge of how much a network values each of those factors. Maybe as time passes, some of that stuff will become increasingly accessible, but I still can't imagine the public ever having nearly the info for TV programs that there is for baseball players.
And I don't know, maybe they have some kind of formula on the inside that I don't know about. But the science of what gets renewed sure seems inexact to an outsider like me.
