Break the walls down... or...The battle for Jericho has been successful!!!

[jeryk]

The following was posted to the Jericho Message board at cbs.com about 40 minutes ago. It was stickied up at the top of a Forum category, an administrator level action, so there is no chance that it's fake

Comments

[unnamedbonus]

Congratulations.

After being involved in two very unsuccessful campaigns to save shows, I didn't think you had a snowball's chance of it working. For your sake I'm glad to be wrong.

[jeryk]

It was weird. It was like there was a quiet confidence with everyone that we could do this. There wasn't really a sense of desperation. As much as anything our assertions that we were here and watching but weren't counted in your Nielson statistics because we were watching on DVR and/or the CBS webcast forced CBS to reassess how viewer distribution works in the current internet age. As blogs started to come on board a few media blogs found the fact that Jericho's ratings were 10% higher when DVR watching was factored in. No stats were given for webcasts but I know ALOT of people watched the webcasts. I watched the spring half of the season exclusively on webcast.

So we went with evidence of "here is why your statistics were flawed when you determined Jericho deserved to be cancelled" more than just screaming "Bring back our show!"

But yeah it feels good to assist in pulling off the almost impossible.

[unnamedbonus]

Interesting. The "Neilson doesn't properly count us" argument for keeping one of my shows was countered by "we know, but it's the standard everyone uses, so tough luck." But then I think the then-new management of that channel had been gunning for my show before it ever got the job.

I couldn't see it that way at the time, but they do sort of have a point. The Neilsons are estimates based on sampling a smallish percentage of the actual audience. No matter how hard the Neilson company tries to make the ratings accurate, any estimate is going to have a margin of error. And for channels or shows with small audiences, the margin of error can be a significant percentage of their viewership.

So if you toss Neilson, what do you replace it with? I don't wanna go to a system where everything everyone watches is reported back to some central authority. Although such a system would probably be a huge wake up call to a lot of people in terms of what people actually watch versus what we've been told by Neilson that they watch.

[jeryk]

Yeah I don't know that having everyone's viewing habits monitored is the best thing either. Like I really want to see directed ads popping up on my TV screen when I turn it on.

"Since you watch Naked Nympho Oil Wrestling here are some other things you might want to watch!"

...."Umm, no Mom. Someone else must have been watching my TV while I was gone."

[unnamedbonus]

I hadn't even considered the possibility of directed ads on TV.

The scenario you describe would be pretty low on the Bad Things scale if everyone's TV viewing was monitored. Sure it'd be awkward, but over time situations like the one you describe would do a lot to counteract the Puritan baggage our society still carries. And for that, I'd be willing to put up with some embarassing situations.