I thought I could do it and put away the jabs at my lifestyle and enjoy the storylines and acting, but the joe the plummer comment finally broke the line. I’ll no longer watch Law & Order and I’m writing the advertisers who sell to the average joe that they lost a customer too. It’s a shame and I’m saddened by the demise of a great show and actors I can no longer enjoy. Adding insult to injury you imply an average joe will kill for no good reason. Nice touch at the end. I hope Comcast tosses Mr. Zucker the first chance they have.

…the good thing is that with Christmas Day and New Years Day on Fridays this year not to mention the holiday week for this Friday…no one will miss it or realize the extra long re-reun period it will have…

and probably with running 2 episodes back to back in Feb…they’re extending the break period to the 22nd instead of the the 15th of Jan.

Now CW – promote it like you do MP, GG & VD

Hmm… Strip Deal or No Deal might be an interesting twist, but I’m not sure the FCC would let them air that on broadcast TV at 8pm…

But I agree with Hillary, the show is toast! The show suffered the most when it ended Season 2 with 18 episodes. Season 3 started amazing and then it all went to heck by writing off about 6 characters and bringing all these new people who didn’t do anything for the show.

The ugly factor got old, like I said. Season 4 and it’s still the same old premise. HOWEVER: They changed Betty’s wardrobe for this season and they are slowly giving her a makeover.

What I want is that people KNOW the show is going to end that fans and former fans can get some closure. It would be a shame if such a good show just got ‘cancelled’ without airing a series finale.

Now that they’ve moved to Fridays, they seem to be trying again. When they try, they can put together a really, really good show. And UB is just that right now – one of the better shows that ABC has – certainly better than Housewives or Grey’s Anatomy at this point. So if it does get cancelled this season, at least it’ll go out on a creative high.

In the end, it doesn’t matter WHY the show has a lack of viewers. All that matters is that the lack of viewers will lead to inevitable cancellation.

LOL. Just remember, you said it. I didn’t.

Frankly, there’s nothing in your list that hasn’t been discussed before. But apparently, you’ve chosen not to read any of the other logical responses that address each and every one of your points. So, what more is there to say, right?

…there would be an equal chance that the actual audience would be lower, except for the fact that we know that there is a very small, but non-zero problem with the audience generated from non-home viewing, which would be an undermeasurement at present…

…how large that factor is, we don’t know, it’s almost certainly not that large, and it’s probably not economic to measure it with the same accuracy that Nielsen estimates at-home viewing…

…but it is there, thus it is reasonable to hypothesize that the change in the actual audience from what is ‘estimated (‘measured’ implies a complete survey of the total universe of viewers, which is not what any market research firm does, for economic reasons) would more likely be an increase than a decrease.

Even so, note that I also said that the odds were that such a change in the audience, from the estimated audience Nielsen derives from its measurements, to what actually is, would be small, and may well be a decrease in the audience (although the bias should be towards an increase, given non-home sampling).

To anyone who says that Nielsen produces very good statistical estimates, I firmly agree. They do a fairly good job at that – they have to, as both the advertisers and the cable and broadcast channels insist upon this. (Nielsen does need to improve their PR and emergency planning.)

But to say that the ratings that they produce from their estimates are always correct is very sloppy statistics – and I would safely bet $100 that, if you asked the Nielsen VP in charge of television ratings, he would agree with me.

That is not where shows like “Ugly Betty” come in.

Because the nets need a place for low-rated shows that make money via syndication/cable/dvds.

For that reason, I’d like to see FOX turn Friday into another night of animation, which also costs less. Futurama, American Dad, maybe bring back King of the Hill and the Goode Family.

FOX Bones (R) 1.0/3 3.66

fox genius at work again they take dollhouse off to avoid bad #’ during sweeps…….. these arent good numbers are they? hehehe
dollouse could almost do that, and the show they canceled would be turning in better #’s than this… goin down fox goin down

I am struggling to remember but when L&O was on NBC Friday at 10pm, I think it was pulling around a 2.0 rating in 18-49 and about 7-8 million viewers up against a stronger Numb3rs by the end of that season. It isn’t that much less now several years later at the 8pm timeslot

I was more shocked when I went to switch to Ugly Betty and saw SHREK!?! What is going on with Ugly Betty?? News going around says it will be switched to Wednesday? Well, a way to lose ratings and viewers is to keep “viewers” confused.

Do you think Smallville will have a season 10?

It doesn’t matter that the show has had some kind of resurgence in quality this season. Frankly, it appears to be past the point of no return in ratings. Again, it’s toast.

Of course the ratings would go down…for shows I don’t like. Really, the problem with Neilsen isn’t the sample size, it’s that they include people in their sample that don’t have the intelligence and taste to watch the same shows I do.

CBS Friday needs a major overhaul and I predict big changes on the way before the start of next season. This should probably be Medium’s last season as it has downed the lineup to new lows. CBS should probably move something from the week and move it here to give the lineup a spark.

Shrek the Third is a sign that ABC needs to get rid of SN and UB immediately. ABC could probably move V and Flash Forward here or install that second comedy block around Romantically Challenge and really compete.

As for a movie night for ABC, was this a broadcast premiere of Shrek the Third? I can’t imagine their movies would normally do even that well.

Still, Ugly Betty’s ratings are looking bad by comparison. No way that ABC will move it to Wednesdays. Viewers don’t come back to serialized programs once they’ve left, generally. Nor do they perform well in syndication, so I’m not sure why UB is even still on the air. (I have no agenda in saying that; I’ve never seen the show.)

…but there’s that pesky “confidence interval” – since Nielsen only samples (the best sample that they can buy, in conformance with their corporate edict to make maximum profits while doing so), there is a very slim chance that more people are watching (insert show here) than Nielsen’s extrapolations indicate…

…note I didn’t say “incredibly more people, so many people that Regis and Kelly will be going trilingual next season!” – that would require a level of nice in America not seen since Dragnet’s Christmas episode was broadcast in 1950

8:00 – America’s Funniest Home Videos
9:00 – Ugly Betty
10:00 – 20/20

People, step back from your love and objectively realize nobody’s really watching your show.

Kinda of shows you that advertisement and promotion is nothing nowadays.