I'd tell you I hate to rant, but a.) that's a lie and b.) none of you would believe me!
But especially during the holidays and especially ahead of a long post on "why I am worried about Chuck" that could be perceived as a bit grinch-like, I don't want to go off on a rant...
But, oh well!
There Are Lots of Stories Out There
We sometimes get comments about why we didn't write about something or there's something that we should be writing about. And sometimes they're not even from the crazy guy who thinks every frakking little iteration of The Jay Leno Show is the most important and monumental story ever! If another local affiliate breathes wisps of Jay Leno dissatisfaction the crazy guy wants to know why we aren't covering that very important story.
Not Every Story Is As Important To Us As It Is To You
The answer in the case above is simple: we don't think it is that important. Now, if a local affiliate steps up and says they won't be airing Jay Leno show at 10pm anymore, or NBC makes some announcement about Leno, we will cover that. But yet more anonymous affiliates claiming dissatisfaction paired with competitors (who allow themselves to be named) laughing at them? That's not a new development or really a story at all.
Our Primary Focus Is Show Renewal and Cancellation Prospects
Generally we try to cover everything that might cover a show's fate, from the ratings to the scheduling to schedule changes to any public comments by executives or people involved with a show that allow for some tea-leaf reading. We cover a lot of other stuff too, but mostly it's the intersection of what we're interested in, what is going on at the time and how much time we have. Since it's just Bill and myself, and sometimes only one of us is around and shocking as it is, sometimes neither one of us is around!
While we hope to be comprehensive and timely with our niche of ratings and renewal and cancellation prospects, and think we usually do a pretty good job of that we don't have any aspirations of covering every single story in the TV biz.
Douche Magnet
I just got the following e-mail:
I don't want to believe you guys are shills for Nielsen, but exactly how much are they paying you? A big story on competition to Nielsen comes out, and you don't even cover it. This is an extremely important story and its lack of inclusion on your site showcases how small-time you are.
Whenever I see stuff on this I always think "Damn, if it's so important to you, wouldn't it make more sense for YOU to blog about it and give your analysis and then send us a link to your story?"
Mostly It's Probably The Holidays, But No, I Didn't Think That Story Is As Important As the E-mailer
I think the above referenced story where Sinclair is signing up for a trial of a new Rentrak service is interesting, but not hugely important. Could it be important some day? Sure. Today, just mildly interesting and completely uninteresting to almost all of our readers who mostly want to know "is XYZ show coming back next year!" I think retransmission consent, that online video will soon have many more commercials and the measurement of that are more interesting and more important, but our readers mostly don't care about those topics either!
Rentrak is doing a trial based on set top box data. Sinclair has signed up for the trial with some of its stations with an option to include more stations. If successful, Nielsen could indeed have some competition on its hands in the local markets. But what happens a lot with this kind of thing is that station groups like Sinclair try it out and decide they couldn't move the needle with advertisers enough based on the new data to justify the expense. Whether that will be the case here, time will tell.
If Rentrak Starts Releasing Data They'll Get A Lot More Coverage On Our Site
Rest assured that if and when Rentrak is producing as much publicly available data as Nielsen, we will certainly publish it. We'd also happily be the exclusive provide of Rentrak top 20 lists on the Internet, at least if we didn't have to pay for it. But for all the gobs and gobs and gobs of set top box data out there, we have seen only wisps of it, there is no regular reporting of data and although we have had some conversations with alternate providers of data when it comes to "so, do you have any data we can regularly run with" we'll get a lot of "let me see what we can put together" chatter that never results in anything.
If Chuck Has Lousy Nielsen Ratings But Is Saved By Rentrak data, It Will Be The Top Story...Forever
More importantly, so far we've never seen a single case of "Show X had lousy ratings on Nielsen, but the results differed so vastly from the data from NotNielsen that they renewed the show because the NotNeilsen data was so much better and the advertisers have been convinced, at least in this case, to use the NotNielsen data!"
If that ever happens, not only will it be our site's top story, it will result in at least hundreds of posts.
And to be clear, I have tried to get in touch in the past on a number of occasions with Rentrak about getting a portion of their data for publication and gotten nowhere.
I’ve done the same with TNS Media Services, who collects cable set top box data. And while discussions this summer gave me some hope that would actually start happening this year, the discussions ultimately went nowhere.
We’d love to include data from other sources, but so far we can’t get it!
And in a non-sequiter, it is amusing that Robert continues to get lots more cranky reader emails than I do. We thought that was because his email address was above mine here, but that was changed months ago and the trend continues!
Some of it you can chalk up to “writer’s license” when it comes to some of the mailbag pieces which are typically amalgamations of comments on the blog and/or e-mails, but I still get more e-mail and phone calls since the “contact list” switch than I would’ve figured. I got a call yesterday from someone wanting to be featured on “Find My Family” and sometimes I get e-mails that say Dear Bill, where you are NOT copied.
On the plus side, I have not received any more calls from women wanting to be in the cast of future seasons of “The Bad Girls Club”
And in a non-sequiter, it is amusing that Robert continues to get lots more cranky reader emails than I do.
Are you feeling left out? I’m sure I could make up some cranky emails to make you feel better.
I think that was an aside, rather than a non sequitur.
I was considering emailing you both to alert you to something I just found interesting, but then I recalled this post!
But, according to an ad I just saw on this site, TiVo and Comcast have teamed up, so maybe the trend of TiVo losing subscribers every month will start to turn around? It’s been more than 14 since the last TiVo post, and will be at least 2 months before the next one, but I wanted to note that.
Julia,
But, according to an ad I just saw on this site, TiVo and Comcast have teamed up, so maybe the trend of TiVo losing subscribers every month will start to turn around? It’s been more than 14 since the last TiVo post, and will be at least 2 months before the next one, but I wanted to note that.
On our site? Next time you see it click on it and email me the URL.
TiVo has been trying to get its software to work on Comcast DVR boxes for 3+ years now, initially in Boston. When they started it was all sunshine and roses and lots of news, as time wore on, and it was clear they were having a combination of technical problems and slow consumer uptake the news just died out. Now TiVo barely mentions it anymore.
Now TiVo looks to be trying once again for legal/government remedies. It’s worked for them in the past, but I have no way of evaluating their chances this time.
http://comcast.com/TiVo
Julia, that’s the 3+ year old effort I referred to. Note that it *still* seems to be available only in New England.
Hmm. Very odd that it would pop up in advertising, then. (Sorry, I was on my iPhone before, but, yes the ad was on this site, and that’s the URL it redirected to, if I remembered it correctly. It was definitely comcast.com and ended in /tivo.)
Bill, you are the friendlier host here. Robert has yelled at me before so I’m glad he gets more angry emails! (Sarcasm, Robert, don’t hate!)
Adam, Bill, you are the friendlier host here. Robert has yelled at me before
Thanks for the compliment, but you’re simply drawing conclusions based on a limited data set
I love this website, I check it daily and it has even inspired me to start up my own TV blog in the new year. Thanks Robert and Bill, you guys are truly amazing.
Merry Christmas!
What, you two guys can’t cover 50 stories a day? That’s what NoDoze and Mt Dew are for!
To be honest, in some regards I’m surprised you wrote this. I was just explaining to someone how folks like us have to pick and choose what we write about and move on from “old or stale news.”
But yet, I do get why you’ve made this clear since most don’t always get trying to have both eyeballs looking in 2 different directions while typing 2 stories, 1 per hand, at the same time, just to keep up. It’s a judgment call.
Heck, now with this explanation, you have yourself a great permalink to provied to many a comment or disgruntled emailer whose world you devastated by not covering that conspiracy tidbit for them!
Good thoughts guys, good thoughts. HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE