If I mistakenly write "NBC Nitely News," you can probably still tell what program I'm talking about. Nielsen's automated system can't, however, and a report Thursday in The Wall Street Journal details how networks are taking advantage of that fact to disguise airings that underperform with viewers.
It's described as a common practice in the world of TV ratings, where programs with higher ratings can charge advertisers more to run commercials. When an episode performs poorly with viewers, the networks often intentionally misspell the show title in their report to Nielsen, according to the Journal. This fools the system into separating that airing out as a different show and keeping it from affecting the correctly-spelled show's average overall rating.
The report says the practice was initially used sparingly -- for instance, when a broadcast would go up against a major sporting event. But it has now grown fairly common, with NBC misspelling the title of "NBC Nightly News" 14 times since the current TV season began last fall. At one point, that reportedly included an entire week of broadcasts.
[...] Such a practice might be largely for the sake of marketing, with networks typically looking to boast publicly about show performance however possible. Still, it seems odd that Nielsen would allow them to do so with any sort of regularity, given that it ultimately calls the accuracy of its numbers into question.
Source: CNet
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday July 07 2017, @11:04PM (8 children)
If the advertisers are paying more than the show is worth, I'd say they have standing to sue the network.
OT: When I was posting my resume online, it had deliberate misspellings in it for purposes of search engine optimization. For example SBP-2 is the correct spelling for firewire storage, but my resume also had SBP2.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 08 2017, @12:03AM (1 child)
What a surprise, the king of self aggrandizement uses search engine optimization to pimp his resume.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday July 08 2017, @01:01AM
Filter error: parent has his head up his ass.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 08 2017, @01:04AM (1 child)
Uhh, that is one of the underlying tenants of capitalism. Maybe the ad companies can claim they were defrauded by doing the typos, but the networks can equally argue that the companies didn't do their due diligence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 08 2017, @01:38AM
the companies didn't do their due diligence
Doubt the courts would see it that way. "you should have done your homework you should have known that car would blow up after it left the lot"
Fraud is the word you are looking for. As if this is true (and the rumors are they do not track it that way anyway) fraud is what it would be.
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Saturday July 08 2017, @01:38AM (2 children)
How many jobs have you gotten from some Manager of HR person Googling "SBP2 resume"?
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday July 08 2017, @02:22AM
I ported the Apple Firewire Reference platform to Texas Instruments DSP/BIOS.
The client liked my work so much that he gave me two more gigs.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday July 08 2017, @04:51AM
He the would get the same hit rate for searches of sbp2 as he would searches for sbp-2, because Google is insensitive to punctuation and other trash characters.
So crazy man wins again.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 08 2017, @09:47AM
being a bit reactive, huh?
find it hard to chew that nielsen does not validate their inputs?
would you find it terribly hard to believe that this is the way they do business?
and have been, for a very long time.
e.g. its method, not an accident.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 07 2017, @11:06PM (8 children)
Only 50s and over watch TVs these days. I'm in my 50's, and I don't watch TV except for live sport games.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday July 07 2017, @11:18PM (2 children)
We let the TV run cartoons and the like for the kids during the day, and sometimes use on-demand for ourselves in the evening. If I ever bothered hooking the computer up to the TV we could probably drop the cable, I just haven't gotten around to it.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by Spamalope on Friday July 07 2017, @11:54PM (1 child)
I moved, built a media center PC and never sign up for cable at the new place.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 08 2017, @01:42AM
I moved and got cable. It came with the apartment. Get it for 'free' still dont watch it.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 08 2017, @12:04AM
I'm over 60, haven't watched TV in ages, and think professional sports are for vicarious morons.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday July 08 2017, @12:06AM (2 children)
Titles don't have to be misspelled to be misleading. I was looking forward to watching the Dick Van Dyke show expecting a lot of dicks and a lot of dykes, but only got a greyscale dipshit tripping over a piece of furniture.
If it were a movie I would've angrily demanded my money back.
(Score: 3, Funny) by chromas on Saturday July 08 2017, @01:02AM
Was there at least a van?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 08 2017, @03:43AM
Holy crap, an Ethanol-fueled post that was actually worth my time to read.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Saturday July 08 2017, @10:35PM
I hate to tell you this, but we don't make TV for you. We make it for advertisers. Because advertisers write the checks. The advertisers pay. And what they're paying for is to reach the 18-49 demographic. They covet it. If you've ever wanted something so much that you couldn't think about anything else, couldn't do anything else, but you had to grab, grab, grab for it? That's what it is to covet something. And that's how our great advertisers are about the 18-49 demographic. Nothing else matters. Once you hit 50, I'm sorry to tell you, you're nothing to them. Dead to them. They do not want to reach you. And believe me, the networks covet advertisers. So when we make the shows, we make them for the 18-49s, not for you. If you asked the networks, should I take down my aerial? They'd say yes, do it. Because your 18-49 neighbor can get a better signal. A little better. Because TV, the new TV, isn't for you. I mean, sure, they'll put on some reruns for you. The Dick Van Dyke Show, as my friend said. Something from when you were an 18-49. On a secondary channel. Because that costs them very little. They make a little money that way. Why throw away money? But the main channels, the new TV, the hi def, it's all for the 18-49 demo. #TrumpTV
(Score: 2, Informative) by realDonaldTrump on Saturday July 08 2017, @12:46AM
NBC wouldn't know a great rating if it bit them in the ass. The Apprentice had the highest ratings ever in the 18-to-49 demographic, which, believe me, is the most important demographic. On my wall I have the cover of TV Guide that proves it. And NBC, in their 'wisdom', canceled my contract. Tried to strike me down. But I've become more powerful than they can possibly imagine! Really killed it in Poland! 45.wh.gov/gSYLnz #TrumpTV 🇺🇸
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Saturday July 08 2017, @01:41AM (5 children)
Are there actually screencaps of an NBC Nitely situation or is this typoing as in "I'm changing this opaque field in this file".
I can't tell, the article appears to have traveled back in time and has partially faded out of existence.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday July 08 2017, @02:01AM (4 children)
Not only that, but the article suggests they know in advance which of their shows are going to suck. After all, Nielsen has to know in advance what is being broadcast at any given time in order to capture results. So for this trick to work you have to know in advance that people will tune out of the news an any given day and supply misspelled names.
Personally, I think I'd invoke Hanlon's razor here, because stupid spelling seems more likely than a grand master plan.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday July 08 2017, @02:08AM
So if one can tap into that misspelling ahead of time. One will also be able to avoid crap TV programs.
Otoh, it's quite easy to determine these days. If it's broadcasted. It usually suck because all such programming has to supplicate to the lowest common thing that will attract people.
(Score: 2) by jcross on Saturday July 08 2017, @02:40AM (1 child)
It seems like it wouldn't be hard for Nielsen to find out whether misspelled show names are more likely to have lower ratings than correctly spelled ones, since they're still harvesting the same ratings data, just not grouping it together with the correct spelling. Break that stat out by network and it should be pretty clear who's gaming the system and who just can't be bothered to check their spelling.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday July 08 2017, @04:28PM
Alternative Theory: lots of people time-shifting these programs (DVRs) do so by name. Put it in the schedule wrong, and it won't match the DVR's auto-recording, so it gets missed.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by toddestan on Saturday July 08 2017, @10:53PM
The summary says the practice started with shows that would run at the same time as a major sports event on another network. Since that's easy to predict it's not hard to conclude it might be intentional. Though you do raise a good point if they are doing it in other cases where there is no obvious reason the show would rate low beforehand.
Of course, if the instances of this have shot way up, it could simply be that they now only provide the correct spelling when they are pretty sure the show will attract lots of views, and otherwise provide the misspelled version by default.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 08 2017, @06:03AM (1 child)
So here I am, doing a search to find out just how much our Beloved "The Mighty Buzzard" is beloved, and how much he is despised for alt-rouge trolling behavior, and I find data that is skewed, skewed, I say, because certain Soylentils try to obfuscate the true heiniousness of The Mighty Buzzard by intentionally mispelling his handle. I find things like "The Mustang Beauregard", the "Minty Broussard", and "The Misleading Buzzword", all of which plainly are referencing the Mighty Buzzard, but in a fashion to avoid a negative review! Aristarchus is the worst offender in this regard, followed closely by Azama, and one has to wonder why these Soylentils are screening for such an obvious racist and alt-wrong pedofile?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Lagg on Saturday July 08 2017, @06:48PM
If it wasn't for MB I'd have one less person to help me understand how american society entered another stage of pants-shitting-terror-of-its-own-shadow.
Also his views are different from mine and therefore scare me and I get like so turned on by that.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿