Imagine that you’re a television executive and are deciding whether or not to renew a show. The show in question has generated a lot of buzz and it seems like everyone in the demographic it targets is talking about it. Why then do the ratings look so bad?
Maybe because the definition of success is the same, but the way people watch television has drastically changed.
We often tell our clients that game-changing plays must be accompanied by similar innovations in the metrics that evaluate success or failure. It should be no surprise then that in an age where we can DVR our television shows and watch them later, stream them over the Internet in a coffee shop, or view them on iPods, the Nielsen rating is starting to show its age.
The show bringing this issue to the media forefront? Gossip Girl.
Whatever your opinion of the CW’s teen-drama Gossip Girl, there’s no avoiding the fact that this show is a pop-culture success as the show has propelled its actors and actresses into the limelight. How is it then that the show has such poor Nielsen ratings? The answer: 'alternate" television viewing, including millions of downloads on iTunes.
A big risk to evaluating programs, on television or otherwise, is to evaluate them with the wrong metrics and cancel them as a result. Fortunately (for fans of the show), the CW isn’t wedded to Nielsen ratings. As networks like the CW catch on that traditional ratings don’t tell the whole story, there is the potential to both change the way these shows are judged and to find a better way to capitalize on these alternate forms of television consumption.
In the words of one Gossip Girl character, “Who watches TV on a TV anymore anyway?”