Repeat after me, everybody: Ratings are nothing to freak out over.

I have been in a ton of fandoms and ratings always spark debate and claims about “Oh, ratings must have sunk for this or rose for that because I like or hate those things.” I don’t care what show it is, what fandom it is, if it’s daytime, primetime or other, every fan makes the same kind of claims.



Sigh.

That’s not how this works.



Look, I’m no ratings genius. It’s not my job, I don’t do it for a living. But I used to be a household for years and my reps were always gabby, and I’ve done a ton of reading on it over my life so I’m pretty comfy with the bits I do know. All of this info is out there for anybody who wants to read & research.



The first thing to remember is Arrow was preempted in the Chicago Market. Viewers in that area won’t even see this Arrow episode until Saturday. I saw people snarking that preemption wouldn’t change the viewing data in any significant way and I sighed. Also, there were a sh*t ton of sports on that night. The majority of trending topics on Wednesday were all basketball or hockey related. I’m no sports fan, but I assumed these were important games and garnering a lot of eyeballs. This is why the TV Gods made DVRs: So you could watch one thing, record another, and watch that second program later.

Anyway, back to Chicago. Chicago is the 3rd largest viewership market that Nielsen tracks. It has over 3.4 million homes with TVs and the majority have cable TV. An experiment done in 2014 in the Chicago area showed that “out of Home” viewers could lift ratings 7%- 9%. So…. yeah. Don’t tell me Chicago being preempted wasn’t going to affect tv ratings.

The other thing to think about is, do you know there are networks who have completely abandoned even looking at Live/Same Day ratings? FOX is one of them. They did it this year because they felt it didn’t accurately reflect jack. They only look at Live+3 and Live+7. Why? Because people don’t watch tv live anymore!

Anywhoo….



Viewers see a tiny sliver of the information networks see. Networks get a ton of data. Tons! Not just ratings info but survey info, focus group info, social media info, etc., and all of that fits together in a jigsaw puzzle that tells them what’s working and what isn’t.



Networks aren’t looking at ratings with the 100% absolute agenda that online fandoms are. They’re not looking at a small dip or a small rise (and let’s face it, that’s essentially what the fluctuation is from week to week for programs) and going, “Oh this must mean XYZ!” Shows have already written and filmed several weeks in advance. They’ve already planned the story out months in advance.



Networks look for *trends*. They don’t knee-jerk week to week. They also know what markets were blacked out, where bad weather affected viewing, when TV goes, historically through lows due to whatever (sports, etc). They know far more than we ever will. So anybody online trying to claim X or Y about ratings? Just… ignore it. Those claims are always driven by some agenda, and as everybody on my TV seems to be saying lately, “Correlation does not imply Causation,” meaning that a correlation between two variables does not imply that one causes the other.

But all of this implies the ability to use logic when looking at Ratings, not looking for proof of what you want to prove and then going, “AH HA! This must mean….!” Cause, uh, no. It doesn’t.

When I look at ratings or share them on my social media, I do it for purely FYI information of “Oh, that’s quasi interesting. So anyway….”

But when you’re a network and have data like this at your disposal:

or this:

Info that literally tracks – minute by minute – how your viewers are engaging with your programming and what they’re responding to… do you really think networks have to guess what’s liked and what’s not liked?



I saw an interesting chart float by on Twitter yesterday that (for season overall, no idea where they got it from) had Arrow ranked at the #2 CW program with an average demo of 0.94 in the 18-49 demographic. Also… has anybody seen the average ratings of other CW shows right now? I don’t mean any offense to fans of these shows, but when you’re a network carrying multiple (and I mean like 7 out of 12) shows whose average demos fall in the 0.3 - 0.5? I don’t think you can point to Arrow and scream Oooooh Noooooooos! when it’s pulling in 0.94.

Again, all this information about ratings and how ratings work and the impact of ratings on the industry is out there for anybody to find. Just spend a little time with Google and you’ll be amazed what you can learn. It’s all fascinating.

