Utilizing The Ratings And Restricted Formats

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Nielsen ratings, which are actually percentage figures for the number of television households that have tuned in to a program, are used to estimate the size of the total audience. As a result, they determine how much an advertiser will pay to air a commercial at various times and thus determine how large a network's or station's profits will be. Networks and stations base their charges Omega Seamaster Replica for commercial time on ratings. Advertisers buy time according to ratings, total cost, and the number of target-audience members among viewers. Ratings are the only underpinning for all of these.

From the data gathered by the ratings services, the networks have learned that al-though 98 percent of U.S. households have television sets, only one-third of that potential audience does two-thirds of the daily viewing. These are the habitual watchers.

In 1989, one prime-time rating point (1 percent of the nation's 90 million house-holds) was worth as much as $140 million a year.One percentage point in prime-time audience share ...
... means more than $30 million to a network in a year.

Mini-Series Miniseries are programs that attempt to gain an audience with a compel-ling story and hold it through subsequent prime-time evenings as the story winds to a conclusion. CBS's 8-hour "Lonesome Dove" was the highest rated mini-series not only of 1988-89 but also during the five previous years. "Lonesome Dove" generated more than $30 million in ad revenue for CBS. By contrast, "War and Remembrance," an-other widely promoted mini-series, lost nearly $40 million for its network.

Competition for Time Periods Networks not only compete for overall ratings; they also compete for ratings and revenues in various time periods. For example, in one week in April 2000, NBC's Nightly News had an average of 9.96 million viewers, whereas ABC had 9.94 million. CBS came in third with 8.02 million.

Like the content in other media, radio programming has been influenced by the desire to maximize profits. One illustration of this is the Drake format (named for its originator), used in Top 40 radio. The Drake format or variations on it are designed for maxi-mum efficiency in holding listeners and for standardizing music selection.

It is also ideally suited to Arbitron ratings because it is planned in quarter-hour periods. Each quarter hour is organized into specific categories of a recording's popularity, such as a current hit, an up-and-comer, a golden oldie, and so on. The Drake format meant that "a station could use as few as thirty records for an entire broadcast day. . . . Program directors now had absolute control over what records were played and when they were scheduled."

The Drake format maximizes profits because it is a proven means of attracting and holding audiences. The format functions rhetorically; listeners are introduced to new selections in the context of music that is familiar. Such a format creates and exploits audience identification.

Except for all-news and public radio, radio is a headline news service in a form even more abbreviated than that of television. Most newscasts range from three to five minutes in length. Because radio is a relatively Omega Replica inexpensive advertising medium, ideally suited to reaching specific target audiences, however, it is important for political mass communication.

Just as it is difficult for most cities to sustain two major newspapers, so it is difficult to sustain two all-news radio stations.

Nielsen ratings, which are actually percentage figures for the number of television households that have tuned in to a program, are used to estimate the size of the total audience. As a result, they determine how much an advertiser will pay to air a commercial at various times and thus determine how large a network's or station's profits will be. Networks and stations base their charges Omega Seamaster Replica for commercial time on ratings. Advertisers buy time according to ratings, total cost, and the number of target-audience members among viewers. Ratings are the only underpinning for all of these.

From the data gathered by the ratings services, the networks have learned that al-though 98 percent of U.S. households have television sets, only one-third of that potential audience does two-thirds of the daily viewing. These are the habitual watchers.

In 1989, one prime-time rating point (1 percent of the nation's 90 million house-holds) was worth as much as $140 million a year.One percentage point in prime-time audience share means more than $30 million to a network in a year.

Mini-Series Miniseries are programs that attempt to gain an audience with a compel-ling story and hold it through subsequent prime-time evenings as the story winds to a conclusion. CBS's 8-hour "Lonesome Dove" was the highest rated mini-series not only of 1988-89 but also during the five previous years. "Lonesome Dove" generated more than $30 million in ad revenue for CBS. By contrast, "War and Remembrance," an-other widely promoted mini-series, lost nearly $40 million for its network.

Competition for Time Periods Networks not only compete for overall ratings; they also compete for ratings and revenues in various time periods. For example, in one week in April 2000, NBC's Nightly News had an average of 9.96 million viewers, whereas ABC had 9.94 million. CBS came in third with 8.02 million.

Like the content in other media, radio programming has been influenced by the desire to maximize profits. One illustration of this is the Drake format (named for its originator), used in Top 40 radio. The Drake format or variations on it are designed for maxi-mum efficiency in holding listeners and for standardizing music selection.

It is also ideally suited to Arbitron ratings because it is planned in quarter-hour periods. Each quarter hour is organized into specific categories of a recording's popularity, such as a current hit, an up-and-comer, a golden oldie, and so on. The Drake format meant that "a station could use as few as thirty records for an entire broadcast day. . . . Program directors now had absolute control over what records were played and when they were scheduled."

The Drake format maximizes profits because it is a proven means of attracting and holding audiences. The format functions rhetorically; listeners are introduced to new selections in the context of music that is familiar. Such a format creates and exploits audience identification.

Except for all-news and public radio, radio is a headline news service in a form even more abbreviated than that of television. Most newscasts range from three to five minutes in length. Because radio is a relatively Omega Replica inexpensive advertising medium, ideally suited to reaching specific target audiences, however, it is important for political mass communication.

Just as it is difficult for most cities to sustain two major newspapers, so it is difficult to sustain two all-news radio stations.