Yes, how does one know who is watching the DVR playback? I’m assuming that Nielsen is still having their live viewers keep a log of who is watching and how old they are. They used to use a hand written log in the old days. I assume today either the info is entered into the metering device itself or possibly kept manually and entered by computer later. Because the numbers are tabulated so fast, it seems that they are doing one of the two. As for same day DVR or +3 or +7, I don’t know how they get the ages, unless as I said there is a way on the metering device to enter that by hand before you start viewing. Tivo, comcast and all of the the other media services that have DVR’s associated with them could tell what is being watched but again how do they know how many people and the ages? For all the services that allow streaming by internet, it would be easy to count but again, how do you get the number of viewers and the ages. What they could be doing is using the percentages from live viewing and assume that the same percentages would hold for DVR. It would be very dumb to do that. I’m thinking that younger people would be more likely to use the internet. Anytime you trust people to accurately enter information by hand, you are asking for trouble. Honesty in this country is slipping away. When the census is taken every ten years, I’m sure that some people answer incorrectly either by accident or by choice and the government has the power to penalize deception.

I agree with you on this….however I think there are too many unanswered questions about how they go about getting the data for L+Same Day, L+3, & L+7, in viewers and various demos, for all shows. Times have changed and Nielsen as well as other companies that track ratings need to come up with a better measure of these ratings. I think the biggest issue these companies have is they don’t know how to track the demo numbers in a home, even if they could track how many people watch a show, you know what I mean?

You are right. The 18-49 demo is the most important ratings number but I was looking at the stats for The Blacklist on Wikipedia and they have ” live” both total and the 18-49 demo and also “Live +7” for demo, total and DVR viewers.. I still don’t think one should compare “live” to “live +7” It’s the “live +7” that i have issue with Too many unanswered questions for me.

I agree with most of what you said. To me it only makes sense to compare live to live figures. I’m not sure how they derive live +7 numbers but definitely they can’t be compared to live. Blacklist on Wikipedia has a nice comparison chart for both season 1 and season 2. It shows the 18-49 demo and the total for both live and live +7. The chart for season 2 is incmplete.

The first sentence I get but what about sentence two?

“that might require some to engage in critical analysis passes first year university level.”

Do you mean “critical analysis past first year university level?” i think that is what you said but i’m not sure what you mean. Since it is usually something insulting I’m going to take a shot at it. You are saying that “Lee, LSilvaxx, Hinky Hippo, Jeanette, and anasan are all well educated women who possess vocabularies larger than that of the common man.” Did I translate that correctly? Then you said and this is more difficult, “Of course, it might require a big vocabulary to engage in critical analysis past a first year at university level.” Since this is an insult, you are implying that I lack such skills? Correct again? Well, the only way I could go any higher would be to get my EdD and I’m not too inclined to to that. I’m just too tired. I’ve got all of the letters after my name that I’m going to get. C’est fini..
How about if you go get another degree You are probably younger than I am. It’s always nice communicating with you. I’m going for a walk, Bye Bye.

Again, I’m not afraid of the ratings. Ratings are numbers. I love numbers. Positive, negative, zero, primes, composites, rational, irrational, imaginary, complex, they are all my friends. It’s not the numbers I fear, it’s what people do with the numbers. Like people, numbers can be manipulated. If you tell me that Joe Doaks is ahead of John Smith by 42.5% to 42.2% but the margin of error is +/- 0.4% then we don’t know who is ahead. It is a statistical dead heat. Does the average American know that? They should.

When I was in grad school I took a class in research techniques for educators. Our instructor explained to the class what good research looked like and what causes bias in research. I was familiar with these ideas from stat and science classes that I had taken but most of the people in that class were elementary ed people. This was new for them but they caught on pretty fast. We then started reading published education research papers. We were all shocked at the number of basic errors that had been made by PhD’s and Ed.D’s in education. These flawed research papers were going to be used as the rationale to change curriculum, methods and entire school systems. It was a real eye opener.. So, maybe you can start to understand where I’m coming from. “In God we trust”, everybody else, not so much. The point is that you can do all of the math correctly but if the methodology used to collect the data is
flawed, the numbers aren’t worth much.

I did not say that you are a member of the hoi polloi. I was implying that I am a member of the hoi polloi and that you are above us common folks. I questioned why you spend so much time arguing with people that you see as below you. Is this a public service that you provide–stamping out wrong thought. Wouldn’t it be better to volunteer at the food bank or some other charity. They do wonderful work. Again, you bring up Ziva. SHE IS GONE!!!! Are you so afraid that she might return that you have to silence everyone who ever said they liked her? This is a weird obsession in which you are engaging. Please, just let it go. I don’t see how this one person could be causing you so much distress.

Never heard that one before, British slang. Same to ya! You know there are probably more than fifty ways to tell someone they are stupid. I rarely use any of them. Rarely do people have an actual intelligence issue. Usually, it’s an attitude problem. A lot of the kids I work with need attitude adjustments. My job is to get them to think about the future and what they want to do with their lives. When their attitude changes, then I can help them. It’s all about locus of control. an exterior locus is coercion. An interior locus is empowerment. Feeling empowered is exhilarating. Have a warm fuzzy day.

Okay, here is the thing. You may not care about the viewership numbers but I do.. Why? Because I liked NCIS. It was my favorite show and the numbers hold the future for TV shows.

I don’t like a lot of the decisions that were made by Glasberg et al. These are artistic decisions, the writing..
I have posted my thoughts on this before. Briefly, the team is no longer a family, where all of the members of the family are important. One big example of this is Tony. Tony now stands around with nothing to do. Another thing is how the character Bishop is written. (This has nothing to do with Emily Wickersham or her ability to act.)

DP Bellisario always had a strong, “kick butt’ leading lady. To show you how important this was in the beginning, watch seasons 1 & 2. Sasha Alexander had 2nd billing right after Mark Harmon in the opening credits. Weatherly had been in the two pilot episodes but he was taking a back seat to her. From seasons 3 through 10, Michael held 2nd billing with Cote de Pablo in third place. Now, Michael is still in 2nd with Paulley is in 3rd. Emily Wickersham is at the back of the pack. Cote’s replacement is at the back of the pack. Effectively they eliminated the strong woman. The character Bishop was really never meant to replace the strong woman but to eliminate her. We could have a big discussion about why they did it but not now.

You can argue that Abby is the new strong woman but that does not fly for me. Abbey has always been a brilliant forensic analyst but according to Paulley, herself, Abby is a cartoon, because she never changes. Abby lacks the depth, the gravitas of the strong women. She has had phobic episodes. Remember “fear of autopsy?” She is often silly. Most people love her for these quirks, but a serious leading lady she is not.

These kinds of things are serious structural changes. I believe that the live numbers show that NCIS is slipping and I don’t believe that it is solely because of DVR usage. (Maybe computers?) Before DVR’s we had VHS recorders. People were still recording and watching later.

You may not care about the numbers but believe me, CBS does. Their $ come from selling advertising. The slip in the 18-49 demo is probably one of the biggest concerns for them. Blacklist season 1 & 2 had much higher 18-49 demo but they’re slipping too. CBS’s Big Bang Theory is a winner in the valuable demo. Anyway, I don’t want NCIS cancelled . I want them to fix the problems that they created. Feel free to love the show as is but I’m longing for the pre Glasberg days, when writers could write and women were strong. That is why I like NCIS:La. All the women are strong on that show even the techie.