Roudy
Diamond Member
- Mar 16, 2012
- 59,563
- 17,853
- Thread starter
- #81
Did all of the above just sail over your head completely?
What Fox has "achieved" is the ability to charge more for its ads than its competitors in the same demographic. That's it. That's what coming out "on top" means when you're talking ratings -- how many eyeballs you can deliver to the advertiser.
What part of that is so inconvenient it has to be continually met with?
Broadcast ratings are meaningful, significant, and in any conceivable way relevant to exactly two entities:
1 - Those who sell commercial airtime;
2- Those why buy commercial airtime.
That's it. End of list.
And "the same demographic" is significant. An advertiser that wants to reach for example old people to sell Viagra or life insurance, is going to find more eyeballs on Fox. One that has a younger target, say for iPhones, is going to find a better avenue in CNN.
I don't think ratings means what you think it means.
Yes....because the audience that tunes into FOX like and agree with it's perspective and take on current events, therefore it can charge more for its ads because of the larger size of that audience, relative to the other outlets.
Whether they "agree" with its perspective, "disagree" or are indifferent to it is entirely irrelevant. "Agreeing with" is hardly the only reason to watch a particular channel. "Disagreeing" with it is just as volatile, and then there's good old Ubiquity -- the first thing Rupert Murdoch did launching was to make sure it was readily available everywhere, for no extra charge (which is not the case for MSNBC).
The bottom line you keep missing is that ratings, high, low or medium, don't tell us anything about viewership "agreeing" or "disagreeing". They tell us about attention. And attention, as already painstakingly noted, comes from emotional manipulation. Simple proof: if TV ratings could be held to be synonymous with public political ideology, then by these ratings then no Democrat could ever get elected at all. Which leads me to observe, to paraphrase one Fox talking head, this ratings-as-political-landscape baloney is just "math you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better".
In sum, when broadcast entity X returns a showing of high ratings, it's good news for exactly one entity, and that is the sales department that sells its commercial time. But the reason they're high is because its programming department figured out how to keep people watching -- whether they "agree", "disagree" or "don't care about" the perspective. Put Mother Theresa on the screen, you get attention. Put Emmanuel Goldstein on the screen, you still get attention. Doesn't mean the audience is "agreeing" with either one.
And there's a lot more to that psychological mining than an ideological perspective; first and foremost in this case the Fear Factor, but piled on top of that are bright colorful graphics that go whoooosh, suggestive chyrons running all the time, and short-skirted cougar bimbos dressed to fetch the 78-year-old men. And of course the race baiting within the Fear Factor. It's all part of the same prime directive, and all for the same purpose: attention.
You're being illogical and irrational. People generally watch or listen to programs they either like or agree with. I watch Anthony Bordain because it's entertaining and interesting. I check out MSNBC and start yawning when I see it's the same old same old propaganda and progressive bullshit. So I flip quickly to a game. That's how freedom of choice works. People are voting with their fingertips.
