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Feb. 27th, 2009 10:43 pm
coraa: (abyss cookies)
[personal profile] coraa
So I keep seeing people say some variant of, "I don't like Dollhouse"/"I don't like Dollhouse yet"/"I think Dollhouse is kinda boring"/"Fox clearly ruined Dollhouse" followed by "but I'm still watching it because Whedon needs the ratings"/"to keep its ratings up because I'm sure it'll improve"/"to show my support of Joss by ratings"/"to keep it from being cancelled."

(For those of you who aren't aware, they're referring to Joss Whedon's new Fox SF-ish series Dollhouse starring Eliza Dushku.)

Leaving aside the questions of whether Dollhouse is any good (I haven't seen it; it's pretty clearly Not For Me), and whether Whedon deserves that kind of fannish loyalty, I have an entirely pragmatic question.

Does watching a series 'to boost the ratings' actually do any good if you're not a Nielsen family?

I know that back in the day, it didn't, not really. But it wouldn't shock me too much if modern cable television got its numbers some other way. I mean, clearly, due to the prevalence of On Demand, there's some way that your cable box can send signal as well as receive it. Does cable TV use this capability to monitor viewing statistics?

Because if not, it seems like watching for the ratings is pretty pointless unless you're actually a Nielsen ratings subject. But if there is a new method of determining viewership that doesn't rely on Nielsen numbers, it might make a difference after all.
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