Jericho: The Finale

JerichoCentral was born from a desire to showcase the Save Jericho campaign in May of 2007; it then evolved into an outlet for Jericho news and information.

This chapter of the Jericho saga is finished. Jericho has been cancelled by the people who can't see the future so it is time for me to move on.

All content will be left online for viewing but I will not continue to post. I would like to thank everyone who contributed, commented, dugg, and those who were faithful readers.

JerichoMonster will remain active but, in coming weeks, will have a different look and broader scope. Jericho will continue to be a part of the Monster.

My friend, Beth, and I are happy to have a new blog named Margie and Edna's Basement. Margie and Edna are fictional characters created by Beth and myself. They have lived in Jericho, Kansas all their lives but have decided it's time for them to branch out beyond their beloved town. We hope you will follow their hilarious adventures.

Joining Nielsen

"Nielsen, the television ratings monopolist, finally made its way to my mom. She called me, THRILLED that she had been selected to be a Nielsen family! When I think Nielsen, i think set-top boxes that measure your every channel surf, so I asked if they were going to help her with the installation of the box. She said that she was supposed to just write down what she’s watching every minute of the day. WHAT? I assumed she was embroiled in some mail-in phishing operation, but when I got there and looked at her paperwork — it was legit. Nielsen sent her $15 and a little paper diary so that she could record what she watched, exactly when she changed the channel, when she channel-surfed, where she ended up and for how long, etc. I simply could not believe that that is what was behind the billion-dollar advertising decisions that marketers make."

Steamrolling Nielsen

"BWAHAHAHAHA. Nielsen’s clients continue to rebel against the company’s incompetence. Steamrolling ahead with new audience measurement tactics that it’s clearly not ready for, Nielsen yesterday announced to customers it would use its “live” national sample of TV audiences to test its online viewership initiative, which hopes to measure how many people are watching TV shows on their computers. It’s all apart of their ambitious (and DOA) A2/M2, or “anytime/anywhere,” initiative.

Nielsen has only signed up 375 households, within their 14,000 national sample, to participate in both panels; privacy concerns have kept most households from allowing the company to monitor both mediums. And Nielsen’s big bucks clients don’t like where this is headed.

So not only will Nielsen continue to have trouble delivering its TV ratings data on time, but the already suspect numbers will be even more flawed."



"Bonanza originally aired on Saturday nights beginning the year I was born, 1959. While its rival CBS series had managed to garner good ratings on that particular evening, Bonanza never found its audience. NBC slated it for cancellation, but it received one last chance: a move to Sunday nights.

It was just what the show needed. Ratings skyrocketed, and Bonanza won the yearly ratings crown from 1964 through 1967 as the most popular show in the country."

We Should All Count

Awesome website with Nielsen info.

"Do you think less than 10,000 handpicked households should dictate what more than 250 million people watch on television? Neither do we. Now you can do something about it.

Welcome to WeShouldALLCount.com: America's single resource for the latest news and filings related to the erinMedia federal antitrust suit against Nielsen Media Research (NMR)."
+++++++++++++


"The CBS Audience Network is the web’s first professional online video network distributing CBS entertainment, news and sports content to as much of the Web as possible. Partnerships with leading edge community building and social application providers enables users to discover and personalize CBS content and allows users to easily incorporate CBS clips into their profiles, websites, blogs, widgets, wikis and community pages.

Benefits to Advertising in the CBS Audience Network:

The #1 Television network is NOW ONLINE
The most widely distributed professional video content network on the web*
The most engaged video audience on the web – 2x higher than the closest network competitor^
Content Diversity: featuring web friendly short-form and full length episodes
Community Diversity: reaching ALL of the web’s demographic and psychographic profiles
CBS Online video consumption growing 200% year over year
Research: custom quantitative and qualitative data on advertising performance and viewer engagement
Advertising Creative Diversity: custom advertising units, overlays, in-stream advertising

Jericho: A Boondoggie Recollection

This is an article written last May by Boondoggie at Find-the-boots. I thought it deserves another read.


"But the most interesting part of this story isn't that some fans got left high and dry, it's that the business model failed everyone. The Nielson Ratings system, which hasn't changed much since their introduction in the 1940s and violates every possible rule on randomness of sample (can you say "self selected"?), has only recently started tracking time shifted viewing. And the networks don't take that into account in their advertising rates. So take a show that will appeal to well-off, intelligent people with disposable income and put it up against a pop pablum spree like American Idol, and you'll conclude that no one is watching. I'll posit that Jericho viewers are much more likely to have a DVR and less likely to be Nielson families. And they're far more likely to have a broadband internet connection to view the shows off services such as Itunes. The concept of watching two shows at once, which is now quite commonplace, just isn't built into the ratings system.

Which leads me to a conclusion: Old media really is dead. The idea of selling advertising in exchange for eyeballs just isn't going to make it. The "science" for measuring performance hasn't kept up. Anything you do to try to measure viewership will be self selected, by definition. It takes a certain kind of person to put up with a monitoring box in their house or to keep a diary. And those aren't the same people that are spending money on high tech gadgets like DVRs and Slingboxes. Or burning episodes to DVD from their Tivo so they can watch them on a plane.

Eventually "free" TV is going to be useless. The quality of shows will continue their downward trend as the intelligent and well-off move into other forms of entertainment. The old media will just keep producing more reality shows or mean comedies because they're the least expensive to produce. When your market is dwindling, the urge to cut costs is overwhelming. Look at the difference between the programming on paid channels (SciFi, HBO, Showtime) vs the old media. This trend has been going on a long time."

Jericho: CBS Numbers

Breaking News: CBS Press Release


"On-Air + Online + On-DVR = Many More Eyeballs and Double Digit Percentage Demo Increases

"Jericho" and "Big Brother" Viewer Engagement Across Multi-Platforms Is Far Greater Than Initial Same Day Ratings Indicate

On-air, online and on-DVR viewing are resulting in many more eyeballs for CBS series JERICHO and BIG BROTHER, according to Nielsen Live Plus 7-Day ratings and new data from CBS Interactive Research."



"CBS, for the first time in six years, will cede its spot as most-watched network. To Fox.

CBS, which uses a strategy of getting total viewers rather than the coveted 18-49 demo, has won the rights to call itself America’s top network many years running.

As a result of the lengthy WGA strike, CBS has suffered because its anchor scripted shows have gone missing. CSI, for example, last ran an original episode on January 10 and will not return with new eps until April 3."

Jericho Time-Shifted Numbers In

Time-Shifted Numbers are in.

Go here.



Excellent article.


"Newspaper circulation figures miss the millions of people who prefer to read news and features online. And conventional overnight and weekly Nielsen TV ratings don't capture viewers who now watch shows at their convenience online or on DVRs, VOD and portable devices.

In television, technology seems to give Nielsen Media Research a better handle on audience habits. Its People Meter boxes, installed in homes of survey participants, automatically record when a TV set is on, the channel being watched, and - when people take the trouble to push the right buttons - who's in the room.

The biggest change this year is Nielsen's decision to include viewers who don't watch a show live as it is broadcast via the airwaves or cable. Weekly ratings now also include people who watch a program any time on the same day it airs - the cutoff is 3:00 AM. And beginning with the TV season that started in September, networks cut ad deals based on the number of people who watch a program up to three days after the air date.

While this certainly provides for a more complete picture, the new statistics still don't tell us how many people watch a show or network in all of its venues."

Nielsen: Protecting Numbers

"Hear This: If I report television ratings information here, it’s based on unofficial sources here in the market. Those darn Nielsen folks are pretty protective of their numbers, because they don’t want us media types publicizing numbers that they’re charging the stations good money to get. From what I hear they come down hard on their TV station customers for providing those numbers to media types.

So it comes as no surprise to me that information I received and published last week may have been off by a few points. Sweeps ratings seem to be less important than they used to be, but they’re still the way stations keep score, and the numbers relate directly to what is charged for advertising."



Here are some updates from fans of The Dresden Files.

Nielsen: Charging More

I have to agree with the author here. Nielsen needs to quit jumping into everything (like they did HeyNielsen)and get their core program fixed first.


"Analytics and publishing powerhouse Nielsen continues to find new ways to charge clients more money for services that do little but make for a good press release. (Note to self: AWESOME BUSINESS MODEL!!)

In this doozy of a round, beginning next month, perpetually flailing Nielsen will “shadow” a group of 450 consumers, in separate phases throughout the year, and record any media they consume through each 24-hour day, whether magazines, books, DVDs, or YouTube videos.

If it sounds ambitious, it is, which is why they’re teaming with Ball State University and Sequent Partners (”on behalf of the Committee for Research Excellence”). Recruiting participants will be part of Nielsen’s job, and they’ll pull from the same pool they use to deliver flawed television ratings.

So why does this sound like it’s going to go horribly wrong?

For one, it’s Nielsen, so you should already expect that."




"CBS has begun streaming full-length episodes of Star Trek for free as part of the network's initiative to move archived programming online.

The entire first three seasons from the original series of Star Trek are available to be streamed, along with the first full seasons of MacGyver and Hawaii Five-O and the first two seasons of The Twilight Zone. Additional series are expected to be added over the next few months."

Nielsen Ratings: Relevance Lost

"The networks may be crying foul over ratings delays, and Nielsen's business is under assault from all sides, but that's not stopping CEO and former GE man David Calhoun from making some money for KKR, Blackstone and Carlyle Group. Nielsen's financials have been a relative secret since it was taken private in an $12 billion deal in 2006, but Fortune squeezes out some data."



"How does the generally competent Sara Erichson, VP of sales and client services, plan to handle the general incompetence of Nielsen, the audience measure company plagued by, among other things, delays in reporting its TV data?
Like any good media conglomerate exec, she’s overseeing the snatching up other companies."



"Nielsen isn’t just playing defense against attacks from, say, benign outlets like ourselves. Rather the clients who fund its operations – and its rumored IPO hopes – are lashing out at the problem-plagued ratings service.

“Nielsen is in a fight for its relevant life,” says Tracy Scheppach, SVP of ad giant Starcom Worldwide."

Jericho Rises At TiVo

Jericho rises again in TiVo ratings.

Up to # 12.



" My husband Dave and I received a thick, official-looking envelope from the Nielsen Ratings Company last weekend. The Nielsen ratings system measures television viewership in the United States. The information they gather establishes commercial advertising prices and determines which shows stay or go in the program lineup."


Condor Recap

Thanks to Amy at RemoteAccess.

Jericho: Count All Viewers

If you have TiVo you can record Jericho (on CBS and SciFi) and play it back the next day with commercials.
It's a lot easier to find TiVo owners than it is Nielsen families.

For more info on how TiVo works go here.


Jericho Season One is Currently Airing on the SciFi channels on Mondays at 10/9 Central.



Sign this petition to be counted:


To: Major TV Networks

The Nielsen ratings are flawed and outdated. This is a petition for the major networks to change the way they count viewers.
Please sign this petition and let the networks and their advertisers know we want all viewing methods to count.When enough people have signed an email will be sent to the major networks.

Clarifying Nielsen Ratings

There continues to be misinformation going around about viewers being counted for Jericho. I hope to clear up some misconceptions:


"I just got off the phone with a Nielsen representative. According to the very nice lady, DVR usage is only measured for Nielsen families...not for the general public. While I'm sure this is disappointing to a lot of people on the board, let's just remember that Jericho is already one of the most DVR'ed shows out there.

I just got off the phone with Dish Network, my satellite provider. My box is hooked up through a phone line. According to them, the only viewing information they collect is Pay Per view movies."



"Not one to take information at face value, I called on a Nielsen family friend to call the Nielsen Corp office and find out the accuracy. She was told that Nielsen will definitely not be compiling data from non-Nielsen DVR usage. Nielsen has based their reputation on providing networks with quantified data, backed up with demographics.

Since some brought up the option that satellite and cable providers could be compiling this data individually to provide to the networks, I made a call to a good friend who is assistant to the President of one such national company. She said that their company does not have the resources to provide this data to the networks at this time. She said some raw data could probably be compiled and presented (after an increase in staffing) but she had not heard of any requests from the networks for such data on a continual basis."

Jericho: New Spoilers

Amy at Remote Access has new Season 3 spoilers.

Don't read if you don't want to know.




I hope this doesn't happen in Feb.

"Nielsen has reported another glitch with its A/P (active/passive) coding system. The glitch happened during several New England Patriots games, causing two TV stations to under-report ratings.

In a notice to clients yesterday (Tuesday), Nielsen wrote, “In evaluating ratings for the December 3, 2007, October 1, 2007 and October 30, 2006 New England Patriots games carried on WCVB, WMUR and ESPN Network, determined that a technical problem existed with the stations’ encoding equipment,” writes MediaPost."

Jericho : Viewers and Measurement

I am not fond of Facebook or the way it's set up but I go where there are Jericho viewers to be found. So, here is the easiest, simplest tutorial on using Facebook that I could find.

Come on and join us.



Talk of online audience measurement reached a crescendo in 2007. Publishers, advertisers and measurement firms grappled with significant shifts in how Web content is published and how users interact with it. Publishers pumped up the complaint volume about reporting discrepancies. And the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) demanded the two biggest online measurement firms shed light on their methods.

While baby steps were taken in '07 to adjust audience measurement for a maturing Web, publishers remain disgruntled, Internet users continue to explore new means of consuming digital media, and, for better or worse, agencies have more and more data to decipher.

Perhaps the most significant event in the space occurred in April. In an impassioned missive addressed to the CEOs of online measurement firms ComScore and Nielsen/NetRatings (now Nielsen Online), IAB CEO Randall Rothenberg expressed dismay and frustration with discrepancies in site audience and ad impression reports. "

Jericho: Word-Of-Mouth

"The marketing world “is evolving from ‘interrupt me’ to ‘engage me’ when it comes to consumer interactions,” said Rand. “It is a fundamental shift in the way marketers approach consumers with their message.”

Part of that shift has occurred because of “the latency effect,” said Pete Blackshaw, evp-Nielsen Online Strategic Services, Cincinnati, and one of the founders of WOMMA. (Nielsen Online Strategic Services and Brandweek are divisions of Nielsen Co.)

According to Blackshaw, this is the digital trail consumers are leaving with their product recommendations on e-commerce and social networking sites as well as blogs. “The Internet has put word-of-mouth on steroids, with archived commentary and product reviews that make a big impact,” said Blackshaw. “The fastest growing sources of indexable content in Google’s search engine are first-person testimonials.”

Jericho: More Than Ratings

"If TV metrics have taught us anything in 2007, it's that a show's success can no longer be measured by who's watching it on TV alone. Exhibit A: The CW's full-season pickup of "Gossip Girl," a teen soap with mediocre Nielsen ratings that consistently holds the top spot on iTunes' weekly most-downloaded-shows list. Exhibit B: CBS's second-season order for "Jericho," an apocalyptic drama initially canceled by the network but revived after the show's online fans sent CBS thousands of nuts in protest."

Nielsen: Super Bowl Buzz

"The Super Bowl can be a holy grail or a holy terror for advertisers. The Nielsen Company is looking to help companies figure out the equation of this massive marketing moment to ensure optimal ROI. Since the Super Bowl does cost advertisers $2.7 million in one shot, this information is imperative for any looking to take the plunge.

Which Super Bowl commercials will stimulate the most buzz online and around the water cooler this year? Will the buzz be favorable or damaging to brands? “The Super Bowl represents the ultimate ‘torture test’ in marketing ROI, and the buzz factor is often the final arbiter of success or failure of the advertising,” said Pete Blackshaw, Executive VP of Strategic Services, Nielsen Online. “Brands that wrap holistic, well-integrated marketing programs around the television advertising typically reap higher dividends.”

Ho Ho Ho: Jericho Returns !

JERICHO RETURNS

FEB 12th 2008

10pm! EST



"A new report from Nielsen shows young adults are increasingly watching TV at times other than their original broadcasts — on devices that aren't TVs, reports Mediaweek.

56 percent of those studied, ages 18-34, say they catch up on missed episodes of a show online, on portable devices or using a DVR:"



"Nielsen has partnered with Digimarc to digitally "watermark" or fingerprint video clips from media companies circulating on the Internet. Clips would have a unique ID and specific rules could be assigned to govern their uploading and distribution accordingly, to prevent copyright infringement."

Striking Out

"If the writers strike persists through the end of the month, it could suck $200 million from the entertainment industry's contribution to the Los Angeles economy, one expert predicts.

Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp., said that more informed data will come with the November release of state employment figures, due December 21, but using the 1988 WGA strike as a guide, fallout is expected to be significant. Beyond that, a full economic recovery could take months."



"The Center for Media Research notes that the latest figures from Nielson Online support their recent research brief about the importance of the trust placed in word of mouth marketing.

The Nielsen figures for the top U.S. social networking sites and blogs in October show that:

Facebook more than doubled their traffic in the last year

MySpace had a 19 percent growth over October 2006

Althought their numbers are much smaller, LinkedIn was the big winner in terms of growth - 189 percent!

Kids are getting active in the social media space too - Club Penguin visitors grew by 157 percent

Buzznet, a new kind of social site that gives members the tools to create multi media around music and pop culture is also attracting a growing audience. They’re up 117 percent in the last year."