Case One: The Viewer's Voice Influences TV Programming
American TV producers broadcasted entertainment programs supported by advertising fees for over 60 years. Much like a book or a movie, the contents of these programs were without significant input from the audience-the receivers of these communications. Generally, Nielsen ratings have been used to gauge the "success" ofTV programs and determine the advertising rates on various broadcasts. After watching them, many viewers frequently discussed TV programs at their offices' water coolers, and some may have even talked back to their televisions while watching. But, the writers and producers of these programs had no reliable and continuous way to listen to what viewers were saying.
Today, online Web sites such as www.televisionwitoutpity.com (TWOP) give consumers a forum to discuss, rate, complain about, and occasionally compliment scores of TV shows and even some movies.TWOP is an online site where vast numbers of viewers can virtually "gather" after or even during a broadcast and discuss their views about a particular show. Because the viewers who post their comments are very involved with the programs they watch, the producers of TV shows can read their postings, get a sense of their publics' reactions to plotlines, dialogues, and other show features, and incorporate such feedback into the content of future show episodes. Since TV shows are filmed several weeks prior to a broadcast,writers can now change yet-to-be-broadcast programming to address concerns expressed by viewers' TWOP posts. For example, if a given story line on the highly popular show Mad Men appears to bore or irritate viewers, the story line can be shortened and concluded sooner than planned.
QUESTIONS
1. How does the communications' feedback that TV shows' writers and producers (the communications' sources) receive throughWeb sites like TWOP differ from input derived from conventional fan mail and standard TV shows' ratings?
2. Should television programmers and producers consider the comments viewers post on TWOP in designing future broadcasts? Why or why not?
3. For a TV show of your choice, apply the concept of source credibility (as discussed in Chapter 9) to current viewer comments posted on TWOP.
4. Compare and contrast the Nielsen rating or a given episode on a TV series with the comments posted about the same show on TWOP. Are the two measures of viewer feedback consistent with one another or not? Explain your answer.