Now We Know: ABC Wins!
Now we have facts:
"More than 10 million viewers tuned into Wednesday's Democratic debate on ABC, making it the most-watched debate of the primary election season.
The debate, the first to air on a weeknight on a broadcast network, attracted an average of 10.7 million viewers between 8 and 10 p.m., according to Nielsen Media Research.
The debate topped the "reality" fare of "Deal or No Deal" on NBC and "Big Brother" on CBS during the 8 p.m. hour."
So from ABC's perspective, and certainly for George S and Charles G, the raucous, murderous, sharp-edged, animalistic idea-free style worked perfectly -- unless Nielsen also reported that many people turned off during the debate. I bet that didn't happen. Like the crowds of the ancient Coliseum, millions watched to see if vulpine George or ursine Charles would slash or bash to political death either of the two gladiators, or whether the two would otherwise finally conclude their andabatarian struggle, live, on the studio stage, with one fallen and the other triumphant.
So, blame the audience, ABC is concluding. They watched it, so they must have wanted it the way we gave it to them.
Reed Hundt says;
"More than 10 million viewers tuned into Wednesday's Democratic debate on ABC, making it the most-watched debate of the primary election season...."
....and 9.8 million claim that due to the vacuousness of the questions they will never watch another debate!
April 17, 2008 2:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Did people tune in because it sucked, or did they find out it sucked after tuning in?
I know I tuned in to see the train wreck when I saw the blogs light up.
So I wouldn't advice ABC to intentionally suck for ratings. They should suck for the GOP kuddos they covet.
April 17, 2008 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I thought I was watching Big Brother and Hillary was head of house. By the time I realized it wasn't, I_couldn't_look_a_way....
April 17, 2008 5:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
In elementary school economics we learned not to expect any "free lunch" in a world of competing, finite resources. To watch "free" commercial television programs, therefore, one has to sit through tampon and laxative commercials (or even worse) in payment for the "free" entertainment one expects to receive sometime later in the program.
Unfortunately, like waiting for "victory" in Iraq-Nam-Istan, or that play Waiting for Godot (who never shows up), the more one invests of one's otherwise valuable but finite resources, i.e., time and attention, the more Gambler's Fallacy sets in and the poor, indebted loser (Dubya/Clinton/MCBomb) decides he or she "has no choice" but to keep doubling down the bets while "staying the course" until that magic time later when a miracle will happen and something, anything will come along to make all the suffering worthwhile.
Or, one can just skip the whole wasted couple of hours and use the time saved to help the wife remodel her kitchen. In only a few minutes of blog scanning after washing up from the dusty construction labor, one can get the entire gist of the non-event from any number of perspectives on a computer screen. Those who expected "free lunch" entertainment from a commercial-interrupted farce of a "debate" possibly got their "money's worth." Perhaps they felt cheated at the usual bait-and-switch journalistic junk.
I don't know. I don't care. My wife feels a lot better about the progress on her remodeled kitchen and my TV screen doesn't have a shattered hole in it from my foot trying to stomp that smug, stupid grin off Senator You-Know-Her's "gotcha, gotcha, gotcha," needless-war-authorizing face. Senator Obama doesn't like wasting his valuable time playing the assigned role of bear at an Elizabethan bear-baiting, as I gather from reading several blog reviews. Senator You-Know-Her apparently doesn't mind because she has nothing better to do since she can't possibly catch up to Senator Obama's lead in pledged delegates, popular vote, and states won.
All this I knew beforehand and so I had no need to waste my valuable time (and wife's limited patience) on two hours of tampon and laxative advertisements punctuated by unedifying interludes of two raucus peasants throwing more disreputable dogs down into the pit to torment the bear chained to a political pole while Queen Elizabeth laughed to see such sport while the Republican rats ran away with the treasury.
April 17, 2008 6:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Murderous"? "Animalistic"? Absurd.
April 19, 2008 12:34 AM | Reply | Permalink