Padding Stats

Have you ever been in this situation? You're watching a network show and during one of the breaks they promote another show as the "season's most watched new series" or "Thursday's most watched show". After hearing this you wonder how this can be since the show in question is really a piece of crap. And you know for sure there are others out there doing better in the ratings. Turns out they (CBS in particular) are doing a little creative accounting, as detailed in a recent Washington Post article:

According to Nielsen, claims of 'most watched' can only be made based on gross impressions, which is number of telecasts multiplied by the program's average audience," the network said in a statement sent to The TV Column.

"In the case of 'Shark,' it's based on 20 broadcasts multiplied by its average audience of 13.37 million viewers, which equals 267.38 million gross impressions, more than any other new series," the network said.

"Heroes," on the other hand, had aired only 15 times through last weekend, which, when multiplied by its season average of 14.5 million viewers, works out to about 217 million gross impressions.

It's this same kind of big picture, out-of-the-box thinking that makes "CSI" the season's most watched series though it's eating "Idol's" dust each week.

I kind of always guessed there was some fuzzy math going on there, but my question is...how many viewers does such bravado actually bring to a show? I suppose it must work or else they wouldn't waste the precious ad time, and I know a lot of people don't want to be out of the loop or miss the next big thing. I guess I'm too cynical though, 'cause at the same time my brain tries to reconcile such statements with the facts, two things go through my head: 1) They're making that up and 2) Guess I won't be watching that, I don't wanna be like everyone else. And while I guess I've been right along on number 1, I do (for better or worse) sometimes get drawn in by the hype. Thankfully though, it's not usually something on CBS.