By Nancy Matthews
I get really depressed at the beginning of each new Fall TV season. What new show will I fall in love with that will be unceremoniously canceled? Pushing Daisies was the most recent and, thanks to the writers’ strike, I was only able to get a good season and a half of that.
I complain that the American viewing public is ignorant of quality. All they want is police procedurals and hospital dramas that will hold their hands and spell it all out for them. They don’t like quirky, intelligent shows that make them think even a little bit or, at the very least, tell a different story than the other 90% of scripted shows on the networks.
“Why, oh why?!” I yelled to the television gods. “Why don’t we have a better ratings system that will accurately measure what I’m watching so the networks will understand that they can be bold and succeed?”
Then I had an epiphany.
I am my own worst enemy.
Yes, I watched Battlestar Galactica every Friday, but Pushing Daisies would stack up for 2-3 weeks in my DVR. Other shows like Reaper which, while far from high quality, was quirky fun, stacked up for so many weeks that I ended up deleting nearly the whole season to wait for the DVD.
It was, of course, canceled.
DVRs are amazing and wonderful, but they really force me to look at my viewing habits and I am not thrilled by what I discovered about myself. The shows that don’t stack up are often things I don’t love the most. The one police procedural type show I watch, NCIS (‘cause Gibbs is so damn badass), I typically watch the same night. It requires no real brain power on my part and I would never marathon it like I insist on doing with Lost. Monk is never saved more than a week since I don’t enjoy it enough for it to take up space on my box. It requires very little attention so I can play on my computer or read the paper while it’s on.
There are a few exceptions, like BSG. I watch Eureka the night it’s on, as I do Psych. I watch One Life to Live every night on my Tivo to make sure those ratings are recorded (don’t judge me; the writing on OLTL is way better than Heroes and it has the best gay love story on television at the moment).
Yet my summer favorites like In Plain Sight and Merlin are huge blocks on the DVR. It’s so bad that my 7 year old asks me when I’m going to delete some because the box is too full (as I tell him to do after his 3 day Spongebob marathons that are taped in full).
I think I like to save my true favorites so I can devote my full attention to them. No interruptions, no simultaneous web surfing. How can I expect the networks to grant me this luxury? They run a business and my viewing habits do not help them crunch the numbers correctly. My love of watching three episodes of Chuck in a row – instead of watching those same eps over three weeks – is doing nothing for anyone but me. The advertisers know damn well I am fast forwarding commercials to make those marathons nights more palatable.
It appears that I’m not alone in this. Variety recently ran an article that accused DVRs of contributing to the bleeding ratings of serial dramas in primetime.
What’s the answer? Damned if I know. We are a new generation of watchers and it’s going to be a while before the networks figure us out. For my part, I will try to be a bit more diligent in watching the shows I truly love live this season so my viewings will mean more. I’d hate to think I didn’t do my part to keep a show like Fringe on the air. The NCISes of the world don’t need my ratings, Joshua Jackson does.
Nancy Mathews works very hard at masquerading as a grown up to go to work and raise her two sons. Once the sun goes down she reverts to the 10 year old that she actually is. You can follow her plans for world domination through the formation of an army of knitters on her blog, Bronxgirlknits.
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Nancy Mathews works very hard at masquerading as a grown up to go to work and raise her two sons. Once the sun goes down she reverts to the 10 year old that she actually is. You can follow her plans for world domination through the formation of an army of knitters on her blog, Bronxgirlknits. 
I know, I have the same problem! I have Glee stacked up for three weeks, although at least that has enough momentum at this point. But I imagine I would have done the same thing with Firefly, and look what happened there despite "real-time" viewing. I think it's funny that viewers complain about a show when they haven't figured out the entire plot and character development within the first 2 episodes. Why would you want to? What, then, would be the point of watching it? As you said, we already have enough of those brain candy fillers to watch at the end of a long day!__ I wonder, too, how Hulu impacts this. How do networks count those viewings into ratings?__________
Now, I have heard that networks do take DVR and online viewing into account, and that they usually allow for a 7 day window to allow for people to watch it. Of course, this doesn't take people like you into account if you're letting them stack for weeks.
But it does take people like me into account who will save the shows I can't get to for a night of the week when nothing's on, and usually I'll find time to watch something I've DVRd before next week's episode so I can be caught up. I think network television will always be a step behind its audience, because they're kind of designed to act based on "what works" not "what they think will work", but I do think they're at least starting to realize that it's not just about the old-fashioned ratings system anymore.
Don't blame yourself for these good shows being canceled!
This is the thing about us geeks. We mistake our passion for these shows, and the way we talk about them to "all our friends" as popularity. When it comes down to it, even if you watched everything you liked the night it was on, that doesn't change the fact that not that many OTHER people are watching certain shows.
It's not the DVRs that are the problem – it's how they're counted. A couple years ago, there were absurd "winnings" for Grey's Anatomy versus CSI because only the program watched live was counted, while the one being recorded wasn't.
DVR viewings are starting to be counted, but it's not 1:1 like viewings at time of broadcast.
As if I was going to watch those ads anyway. That's what the mute button is for.
I was under the impression that even with a DVR, you still needed to be a Neilson box owner for those numbers to be taken into account?
I'm the same way. Shows I love or expect to love often stack up on the DVR while ones I'm more lukewarm about get watched and erased fairly quickly. Part of the reason for this is that I've become spoiled by TV shows on DVD, wherein I'm not left hanging at the end of episodes waiting until the next week for the cliffhanger to be resolved. I love the marathon-ability of watching many episodes in a row. When I get three or four episodes of "Glee" or "Supernatural" stacked up, I can settle in for a nice, long viewing experience.
I think it's going to reach the point that the networks are going to have to find a new way of gauging success of a show. Immediate or even within-7-day viewership numbers just don't cut it. I didn't discover Firefly until it had been canceled, yet I love that show with a passion, and I'd tune in to new episodes or buy more DVDs if they were made. If the networks aren't willing to invest in a show to the degree that some time can be taken for it to find its footing, then they are doomed to have failure after failure.