In Networks’ Race for Ratings, Chicanery Is on the Schedule

By BILL CARTER
NYT

Viewers who tuned into ABC’s “Good Morning America” during the last week of 2011 would have found the same mix of news, gossip and soft features at the usual time of the morning.

But as far as Nielsen ratings were concerned, four of the shows that week weren’t “Good Morning America” at all. They were labeled “special” programming by ABC, which told Nielsen that it would be called “Good Morning Amer.”

ABC made the switch so that the final week of the year — typically the lowest rated of the year because of the holidays — would be ignored in the national ratings. The change allowed the network to claim — and it did — that “Good Morning America” finished the year closer to NBC’s “Today” show than it had in 16 years.

This is the kind of programming sleight of hand that executives seize on as they seek to gain every possible edge in the television ratings game, at a time when each tenth of a point or two enhances their standing in the nightly ratings and the ability to pitch to advertisers who spend billions of dollars a year. But these tactics are more about bragging rights than money.

The tricks themselves are familiar to most in the business: smart commercial buyers know when the ratings are being spun for a better story in the media or a claim in a print ad, and they insist on paying for the real ratings, not the artificially enhanced versions.

(More here.)