The numbers game
One reason I was hesitant to get more involved and jump right into a job in TV is that I did not want to become one of those people who is consumed by numbers. I had enough friends in college (both TV-Radio and Journalism majors) who obessed over what TV market equaled what number. I don't believe in living and dying by ratings. If I can fix those numbers to say what I want (which I've done for class projects in college...and I once failed 9th grade algebra) how valid can they really be?
I'm all for these newfangled people meters. I don't believe that you can trust people to write down everything they watch in a diary.
SAFRAN:
I would think one of the appeals of being in web news is that you don't have to be all that concerned with numbers. The web renders meaningless a lot of the stats traditional TV news obsesses over. Your market size no longer matters. (Some of the best web news sites are, in fact, in smaller markets.) Ratings are out, and real numbers are in. People Meters are good, but WebTrends is better. You're right - you can "fix" ratings to a certain extent. You can't really fix video views, unless you sit there and watch the damn things over and over by yourself.
And the numbers that I get, I actually like sifting through. I can see that our Katrina coverage on the web accounted for fully 1/2 our video views in the past two weeks. That's amazing. Usually our weather forecast is 90% of the views on its own. People want real news, and when we put it up it doesn't matter if they are in New England or Los Angeles or Louisiana. I like that. And the less math I have to do, the happier I am.
Numbers ain't all bad.
Lyss:
You make valid points. It's good to know that the web numbers have been up. I wonder how many of those have been skewed by my friends and family who are curious about my new job?
I'm all for these newfangled people meters. I don't believe that you can trust people to write down everything they watch in a diary.
SAFRAN:
I would think one of the appeals of being in web news is that you don't have to be all that concerned with numbers. The web renders meaningless a lot of the stats traditional TV news obsesses over. Your market size no longer matters. (Some of the best web news sites are, in fact, in smaller markets.) Ratings are out, and real numbers are in. People Meters are good, but WebTrends is better. You're right - you can "fix" ratings to a certain extent. You can't really fix video views, unless you sit there and watch the damn things over and over by yourself.
And the numbers that I get, I actually like sifting through. I can see that our Katrina coverage on the web accounted for fully 1/2 our video views in the past two weeks. That's amazing. Usually our weather forecast is 90% of the views on its own. People want real news, and when we put it up it doesn't matter if they are in New England or Los Angeles or Louisiana. I like that. And the less math I have to do, the happier I am.
Numbers ain't all bad.
Lyss:
You make valid points. It's good to know that the web numbers have been up. I wonder how many of those have been skewed by my friends and family who are curious about my new job?
posted by Lyss at 2:45 PM
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