NBC Falls to Fifth Place in Crucial Ratings Sweeps for First Time;
Finishes Beneath Univision

Univision finishing fourth is a big deal, too.

NBC excuses this by noting their "Big Guns" -- are Revolution and The Voice really "Big Guns?" I guess they are, in relative terms, for NBC -- are on hiatus.

Only two of their shows garnered better than a 2 rating. Remember the pre-cable days of the big three, when top rated shows might have a 30 rating or higher? Those days are definitely gone. That's not NBC's fault, but is a 2 rating now the Mendoza Line between success and failure?

The model for TV now seems to be the model for Obama's political campaign: Microtargeting. Targeting very niche audiences with tiny, shallow appeals, pulling in a couple of hundred thousand people here and there, and pocketing you small wins.

Actually... Allah posted this yesterday and noted there are now three shows about auctioning off the contents of unclaimed storage lockers. And this funny and informative song about this general phenomenon, of 2-3 different "reality" show for each different niche interest.

Because if you watch "Ace of Cakes," why not also "Cake Boss"?

The cheaper something is to make, the more likely it is to be knocked off. This is true everywhere, but being a geek I do know that the Knock Off problem was rampant in comic books -- a cheap form of entertainment to produce. Of course it's rife in TV and in movies, too.

But the reason I mention cheapness is that as it gets easier to produce a TV show -- technologically, good digital cameras can now be had for $1500 or so, and that's new and not used, and everyone now can have their own digitally editing bay for $1500 as well -- and easier to distribute them through cheap methods (now garbage-channel cable, and more and more, the internet), we'll see even more of this sort of very specific niche targeting.

I mean, if you want to do a reality TV show, all you need is a crew of 12 and some cameras and some mics. And of course you have to rent out that one house in LA that all the cheapie-beepie reality shows seem to film at for ten days. Knock off another show, or come up with your own slight variation of a hundred other micro-target shows -- a reality show about baseball card collecting for adults, where each contestant has his own mock baseball card and keeps it in his pocket, until he's evicted, at which point is card is ripped and marked "in poor condition"! -- and you're in the TV business, Jack.

Hell, I might produce a Dungeons & Dragons elimination reality show. What the hell. Why not. Someone would watch it.

Via @ryan_l_lewis

EC's Idea...

1. Put 12 democrats on an island with enough food and water for only 11.

2. Then tell them, one of them is a republican.

3. Take money to bank.

Actually I think this is a great idea, parodying liberals' efforts to sniff out who is One of Us and who is Not One of Us.

Imagine, you have a real Republican but he knows the whole liberal rap. (Most of us do.) You cast your Democrats from places like Utah and Alabama to make them red herrings. (Well, of course you have your NY and Boston and SF liberals too, but you make sure you have a bunch of liberals from Texas and such. Wouldn't want to make it to easy.)

Now you film them doing what they do in real life, attempting to out-liberal each other and to see if anyone disagrees, so that they may be shunned.

NBC Falls to Fifth Place in Crucial Ratings Sweeps for First Time;
Finishes Beneath Univision&bodytext=Univision finishing fourth is a big deal, too. NBC excuses this by noting their "Big Guns" -- are Revolution and The Voice really "Big Guns?" I guess they are, in relative terms, for NBC -- are on hiatus. Only two...&topic=world_news"> posted by Ace at 03:37 PM

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