Ratings (cont.)

As readers of this blog know, I rely on Show Buzz Daily - I spell it with three words because it looks less trendy that way - for lots of ratings information.

In fact, the site is the best source for individual cable show numbers on the Internet. Every day they publish a top-150 list of first-run cable programs, along with the broadcast network numbers. (The broadcast ratings are widely available on other sites.) Show Buzz Daily lists the cable shows by 18-49 ratings. Which is vaguely irritating and ageist, but I can understand why the site does it.

The party line is that advertisers only look at 18-49 numbers. I don't really buy this story. The entire country has aged a lot over the past few decades. In 1970 the median age of the U.S. population was 28.1 years. Now it's 38.0 years. Lots of cable networks that appeal to older viewers - not coincidentally including GSN - seem to do very good business, thank you. Somebody is spending ad bucks on viewers who fall outside the Sacred Demo.

I think that the real explanation for Show Buzz Daily's listing order is that the chart would look awfully similar day after day if they listed shows by total viewers. The cable news networks - Fox News in particular - would dominate the list every day, especially on weekdays. (Sports sometimes invade on weekends.) For instance, the Friday, August 3 chart by total viewers would list 21 of the top 25 shows on the news networks, with 14 on Fox News alone.

So at least the 18-49 order, as silly and discriminatory as it may sometimes seem, produces a lot more varied lineup from day to day. GSN would no doubt benefit from a total-viewer order. America Says would often land in the top 100, for instance. It was number 89 on Friday in total viewers. But I can understand why Show Buzz Daily doesn't want to put out pretty much the same old list day after day.