Sweeps Week is a throwback to simpler prison term , when Americans watch tv set show on literal TVs — rather than laptop , pill and smartphones — and 50 million hoi polloi sit down to the same episode of " I Love Lucy " at the same time on the same television channel all across the land . In 2013 , a show on ABC was golden to get 5 million watcher [ source : Stelter ] .
Sweeps Week was the brainchild of the A.C. Nielsen Company , which popularized TV rating in the 1950s and whose television audience numbers are still the manufacture standard . In 1954 , Nielsen sent " telecasting diaries " to households across America , asking them to record their preciseTV viewing habitsfor a week . Then , in a geographic " expanse " starting in the Northeast and moving to the West , Nielsen collected the booklets , compiled the data and published the first exact reports on the viewing habit of American families [ source : Fletcher ] .
Why does it count how many citizenry look out " Modern Family " or " Real Housewives of Moscow " on a Wednesday night in Topeka , Kansas ? Because both the national TV networks and local TV stations both depend on advertising to make money . With elaborate information about the sizing of the local TV audience , the local television station can charge advertisers more for commercial-grade spots during the most pop shows and the most active time of twenty-four hours .
Today , Sweeps Week is four separate four - workweek menstruation space throughout the twelvemonth . ( " Sweeps Month " is more like it . ) Sweeps Week remains an authoritative gauge for TV advertisers , even though the entertainment landscape looks very unlike than it did in the day of " The Honeymooners " and the " Ed Sullivan Show . " In the fifties , TV viewers opt between three or four program channels . Today , the typical household includes cable or artificial satellite television set with hundreds of channel , plus online accession to streaming TV via computers and peregrine equipment .
As Nielsen and its competitors struggle to get an accurate headcount of a highly fragmented TV hearing , some telly networks and local affiliate are lose their faith in the institution of Sweeps Week . Keep reading for a closer look at how television ratings body of work and to get wind how Sweeps Week is press for selection in the Internet epoch .
How TV Ratings Work
TV rating are a form of audience mensuration adopted from the other days of receiving set in the thirties when surveyors would randomly call family and ask about their listening habits [ source : Gross ] . The physical object of consultation mensuration has always been the same , to accurately estimate the audience sizing for a internet , station or individual show and use that data to deal on - air advertising , what we call commercial .
Commercialsare the backbone of broadcast tv set ; they give the poster . A half - hour TV show contains roughly 22 hour of amusement and eight minutes of commercials . Six minutes of those commercial are national ads sold by the web itself ( such as ABC , CBS , NBC or Fox ) . The local affiliate station sells other two minutes of commercial message . internet bank on this internet of independently possess affiliates to broadcast the internet ’s shows in local grocery across the nation .
The TV networks set prices for their internal commercial based on national ratings data provide by Nielsen . National rating are expressed as a percentage of all of the households in America with a boob tube set that are view the meshing at a given time . Ratings are further broken down by demographic segments . adult 18 - 49 years old , for instance , are a favorite demographic for advertisers , since consumer in that age group tend to buy more stuff and nonsense .
Nielsen collects its internal goggle box rating datum via two method : place meter , which capture which channel the TV is tuned to , and its patented " people meter " system . With the latter equipment , each appendage of the household has his or her own release on a especial outside control to designate when they are tune up in to a particular place . These people meters give chase the viewing drug abuse of around 45,000 hoi polloi in 20,000 homes in the 56 largest TV markets [ sources : JamesandNielsen ] .
For Sweeps Week , Nielsen still sends out millions of paper diary to collect viewing datum on local TV hearing , except for the very expectant markets [ source : Manly ] . This geographically specific data is what local affiliate use to set their ownadvertising rates . Since newspaper diaries take much longer to swear out , Nielsen confines Sweeps Weeks to four , four - hebdomad periods throughout the traditional television season with Sweeps in November , February , May and July .
Next we ’ll search why Sweeps Week has been blamed for some of the most sensational moments in TV .
Sweeps Week Stunts
Imagine you ’re a internet TV executive whose very bread and butter depend on selling expensive internal advertising . Not only are you responsible for your connection , but also local affiliates from Wichita , Kansas , to Tallahassee , Florida .
Your whole business manikin reckon onratings , and that ’s never clearer than during those four decisive periods of the twelvemonth called Sweeps Weeks . The numbers you muster during those abbreviated periods will be used to set local advertising rates year - round . So if you ’re a telly executive , are you go to play it good during Sweeps Weeks , or are you going to pull out every flagrant TV stunt conceivable to grab America ’s eyeballs ?
In popular culture , " Sweeps Week " is tachygraphy for brazen attempt to lure in watcher using every TV trick in the Koran .
Sweeps Week stunts have evolve over the decades . In the 1970s and 1980s , Sweeps Week was dominated by epic miniseries like " origin , " " The Holocaust , " and the controversial nuclear apocalypse movie " The Day After " [ source : Wallenstein ] . More recently , networks have shifted to sensationalist " rend from the headlines " TV pic , like ABC ’s " black link : Bird Flu . "
gain Popular television shows reserve those most exciting secret plan twists and special Edgar Guest stars for Sweeps Weeks . If one of the characters on " Friends " or " How I Met Your Mother " had a baby or got espouse , it was oblige to come about during Sweeps Week . The same with those bizarre episodes of " CSI " featuring Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber ( no , that was n’t a incubus ) .
Local television stations get in on the number , too . Sweeps Week is when local news anchors focus all of their journalistic energy — and jettison all persist integrity — on broadcasting floor that warn of imminent death from everyday target ( " Spatulas That belt down ! " " Killer Yogurt ! " and " Death by Automated door ! " ) or feature half - bare women ( " Sports Bras That Kill ! " ) .
Sweeps Weeks stunts might be going extinct , though [ source : Wallenstein ] . As increasingly more telecasting viewers rain buckets their favourite show online or " binge watch " an entire time of year long after the original air dates , it makes less horse sense to free-base ad rates on broadcast TV ratings alone . In fact , in many Sweep period of the 2000s , the networks have n’t done any " stunt cast " or particular programing to boost ratings . On the next page , we ’ll discourse the destiny of Sweeps Week in the " post - broadcast " old age .
The End of Sweeps Week?
Critics of Sweeps Week contend that Nielsen and the programme TV web are relying on an outdated ratings scheme to measure a 21st - C TV audience . Not only should Sweeps Week be degenerate , but the Big Four programme networks — ABC , CBS , NBC and Fox — need to rethink their integral business model .
Nielsen already has the " people meter " engineering to automatically track half of the TV set in America . The report journal used during Sweeps Week , on the other hired hand , are wildly unreliable , rely on the bad memories and worldwide acedia of the average American sofa potato . If Sweeps Week datum is n’t accurate , and Nielsen has the big businessman to garner crying audience datum for local as well as home markets , why not drop Sweeps Week altogether ?
For years , advertisershave been enquire Nielsen to do aside with the paper diaries and bank on more people m . In 2006 , Nielsen announced it would do away with the journal , but as of 2014 , this has n’t find [ reservoir : Adgate ] . Is it a question of money ? A want of rival and therefore inducement to change ?
Broadcast TV is under plan of attack from several presence . cable’s length channels are attract viewers away from the Big Four in swarm . There just are n’t enough evaluation bunce like " Monday Night Football " and " American Idol " on the program internet to fence with cult cable dispatch like " Breaking Bad , " " The Walking Dead , " and " Game of Thrones . " Viewers in the coveted 18 - 49 demographic are fleeing the degenerate , with broadcast losing 17 percent of that consultation from 2012 to 2013 alone [ source : Stelter ] .
And then there ’s the Internet . Netflix has established itself as a major player in streaming TV . The Big Four networks rerun their shows through Hulu , but Nielsen does not currently bet on-line viewing audience in its rating . Back in February 2013 , Nielsen announced plans to pass over cyclosis telecasting , but no such system of rules is yet in spot [ author : Kelly ] . Rival rating house like comScore are trying to fill that disruption by selling datum on digital viewership to the networks [ informant : Sharma and Stewart ] .
Nielsen looks like become with the programme — it now cut across societal medium picture through itsTwitter TV military rating — but it might be too late to save traditional broadcast TV and the tending - seize antics of Sweeps Week .
For lots more bewitching explanations of the amusement industry and pop cultivation phenomenon , check out the tie in story on the next page .
Lots More Information
I do n’t sleep together anyone who watches broadcast television . OK , that ’s not dependable . I do n’t know anyone who watch broadcast television receiver in the traditional signified , stand for tuning into ABC or NBC on a Tuesday Nox at 8 pm to watch out the former episode of a favorite situation comedy . I have it away plenty of mass — myself include — who hear about a honorable internet television set show and observe a couple episode online when they have an hour to part with . These 30 spare minutes almost never occur at 8 p.m. on a Tuesday . With mobile apps for Netflix , Hulu and several premium cable channels , you do n’t even have to be home to watch TV — airports and dentist waiting room are excellent venue . The very concept of Sweeps Weeks — hinge an entire business model on send paper catch diary — seems wildly out of footprint with modern , fluid - ready entertainment and will almost sure enough go the way of the dodo .
