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Nielsen VS IMDb: Do The Best Shows Always Get Canceled?

May 11, 2014

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(Check out my TV ratings website, www.seriesmonitor.com)

It's the most controversial week of the year for television fans. It's the week in which the 5 US television networks decide on the fate of their series - whether they will return for another season or not.

The outcomes cause controversy, infighting, debates, rants and raves, originating from the many millions of fans around the world. There's no shortage of coverage from the hundreds of websites, blogs, and social media outlets either.

If the outcome isn't positive, it's a common occurrence for fans to blame the network executives, thinking they're idiots, nutcases or worse, for focusing on keeping their advertisers and shareholders happy as opposed to the fans. Who can blame them though? Television is an expensive business, not a charity. Networks need to keep the lights on in a world in which the way their product is consumed is rapidly changing thanks to innovations such as the internet and DVRs, and of course piracy. Their business models are well and truly outdated, but that isn't the point of this article.

So I thought I'd take the network executives, Nielsen TV ratings, timeslots, gaps between episodes, competition on other networks, syndication, production studios, number of seasons, episodes, and costs, out of the equation entirely and look at something different - what the fans and critics alike think of all the renewed and canceled series as opposed to network executives. I used the Internet Movie Database, which is better known as IMDb, to gather the star ratings of each renewed and canceled series, with the list of those series originating from TVByTheNumbers, to see whether the networks always "cancel the best shows." The results may surprise you.

All up, there were 90 different series on the list, excluding NBC's Parenthood, whose fate remains undetermined at the time of writing this article. From the 90 series, 36 were canceled, and 54 were renewed. In percentage terms, 60% of the series on the list were renewed, 40% were canceled.

Let's break that down into networks. ABC canceled 11 series and renewed 12, a renewal rate of 52%. CBS canceled 6 series and renewed 16, a renewal rate of 73%. NBC canceled 10 series and renewed 8, a renewal rate of 44%. FOX canceled 6 series and renewed 10, a renewal rate of 63%. Lastly, CW canceled 3 series and renewed 8, a renewal rate of 73%. So, if the bulk of your favorite series reside on either CBS or CW, chances are you're a bit happier than the fans whose favorite series reside on other networks, especially NBC, which has the lowest renewal percentage of them all.

Now, let's look at the IMDb ratings and break them down into similar numbers, and work out whether the networks really do cancel the best series.

The 90 series have a combined average IMDb star rating of 7.45, from a combined average of 40,822 individual star ratings per series. That means there's a pretty good pool of ratings for each series, though the number of ratings (or votes) per show varies wildly, from just 202 votes for the canceled Star-Crossed, through to 355,420 for the renewed The Big Bang Theory. Obviously, a series that's been running for several seasons will have many thousands more votes than one that's had one season or less.

The 36 canceled series averaged a combined 6.86 IMDb rating from an average of 9,969 votes. The title of lowest rated canceled series, with a 5.1 rating from 556 votes went to ABC's Lucky 7. That was followed closely by CBS's Bad Teacher with a 5.2 rating. In total, 7 series had IMDb ratings of less than 6.0, with each of the 5 networks having at least one, and NBC and CBS each having two. Unsurprisingly, all 8 were canceled.

Drumroll please! The 54 renewed series averaged a combined 7.98 IMDb rating from an average of 54,625 votes. The title of lowest rated renewed series went to CBS's The Millers, with a 6.1 IMDb rating from 2,648 votes. Another CBS series, Mike & Molly, was the second lowest rated renewed series, with a 6.5 rating. There were 4 renewed series with ratings below 7, with yet another CBS series, NCIS:LA, and FOX's Glee managing a 6.8 and 6.9 rating respectively.

So that should be the end of it. The average IMDb canceled series ratings are 1.12 lower than that of the average renewed series. But there's far more interesting data to be gleaned just yet.

ABC's canceled series averaged a 6.56 rating, while its renewed series averaged a 7.83 rating, a difference of 1.27. CBS was slightly lower than that, with the canceled series averaging a 6.45 rating, and renewed series a 7.58 rating, a difference of 1.13. NBC bettered both, with a canceled series average of 7.03 and renewed series average of 8.10, a difference of 1.07. FOX's margin was the closest of all 5 networks, with a canceled series average rating of 7.63, the highest of all, and renewed average of 7.92, a difference of 0.29, by far the smallest of all. CW was in the middle somewhere, with a canceled average of 6.70 and renewed average of 7.99, a difference of 1.29 the largest of all.

Again, this shows that, on average, the lowest rated IMDb series were the ones that fell victim to the network executives.

But wait, there's more!

Of the 90 series on the list, only one manages to crack the coveted 9.0 IMDb rating. It's the longest running series on the list, and also happens to be animated. Any guesses? If you guessed The Simpsons, you win! Including The Simpsons, from the 90 series on the list, 31 have an IMDb rating of 8.0 or higher. An 8.0 rating is considered better than average, but what if I told you that 16% of those 31 series will not be returning next year?

Yes, you read correctly. 5 of those 31 series aren't coming back. They include Almost Human, Raising Hope, Surviving Jack, Rake, and Community. That's 4 FOX series, and a single NBC series.

Let's put the spotlight on FOX for a moment, because that would have surprised a lot of people. From its 16 series, 8, or 50% have an IMDb rating of 8.0 or higher. No other network comes close to that percentage of series. A further 3 share a 7.9 rating. Unsurprisingly, FOX's 16 series have a combined IMDb average, regardless of their fate, of 7.78, higher than any other network. Community is NBC's highest rated series,

For balance, the combined IMDb rating regardless of fate for CBS is 7.02, for ABC, 7.20, for NBC, 7.57, and for CW, 7.34. For those who doubted a series with an 8.0 rating is above average, that's your evidence. FOX leads the way for series rating 8.0 or higher with 8, followed by CBS with 7, NBC with 6, ABC with 5, and CW with a respectable 4. In percentages, FOX leads the way with 50% of its series having an 8.0 rating or higher, as previously mentioned, CBS's is 32%, ABC's is 22%, NBC, 33%, and CW's 36%.

Finally, let's cancel and renew the 90 series based on their IMDb ratings alone, with the cut being set at the top 54 series. Why 54? Because 54 series were renewed for another season by the 5 networks under the current ratings system, and 36 were canceled.

Interestingly, a series has to have an IMDb rating of 7.3 or higher, which means a total of 55 series would be renewed. Suburgatory, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and Two and a Half Men all have a 7.3 IMDb rating, therefore scrape through by the skin of their teeth. Of the 35 series that would be canceled by not having an IMDb rating 7.3 or higher, 10 have been renewed for real while the remaining 25 have been canceled for real. Five of those renewed come from CBS, and include 2 Broke Girls, NCIS:LA, Mike & Molly, The Millers, and Mom. The CW's Beauty & The Beast and The 100 would have been canceled too. The sole ABC series that would be canceled is Last Man Standing, while FOX's Glee and The Mindy Project round out the 10. No NBC series would have been canceled that has been renewed for real.

The figures are much the same on the other side of the cut. From the 55 series that would have been renewed using IMDb rating, 11 have been canceled in real life. NBC leads the way with 5, thanks to the real life cancellation of Community, Growing Up Fisher, Believe, Dracula, and Crisis. FOX's Almost Human, Surviving Jack, Rake, and Raising Hope leave 2, which go to CW's The Tomorrow People, and ABC's Suburgatory. No CBS series that's been canceled in real life would have been renewed by beating the IMDb cut.

That's all for now! If you're wanting to view the spreadsheet with all this IMDb information on it, including seeing which series would have made the IMDb cut, you can click here to view it using Google Drive. Remember you can get full TV ratings and analysis on my website, www.seriesmonitor.com.

Thanks for reading! I'm sure there's going to be plenty of debate in the comments below. If you like the article, remember to share it on your social networks using the links below the title at the top of the page.

Jimmy.

47 comments:

  1. BlueStar (aka CP)May 11, 2014 at 5:37 AM

    So based on Nielsen Fox hasn't made the best choices...

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  2. No, based on IMDB, FOX hasn't made the best choices on what to cancel/renew

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  3. Nielsen is an outdated source to measure viewership, especially in today's media/digital age. With all the avenues on the internet, both legal and "frowned upon," the actual viewership of a show is not typically what is shown on Nielsen. The number of viewers does not equal quality.

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  4. Christina SherwoodMay 11, 2014 at 6:08 AM

    This is not at all surprising to me, FOX has been my lest favorite network since Firefly was cancelled. Falling in love with a show on FOX is the dumbest thing anyone can do because chances are high if its good its not going to be around for long.

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  5. While no one disagrees the Nielsen rating is an outdated system, the problem is there is no better system in place.

    The reason networks rely on Nielsen is because of the detailed data they give. They measure age of the viewer, whether they watch the whole episode etc.

    Those same statistics are not viable to other forms of viewership. The advertisers DO NOT care if all 7 billion+ people watch something via downloads if there are none watching it live.

    Shows rely on money from advertisers to make the shows. If the advertisers don't have a way to know which shows are most popular, guess what, they wont advertise. That means the networks get no $ & before you know it, we don't have any shows to watch. So they measure the only outlet they legally can, at home television viewers.
    Nielsen numbers might be inaccurate. No one disputes that. But they are the best system currently in place to gain the essential data that is needed by the people who most decide what gets renewed....the advertisers.
    So we are all stuck with the Nielsen system for the foreseeable future till someone can create a more fair system that accurately identifies WHO is watching, how long they are watching & that they actually ARE watching... like Nielsen does.

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  6. "NBC canceled 10 series and renewed 8, a renewal rate of 55%. ABC, which has the lowest renewal percentage of them all."

    Just wanted to point out. Shouldn't NBC have the lowest renewal percentage with 44%.

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  7. Good spotting, have fixed that.

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  8. This is an interesting idea, but your analysis ignores several key factors. First of all, each network makes its own renewal decisions, so you have to compare each cancellation and renewal to that network, and not the overall average of 7.3. Further, dramas take up an hour on the schedule versus a half hour for comedies, so it's an apples to oranges comparison.

    That said, by IMDB rating, assuming each network wants about the same amount of schedule space:

    FOX should renew Surviving Jack instead of The Mindy Project; and Rake and Almost Human instead of Glee and The Following. Raising Hope would beat out either Sleepy Hollow (which creates a half hour hole in the schedule for an extra pilot) or New Girl.

    ABC should renew Suburgatory over Last Man Standing.

    CBS should renew some combination of Intelligence, The Crazy Ones, and possibly FWBL over The Millers, Mike & Molly, and possibly NCIS LA or Mom depending on how many dramas versus comedies they want.

    NBC should renew Community and possibly Growing Up Fisher or Believe over About a Boy and possibly Chicago Fire.

    The CW should renew The Tomorrow People over The 100 or Beauty and the Beast.

    The only places this really makes a difference compared to your 7.3 cutoff is CBS for Intelligence and The Crazy Ones (which were under 7.3, but even lower rated shows on CBS were renewed); and NBC for Dracula and Crisis (which were above 7.3, but few lower rated shows on NBC were renewed).

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  9. You've missed the point completely. The analysis was supposed to ignore the key factors you mentioned. That was the whole point of the exercise. We all know networks have all their decisions to make, but what fans actually think of a show aside from the demographics it attracts is not one of them. This was designed to find out whether the best shows do in fact get canceled, and the only way to find that out was to use information that represents the fanbase and not the networks.


    The last section about cancellation was merely designed to see where the line would be drawn should a show's IMDb rating be used in place of Nielsen ratings. It shows that lower IMDb rated shows were canceled, just as some higher rated ones were as well.

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  10. Oh I see. I thought you were looking at each network's renewal decisions as if they used IMDB ratings instead of Nielsen ratings. Instead you were simply evaluating whether higher IMDB rated shows were cancelled or not.

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  11. Yep, spot on. This was for what the fans think of a show, not what a network thinks of a show

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  12. I was wondering what the renewal/cancellations would look like if based on what people/critics thought was good television, minus the bureaucratic crap and along comes this analysis. Thanks for taking the time out to do this, even if it does make the cancellations of Believe, Tomorrow People, and Community sting a little more. I'm surprised Betrayal has a 7.2. I liked it, but I felt like I was in the minority on that lol

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  13. You can't really go by IMDB, they used to be popular, but not so much anymore. People drifted away because of the endless trolls on there.

    The ratings system is definitely in need of a major overhaul. People watch shows far differently now. Many no longer watch them on tv. They watch online at various places, both legit and not so legit. And people from all around the world can now access shows they would not normally see because of this. So you actually tend to have a high worldwide fanbase that is never reflected in ratings. To compensate for this, networks should sell fan items from shows to help make up the lost revenue. The whole system has to be overhauled and brought into modern times.

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  14. I hate fox, 1st firefly then surviving jack! My whole family loved that show and found it the funniest this season of all the family shows. So upset they cancel it when there are so many bad comedies still around. My son said they didn't even give it a full season to prove itself:( not a happy household here and won't be watching fox now, there isn't really anything we love on the Channel anymore so it doesn't matter!

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  15. True but people who for example download shows from torrent sites (cough*me*cough) shouldn't count because they don't watch the ads. Networks make shows to put commercials in, so it's fair that only viewing on Tv screen counts.
    Easy universal system with convenient paying system must be introduced. I'd pay if it was super easy and obviously not too much per episode or movie.
    One thing for sure, whoever makes it happen first, will be incredibly rich person.

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  16. Great article @Jimmy very interesting idea to compare popularity like that.

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  17. Woah, going by this I'd have lost NCIS LA! That is scary. Great article Jimmy.

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  18. I feel like you can't really rate a series properly until it is over anyway.

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  19. I feel like there should be a mass campaign to let non-Nielsen viewers know that their viewership does not matter. I still see people who think tuning into their favorite show while it is airing helps keep it alive.


    If there is enough awareness of the shoddy system that is currently in place then there might be more incentive to come up with a better one.

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  20. They really shouldn't have cancelled TTP, over some 13 episode bs. Smh. I'm still pissed about that. A lot of people on IMDB were really trying to save the show too. So much potential it had just down the drain. Ridiculous.

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  21. @DarkUFO cheers, yeah it was an interesting piece to research and write.

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  22. I only watch one show the night it is on and I don't start on it until it is 20 minutes into the show, so I can skip commercials. Yeah I know ads pay the bills but because I am NOT a Nielsen family, it does not matter when I watch. The only reason I do watch Supernatural that night is in case CW or weather messes up I can go and record it later at night.

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  23. Have you not heard of DVRs and Hoppers? I watch on a TV screen and do NOT watch commercials. Hoppers cut them out automatically, DVRs I have to use the remote.

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  24. Very interesting idea for an article. I find it interesting that the correlation is mostly there, except for the occasional outlier .Thanks for it

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  25. By the way, I find that most of the outliers that you've mentioned are explained by two main reasons:
    - Low sampling: Those FOX shows, like Rake, are clear examples of that. I think if the number of IMDB voters were to increase, the numbers would go down. But the show was never well sampled to begin with, which made the number of people voting there probably limited. Maybe excluding shows below a certain number of votes threshold from the analysis would lead to a better correlation? Just an idea
    - CBS: CBS is known to be the oldest skewing network (How I Met Your Mother excluded). As a result, assuming that the younger you are the higher the propensity you have to go online and vote on IMDB (which you may argue with but I feel its fair), their shows will be the ones whose online scoring will be the worst adjusted with their actual rating. No idea on how to correct this one, it's just a fact, but it definitely adds to the credibility of your analysis that the shows that were on the wrong side of it was stuff like Mike and Molly, Mom or 2 Broke Girls.

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  26. Thanks for the feedback @omabin. I think your explanations for the outliers are pretty close to the mark

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  27. Great article Jimmy! What a refreshing and interesting way to look at it.

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  28. Great article, it must have taken some time!
    Some nipticks: Rake has an avarage of 7,1 in IMDb so it shouldn't be paired with the ones that got 8s. Also, NBC has the lowest renewal rate yet you say at the end of the paragraph that it is ABC the one who has the lowest of them all.
    Aside from that, I really enjoyed reading it. It's a little bit tricky actually, since IMDb uses a score system that is quite different from others platform that could also be considered like metacritics or rottem tomatoes, but for the sake of the article it works ;)

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  29. True, it really bothers me that TV hasn't update yet, since a lot of cancelled shows could have been a lot of money through the giant numbers they deliver online (just look at Community at Hulu!). Networks need to find a way to take advantage of the new technologies instead of relying just on Live+SD ratings.

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  30. Interesting, Rake has had several hundred new ratings since I wrote the article which means it's probably been adjusted overall seeing as it had very few ratings in the first place. I'll leave it for now, otherwise I'd have to recheck all the other shows!

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  31. I try to never watch commercials unless I watch it live, and even then, I usually leave the room. They need to come up with another way of doing things.

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  32. There are many, many people now who will not pay, ever. It's like that all over the entire entertainment world now. Music, Movies, Books. There's no reason to pay when you can get anything and everything for free if you know where to look. And that's why they need to do things differently. I'm a published author, my books barely sell for the same reason, everyone wants free. They will download them free, but they won't pay.

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  33. No worries, one gets the idea anyway, so it can be fixed later

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  34. László HarsányiMay 11, 2014 at 3:35 PM

    The problem is (and it's pretty boring, as it comes up week by week, without any understanding of the explanations) is that Nielsen's number don't measure the "viewership".


    They measure how many people watches a show with the aired advertisings. Period. And this is not outdated the least, because those firms who pay for the ad spots don't give a damn about the show, and they don't care at all about how many people watch it on Amazon, iTunes, torrent, they only want as many actual viewers from their target group WATCHING THEIR ADS (not the show!!!) as possible. And the advertisers don't focus on the younger age groups because they have never heard of older people with money. The impact of a TV ad on a buying decision is much higher in case of the younger people, that's why the 18-49 (or 18-35) age groups are preferenced by the advertisers.


    Nielsen makes a lot of efforts to measure all the alternative media viewing and those numbers can be very useful for the channels if they want to get extra money, want to know what people wish to see. But saying that the Nielsen overnight (or L+3, C+3, L+7, etc.) numbers are outdated because people are watching the shows in different ways comes simply from not understanding the system at all.

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  35. László HarsányiMay 11, 2014 at 3:52 PM

    No network relies just on Live+SD ratings, it's an insane idea of fans without a clue. Networks calculate all aspects of a show's profitability. Hannibal for example has shitty numbers, yet it was renewed not only because it had good press but also because it is a co-production with European channels and in this way the financial investment and risk is smaller. Shows with low ratings can stay on air if there is a good chance of a lucrative syndicate sale, and so on.


    How can you think that the same network which sells the distribution rights to Hulu (and partly owns Hulu as well) do not know how much income a show generates there? Or that it isn't counted when a renewal/cancellation decision is made?


    Networks NEVER make decisions on Live+SD numbers. But through many years it was proven that the L+SD numbers are good indicators of the coming decisions. Having a parallel trend or even a correlation doesn't make it a cause->result connection.

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  36. Exactly. People have to redefine in their heads what 18-49 demo rating means. It has nothing to do with total viewership or popularity or quality (well indirectly my be). It indicates how many people of desired age group watch commercials. That's the only number advertisers care about. And Nielsen sampling provides accurate enough data for them.
    BUT: with current shift on online streaming, Amazon and Netflix and Hulu in play we probably will see more and more revenue utilized from other sources then just advertising cost. For now adds buyers are major income source for networks but may be in the nearest future industry will come up with some kind of hybrid score for TV show . I bet those factors are taken into account by networks already (especially by CW who doesn't rely on adds only due to relatively low cost of those).

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  37. I feel just the opposite, there should be a mass campaing to let advertisers and networks know that Nielsen doesn't matter. Nielsen is focused in the 18-49 demo, when now the median age of a broadcast tv viewer is the highest ever at 54. By 2017 people over 50 will control the 70% of the national disposable income. How is good bussiness to ignore or demise that? On the other side, you have the increasing % of people of all ages and income category that don't watch network tv (hence advertisers don't reach them), and here a deep demographic analysis is needed, because the reasons are many and groups intersect. I am in the category of not having a lot of free time for tv, in the group of higher education and more than decent income. My only network tv show in the last 5 years was Dracula, wich I found because I was told by a friend and so could follow the last 5 episodes when aired ( and watched the first 5 online, more than once). A well scripted, beautifully filmed, great production value, and superbly acted drama, fully deserving of my time. I am mad as hell with NBC for giving it the axe, and others show's viewership are mad at them too (just take a look at nbc facebook page), all shows loved by their viewers and now cancelled by the network. A great % of those viewers won't watch any new NBC show.

    Networks want new and more viewers, but they behave in a way that not only they don't get new ones, but expel those they already had in any possible way.

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  38. I certainly agree with your comment. :)

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  39. Thank you Luna and very well stated! I am one of the aged over 50 people with a disposable income. I want to view a show because I have a real interest in the show. Not because of the advertisements & commercials about products I would never purchase, and that are forced upon the viewers every 10 - 15 minutes during a network show. (However a commercial for me, is useful for a snack break, a trip to the loo and let the dog out or in. LOL :D ) I do find myself viewing 98% of anything I enjoy watching through Netfilxs and other internet sites.
    I pay for my internet usage and that should be enough for monetary contribution towards my fondness of media enjoyment. I refuse to contribute my money in any form, to a network (NBC) that has nothing but greed for the mighty dollar and does not give a rats ass about giving the viewers a continuity of quality programming. I hope Dracula will find another network, one that will give this show the respect it deserves. :)

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  40. So Vampie Fang, for the actual system you don't count, twice. You don't count because you don't watch as the network and advertisers want to (as majority of people today, young, middle age and old, who watch their shows as you do), and even if you did watch as the networks want, you still would´t count because you are over 50. So, you can spend your money however you want, advertisers don't care , they are not fighting for you attention. That is the message here.
    But, people over 50 who still do watch tv, DO purchase products and spend money, money that goes to x companies, which then spend this money keeping in the air the shows THEY don't want. And so, this perverted system makes THEM pay for the low quality cheap crappy tv shows that plague network tv, and the shows THEY want get cancelled.

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  41. BlueStar (aka CP)May 12, 2014 at 2:57 AM

    Oops that's what I meant.

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  42. How does something like vudu and iTunes where you can buy a season pass for a season affect things? A 22 episode season is like $59.99 for hdx.

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  43. IMDb is hardly a reliable source of ratings. They often have a thousand to one ratio of users to professional critics, and even then the critics are not well known or respected. I have personally seen many planted reviews giving a 10/10 when the general consensus of professional critics on Rotten Tomatoes (New Yorker, Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, etc.) is 5/10. When companies are allowed to use shills to artificially bump ratings, the site becomes useless.

    Now, I know the above as fact for movies, but have not tracked them for TV ratings. Not that I will either, as if they allow obvious planted values (in either direction - though usually positively), then their entire metric is ignored. Metacritic is another source that cannot be trusted as I have caught them claiming kids on forums posting reviews for the first time, yet adding them to the 'professional reviewer' list. Now all you need is a blog with few reviews, and Metacritic claims you are professional. I wonder if they will help me get press credentials as such?

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  44. Yeah well, it's like anything on the internet I guess. I'm not saying it's scientific or anything, but I think an average sample size of 40,000-ish evens it all out. It would be hard to find 40,000 pro reviewers or planted raters etc unless IMDb fiddled with their database.


    I believe the ratings are a lot more "accurate" for TV series because they do continue on for much longer than a movie does, so they don't get targeted in the same way movies do. In my experience, I'm far more inclined to like an above average TV series than I am an above average movie. The trolls that get a kick out of one star reviews for movies don't seem to bother with TV series. Along with that, the reasonable degree of accuracy when you cancel series using IMDb ratings as I did in the article generally seems to indicate that the better series do stick around.

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  45. I don't know... some greedy losers won't pay EVER, but i think most people will gladly pay as long as there are easy way for them to do so. Most people from all over the world don't even have an option to watch american tv shows legally. I am expected to wait until some tv channel buys the rights and does poor dubbing or voiceovers etc. Or even better wait for a dvd release.
    I am truly sorry for your situation, try different ways to sell your books, like maybe get deals with differents sites that will distribute them for a small fee. I rarely buy paper books because they are so damn expensive. I simply can't afford to drop the same amount of money i spend on electricity or internet bill in a month on just ONE book. In Russia a decent book in a hard cover about 400 pages costs no less than 400 rubles,(if it's a mainsteam popular book much much more) and i spend 800 rubles on monthly electricity bill and 400 rubles on internet that allows me to download as many books illegally as i want. Most people are like me, i guess. But i always send a small donation to authors or musicians if i see a donation button on their sites.(which happens very rarely since most people just use the old ways or publishing/distributing their works) So maybe get you own site with a button like that. if it's too much trouble to make a deal with some payment system to get donation, some sites just provide a telephone number, anyone can send money to it and eventually the owner just retrieves the money. Don't wait for the publishing company to earn you money, go above their heads.

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  46. The entire entertainment industry has unfortunately gone that way. That's why we get so many bad low budget movies out now. There is much, much less money to be made with music, books, movies, even some artwork. Why spend a fortune on a painting when you can download a very nice pic of it and make it into wallpaper for your pc or phone. It's sad because many entertainment artists will no longer create if they are starving. But everything has changed. Creation now is done only as hobbywork and if you get small monetary bonuses for it, that's usually it. But it cannot be a sole source of income for most entertainers. We can't afford to just work for tips. And it has impacted the quality of our tv shows, movies, everything. It's the sad price we all pay for our internet.

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