Re: The Turner Merger, Jungle Kats from Borneo and unshaven Geese..

From: chance <chance_at_unix.infoserve.net>
Date: Mon, 3 Jun 1996 23:18:13 -0700

>I don't know if that would be such a good idea... might just make some
>people mad... of course there at least used to be somebody from Turner
>lurking on the list...

Two I know of (but which department? Who knows...) One I suspect. It's
kinda neat timing the interval from when someone's post shows up here, and
when I hear the paraphrased contents of it from other sources. Sometimes
days - sometimes hours. Heh. To be perfectly honest, I'm sure that whoever
it is likely lurks about the list as part of their appointed rounds, and that's how
the stuff makes it to Atlanta - sorta like culling extant bits of fan-mail and
forwarding it to people who make decisions and junk.

Anyone know how ratings work? Basically, a company called "Neilsen" has
created these things called "People Meters", and they install them in people's
houses nationwide. Picture how many people watch TV in the USA, and then
realize that the houses with these "People Meters" are less than 1% of 1%
(in other words, real small), and these folks log in what they're watching and
when. "Neilsen Families" are picked because their tastes are deemed "average"
by the pundits, and have to meet certain criteria to be eligible to participate.
Oddly, some families are deemed "too average" by the Neilsen folks, and others
are sought out in the sampling zone. So basically, miniscule percentage of
viewers nationwide essentially dictates what you see on the tube - what survives,
what dies - that kind of thing. Before budget cutbacks throughout the various studios
 took a chunk out of the fan-mail budget, the same principle was applied to mail
 received: one letter from a fan could be considered representative of a good many
 more (like a "Neilsen Family", you see), but instead of the statistical model being that
of the "average" viewer, fan mail often represents the extremes.

Among a quantity of "extremes" however, is found another kind of "average" - and
in the case of Kats over the last year or so, the denizens of this list (and some of
the newsgroups) have pointed out to certain people that Kats catered to a large
"average" of people like us that have been missed entirely by both H-B's other
offerings, and those of some of the competitors. Warner Bros. learned an awful
lot from gauging the response of net-fandom WRT their various efforts, and they
haven't looked back since. Disney was about to bury Gargoyles until someone
gave their head a shake and recognized that the "extremes" they were listening to
via e-mail and the like were actually the tip of a much larger "average" iceberg.
Gargs got a third season despite the head of DTV's personal detestation of the show.
"Sailor Moon" nearly bit the dust despite a huge fan-following. Turner was watching
some of the proceedings WRT a fan-coalition and DIC/Bandai, and decided to pick
the thing up for TCN once the syndication deal wound down. They didn't seem to have
too much trouble recognizing a demand in that case (though new eps are still up in the air
at this point).

Anyway, the hardest thing for someone who earns more than you to say is
"Sorry. We goofed". Like Buster said, rubbing it in publicly might provoke the
"rat-in-a-corner" type response from execs figuring they've been cast in the
Custer role, and that would simply cause RE-action, where what we're really
after is "action".

We'll see. Not everyone over there is a cretin, but there's a time and place for
everything, and I imagine we're not the only ones awaiting it.

_____________________________________________________
"Dedicated to the indomitable spirit of the sled dogs that relayed
 antitoxin six hundred miles over rough ice, across treacherous waters,
 through Arctic blizzards from Nenana to the relief of stricken Nome in
 the winter of 1925. Endurance, Fidelity, Intelligence." -- "Balto"
_____________________________________________________

Received on Tue Jun 04 1996 - 02:30:08 PDT