ClueLes Moonves and Nielsen Ratings

Can you say ClueLes? This man is the head of CBS? Quincy Smith sees more people switching to the Internet yet CBS cancels Jericho which had so many people watching online? I think ClueLes Moonves let his wounded ego get in the way of Jericho making him tons of money online.


"CBS's CEO Leslie Moonves told reporters on a conference call that acquiring access to CNet's large online audience in order to distribute media content from CBS was "a large part" of CBS' motivation in going after the San Francisco-based online company.

"Our idea is to have our content wherever, whenever you can get it, and adding CNet just makes that happen faster," Moonves said.

Moonves said he saw opportunities for distributing CBS news, music and other content on CNet's online outlets, and also for tapping CNet's significant online advertising sales operation to boost over ad growth for the media company.

CBS's chief of interactive business Quincy Smith has been moving aggressively to find new online outlets for its entertainment programming as more people shift their media consumption from traditional outlets like TV and radio to the Internet."



"Practically everyone has heard the terms 'TV ratings' or 'Nielsen ratings', but very few people, even in the entertainment industry really understand how these ratings work.

Many people think of Nielsen as a public service, but this is far from the truth. Nielsen provides data only to those who pay for it. Nielsen's clients are, for the most part, television networks and the companies who advertise on those networks.

Nielsen has been under fire recently, being blamed for the cancellation of some television shows that have very faithful, if not huge audiences. Most notable are is the recently canceled CBS show Jericho. This show was canceled after its first season, but a well-organized effort, which saw tens of thousands of pounds of peanuts sent to the network execs at CBS resulted in the show being picked up for a second season, only to be canceled yet again due to Nielsen numbers which would look great to the vast majority of networks, but which CBS felt simply weren't good enough."