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Let’s have a quick talk. I keep seeing a lot of posts about “the media lying about this for ratings.” So, I’ve decided to explain how ratings work. This will likely be a thread cause it might get long.
So the ratings points indicate how many viewers your channel has at a particular time. Ours are broken down into quarter hours but I know they can take them down to the minute if they wanna get precise.
There isn’t some random bank that says, “OK! You got a 5.3? That means X dollars!” That’s not how that works. The sales departments take those ratings numbers to commercial clients and say, “a spot this long will cost X amount because there’s X people watching.”
Here’s where I need y’all to pay close attention. Because yes, there are more people than usual watching at certain times, but guess what? People are preparing for a recession. Restaurants are closing... they aren’t advertising.
We could have 100,000 viewers every quarter hour, but if the economy is in the can and no one buys commercials, we will still lose money as a business.
IN SUMMATION: no, these kinds of global emergencies are not a media hype for financial gain. When America struggles, stations have to lay off people. It’s already happening.
