Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Introducing Daily Tables Plus!


If you weren't here in this blog's early days, you may not remember the days when each War of 18-49 post had just one table, with only raw adults 18-49 ratings. With the advent of A18-49+ came new tables, using Plus numbers that allowed for fairer comparisons over time.

Today, it's time to bring that spirit to the tables you see every day, on the Daily Spotted Ratings posts. Like the War version, it translates many of the raw numbers from the daily table into Plus. These tables will have a lot of things going on that may not immediately come to mind, so I'm going to use this intro post to review a few of the important caveats with using these Plus numbers. The first official one will show up on Monday's post later today. The default view is still the raw numbers table, so if you don't "believe" in Plus then your only difference will be the two little buttons at the top and bottom of each table. Without further ado, click the Plus button above the following table and let's create a Daily Table Plus!

Some thoughts on these new numbers after the jump...


ShowTimeslotRenewology
Name
A18-49
Skew
Last
y2y
TLa
Ty2y
R%
Last
True
Last
Last Man Standing1.021%
0
-17%
0%
-17%
97%0%1.25+0.08
Dr. Ken0.823%
0
-20%
0%
-20%
68%+2%1.06+0.05
Truth and Lies: The Family Manson1.126%
+29%
-12%
1.36
ABC:
+19%
-14%
NCAA Basketball1.336%
-0.1
-13%
+24%
-13%
1.55-0.03
NCAA Basketball1.341%
0.0
-28%
+30%
-28%
1.63+0.08
CBS:
+26%
-19%
Grimm0.826%
+0.1
-20%
+14%
+14%
48%+4%1.09+0.21
Dateline Fri0.821%
-0.2
-20%
-20%
-20%
1.07-0.19
NBC:
-11%
-11%
Rosewood (R)0.426%
0%
-50%
0.78
Sleepy Hollow0.428%
0
-50%
0%
-20%
31%-2%0.79+0.05
Fox:
0%
-38%
The Originals0.337%
-25%
-25%
+50%
67%0.42
Reign0.234%
0
-60%
+100%
83%-4%0.32+0.03
CW:
-44%
+67%
All:
+4%
-16%
PUT:
-4%
-10%


Plus: The big thing to keep in mind is that these tables use the projected league average (currently 1.24) rather than the season-to-date league average (currently 1.30). This is also true of the other numbers, though the Skew league average and True league average probably won't change as much from now to the end of the season.

Skew+: This table also introduces the idea of "relative skew"; Skew+ measures how a show skews relative to the league average (which, as usual, is 100). Above 100 means "younger" than league average (technically, more adults 18-49 as a percentage of total viewers than league average), while below means "older." It is projected that the skew league average will end up on the borderline between 26% and 27%. The Plus idea is similar, but it should be kept in mind that skew, in and of itself, is not a measure of strength. So I would hesitate to apply the traditional A18-49+ labels to these numbers. For example, if you have a 50 A18-49+ but a 200 in Skew+, I don't really buy that it's a "megahit in Skew." Skew is just a characteristic, not a "counting stat." But that's just me.

True+: Another warning about using the conventional A18-49+ labels: they probably won't be great with relative True numbers either. That's because the True formula has Robin Hood-esque tendencies; it tends to steal from the rich and give to the poor. These tendencies have to be in a timeslot-adjusted formula to some extent, though it's debatable whether my version goes too far. Anyway, for the purposes of these tables, the point is that it is harder for True to get a long way from the league average than it is for raw numbers. So every label threshold should fall closer to 100 than its A18-49+ counterpart. A 125 True+ is probably a good bit more impressive than a 125 A18-49+, and a 75 True+ is probably a good bit worse than a 75 A18-49+. Attaching formal labels to this idea may be something we explore in the future. (Another separate point is that most shows will be growing from Raw to True at this time of year anyway. Spring is hard.)

y2y, Ty2y: If year-to-year numbers are bumming you out, the Plus year-to-year numbers may be a little easier to handle; they account for the collective decline in big four original non-sports series from last year to this year.

I want to note that these tables use Plus numbers for every possible program and every possible comparison, even though I really think the best use for Plus comparisons is just with broadcast original non-sports series. For example, it's been pretty clear over time that sports are declining much more slowly than the entertainment series realm, so using Plus comparisons with those shows is probably giving them too much credit. Even cable series have appeared to have a "league average decline" that is not really in line with broadcast, though I don't think it's too far off to use the Plus comparisons here. (When I first started doing this, Plus would've been too generous to cable, because it was clear that much of broadcast's decline was coming at the expense of cable. But now, cable series are being hit as hard or even harder by DVRing and the new "bigger fish", the rise of streaming.)

The Renewology numbers (as well as TLa) should be identical on both tables. If some of the caveats listed above become a problem, I might try to filter out some of the comparisons where Plus is not as helpful, but for now I'm just laying it all out there... Let me know what you think, and I hope this proves helpful.

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