An Internet hub with domestic and international news, analysis, original reporting, and popular features from the left, center, indies, centrists, moderates, and right
NBC and the VT Killer Tapes
Daryl Cagle, MSNBC.com
opinions powered by SendLove.to
6 Responses to “NBC and the VT Killer Tapes”
lol
The slogan becomes official: “If it bleeds, it leads.”
It’s pretty much total BS that the other networks are ragging on NBC for airing parts of Cho’s manifesto. Those same networks plastered those same pictures, words and videos all over their websites and broadcasts as well.
It’s one of those things, like Anna Nicole Smith, where morbid curiosity wins out over decency for many people. I’m betting most people, if asked, would say that the huge exposure of those videos and photos was wrong, unethical, just like most people would tell you that the Anna Nicole Smith story was pure garbage. But then you ask those people if they’ve seen those photos, if they’ve tuned in to see those videos, many, maybe most, will say that yes, they have. Unfortunantly, the networks know us well, they know we’ll let morbid curiosity get the best of us, and that’s all they need. If NBC saw a sharp drop in viewership because of the airing, they’d stop doing it, and probably think twice before doing something like that again.
Lynx- How the hell does NBC know if people are watching or not? What is the mechanism here?
White Agent I don’t know the specifics, but I do know that viewership IS calculated, all the time. That’s how they know “X million saw the super bowl yesterday”. As I recall the have monitors attached to the televisions of a large number of people (I suppose large enough to be a good, representative sample) that show which channels are on at what time and for how long. It could be much more complicated than that, but what’s undeniable is that the number of people watching this and that is counted, and not just by surveys.