Why we need to stop focusing on viewership ratings
Our day starts with checking the viewing figures. My dear beloved makes TV programs, so he wants to know if what he (and a whole team with him) has created has been somewhat appreciated by the audience. Is it a new program, then we sit nervously refreshing from 7:30 AM. Against better judgment, by the way, because the figures are only available at 7:38 AM. No idea who came up with that, and I have no notion of why it has to be at that exact moment, but it is what it is. I have heard that Sybrand Niessen gets the figures just a few minutes earlier because he knows people who know people, but we normal mortals have to wait until 7:38 AM.
Not only TV makers look at the figures, the whole country has now found its way to the national report cards of our program makers. When I started studying, the results of exams were posted in a central place in the university building. I found that incredibly annoying. That someone else knew my grade before I did and that everyone could see whether I understood it or not. But when I found out that no one really cared about my scores, I let it go. But that is not really the case with our TV makers. It is the ultimate coffee talk.
In TV, the figures are shared publicly every day. It’s not like Elle or Vogue report every day how many issues they have sold, and I also don’t hear how many people listened to the 538 morning show with Frank Dane yesterday. Yes, quarterly figures are announced, and in magazine land, you have the HOI figures, but those appear a. only once a quarter and b. are much harder for the general public to find.
In TV, the whole nation can see whether you did well or not. As far as viewing figures are even an indication of whether something was good. I find Zomergasten a gem, but it is simply not everyone’s friend. Journalists with an insatiable hunger for schadenfreude check whether Beau is in the viewing figure top 25 or not. You are immediately weighed and held up to the light as a presenter . Not enough people watched, so it must not be good. And thus the annoying vicious spiral goes downwards. It gets written about, guests don’t want to come, which causes a program to lose urgency, and then the figures remain low. In this way, almost no one has a fair chance to climb back up. I started Boulevard, and believe me: those figures with six zeros really only came after a few months. People need to know you are there, you need to polish your program, you need the chance to grow, to mature. But that chance seems to be taken away from everyone because you immediately get a note for a bad score. It plays, even for me, unconsciously into your appreciation. If everyone likes Chateau Meiland, then you want to see that too. And if you hear from all sides that something is not scoring, you unconsciously think that it must not be good either.
Oh, I just feel bad for Beau. Because in his case, his figures are also posted on the bulletin board every day. Only, unlike my university days, it really matters to everyone in his case.
Therefore, my moral of today is: keep the viewing figures, but make them visible only to the people who really have to deal with them. Or we all just don’t watch for a while and check back in a few months. Let’s see how things stand then.
