Archive for January, 2010
NEWS MAGAZINE A TYPE OF TV PROGRAM
By admin on January 27th, 2010
NEWS MAGAZINE A TYPE OF TV PROGRAM
A news magazine is a TV program, usually weekly, featuring articles or segments on current events. New magazines often go more profoundly into stories than newspaper or television news, trying to give the reader an understanding of the context surrounding important events, rather than just the facts.
In radios, news magazines are akin to television news magazines. In radio newscasts, which are typically about five minutes in length, radio news magazines can run from 30 minutes up to three hours or more.
On the other hand, news magazines provide a similar service to print news magazines, but their stories are presented as short television documentaries rather than written articles. These broadcasts serve as an alternative in covering certain issues more comprehensively than regular newscasts. Television news magazines provide several stories not seen on regular newscasts, including celebrity profiles, coverage of big business, hidden camera techniques, better international coverage, exposing and correcting injustices, detailed coverage of a headline story, and hot topic interviews.
In the U.S, television news magazines were very popular in the 1990, since they were a cheap and easy to better utilize the investment in network news departments. Television news magazines once aired five nights a week on most television networks. However, with success of reality shows, news magazines have largely been displaced. Hence, the audience once attracted to news magazine shows has largely drifted to cable where common news magazines topics such as nature, science, celebrities, and politics all have their channels.
Like all TV programs, new magazines are also geared towards educating the audience and also bringing information to the hearts of people. Its advantage is that it is very dynamic touching all the areas of human experience. It can also be seen as an advanced way of broadcasting to higher people mainly adult.
HOW CABLE TV RATINGS ARE COLLECTED
By admin on January 21st, 2010
HOW CABLE TV RATINGS ARE COLLECTED
The Nielsen Company uses random sampling to get a wide cross-section of people grouped in different age, ethnic, geographic and other demographic categories. This helps create a more accurate estimate of the larger number of people across the greater population watching a program when selecting candidates to participate in the ratings surveys.
Nielsen has two main ways of collecting information from TV viewers. The first is through meters connected to TVs in the homes of people who are selected and agree to take part. The meters record minute by minute data on which programs and channels are being watched at any given time in the household, and by which members of that household. That information is relayed back to Nielsen each night via modem, compiled and sent to cable networks as well as broadcast networks and affiliates, each morning for the overnight ratings. The meters also track which programs are recorded with DVDs and watched up to a week later. Nielsen has made a deal with charter communications to receive data directly from the cable box/DVDs, and is looking to do the same with other cable providers as well, though that can only track what is being watched and not who is watching. In addition, during the four sweeps months, November, February, May and July Nielsen selects additional people to keep dairies of their TV viewing habits for one week. These diaries are mailed back and added into the ratings.
Having compiled the data, cable networks analyze the ratings points and the demographic makeup of their viewership and use the information to set the advertising rates they charge sponsors during specific programs, and at given time periods. The numbers are also used to gauge the popularity of their shows to help them decide which shows to keep airing and where the strengths and weaknesses of their schedules are.