Quote:whats sad is it's it more than the ratings... like in sports we gauge players on particular stats that are relative to the position... television is driven by advertisement which looks at ratings as its main statistic...the day companies, who pay for the adds, concentrate more on content of the program rather than ratings is the day media will have to change their whole approach... sadly the most important part of advertisement is size of audience reached so rating will always be the most important stat.... thats why a billboard on 95 that is going to be seen by 90k cars a day is more expensive than one way down us1 that may see 10k if its lucky.

That's never going to happen.  The bottom line is the bigger ticket advertisers want to maximize exposure to their products, so they're going to advertise where the ratings are.  That's why you don't see major advertisers running endless commercials at certain times of day, or on certain stations. 

 

The networks recognize who has the deepest pockets, and they are going to cater their broadcasting to take advantage of the bigger advertising dollars.  In order to do that, they have to have ratings to back it up.  Companies aren't going to market a product with big dollar campaigns on a network that nobody is watching.  So, major beer and drink companies are going to put their money into ESPN, while Sham Wow and the Slap Chop are going to be dominating the Fern Network advertising. 

 

Ratings drive everything in TV, and James is the biggest name in the NBA, and arguably one of the biggest names in pro sports.  As long as that's the case, networks like ESPN are going to cover him like a blanket.  They know it will draw in the fans. 

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