User blog comment:Paul.rea/Teen Wolf News 091014/@comment-75.76.109.2-20140914045858/@comment-75.76.109.2-20140914150918

You're talking about a company whose statistical analysis forms the basis upon which TV networks make money. It is unreasable to conclude that they are ignoring the potential revenue streams of alternate viewing. But before we get excited about alternate viewing methods, it should be pointed out that ad revenue is the engine which drives television.

TV networks have not yet found a way to make any real money from these alternate revenue streams you mention. iTunes is a separate revenue model altogether from advertising, so ad buyers do not care about iTunes. DVR doesn't matter a whole lot because people who watch via DVR tend to avoid the commercials. Streaming online doesn't excite networks either because in order to break even with broadcast revenue, they would have to either run 4x the ads (and alienate viewers) or charge 4x as much (which adverstisers are not interested in paying).

We are in the midst of a paradigmatic shift in viewing habits, but what the new models will be are still taking shape. This means that we are stuck with the older model for the time being and that means traditional ratings still determing the life and death of a television show. The problem has less to do with Nielsen's ability (or willingness) to keep up and more to do with the overall flux.

You are also making a counterintuitive argument. On one hand, you make an argument for a trend using traditional ratings data. On the other, you argue that the data you used to make the analysis isn't valid due to deep flaws.

Your analyitical approach in comparing season averages allows you to reach your trend conclusion, but it obscures a more detailed picture which can be gleaned from a closer look at Teen Wolf's numbers per episode.

Season four opened with 2.18 million viewers. That viewership collapsed by nearly 30% to 1.55 the very next week. An argument that this occurred mainly because viewers switched viewing methods cannot be seriously entertained.

If we look at the numbers, the ratings remain in the balpark of the second episode ratings until the "big reaveal" in episode ten. The ratings for that episode was 1.44. The next week, the number cratered again to 1.29 (or 10.4%) for the penultimate episide.

Looking at the numbers from this approach points to something not at all in line with your premise. That is, the narrative weakness of season four of Teen Wolf is the primary reason for the decline in numbers. Certainly viewership trends played a role in the fluxuating numbers, but to claim that it is the primary reason strikes me as obfuscatory.