This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I don't know much about sports. But I've looked into TV ratings quite a bit and frankly I just don't trust them.
The main player is still Nielsen. There are competitors, but they're the mainstay, especially for US ratings (which are the most valuable to advertisers). And most of that data is still collected from people who voluntarily agree to be part of their measurement program. You can't volunteer for it, they have to approach you, perhaps by sending you something in the mail. They try to adjust for all demographics, but how could they? They have some device that they claim can listen to the audio and determine what you're watching but... I really doubt it's all that accurate. There are obvious questions like
and they just don't have valid answers for those. It's a rough measurement. They still ask people to fill out self-reports in booklets, you can imagine how accurate that would be. See this thread for some details: https://old.reddit.com/r/cordcutters/comments/11hd2sf/how_the_neilson_ratings_work_with_streaming_by_an/
So, I dunno. Maybe the women's college basketball finals attracts more of the sort of people chosen to be Nielsen families? Not that word, "families," they're probably not asking a lot of single guys hanging out at dive bars to gamble on whatever sports are on. It seems weirdly specific that people would be so into women's college basketball but not the WNBA.
I think they’ve spent decades trying to weight their viewership metrics with real data on who is actually watching TV. It’s probably flawed in some ways but I’m sure the issues you’ve thought about have been considered.
It’s kind of like how, say, young men are very unlikely to spend 20 minutes on a landline survey poll asking about political candidates, even though (despite low turnout) many millions of young men still vote. Polling orgs know this and correct extensively for it, not just by weighting the men they get but by adjusting for the kind of views young men who do answer the call might disproportionately have.
they try and correct for that. They still frequently get it wrong. There are multiple, competing polling organizations with different methods, which are mostly open-source, and are ultimately checked by the election itself where you got to find out who was right. TV ratings have none of that, it's just a black box where Nielsen swears that "we've got it figured out, don't you worry your pretty little head" and there's no objective test to see if they were right.
Nielsen is checked by reality. Since modern internet-connected cable boxes, certainly since streaming, companies have had the ability to compare Nielsen figures with the real number of screens. Sure, channels are often reluctant to sell those figures directly to advertisers unless they’re very good, and Nielsen knows household formation (ie number of viewers per household) in a way that Netflix doesn’t necessarily, but there are people in the industry who get both sets of figures. If they were way off Nielsen would probably know. They hire ex-streaming executives who know the figures.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
First off, this would be the same methodology and population sampled as in previous years, so whether the total magnitude is correct the change should be relatively close.
I think there are a few contributing factors.
She really is an incredibly annoying player. Constantly taunting opponents, instigating conflict, plays dirty, then acts like the victim when there's ever any blowback.
Hard disagree. I tuned in late, but that foul that caused her to foul out in that Iowa game was was very questionable in my opinion, and I thought she handled that much more maturely than star college athletes usually do. I did tune in late though, and I'm sucker for those eyelashes.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Not if they're measuring a relatively small number of people, who change from year to year, and then wildly extrapolate from that with a methodology that also changes from year to year!
More broadly: It seems like that one particular basketball game is an outlier. Most of their games are in the 2-4 million range. Still great ratings, but not the same as 12 million. I guess people really love that LSU-Iowa rivalry? Seems weirdly specific to me, but then I'm not the kind of guy watching basketball.
Yes pretty much haha. Caitlin Clark drives huge ratings, and with LSU and Iowa meeting in the championship last year and driving a ton of interest, it was not shocking at all for it to have a seismic rating.
More options
Context Copy link
LSU & Iowa were the two most popular women's teams of the last few years. That basically explains it.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link