BUTV '98: Those were the days

It's been 10 years since my little pre-information-explosion experiment, Barnhart's Unauthorized TV 98, was published. At the time I was trying to make a mark, and make a buck, by bringing to light a lot of the then-obscure statistical research that explained why certain TV shows get made and not other ones, and why certain TV shows get cancelled and other ones renewed.

I wrote in the intro: "Barnhart’s Unauthorized TV ’98 attempts to be a comprehensive guide to the 1998–99 television season, with capsule reviews of each of the 123 prime-time programs on the broadcast schedule this fall, as well as selected cable, syndicated and late-night fare. It attempts to perforate much of the hype that accompanies a fall season rollout, hype that I believe harms the broadcast industry in the long run because it makes viewers more cynical and, as they say, cable-ready."

It was a ridiculous amount of work, and while I sold several hundred copies and made a small profit, mostly I was paid back in attention. Randy Rothenberg wrote a whole column about it in Advertising Age, and other critics were kind to it as well. I was invited on WGN Radio to talk TV on "Extension 720," a show I'd idolized since college. Earlier that same day, Gene Siskel had gathered a crowd around him at Barbara's Bookstore in Chicago to hawk copies of BUTV 98. A then little-known TV writer named Lee Aronsohn won the reader contest to name the book: he was the one who thought of calling it "unauthorized" (since, strictly speaking, I hadn't come by my Nielsen numbers through official sources). He went on to co-create a little show called "Two and a Half Men," so even if he's still little-known, he's not little-paid.

What I only dimly knew then, but soon became obvious after BUTV 98's publication, was that TV shows would soon stop airing least objectionable content, that demographics would take over the game of audience measurement, that cable TV would one day drink broadcast's milkshake ... and that the tsunami of data and blogging and online video would one day render projects like mine completely irrelevant.

Still, it was fun while it lasted. And I did a good job, I think, considering I was working with PageMaker and printouts of Nielsen ratings.

But judge for yourself.

Download BUTV 98 (800KB PDF)

Comments

[That Neil Guy]

Wow. That means I've been hanging around the Barn for ten years...