Nielsen Ratings

[Campe]

Short of the Cushman books, is there a breakdown of the number of viewers Star Trek received from 1966 to 1969? I'd prefer the numbers to be by episode but by season would be fine as well.

I'm attempting to put together a project that shows number of viewers for the entirety of the fifty years of Star Trek. Granted, a lot of that work has already been done for me but I can't seem to find any information about the original series. My thesis is while there have been brushes of mainstream popularity in Star Trek, particularly with TMP, TVH and TNG (and of course the JJ films), the series has always had a relatively niche audience.

I know that in the 1960s, the only numbers that were released were for the top 30 programs and Star Trek never fell into that category. So, if I were to go with Cushman's books for the numbers, while I realize the analysis is way off base, are the numbers acceptable? And also, while today, a ratings point is approximate to 1,156,000 viewers, has that number changed since the 60s?

I would truly appreciate any help.

 

[Harvey]

Cushman's numbers are real, but with one exception (see here), they are not the full, national Nielsen ratings (which were measured every two weeks, not weekly). Instead, the ratings in his books are a mix of ratings measured from the top thirty TV markets (Multi Network Area ratings) and even smaller samples (overnights). They're also from three different ratings services (Nielsen, Trendex, Arbitron), which measured audiences in different ways.

Star Trek did better in metropolitan areas, so the numbers are a little skewed as a result. For your purposes, they'll probably do, though. Just don't mistake any of the TVQ numbers he includes as audience measurement numbers (Saturn Award winning, folks!).

If I ever manage to cozy up to someone at Nielsen, I'll see what I can do about getting the true National Nielsen ratings (the NTI, National Television Index). But, I wouldn't wait up.

 

[erastus25]

If I ever manage to cozy up to someone at Nielsen, I'll see what I can do about getting the true National Nielsen ratings (the NTI, National Television Index). But, I wouldn't wait up.

Edit: Do we know if any publications of the time included the full NTI ratings? Should be possibly to dig them up in a library.

 

[Campe]

Thanks, Harvey!

 

[Harvey]

If I ever manage to cozy up to someone at Nielsen, I'll see what I can do about getting the true National Nielsen ratings (the NTI, National Television Index). But, I wouldn't wait up.

Edit: Do we know if any publications of the time included the full NTI ratings? Should be possibly to dig them up in a library.

I'm not aware of any publications that printed the national television ratings on a regular basis. What information I do have has been culled from archival sources at UCLA, as well as a handful of issues of Variety, Broadcasting, and Television Magazine. It's very much a partial picture, however.

I'd love to be surprised by a better source or sources, though!

 

[Franklin]

Below I've given the link to an interesting article about the ratings. Oddly, there's no author given, but it is well-researched with a nice bibliography.

This piece says that TOS's ad price dropped from $39,000 a spot to $36,000 a spot for season three. It says that at the end of the season, NBC was actually quite happy with the show's ratings in the 18 to 49 demographic (it made up 43% of the show's audience -- which was a positive because a youth movement was going on in shows, then). The problem was, shows like "Bewitched" had a smaller percentage of their audience in the younger demographic (36%), but still had more younger viewers watching in aggregate because it had higher overall ratings than TOS did. Although TOS and "Bewitched" didn't air against each other, the point is, the actual numbers of younger folks watching was more important than the percentage of a show's viewers they made up. So TOS was very popular with coveted younger viewers, but still couldn't make it on that alone because the actual number of viewers watching was still too small.

As has been pointed out in other places, the problem as well was TOS's ratings fell every season.

Link to story:
http://www.tvobscurities.com/articles/star_trek_look/