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TV procedurals highly skew female which I was rather surprised to learn.

from tv by the numbers: http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.c...

1.00 = equal ratings for men and women 18-49, Below 1.0 = more men, Above 1.0 = more women

NCIS 1.19
NCIS:LA 1.25
CSI: Miami 1.29
CSI 1.55
CSI:NY 1.55
Criminal Minds 1.57
Law & Order 1.73
Glee 1.76
Law & Order:SVU 1.84

by comparasion in 2010, these were the only network shows to skew male:
Simpsons 0.67
Family Guy 0.68
Cleveland Show 0.71
Chuck 0.83
Fringe 0.95
24 0.97

everything else on network tv skews female. http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.c...

TV procedurals highly skew female which I was rather surprised to learn.

from tv by the numbers: http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.c...

1.00 = equal ratings for men and women 18-49, Below 1.0 = more men, Above 1.0 = more women

NCIS 1.19
NCIS:LA 1.25
CSI: Miami 1.29
CSI 1.55
CSI:NY 1.55
Criminal Minds 1.57
Law & Order 1.73
Glee 1.76
Law & Order:SVU 1.84

by comparasion in 2010, these were the only network shows to skew male:
Simpsons 0.67
Family Guy 0.68
Cleveland Show 0.71
Chuck 0.83
Fringe 0.95
24 0.97

everything else on network tv skews female. http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.c...

Worst Dr. Who episode ever.

First "track" in TFS, now you with "Dr" ... what's with all the typos, people?!

I've seen it both ways, though, you're right, more often spelled out and I was being lazy. But for you pedants... From 'Doctor Who' or 'Dr. Who'? Experts weigh in on the great name debate (and other links):

It turns out that answer isn’t especially clear-cut. The conflict comes from the fact that the BBC previously credited “Doctor Who” as “Dr. Who” during the first run of the series, and there even was a 1965 movie released called “Dr. Who and the Daleks.”

The BBC, different actors who’ve played the Doctor, and the show’s original creators have all often used ‘Dr. Who’ as an abbreviation for the show. Today more people prefer not to do that because it implies it’s the character’s name, .... I’ve noticed it’s mainly American fans who get angry about it, oddly.”

The proper title for the series is ‘Doctor Who.’ To abbreviate it is not only lazy, but it sort of misses the point. Here’s why: The lead character’s name is ‘The Doctor’ (or at least that’s the only name he goes by). From the earliest episodes back in the ’60s, when he introduced himself as ‘The Doctor,’ he was usually met with the response, ‘Doctor who?’ That’s where the series’ title comes from (as any longtime fan will be happy to tell you). When people abbreviate the title to ‘Dr. Who,’ they’re actually removing his name from the title, adding the abbreviation of a professional occupation that has nothing to do with his adventures in time and space, and suggesting that ‘Who’ is his name. (It’s not.) So it’s wrong on not one, but three, very infuriating levels.

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.c...

Actually, for several demographics, viewing times and shows, they're doing better than CNN.

However, the Fox News numbers are absolutely obscene. *shudder*

i watch sports, but ESPN is crap. it's either talk shows or niche sports like drag racing

must be a lot of drag racing fans out there.

3,259,000 Prime-time Average Viewers Week Ending June 1, 2014

[about 1/2 adults 18-49]

ESPN Wins Week With Cable Primetime Adults 18-49 & Total Primetime Viewers

First off, Ricardo Montalban wasn't exactly Othello material for "Space Seed." Secondly, I can't think of a *better* casting decision for an arrogant egomaniacal superhuman than Bandersnatch Cummerbund.

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2013/08/05/time-warner-dispute-has-minimal-impact-on-local-cbs-ratings-in-new-york-city-los-angleles-dallas/195643/

Weird. It didn't impacts its ratings in those blocked cities.

Cause if so, here's an article from August 2012, pretty much detailing the exact same thing ...

Either way, cool beans!

On that note, someone is bound to mention MSNBC, but MSNBC isn't really watched by anyone.

Uh.... I'm not entirely sure how you can say that. I mean, Fox is watched by more people. But MSNBC is watched (a little) more than CNN. It's a major news network. For those old shmucks that still watch TV.

but doesn't realize that liberals, by and large, don't "want to hear" things they "agree with" if they can't be backed up with facts

That'd be nice if it were true, but I don't think our crowd is any more immune to confirmation bias than the fascists. Just because we are, on the whole, a little more hip and our ways are better than others' doesn't mean that we're immune to common problems. Liberals can be corrupted, the masses lied to, and we can start drinking our own kool-aid to the point we no longer recognize reality. And unless we guard ourselves against that, and unless I correct you here, we'll become as bad as they are.

I think it will be good to get another International news channel into the mainstream, if that is indeed what is happening.

A few weeks ago BBC World became available on Time Warner (or at least is to be avaialble)

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2012/12/14/bbc-world-news-and-bbc-america-expand-distribution-with-time-warner-cable/161863/

Sure there are, the penultimate episodes of their seasons.

ya, dumb ass me. I was looking at starz in the listing instead of showtime. No walking dead or boardwalk empire though.

At least this is the type of mistakes i don't mind making.

Sure there are, the penultimate episodes of their seasons.

ya, dumb ass me. I was looking at starz in the listing instead of showtime. No walking dead or boardwalk empire though.

At least this is the type of mistakes i don't mind making.

Sure there are, the penultimate episodes of their seasons.

Sure there are, the penultimate episodes of their seasons.

Yep, Fox New dominates the New channel ratings.

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2012/10/31/cable-news-ratings-for-tuesday-october-30-2012/155488/

I find it interesting though. In ratings, they lump the under 25 crowd in with the over 2 years of age viewers. It's not until you hit age 25 before they don't think of you as a kid somewhere between infant and adult.

Let me as you something though... Does it yank your chain that more people like Fox News then any other station? ERR I mean that the vast majority of people in the country think differently then you?

You misspelled trial and incineration.

That's funny. :-)

BTW, I highly recommend Bruce Willis' "Surrogates" (hope that link works) which seems highly apropos.

It's not just pretty big, Fox is the largest news channel by a wide margin:

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2012/05/04/cable-news-ratings-for-thursday-may-3-2012/132406/

Four times the viewership of CNN, and more than every other news channel combined. The irony is that they use the term "mainstream media" as though they were talking about someone else.

Dude your forgetting India is where we dump our e-waste. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2071920,00.html

What did you think they would do with it?
BR> They also have built the first fully functional 35$ computer (keybaord, monitor, os,etc) , before the raspberry pie (you have to provide monitor, keyboard, etc). http://blog.zap2it.com/pop2it/2011/10/india-introduces-the-aakash-a-35-dollar-tablet-computer.html

Sure they seem haphazard in their ways http://lh6.ggpht.com/-UhCp2pPblI0/R-1DtL5owuI/AAAAAAAABEw/ZSn9PR4RDCs/P1040295.JPG

But they are a head of a few things, regardless of how they do things. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsourced_(TV_series)

"It isn't enough to just leave your toothpaste visible on top of your suitcase, it has to be visible INSIDE a clear plastic bag."

Well fuck you for even thinking clear bags are enough! Obviously you support terrorism because if you were a patriot you would not only support clear bags but clear toothpaste bottles and toothpaste. Same goes for shaving cream, shampoo, luggage, clothing and electronics. Next time I fly I will put all of my belongings into clear plastic bags and wear this: http://www.zap2it.com/news/custom/photogallery/movies/zap_seethrusuit_bruno_pg,0,5475799.photo I have nothing to hide.

well all i know is is that i turn in the tv on saturdays this time of the year and every stadium or most stadiums are packed out with 30K - 100K fans across the spectrum, not to mention all of their fans watching on television. Saturday night college football games are religiously followed. i dont have stats on me I am just going by what i observe. I did just look up tv ratings for one specific game,. LSU vs Oregon on Sept 4th

(in Millions)
8 PM, 6.45
9 PM, 8.07
10 PM, 6.73

and this is just one game, probably one of the more popular, but still those numbers are more than 2 of the regular programming shows on at 8 and always the top rankings throughout saturday night.

Why would they raise it? If anything they'd lower it, and not just to protect their profits.

Unicasting content is insanely wasteful. Even with CDNs with good placement (Akamai, etc) that's 1 unicast stream per TV. If you follow this to its logical conclusion and Netflix or some other IPTV provider usurps cable/satellite for subscription channels, what happens the next time Monday Night Football is on ESPN? They're going to stream it to unicast it to 11 million households, many of whom are going to want to do DVR things like skipping and pausing?

Multicasting is going to be around for a long, long time still. So long as it does, the cable/fiber/satellite networks are still the gatekeepers; they're not going to embrace IP multicasting when they have a perfectly good system that does the same thing.

I could say the same thing about some of the people on "your side". Maddow, Shultz, Matthews etc.

Saying "well they do it too" doesn't challenge his statement. But more to the point, you agree and don't care that "conservative" commentators are fact-challenged blowhards?

The DIFFERENCE, is that most on YOUR side want those on MY side off the air

I would argue what you would refer to as "liberals" simply want more objectivity in "conservative" opinion shows. Not that Shultz or Matthews aren't also fact-challenged blowhards (especially Shultz).

We let the FREE MARKET figure out which is best. From the ratings, I'm guessing more on MY side want to hear what "our" people are saying, than those on your side are saying. If your people are so good & honest, why are their ratings combined, lower than 90% of the people on our side? Hard to argue with ratings,

Indeed, ratings == quality, so American Idol must be the greatest show in the history of television. The fact is that comparatively speaking, very few people watch political opinion shows, regardless of political inclination. I would argue that conservative opinion shows are more engaging to their audience than liberal opinion shows are to theirs, hence the difference in total numbers.

which I suppose is why so many on your side, including some in the current administration, work so hard to try to get them knocked off the air.

You're going to need to cite that.

Oh, and as for Beck leaving his 5pm show on Fox, had you bothered to LISTEN, for the last year, he has pretty much without actually saying, he was leaving his daily show on Fox.

And I guess thats why you watch Glenn Beck in the first place if a statement like that makes sense to you. I'm sure that if Glenn Beck came out as gay you could go back and find many "hints" over the years if thats what you want to read into it.

P.S. Take a look at this list, and explain to me how all these stations are supposed to squeeze down into only 2-to-25? Basically everything above 25 has to be reassigned to a lower number. It's impossible because there's not enough space.

http://tvlistings.zap2it.com/tvlistings/ZCGrid.do?zipcode=17566

I wouldn't mind if "free" TV was replaced with "free" streaming video over internet or phone, but that's not in the plans. INSTEAD you'll have to pay ~$100 a month to replace the Free TV you lose. This is bad not just for me and my parents, but also for poor americans.

To support that: Fox News has much better ratings than MSNBC.

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_tv_tvblog/2010/04/fox-news-channel-marks-100-months-as-most-watched-cable-news-channel-nbc-nightly-news-wins-weekly-race.html

In prime time, it has 50% of all viewers of news channels, and MSNBC a paltry 20%. The top 9 programs are all Fox News programs; Olberman's and Maddow's one million viewers are a third of O'Reilly's and half of Beck's and Hannity's.

As you observer, Stewart does beat MSNBC with 1.3 million viewers, but it doesn't come near to Fox's top commentators:

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2010/11/04/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-1-in-late-night-with-adults-18-49-for-october-bests-the-tonight-show-late-night-with-david-letterman/70856

The one thing that contradicts your conclusion: none of these numbers are a substantial fraction of all voters. However, those are only nightly numbers; the total number of occasional viewers is probably at least 2 to 3 times that. And even more importantly, each one is probably (mis)informing friends and family who don't otherwise watch TV news.

Who's responsible for the guide data? Microsoft?
 
IIRC, Media Center gets its program guide from Zap2It. AFAIK, Zap2It is not owned by MS.

Huh? CBS is the highest rated broadcast network. http://tvlistings.zap2it.com/ratings/network.html

Sadly, it doesn't look too far off. I don't know who is watching it, but whoever they are, I feel simultaneously sorry for them and enraged at them inflicting more Fringe upon the world.

A very similar thing happened to Coppola a few days back:

http://www.zap2it.com/movies/news/zap-coppolascriptburgled,0,3773984.story

...and having set it and used it, I know the difference between the Zap2it XMLTV listing project and their TV site with listings...

Please...

Actually, the first thing I thought of was to just write a script to parse the data from any of a million web listings services like http://tvlistings.zap2it.com/tvlistings or http://www.tvguide.com/Listings or any of the others...I think it's so easy that even _I_ could do it.

And MythTV's recording stability is going to be seriously negatively impacted by Zap2It Labs shutting down. Yes, MythTV's dev team has stated they can go back to website scraping, but that will break every single time the website's format is slightly altered.

Don't get me wrong, I really like MythTV, but when it loses its only source of reliable guide data, I anticipate some serious problems.

They were probably getting pressure from other companies.

I had Dish Network and signed up for one of their International channels, SET (Sony Entertainment Television). A few months ago they all of a sudden dropped the listing. It wasn't showing up in my Myth box, and the option to include the data wasn't even on their site anymore. It just disappeared. I checked Dish's site and sure enough the SET listings are there and the source is even from Zap2It! So I'm assuming that Sony told Zap2It to remove their channel data from the XML feed to cut off PVR users.

Hopefully someone picks up the slack, I'd pay a few bucks a month to keep using Myth without the scraping.

--Ajay

Cable shows tend to get far less viewers than broadcast TV. Compare the top 15 cable vs. the top 20 broadcast shows for last week...

Cable shows tend to get far less viewers than broadcast TV. Compare the top 15 cable vs. the top 20 broadcast shows for last week...

Yes. Forget tv.yahoo.com.

A good alternative is tvlistings.zap2it.com. Just search for your zip code.

I used to set my family's computers homepage to yahoo. But they have since redone their TV listings so that they load like crap.

I had the same problem, especially with a recent Yahoo change that made it impossible to use the listings without registering for a FYA (Fine Yahoo Account), and so just a few days ago took the time to swith the fam(ily)net(work) to use this for tv listings now - still not great but better than the tv.yahoo.com, which no longer works anyway. The only thing I find myself using yahoo for now is to make fun of them on Slashdot.

Why don't you try KnoppMyth? It includes quite a detailed installation manual, and does the MythTV installation using Knoppix, so all the hardware drivers, remotes, etc. are basically automatic. It takes about 15 minutes. There's a free "subscription" to Zap2It Labs for daily TV listings going two weeks into the future. To renew, every 3 months you answer two survey questions about TV viewing.

My first install was with a Athlon 1.3GHz, 512Gb ram, a Hauppauge PVR-350 and an 80GB drive. It worked the first time.

I've been using it for about a year, and have since upgraded to dual 320GBs, a 40GB boot drive, and a second PVR-350. Aside from local grid power failures, it's been running nearly continuously. It's awesome. You can program/view shows over the web or your LAN; you can burn DVDs, lots more. Check it out.

The article is rather scant on details, but includes this information:

"Caprica" will be set more than 50 years prior to the events of "Battlestar Galactica" and focus on the lives of two families -- the Adamas (ancestors of future Galactica commander William) and the Graystones. Humankind's Twelve Colonies are at peace and on the verge of a technological breakthrough: the first Cylon.

As "Battlestar Galactica" is about a lot more than space battles, "Caprica" will be as much family drama as sci-fi tale.

I have mixed feelings about this spin-off. On the one hand, I have become more or less addicted to Battlestar Galactica and want something to tide me over until the third season starts. On the other hand, the plot of Caprica, as presented in this write-up, strikes me as cheesy. Is this a family feud? With billions of people in the twelve colonies, why does the Adama family need a central role in the new show? (Isn't one series enough? Was there a pre-William Adama back story in the original show or in Hatch's books? Being a BSG fan of only recent vintage, I don't know. This just reminds me of the 130-year McFly-Tannen conflict in Back to the Future.)

Battlestar Galactica is a riveting show. Hopefully its creators will achieve similar success with Caprica.

Because everyone knows that a '80s TV-G show belongs on late night 'Adult Swim'

All of which might lend Klosterman some pathos if he didn't brag so much about his heterosexual conquests and quasi-cynical manipulation of scores of alleged girlfriends. More disturbing are his obsessions with teen and pre-teen pop culture, as exemplified by a creepy essay on Saved by the Bell -- I HAVE FOUND the metaphor for everything vile in my generation, and its name is Chuck Klosterman by Mark Ames

Now they are doing a two week trial of.... shudder... Saved by the Bell during their Adult Swim Block: Adult Swim 'Saved by the Bell' (note creepy Saved by the Bell homo-erotic image used to advertise the show...)

I wonder how long before they change it to the 'C'-Network or something to de-emphasize cartoons..

Well, at least I have one more season of Venture Brothers to look forward too until they pull the plug....

It's sad though... I saw so many shows I would have missed out on because of Cartoon Network, like the great series Paranoia Agent... I'll just have to pay more attention to the Internet from now on...

I've got a Series 1 TiVo and I'm really starting to itch for some dual tuner action (without dropping $16/month in subscriber dues). My only concern with Myth is the guide data. Where do you get the guide data for Myth and is it accurate and up to date?

The same place TiVo gets its guide data. Tribune Media Services (which is what TiVo uses) runs Zap2it Labs, a free service for open-source and free-as-in-beer PVR projects that provides about two weeks' worth of listings. I've been using MythTV for maybe a year and a half now without any problems.

http://labs.zap2it.com has the guide information. I think they might have a document. They make you login every other month, so that you can maintain your account. This is how they getcha, they ask you a bunch of marketing questions. They're prolly watching what you watch, too. Then again, who cares? Queue up a whole bunch of Happy Days.

I don't like subscriptions, but even more than that I don't like being locked into a single service provider. What if, in two years, the scheduling on the Tivo service is always wrong, or the prices raise outrageously. Having the choice to switch providers is a big plus for me. Right now I use a free, web based service with my PVR.

6 out of 10 shows on the list are cable/satellite only and of those, 2 are on pay channels only. Can the big networks like ABC, CBS, and NBC compete anymore? It seems like the talent has moved elsewhere and the big three are caving in under their own weight.

The big networks are competing for higher ratings (i.e higher ad revenue), not talent... and a comparison of recent Nielsen ratings between broadcast and cable tv does not quite paint the "caving in under their own weight" picture you claim.

Of course, I rarely watch broadcast tv and agree with you that the talent is more in cable, where censorship issues are fewer... but the majority of tv watchers aren't as sophisticated as us. (grin)

6 out of 10 shows on the list are cable/satellite only and of those, 2 are on pay channels only. Can the big networks like ABC, CBS, and NBC compete anymore? It seems like the talent has moved elsewhere and the big three are caving in under their own weight.

The big networks are competing for higher ratings (i.e higher ad revenue), not talent... and a comparison of recent Nielsen ratings between broadcast and cable tv does not quite paint the "caving in under their own weight" picture you claim.

Of course, I rarely watch broadcast tv and agree with you that the talent is more in cable, where censorship issues are fewer... but the majority of tv watchers aren't as sophisticated as us. (grin)

cubicles are the most retarded invention known to the business world

That's assuming that you knew it was coming up and scheduled a recording in advance.

Mythtv does all of that automatically. You just tell it what you want to record and it has the option to record it any time, any channel and even pick a different airing if it conflicts with another show with a higher priority. I love that thing.

MythTV home page

guide info downloaded from here

Just watch out for those marathons of your favorite show...grr.

Here's my chance to blab about the PVR I built myself. It's not pretty, but it runs great.
Here are the specs: Leadtek WinFast PVR 2000 TV/FM tuner card; P4 2.8E / ASUS P4P800; onboard sound; 512MB RAM; 80GB + 120GB HD; WinXP Pro.
The software I built uses: Windows Media Encoder SDK; Visual Basic 6; PHP; FireBird; Apache.
Using VB, I wrote code that goes to Zap2It and downloads 12 days worth of TV show programming and parses it into my FireBird DB. From there I have a web front end that lets you search/sort though shows. You can choose to record one show or create a rule that would record a certain show every time it's on. It also handles scheduling conflicts by prioritizing rules and doesn't record a show if it's been previously recorded.
The back end is a VB app that runs all the time and checks the FireBird DB for the next show to be recorded. When it finds one and it's time to start recording it issues a command line request to the Windows Media Encoder to start recording on channel x for x number of seconds. The size and audio/video bitrate are set using the encoder's profile editor.
The profile settings I use consist of: Windows Media Audio 9.1/Video 9; VBR quality base of 90 (usually has a video bitrate of just over 1000kbps); Video size 320 x 240. At these settings the CPU uses about 20% and 1hr worth of video is about half a GB.
I play the shows by streaming them to the Xbox running xbmc.
I also have a command line script that runs every night and deletes any shows that are older than 15 days. If I haven't watched it by then, it's not worth watching.
This setup has worked great for me for the last year. The next step would be to replace the whole setup with MythTV. I'd have the back end on my computer and the front end on the Xbox.

I guess it's a matter of taste, to me it looked much better than some much more expensive movies. Some reviewers, like this one, were actually upset that it looked too polished--that it had lost it's TV retro feel. The director gives a lot more background on Jack Green's work in this interview and this book.

Because then you would be competing with TiVo. I've got a myth setup going and it's fecking awesome. It also took a ton of time to get working, but that was mostly because I'm using a shitty old Compaq and had non-MythTV related setup problems.

So even if these systems were all set up nicely by, say, Phillips, there are still tons of maintenance issues with MythTV. First off, there is the problem of channel listings. In North America Zap2It has been nice enough to offer free (with registration) listings to Myth users, and many other countries are left to scrape webpages for their listings with XMLTV. Then you come to the problem of tuners for different signal types... e.g. North America vs. Europe...and last but not least, cost. You are using generic components for a very specific task, this does not make things cheap. It is almost impossible to get TiVo size, style, and functionality for the price of a TiVo, starting from scratch...but for many geeks, and Do It Yourselfers, it's quite rewarding and worth it in the long run.