American Media: First It Was Fake News and Now It’s Fake Ratings
The major networks have been caught in the act. We knew they fabricated news but now we learn that they have been fabricating their ratings as well. There is a glitch that Nielsen has allowed to remain open even though they knew about it. It seems that a news station that knows it’s ratings were low would submit the name of the show misspelled.
For example NBC Nightly News. They would submit it as NBC Nitely News and the poor ratings would be placed under a header by itself. This is theft by deception. Advertisers by time based on the ratings of the station and by dumping two bad nights, they can force advertisers to pay more than they should because of the false ratings.
“The retitling of ‘NBC Nightly News’ fooled Nielsen’s automated system, which listed ‘Nitely’ as a separate show,” The Wall Street Journal reported. “Hiding the May 26 program from Nielsen dramatically improved the show’s average viewership that week. Instead of falling further behind first-place rival ‘ABC World News Tonight,’ NBC news narrowed the gap.”
This seedy technique has been used by NBC at least 14 times since the start of the current TV season. The same applies for CBS, which has employed the trick 12 times, and ABC, which has used it 7 times.
Apparently, it’s commonplace for the liberal media to create fake ratings to complement their fake news. It’s no wonder so few Americans take them seriously anymore.
Nielsen has been aware of this trick for years but has chosen to willingly allow it to be used.
“It’s a little bit of gamesmanship,” said Bill Carroll, a veteran TV industry consultant. “It’s a practice that happens with a wink and a nod.”
What’s changed is the frequency.
“Networks never used to do this,” added Billie Gold, director of programming at ad giant Dentsu Inc., noting that what used to be a rarity is now customary; which is why Nielsen is finally taking action.
