Ask "The Vidiot"

Hey folks-
I'll be producing a weekly/bi weekly column on all things related to Sports Media. http://www.buffalobillsinsider.com/vidiot_3_4_2.html

Sports on TV, radio, the dish, and even the Internet. If you have any questions that are sports media related, TV ratings related, TV products, video game related, etc.... I will be glad to answer. It will be a part of my "Mailbag" segment. I can't guarantee all questions will appear in the column, but I will try.

Post a question here, send me a private message, or send it to Dozerdoggy@aol.com. Looking forward to it!

Vidiot is a derivitive of Video and Idiot- the Vidiot!!

Please drop in another nickle and ask another question please!!....

[BogusTrumper]

Vidiot,

I had a really big conflict on Thursday night because I couldn't decide whether to watch Friends or Survivor.

If I have a dish, a dvd player, and a vcr hooked up to my tv can I watch a show off the dish and record another one on the vcr?

I would send the cast of Freinds to the latest Survivor site... Afghanistan!! The first challenge would be to have the cast run across a Taliban mine field chased by al-Qaida renegades.

I need more info. Do you have cable? Or do you use an external antenna (Rabbit Ears) for local stations? Do you have more than 1 Satelite receiver? If you just use the satelite dish and have only 1 Satelite receiver, you may be out of luck.

Remember this ......

Freinds don't let Freinds............watch Freinds!!! :landmine:

LOL@Dozer! :D

Remember this.....

Friends don't let Friends........mispell Freinds! lol :D

Friends don't let friends misspell misspell! ;)

[BogusTrumper]

Vid -- you have a point. I ended up watching them on side by side tvs at the gym. It's a woman only gym and I think six out of the eight tvs were playing Friends. But I had the same situation on Sunday night when I couldn't decide between X-Files and Six Feet Under. I have one satelite and an antenna for local channels. How much is it going to cost my husband to get the second dish because frankly I'm sick of Hockey.

Well, The X- Files WILL be six feet under after this season- It's not beeing renewed.

Some dishes can handle more than one receiver. Check with your local Circuit City or Best Buy on product information.....
$300- $500 maybe? But what is money while trying to keep a marriage together

please tell me they're not canceling dr. quinn on the odyssey network! PLEEEEEEEEAAAAASSSSEEEE!!!!!

Hey, EE

International Federation Of Competitive Eating (http://www.ifoce.com/index.html) (IFOCE) sanctiones all major eating competitions in the USA. They were the governing body behind Glutton Bowl

My Favorite "Breaking News" on their website- Kobe Downs 50 at Nathan's - Amercian eating community staggered

Here are some of their competition recods--

IFOCE Records

Chicken Wings
137 chicken wings
30 minutes
Bill "El Wingador" Simmons
January 26, 2001

Hamburgers
11 ¼ quarter-pound Willys Garage Cloud Burgers
10 minutes
Donald Lerman
November 10, 2001

Ice Cream
1 gallon, 9 ounces of Max & Mina's vanilla ice cream
12 minutes
Edward "Cookie" Jarvis
October 26, 2001

Jalapenos
152 jalapenos
15 minutes
Jed Donahue
February 21, 2001

Jello
121 ounces
90 seconds
Steven M. Lakind
July 27, 2000

Mince Pie
2 ½ pounds mince pie
30 seconds
Peter Dowdeswell
2000

Three-Course Meal
1 pint oxtail soup, 1 pound mash potato, ½ pound sausage,
½ pound baked beans, 40 prunes
45 seconds
Peter Dowdeswell
June 2001

Read all about your favorite glutton's in this month's Gurgitator - on news stands now!!!
http://www.buffalobillsinsider.com/graffitiboard/attachment.php3?s=&postid=88340

[JetMoses]

The NFL's television policy sucks, and because of a quirk in geography, Bills fans all the way out to Syracuse and beyond get screwed.

You can always watch the Jets!

:angel1:


Hey, how do I get to put a cool picture under my name, like everybody else does? That mug of beer is lame. Also, I'd like to update my profile. I've got problems, and you can solve them.
It takes a village. Thanks in advance!

JetMoses-
First- ANY mug of beer is not lame! What's wrong with you, man? If you must change tour Avatar,(the pic under your name) go to the top of the hardcore forum.

1-Click on the button "User CP"
2-Click on edit optoions
3-At the bottom of the page, you can select over 700 avatars ( be original!) or you can have your custom avatar.

If you chose a custom avatar, it has to be 100X100 pixels. The folllowing link explains how to shrink a picture to that size

http://www.buffalobillsinsider.com/graffitiboard/showthread.php3?s=&threadid=9818

As far as your problems- I say hevily medicate followed with binge drinking. :D

MR Blutarski- GPA of 0.0

Put the Deltas on Double secret probation!!

[BillsNYC]

i have a question too! when are they gonna start running ALF reruns????

Originally posted by BillsNYC
i have a question too! when are they gonna start running ALF reruns???? Alf reruns are currently available on the Hallmark Channel. Every Saturday Morning at 6 AM ET/PT you can see back to back episodes. Next Saturday morning features ex-Jet HoF QB Willie Joe Namath!

Unfortunatly, The Hallmark Channel is not currently available on Cablevision in Long Beach. But it is available on Time Warner in Manhattan on ch 107. For Dish owners, you can find it on Ch 312 (Direct TV) or 185 (Dish Network).

http://www.buffalobillsinsider.com/graffitiboard/attachment.php3?s=&postid=100407

[BillsNYC]

I'M GETTING DISH NETWORK!!!!! YEAH!!!!!!!!!! ALF, HERE I COME!

Dr. Quinn on the odyssey network. LOL

Is that really a good show? I presume you're being facetious...

Dozer,

"I would send the cast of Freinds to the latest Survivor site... Afghanistan!! The first challenge would be to have the cast run across a Taliban mine field chased by al-Qaida renegades."

At least they wouldn't have to worry about voting anyone off! :D

[Mouldsie]

uh, can you help me with my math homework......:-)

As long as you do it in front of the TV.......

[Mouldsie]

I am undecided, should I keep Compuserve as my ISP or transfer over to AOL and still recieve my $300 rebate I am still fulfilling my contract with either ISP since they are owned by the same company???

Also, Are you my Mommy?

[Mouldsie]

And can I get a cable modem and use it without paying adelphia, and will it work with the ISP you choose for me?

Uh....Ummmm....... OK....., Little Johnny has 3 apples and he easts one. 3 apples minus 1 apple equals 2 apples.

OK- you can't use any cable modem unless the cable company comes to your home to hook it up. If you purchased or obtained a cable modem on your own, you might not have to pay for the hardware itself but Adelphia will still charge you for access.

If you have high speed internet access from Adelphia (or the phone company, or satelite, ect) AOL has a plan. It is called BYOA (bring your own access) for 14.95 a month unlimited use.

Check with your internet provider and give AOL a call about the details on your rebate.

No, I'm not your mommy. You were adopted from the circus.

[Mouldsie]

ic,

How can I hook up Xbox with surround sound?

[Mouldsie]

and that is all i need to know for today.

Yellow video wire into Yellow video input on TV
Red Audio wire into red AV Input on TV
White Audio wire to White AV input on TV

Read your instruction manual



Michael Abrash unveiled a lot of XBOX details at GDC conference. Michael Abrash has worked with John Carmack on Quake graphics engine, and John responded about this man as about a person who is on the same level of programming skill as he is. Michael is an author of several books about computer graphics programming: Zen of Graphics Programming, Zen of Code Optimization, Graphics Programming Black Book. At the moment Michael works for Microsoft in XBOX development gpoup.

GDC (Game Developer Conference) - annual conference of game developers, where programmers, artists, marketing managers and a lot of other people related to game development gather together.

General Facts

General specifications of XGPU are well known - you will definitely find those in a lot of advertising prospects in the future:

250 Mhz
125Mtris/se
4GPix/sec
Procedural vertex and pixel shading
Antialiasing
It was especially detached, that in this case it is necessary to make an emphasis not on bare numbers, but on programmability of the chip and the fact that perfomance is limited not by the chip, but peak memory bandwidth.

DirectX will be used as API of Microsoft`s console. There is no anything unexpected in this statement, however, NVIDIA will also support OpenGL as well. Actually it is not the same DirectX 8 as on PC. Once again we remind you that with XBOX it is not necessary to worry about maximal compatibility with wide range of hardware or about other programs and services of OS. Therefore DirectX was optimized for the specific hardware. All the redundant modules providing compatibility were removed; all delays between hardware and software parts were optimized as much as possible; the opportunity of access to all features of the hardware equipment was also provided. That has resulted in the greater responsibility of game developers - XBOX architecture is more vulnerable to software bugs.

Vertex processing

As you probably should know geometry processing is implemented as a pipeline (refer to GeForce Review è Radeon Review, DirectX 8 Preview). In a case with XGPU there are two separate pipeline stages: VertexShader and TriangleSetup. (DirectX7 hardware T&L allocate more separate pipeline stages: transformation, lighting + texture coordinates generation, TriangleSetup.)

VertexShader is able to perform "2 dot product operations per clock cycle" and "4 or even six instructions per clock" - maybe more simple instructions. How it is correlated with perfomance of current chips will be shown below. The declared figures of productivity show us a deviation from DirectX8 ideology when it is declared that any operation in Vertex/Pixel Shader is executed in one clock cycle.

TriangleSetup is capable to process one triangle per 2 clock cycles, it means we get 125 millions triangles per second at 250 Mhz core frequency. This is the value, XBOX applications cannot jump over. If we compare this value to the performance of current chips providing triangle setup for approximately 30 million triangles we will notice that XGPU T&L gives huge perfomance increase.

We should note that in most of the times geometrical perfomance of XGPU will be limited by VertexShader, because minimal code for vertex transformation, which does not perform any lighting procession compares of 5 instructions:

; Transform position
dp4 oPos.x, r0, c0
dp4 oPos.y, r0, c1
dp4 oPos.z, r0, c2
dp4 oPos.w, r0, c3
; Move constant color
mov oD0, c4

Those instructions cannot be performed faster than in 2 passes, which is enough for triangle calculations by TriangleSetup module. We get perfomance of 125 millions of triangles per second.

In order to limit the perfomance by TriangleSetup module, a special example of code is needed:

1) The code of VertexShader should be minimal (as an example shown above).
2) The processed mesh should be well optimized, when the number of vertexes to the number of triangles relation is less than 1 (this relation can reach the value of 0.6 vertexes/triangle). Generally, such cases are very seldom in the real life.

Examples of more realistic situations were also given:

1 infinite light source, 1 texture: ~85Mtris/sec
1 infinite light source, 2 textures: ~70Mtris/sec
1 infinite light source, 2 point light sources, 2 textures: ~20Mtris/sec
To talk about the functionality, we notice further retreat from DirectX8 standards in quantitative limitations of VertexShader maximal size and the number of accessible constants. For instance, in DirectX8 the maximal size of vertex shader is 128 instructions and 96 constants, in case of XBOX these values enlarged to 136 and 192 accordingly.

PixelShader

4GPix/second
Powerful procedural shading
4 texture stages feed register combiners
Programmable per-pixel effects
4 pipelines @250MHz: 1GPix/sec max pixel shading rate
It may seem that first and last quotes contradict with each other. Actually, 4Gpix/sec is not a fill rate. 4GPix/sec is the speed of invisible pixels rejection using Z-buffer test. So, we can see that it checks 16 pixels on visibility per clock. Thus in ideal case (when it is necessary to fill only each fourth pixel) we receive our treasured 4GPix/sec.

PixelShader capabilities are the same as on GeForce3.

Compressed, mipmapped 3D textures
True reflective bump mapping
True dependent textures (lookup tables)
Full 3x3 transform coupled with cubemap or 3D texture lookup
16-bit-per-component normal maps
Z-sprites
It is also important to mention that despite of maximum fillrate equals to 1GPix/sec in simple cases, the speed can fall to 100 Mpix/s in comlpex scenes (i.e. diffuse light with reflective bump-mapping).

Conclusion

To sum up, the new information above just confirms old rumours about doubled power of T&L in XGPU in comparison to GeForce3 and also that XGPU and NV20 architectures have a lot in common.
http://search.aol.com/redirect.adp?appname=QBP&query=%e6%ab%b3%b3%8c%32%71%22%ff%f8%d7%46%7f%7e%8 0%54%fb%3d%86%df%91%d6%c1%cb%b2%e4%5d%9f%2b%6d%e2% 2d%23%91%a8%31%b7%29%69%6d%e9%19%1b%76%1b%47%c2%7a %a5%09%d7%3e%d8%db%ce%00%11%5c%ce%62%b6%10%5d%d7%5 2%e7%a6%aa%23%31%ad%69%94%b6%b6%01%7f%f5%5d%3f%32% 68%8f%60%2d%ec%43%c9%b9%39%ef%3d%9e%e8%d3%cc%b1%ab %2c%99%04%0b%b5%6d%3b%57%ae%16%6b%00%ab%8a%e8%5d%2 5%e9%44%ca%6c%54%64%88%43%5b%b9%77%01%50%ec%ec%5c% 57%98%37%cb%ae

[Mouldsie]

i know how to hook it up and get sound in my tv speakers, but how can i get it hooked up with surround speakers? i think i need an s-audio(s-something not sure what it is called) socket. i want to watch my dvd's with surround sound!

YOU HAVE TO KNOW, YOU SEEM TO KNOW EVERYTHING!

[Mouldsie]

Please Help, do you know how much it will cost me to drive a few miles down the road to ask a professional??? <b> At least $1.28!!!</b> because i will need gas and a candy bar!!!!

Does your surround sound receiver have A/V inputs? use those the same way!

Get me a six pack while you're out....

[Mouldsie]

okay, what do you like? you do mean soda don't you:-)? cuz u know this board can be read by people of all ages;-)!

:pepsi:

Nevermind- I ran out and just made a beer run

[Mouldsie]

DID YOU GET SOME DUFF BEER?

[Mouldsie]

are you really in Springfield? If so, what is the escalator leading to nowhere and the bottomless pit like?

Springfield Mass- Home of the Springfield Falcons, Mr Burns, a big assed powerplant, and donut eating cops.

The bottomless pit is my dog Dozer's stomach-the escalator to nowhere is my property tax bill....

[Mouldsie]

lol

[Mouldsie]

Do you have a pet fish with 3 eyes?

[BillsNYC]

mvick....do you have a surround sound receiver? if so plug the red and white cords from your xbox into the back of that and the yellow cord into the tv as you usually would.

[BillsNYC]

hey dozer,

in the paper today...ALF is getting his own talkshow!!!

What paper? Give us a link!!

Alf is also doing 10-10-2-20 adds with Terry Bradshaw. They traded one short, goofy hairstyled '80s icon (flutie) for another (alf)!

[BillsNYC]

don't you mean one has-been for another?

I have a question for you...

I am a fan of that new Fox Series...Gregg the Bunny and I was wondering if you knew if they are going to keep it or dump it?

The show has only aired 2 or 3 episodes. But the time slot they gave it is the Kiss of death. 9:30 Wednseday nights opposite 3 tough shows.

NBC's "West Wing" is a perrenial top 10 show, and a repeat drew a 9.1 rating(9 million Viewers)

CBS' "Amazing Race" was a distant second with a 5.6

ABC's Underapreciated "The Job" with Dennis Leary was third at 4.8

"Greg the Bunny" rolled in at 4.1. It is way to early to tell if they will dump the show. You got to remember, 80% of TV shows rarely will last more than 1-2 seasons.

Whenever you have a show that starts on the half hour, you really need to have a strong "Lead in " show that will keep the viewers attention. While Fox's "Bernie Mac" show has some respectable numbers (4.8), It is mainly due to the ethnic following of the show. It does not translate well to the make up of "greg the Bunny" auduience.

If i were Fox, once X-Files hits the dust, it would be a nice fit on Sunday's line up

What about the Embassy? I heard that they already dropped that. Could this mean that Gregg the Bunny will be dropped too? I like Gregg...but I'd rather watch West Wing. It's a very good show. Gregg the Bunny would be a perfect show, right after the Simpsons IMHO. What do you think?

The Embassy Sucked- and it was expensive to make. That is why it is gone.

I have yet to see Greg the Bunny- but I don't see the correlation of why they would drop it because they dropped another show on another night.

If it makes money, it will stay. If it doesn't, it will go. Greg the Bunny is a cheap to make show. I'll give it at least a season.

[BillsNYC]

hey dozer.....how is sat. night live doing in the ratings?

Earthquake- I have no Idea what happened to that show

BillsNYC- Saturday night Live has been a steady cult classic. It has averaged around a 5.5- 6 rating during first run shows. (About 6 Million households) during the first half hour. Like Monday night football, it declines quickly after midnight. It is still king of the late night Saturday network time slot.

Hey- you want to grab a beer at happy hour Friday? Name the place, dude!

[BillsNYC]

sure.....whats the easiest neighborhood for ya...and what kinda place you want?

BTW- Molly Shannon and Chris Oteri have left the cast as of feb.

It's your town dude, I'll leave that up to you. Any other Bills Backers around?

[BillsNYC]

ummm..let me thinks about it...i think we can talk billsfanone into a beer too.....maybe we should post something....

ABSOLUTLY!!!


Get BlackRockBills down there to!

[BillsNYC]

i emailed him....he's not sure if he can make it. i was thinking maybe murphys on 52nd and 2nd. nice irish pub that won't be too crowded....great guinness on tap too!

I think I've been to Murphy's before- great place....

I'll PM you thursday evening about details...

[BlackRockBills]

Hey Vidiot aka Dozerdoggy:

Nice place ya got here, all the way out in the Asylum, where the walls are phosphorescent green. Nice!

Just wanted to say your last column was informative - I didn't know that BBI got a national radio shout out! Thanks for the reporting. You're a good writer.

(Sorry I never made it to Murphy's - my friends from Black Rock didn't get into the Federal District where I live until about 3:30 AM on Saturday morning. That's a long ride from Buffalo.)

Thanks Spidey!!

[dan-buff-fan]

if u enjoy shooting down war plaines or layin down some flak ive i got the site 4 you.http://fallenangelfa0.tripod.com/ and be sure to go to the recruiter's section and fill out a form ....

[BillsNYC]

yo dozer,

talk to me about the simpsons. how have their ratings fared over the years....where were the high;s and lows....how do reruns do?

The Simpsons failed to make the top 20 syndicated programs (reruns) for the first time this year. But they will be a staple on TV for years to come.

Last Sunday's Incrdible Hulk Episode garnered a 4.3 rating and an 8 share, behind 60 minutes.

In a recent newsletter I received from Shoptalk.com, Series creator Matt Groenig is mulling the end of the Simpsons. He cited difficultes keeping the series fresh for both the audiences and for the creators.



DOH!!!

To answer your specific questions, I do not have historical data for the one particular show.

[BillsNYC]

yeah..heard the groening rumor too...but also heard that it was just a rumor. we will see. i think simpsons and seinfeld reruns will always have a future....and who can forget cheers!

what X's?

I see dead people.....


Actually , this is more a question for LoG. Or your Psychiatrist. I have no idea...

:D

[JetMoses]

Originally posted by Dozerdog
I see dead people.....


I hope you don't smell them.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------IT'S COMING DOWN FAST

[BillsNYC]

did anybody see the opening of the simpsons last night? bart was writing on the board:

"i will never lie about canceling the show again!"

What are the all time top five syndicated programs in terms of spots not ratings? Here is my guess:

1) I Love Lucy
2) The Brady Bunch
3) MASH
4) The Honeymooners
5) The Flintstones

hmmm....perhaps Leave it to Beaver is in there.

what did I do kill the thread?

Maybe Happy Days bottled things up!

[BillsNYC]

the flinstones???? the simpsons i think would outdo them anyday!

RANK PROGRAM NAME DISTRIBUTOR RATING AUDIENCE
1 WHEEL OF FORTUNE KIN 8.5 8,972,000
2 JEOPARDY KIN 7.3 7,657,000
3 FRIENDS-SYN (AT) WB 6.6 6,978,000
4 SEINFELD (AT) CTS 6.1 6,383,000
5 EVRY LVS RAYMOND-SYN (AT) KIN 5.5 5,784,000
6 ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT(AT) PRM 5.3 5,639,000
6 JUDGE JUDY (AT) PRM 5.3 5,623,000
8 OPRAH WINFREY SHOW (AT) KIN 5.2 5,497,000
9 SEINFELD-WKND (AT) CTS 4.4 4,596,000
10 WHEEL OF FORTUNE WKND KIN 3.7 3,873,000
11 LIVE WITH REGIS AND KELLY B V 3.3 3,519,000
12 FRIENDS WEEKND (AT) WB 3.2 3,403,000
12 FRASIER-SYN (AT) PRM 3.2 3,395,000
14 KING OF THE HILL-SYN(AT) 2/T 3.1 3,255,000
14 JUDGE JOE BROWN (AT) PRM 3.1 3,219,000
16 ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT WKD PRM 3.0 3,206,000
16 MAURY (AT) STD 3.0 3,163,000
16 INSIDE EDITION KIN 3.0 3,145,000
19 EVBDY LVS RAYMOND-WKD-SYN KIN 2.8 2,927,000
20 DIVORCE COURT (AT) 2/T 2.6 2,782,000
20 ER-SYN (AT) WB 2.6 2,755,000
20 JERRY SPRINGER (AT) STD 2.6 2,751,000
20 X-FILES-SYN (AT) 2/T 2.6 2,750,000
20 PRACTICE-SYN (AT) 2/T 2.6 2,732,000
20 ACCESS HOLLYWOOD (AT) WB 2.6 2,696,000

The Flintstonesare now part of the Turner Broadcasting Empire and , (I Beleive) they are shown exclusively on the Turner properties (WTBS, TNT, Cartoon net)This really cuts into their syndicated rating

[BillsNYC]

judge judy??? judge judy?????????????????????

Right click on Image

Select "Properties"

Copy the URL if the image (Ctrl + C), then close this window

Click on your User CP button at he top of the page


Select "Edit Options"

Select "Change Avatar"

A the bottom of the page there is a field to add URL of Avatar. Paste (Ctrl + V) the URL of the pic you just copied.

Submit changes

If you want a slightly larger image of a particular kid, let me know. We are limited to a 100X100 pixel image

It looks hideous- I Like it!

Have you seen the Mike's hard Iced Tea ad on TV with the guy growing an evil head on his shoulder? That kid looks like the evil head

[BuffaloRanger]

Originally posted by Cntrygal
Whereever there is color on the screen, I can see little x's (it's annoying and gives me a headache lol). It's got to have something to do with the colors/graphics, but I don't know where to look. :(


Don't know if you got the answer yet. It has been a week, so I hope so. but if not, did you try right clicking on you're desktop screen then open up settings and adjust from there.

I think LoG fixed her up

OK guys. I know you are simpson's fans but there is no way they beat out The Flintstones on the levels I am talking about. Thank you for posting the current shares but I would like to see an analysis that addresses a shows long term viability not their current market share. Certainly an episode of the Simpson's currently would demand better advertising dollars especially when you consider the Flintstones have pretty much been relegated towards children programming (the show was prime time originally). Keep in mind the rating share data is specifically designed to set a value on advertising spots and does not expressly valuate a shows ability to hold an audience long-term.

What I want to drive at is not a current cross sectional picture of a shows viability but rather a time series approach. The only way I can think to reasonably do this is to look at how many times a show was aired in syndication...hence I would suggest the Flintstone's even today have more spots than the Simpsons so they must historically have considerably more plays than the Simpson's and therefore I would suggest The Flintstone's was a more successful project than The Simpson's in terms of contribution to the medium. This can of course change in the future but The Simpson's have not gotten there.

You will notice on my list of guesses they are all classic shows that have always and still get a lot of spots in syndication...OK...I didn't consider the game shows but they are not replayed several times a day either....that anyone could suggest Judge Joe Brown has made a bigger contribution to television than I Love Lucy is pretty funny in my book.

These are current syndicated TV series numbers. I have no idea where or if anyone has compiled data for every Honeymooners, Flintstones, and I Love Lucy episode shown on some backwater station.

Obviously, with the Flintstones being almost 40 years old and the Simpsons 10, they will have been shown way more times. But you also must consider this, when the Flintstones were in Syndication back in the 70's and 80's the inventory of syndicated programming was significantly less.

That is why you have seen every Gilligan's Island episode 50 times, but you may not have seen every "Alf " episode. Those shows were on TV all the time back in the day.

I know what you are saying Dozer...but let's face it, Gilligans Island still in today's syndicated environment gets about ten times more spots than does Alf. Just to confirm this I searched my local listings for the two shows at tvguide.com.

Also, I did consider the many different shows available in todays world than there were even 15 years ago not to mention 40...15 years ago all original programming was made by only a select few studios where today many networks are hitting the ground with original programming. Then again, 40 years ago there was no such thing as cable and even 15 years ago cable was a scant 30 channels all of which were either a major network or specifically served a region. Today there are hundreds of specialized cable channels and also international access to regional programming via satellite. However, I am not sure any of this explains how those shows from back in the day are still getting major spots within today's programming environment on these hundreds of networks...in fact gilligans island gets more spots than The Simpsons--but The Simpsons get better spots and can thereby demand more dollars for advertising rights.

I was just looking to develop a methodology we could use to weigh a particular shows contribution to television as a whole and that clearly is not the mission of current rating systems nor do they propose to address time-series historical data. One metric I can think of that will address a shows long-term audience appeal is how many programming spots that show has filled over the years. I figured if anyone would know where to find that type of analysis it would be The Vidiot...I'm also interested in any other metrics we can use to determine the question...but I still think the ratings system is on a totally different mission.

I do have some theories about this but don't want to turn this into a wys like discourse. In short my hypotheses are:

1) The best programming from each decade of television finds spots on today's networks because those shows offer a conservative approach to the network managers. These shows, like I Love Lucy and Gilligans Island, provide a foundation for the network to build on because their audience appeal has already been proven accross multiple decades and they offer cost effective programming in alternative programming spots.

2) Many of these shows maintain audience appeal because they are easily identified with by children. Because a child identifies with the situations and characters the shows become engraned in adults much like McDonald's is a cultural staple via the Happy Meal. Evidence of this would be shows that are heavily programmed between 4pm and 7pm...the time between school being let out and prime time.

3) The shows productions costs are measured in the dollars the show was originally produced in hence these shows are outright the cheapest to purchase in large packages and fill up a great deal of programming for a network in spots that have a poor viewership.

[honey]

Hey, BuffaloRanger and Dozer - log didn't help her - I did (oops, my husband did.) Log didn't have a clue how to get those x's out. lol

The baby looks like it is decomposing

Pretty close, but mine has a bigger head and a tail

[The Natrix]

give me break typo, the Simpsons and flinstones should not be mentioned in the same sentence unless the sentence is:

The Simpsons rules and the flinstones suck.

Actually, I absolutly love the simpsons, but, have you sat down after not watching the Flintstones after quite a while? I found myself watching them for almost 2 weeks straight a bunch of months ago- really funny stuff....

The Flintstone's and Simpson's should not be mentioned in the same sentence because the Simpson's in unproved in a non-contemporary audience. I didn't mean to say The Simpson's suck. The show just has not reached to the levels of the Flintstones and only time will tell if it ever will. And I agree with Dozer, The Flintstones was very well written, targeted towards a mature audience and reached high levels in it's production.