Heroes FAQs (10/22/2007)

Those were the fast nationals. For week 1 the fast national is the best one available, because the final number had the one-time addition of the Saturday repeat of the show. (That policy of adding repeats was abandoned by Nielsen after advertisers, other networks, the media press and those following this sort of thing all revolted. Heroes was the only show that used it that first week before it was abandoned.)

So leave your week 1 as is, but the other week finals, including ep 5 last night are:

Oct 01

I've just been copying the info from pifeedback.com. If the numbers are different, please point me to the place where these numbers are posted.

I took out all the notes about how the numbers are tabulated - I think that is out of the scope of the FAQ. If we could identify one solid source from which the numbers are copied, I can post a link and anyone who wants to know more can go there.

I've repeated said I don't know how to get the numbers - I'm not really even sure what everything means, and I'm not really interested in knowing about the ratings. I'm not sure the average viewer even cares. However, I'll follow whatever the group wants.

The first pifeedback.com post from Berman, which starts the thread around noon the following day (so Tuesday in the case of Heroes), has the preliminary numbers called the Fast Nationals. The final numbers, or a link to another site's board that has them, usually appear in the thread later that day, around 5:00-6:00 pm Eastern or so. It's often on pg. 14 or later, 200+ posts into the thread.

The point of having them in the FAQ is for people interested not to have to search out the various sources. I just hadn't got around to checking your FAQ, so it wasn't until now that I noticed they were the preliminaries. If you don't want to search the pifeedback.com threads for the finals, just use the first post preliminaries as you have and I can periodically Reply to the FAQ thread with the finals for you to update, assuming you're keeping the ratings section.

As for whether you should or shouldn't keep it, it's your call but I would say yes. It's true that the 'average viewer' doesn't know about the ratings, but ratings affect whether a show stays on the air (or gets moved around, or put on hiatus during sweeps, or gets its budget cut, etc.).

Usenet groups aren't frequented by 'average viewers' anyway. They're frequented by shills, sycophants, nattering naysayers, nitpickers and the like, and those often drown out the average knowledgeable, thoughtful poster or objective critic. People online tend to follow ratings more. When they're good, a show's backers want to trumpet them, when they're not going well they want to make excuses or bury the information, and the reverse is true as well. People bitching about the show this season may point to two new viewership lows the last three episodes.

Also 'Whatever the group wants' isn't really determinable. The group doesn't speak with one voice, especially when it comes to the details of what's now a 1,075 line FAQ post. Kudos for the work you've put into it and being so comprehensive, but if it's that long I think 3% of it or so can be the viewership numbers, on lines that'd be there anyway with the ep title and dates (those are also useful and interesting to some).

I care as a possible source of vicarious pride, and the average viewer should care in as much as if they fall too low the show gets cancled.

says...

Sure - and weren't you going to do some graphs as well?

Btw could you tell us the link to the place? (just here, don't have to include it in the faq)