Kirk I know that Days has never done sweeps or bought into the sweeps thing, but I feel that right now they should. This to me is not the time for the same old same old. They need to shake it up and take a risk.

I don't want to argue that Days throws out everything that it has done in the past - no hold on to some of it - but the thing of not doing sweeps and etc. can be changed. They need to shine when the advertisers are most watching. Show the advertisers that they can beat their competition even when the competition is putting out it's best.

Days to me right now just can't play it safe. Safe is going to keep them at the status quo, and I am not sure that even the status quo is going to make them appealing to another network right now. Especially if the numbers and the demos keep doing what they did this week.

Perfect and well said and is exactly what I meant in my above post.

If the Neilson's were optional (anyone could join) they would no longer be statistically valid. They have to have a fair sampling, otherwise they will be just one more popularity poll like those online... easy to rig, easy to skew. Fanbases would organize Neilson membership drives. It would be a joke.

I think they do a reasonable job measuring right now. I think the flaw is on the marketing side... with advertisers not realizing where the money is and how demo spending has changed with the boomers.

Sylph, thanks for doing this! It's really interesting to see visually how the soaps are doing over a certain period of time.

Thanks for the explanations. I can't say I understand it well enough to explain it to someone but I think I understand the basic ideas. Sounds like a crazy and inaccurate system to me but I guess they are doing the best they can.