ALL: Angry fan's letter to Carolyn Hinsey

[Sylph]

You can read about it here and the entire letter here.

[heatherwebber]

I think you can learn something from talking to people.

But focus group use is clearly a mess.

You have no idea what level of understanding the people involved have of what they're being asked. They're not necessarily regular viewers who know & love the show. They may never have seen it before.

The questions being asked might be rigged, skewed, or logically faulty.

The answers might be skewed by various means by various groups of people using it or spinning it.

In short the whole thing is such a mess it's pretty much useless as it is being done. But it's being given huge importance and has caused endless amounts of trouble.

[Sam Ford]

Sylph, thanks for the link and quote! I am not saying that methods like focus groups are absolutely useless, but what bothers me is that so many people are so sure that Internet fan communities are not even worth looking at or reacting to yet treat other, even more problematic methods as if they are completely valid.

Part of it is just about the way business has been done...Like the Nielsens, focus groups might have been more helpful when there were only 3 choices of what to watch, but neither are nearly as valid in today's era.

[DevotedToAMC]

Good! I can't stand Carolyn Fatsey...the woman knows nothing about soaps and she thinks she is funny when she is not and half the time all she does is whine about the stars getting plastic surgery. I laughed one time when she wrote, "For those stars wanting to get plastic surgery...don't do it." Who does she think she is? Their mother? The woman needs a life of her own to worry about