I thought it was just CNN & CNN Headline News on cable until MSNBC in summer of 96 & FOX News in fall of 96. Pretty much was just CNN as MSNBC wasn't added until fall of 2000 Cablevision never cared about Kazoo or as I liked to call them Suckyvision. Which I was living on MTV & ESPN didn't get ESPN2 until May 1999 had to pay an extra dollar or 2 to get it that was the Suckyvision way of things adding a channel to basic cable when they charged extra for years and acting like they did something but didn't.

Fall of 1999 Cablevision was doing upgrades and adding more channels which they should've done in the mid 90s in my opinion. I was happy when they sold to Charter Spectrum in the fall of 2000 and got everyone with hundreds of channels and didn't play favorites like Cablevision did with Portage they had Cartoon Network that may have been extra as Prove Channel showed it was channel 31 which was lame public access very low budget and crappy video footage as well. Portage got History Channel in spring 1999 and SoapNet in spring of 2000.

Charter did add a ton of channels from 2001 to 2002 at the end of March of 2001 they moved a lot of the basic channels around and added FOX News in 2001 finally got the big 3 when it comes to cable news at least at that time MSNBC wasn't so far left until 2005 now MS Now which I can't stand that name. MTV with a cable box was channel 57 and without was channel 99 don't ask me why Charter didn't change it wasn't until fall of 2007 when MTV got channel 36.

I know no one cares and me wrting a novel as well when it should've just been about Ted Turner & CNN. R.I.P. Ted Turner A.K.A. Mouth Of The South.

It's nice that Google went to confessional to admit for their failures. They still have many chapters of the advertising and search book to be fully healed by the holly water of honesty.

Ray, I read both Sara article and those who differ with her article. What is missing from Sara is multiple sources for the article. I really think she pulled things out of thin air at best. Facts were ignored. If the article was truthful there would be a problem. Don't you agree?

R.I.P. Ted Turner A.K.A. The Mouth From The South, Ted also owned WCW wanted Eric Bischoff how he could compete with WWE and started the Monday Night Wars 1995-2001 and beat WWE for 83 weeks. FOX News became number 1 at the end of 2001 and has never looked back. I also remember TBS starting each program at 8:05PM to 9:05PM always starting on the 05 or 35 so the viewers would stick around.

One of the reasons that Turner thought CNN would work was the Iran hostage crisis, in which ABC launched Nightline, which was a great success. He was quoted at the time that viewers were ready to watch news programming that had specific storylines, rather than one-to-three minute bits on the latest presidential policy or horrendous event somewhere in the country, like a plane crash. Rather than wait for a "we interupt our regular programming ..." announcements, people could switch immediately to CNN to watch the event unfold in real time.  

Ben, I can't comment about any of the numbers mentioned so far, except to say that if you really want to measure who is viewing---looking at the screen with the sound not muted--- any specific bit of content, you need a camera-style system of some sort. Of course, it's not going to be perfect, but isn't that true of what we are using now?

The Nielsen attempt--assuming that it yields something resembling a representative sample--deals only with the absent viewer aspect--which is about half of the problem. Being there does not necessarily equate with viewing if you want valid data for each commercial.

It's frustrating we still don't have an accurate measure of co-viewing.  Ed - what's your gut take on the 4%....is that feasible...low or high?

Wayne, Nielsen's new "wearable" methodology is merely a wristwatch type device which can "hear" a signal embedded in TV content, in which case it is assumed that the person wearing the device "watched" that content. This is not--repeat, not---a viewing measurement and it's quite likely that a fair proportion of those who remain in the room while TV content is on-screen are not watching-- especially when commercials are shown. As a guess, the inattentive, but present, "viewers"  constitute a third of the reported "audience"--with variations around this guesstimated norm  based on the demographics of the respondent, program content, degree of in-break ad clutter and other variables. 

In effect, advertisers will now pay for this service, which makes sense to me.

As for how it is determined how much they pay and whether the advertiser pays whether it wants to or not, that isn't clear. Does everybody pay? And does this apply to traditional media--like broadcast TV--or just to digital media--like CTV, social media, etc.?

Also, if it's a "tax" levied by the ANA on all video advertising, doesn't Nielsen ----and other measurement companies which would compete with Aquila--- have a competitive fairness issue here. 

In short, is this "tax" approach legal? Will it stand up in the courts if it does not allow advertisers or media sellers to opt out?Can Nielsen and others challenge it as being biased, funding-wise, in favor of the ANA's  interests?

It will be most interesting to see how this "tax" approach plays out.

Levying a "tax" on media data users of a measurement system based on ad spend/or ad revenues is not new.  However, what is surely peculiar for a supposedly media neutral media data/analytics service, is that Aquila is a for-profit entity, supported heavily by the walled gardens technopolies, whilst a division of a not-for-profit industry organisation.  This structure raises possible conflict of interest and data bias questions at a minimum.  Joe, back to you.  

Thank you Steven for such a lucid article.   

From one Gordon to another, thanks for flagging the "vicious vortex of AI slop" we seniors find ourselves in, despite our perceived mastery of heuristics.  Enlightening column, if not disturbing.

To quote Kent Brockman: "A chilling vision of things to come."

Highly concerning statements in this article, thank you for publishing!

Carson, Leno, Letterman would take occasional, light-hearted jabs at Presidents. The shows focused on entertaining all Americans and politics was rarely a topic.  You had an hour of good laughs and fun conversations before dozing off from a long day.

All Kimmel does is rant night after night after night and ensures that if you weren't mad before you turned him on, you probably will be when you turn him off.

As an ex-employee of Disney - the focus was always entertainment for everyone.  Kimmel hasn't foot that bill for a long time, but Disney lost its way 10-15 years ago with a honed focus on profit vs. entertainment and family values.

Bottom line is Kimmel and Colbert are not satirists or comediens.  They're just bitter, angry men shouting the same repetitive nonsense into a mirror every night.  You may as well just read "why I hate Trump" angry tweets for 43 minutes.  Both have had major declines in ratings - blame it on whatever you want - but the guys behind the mic have no-one to blame but themselves.

I'd be shocked if ABC didn't want to fire Kimmel long ago, but likely in a tough spot as they don't want to appear as if they are appeasing Trump even though Kimmel has been off-brand  with terrible ratings for years.

I agree Adam, it's just the greatest hits with Trump & Kimmel just repeating the talking points and neither being grownups and acting like children. I don't agree with looking at ABC licenses for renewal early for Kimmel or DEI. The FCC shouldn't be up to whoever is president should be 3 indpendents and 1 liberal & conservative on The FCC in my opinion. 

What Jay said.

Adam, You are completely wrong on this. Kimmel has had the same attitude/thoughts on Trump for over 10 years now, this is not a new thing, and it is personal to him in two key ways: In Trump Regime 1.0 he tried to kill health care coverages that effected Kimmel's son born with a heart issue. In Trump Regime 2.0 he has had an even more shameless and repulsive attack on the first ammendment and a free press. There is a reason freedom of speech/press is the 1st ammendment,think about it. The fact that Kimmel is resisting at every turn is heroic and important. When people ask "what did you do when Trump tried to kill the free press?" Jimmy will have a great answer!  

Not to date myself, but I grew up watching Carson,Leno,Letterman and on and on make fun of the leaders of the day. I remember Carson focusing on Ford's falls and general clumsiness, could you imaging if Kimmel did that? How would the orange buffoon react to that? I know Kimmel made fun of Biden and Obama as well, he is not just picking on Trump. Trump is the only one who does not understand the constitution and is not manly enough to laugh at himself. 

Clients and agencies need to constantly reinvent compensation models and nothing is perfect. Commission models in media get awa from hours, but the agency bears too much risk of budget cuts out of their control.  PRIP (Performance Related Income Potential) are good, but hard to count on.  One thing I think about AaaS is it is going to need objective, predictable outcomes and a better acronym! Maybe Marketing as a Service (MaaS)

Joe, I think ... would you believe ... that Barbara Feldon as Agent 99 has been omitted !!  Just shows you how poor what we see on the TV.

@Adam Buckman: Doh! Great catch. Hope there's a TVBlog in the future about that. Lift the Cone of Silence, please. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Adams#/media/File:DonAdams.jpg

Speaking of 86, we must never forget Agent 86, the secret agent Maxwell Smart (Don Adams), famed for his mobile shoe phone on the 1960s spy comedy series "Get Smart." Sorry about that, chief! - Adam Buckman, MediaPost TV blogger

@Dan C. from MS Entertainment: You're conveniently ignoring my "for illustration purposes only" disclaimer on Gemini's (not my) analysis. I wouldn't put statistical significance in that. As I noted there has been a conflation between the terms "86" and the lesser known/used mobster term "8 miles out 6 feet under." Perhaps my most important points were about "gaslighting" and "Mandela Effects" and the collective misremembering and twisting of reality that happens when someone like Donald Trump is using the powers of his office to distort the meaning of things, including a pop culture term like "86." It clearlly has never been meant to "kill" someone, but to get rid of someone. The real meaning of words is about the context of who, what, when, where and why people use them. If a mob hit man were using the term "86," I'd grant the meaning was to execute someone. If a top career law enforcement official who happens to be a president's political rival is using it, I believe the context was to remove that president from office. #seashells