Not a Typo: Network Newscasts Deceive For Ratings

Eric Scheiner | July 6, 2017
DONATE
Font Size

A Wall Street Journal reports claims television networks are hiding their shows’ poor performances by ‘forgetting’ how to spell.

Hence, “NBC Nitely News,” which aired on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend this year.

According to WSJ:

“The retitling of ‘NBC Nightly News’ fooled tv-ratings firm Nielsen’s automated system, which listed “Nitely” as a separate show.

Hiding the May 26 program from Nielsen dramatically improved the show’s average viewership that week. Instead of falling further behind first-place rival ‘ABC World News Tonight,’ NBC news narrowed the gap.

NBC has played the misspell card 14 times since the start of the 2016-17 television season last fall.

NBC News told WSJ it broke no rules. “As is standard industry practice, our broadcast is retitled when there are pre-emptions and inconsistencies or irregularities in the schedule, which can include holiday weekends and special sporting events,” a show spokesman said.

ABC played a role in the misspelling game seven times during the 2016-17 season with “Wrld New Tonite.” CBS misspelled “The CBS Evening News” as the “CBS Evening Nws” 12 times this season.

For more on the Wall Street Journal story, click here.

donate