Riviera's Query, Or What The Hell Are Sweeps?
by ericalan69 ‘Sweeps’ is how money is made in television via advertising. At four times during the year (February, May, July and November), viewers in the major US television markets are polled by the A.C. Nielsen Media Research company to see what people are watching. The periods last about two weeks, and during this time, random viewers keep a detailed diary of everything watched on TV (they get paid a whole US Dollar!). This is supposed to give a representative average of viewership to Nielsen, whose figures are used to determine how much money television stations can charge for advertising on their programs (For example, if ‘ER’ is the highest rated prime time series, then stations are justified in charging top dollar for ad-space during the show). There’s a hugely inherent flaw, however: since networks know exactly when these figures are to be tallied, they do ‘sweeps stunts’, like waiting until sweeps periods to show new and/or cliffhanger-y episodes of their shows, or have big
