• by Frank Maggio , September 6, 2007

Clive Thompson's observations in this month's WIRED magazine, entitled "Count on Geeks to Rescue the Universe," provide a compelling logic to the frustrations many of us feel about the state of the TV ratings industry.

Thompson cites a study about charitable donations, finding that the average human being increases his or her donation level when the number of recipients diminishes. He hypothecates that big thinkers like Bill Gates are better equipped to tackle problems that plague the masses (like dysentery) because "geeks" have a more "direct sensual ability to understand what a million means." Thompson doesn't indict humanity; as he states, "The problem isn't a moral failing: It's a cognitive one. We're very good at processing the plight of tiny groups of people but horrible at conceptualizing the suffering of large ones."

While I believe Thompson's correlations may have as much to do with self-preservation as they do with mathematical empathy, they did remind me of an Emory childhood development studies course that I once thought only provided a peculiar, anecdotal finding. As babies mature, the lesson goes, they apparently reach a state where they can finally think quantitatively, but have not yet evolved to be able to think qualitatively. The classic example is an experiment where two toddlers are handed cookies -- one child gets one cookie, and the other, two cookies. The toddler with one cookie, at a certain stage of development, will see that the other has two cookies and will begin to cry because the other has more cookies. The solution to quell the screaming baby? Take his one cookie, split it into two, and hand it back to him. Voilà -- no more tears.

I can't help but draw an analogy when I listen to the teeth gnashing over "commercial ratings." For years, advertisers and agencies have been crying about the lack of granular, 30-second commercial ratings. They sat by as networks charged them for program ratings, typically quantified in 15-minute increments, when in reality, they were being charged for 30-second increments of time that, even today, are not truly being measured.

So, after decades of outcry, how has the industry proposed to solve the problem?

Take the cookie, divide it into 15 pieces, and give it back. Voilà -- no more tears.

Well, as the big thinkers in the crowd recognize, the demands of the agencies are not quantitative, they're qualitative. Nobody really needs to take an already too small sample, and divide it into 15 smaller, one-minute slices. We can argue about the definition of a commercial minute at another time, but the issue at hand is that in order for commercial ratings to even approach the fuzzy accuracy of 15-minute ratings, the sample size needs to increase -- exponentially.

Borrowing from Thompson's observations, in our desire to break things down into the visible pixel, there is a real, even natural tendency to miss the big picture. Are we so anxious to break it down to the single minute, that we will abandon the benefit we can all derive when the entire TV experience can be far more accurately measured as a whole, by combining the actions of 25 million -- or more?

The unfairness in the "solution" is that if the industry doesn't grow up and refuse to accept the crumbs we're being offered, the chasm between niche cable (or IPTV networks) and the larger TV networks will become unsurpassable. An overwhelming majority of cable networks already suffer from margins of error that render their ratings useless, particularly at the local level. In an age where digital set top box ratings should be providing every cable network with a level playing field, the move to "commercial ratings" built on a miniscule sample of recruited, paid, and monitored households, will provide the larger networks with something that will become out of reach for everyone else: reliable measurability.

Isn't it time we followed the cookie crumbs to see where they lead us? If the brave among us keep our heads down, we'll discover that the trail leads to the steps of those who profit most from the industry's apparent inability (or resistance) to evolve into a world where quality built on quantity trumps quantity built on inequality.

Indeed, we should take the lead from the industry that epitomizes accountability. The Internet figured out how to deal with screaming babies long ago...

Cookies, anyone?