Walter Isaacson Quotes

As the ratings go up, so does advertising revenue.

We're just dealing with the kind of warp and woof of television ratings.

The key measurement will not be how many people are watching the Univision network. But, believe me, I still think we are going to grow and are shooting for No. 1, and that spot is certainly on our radar. But engagement will be the focus and the main measure.

I pay a lot of attention to box office because I understand it. TV ratings? I don't know how to interpret them, since I'm new to TV, so I'm just going to wait for somebody to tell me.

I mean, all the ratings wars are silly. But, I mean, someone has to be concerned about the ratings because it means, you know, it translates into revenue.

We all understand the economics of the Super Bowl - 10 or 12 minutes of the ball in motion will be stretched into three and a half hours or more of money-making commercials.

I would love an upgrade from the Nielsen box; it feels so antiquated to me.

This is my third ABC show over the last four years, so we were afraid that nobody would find it. ABC was really struggling and so we just weren't very confident that it would find an audience.

HBO is not an advertiser-based model, it's a subscription model. So what's significant to HBO is not necessarily the debut of an episode, it's the cumulative numbers.

It's kind of debatable whether or not the advertisement model is effective. Like whether Nielsen works. For years, Nielsen has been based on sampling. It's not like an electronic bullet that hits your house that tells the people at networks at all times what you're watching.

You'd think if anyone could charm America into caring about the evening news, it would be Katie Couric, the Tri Delt from Virginia who became America's sweetheart on the 'Today' show. But her ratings have been dismal - she comes in last place every week.

I think everybody in news understands that the audience that watches for more than an hour is not your target audience - because those people are on life support.

Life goes on, and I'm moving on to the next thing, but I hope the soaps that are still running will thrive. They have millions of loyal viewers.

The more opportunities people have to experience television on different platforms, the more television they consume overall. So there actually has been a benefit, but the ratings have gone down. But we've seen kind of the horizontal benefit of this. And it remains a great, great promotion engine.

Broadcast TV is still the mothership and it will be for the foreseeable future. Audiences may be declining slightly but revenues are going up and profits are going up.

As a performer you are being used to keep people watching so the commercial endorsements that support the network can be seen by as many people as possible.

Everyone knows that there are more people watching any given show than is being registered by the Nielsen system.

I still watch 'Idol,' and it's still the No. 1 show, so obviously I'm not the only one who loves to sit at home and be entertained.

Technology has changed, and we need to figure out how to improve the archaic way of what makes a hit, or how to determine how many viewers are watching beyond some people with Nielsen boxes in a small percentage of homes in random areas.

Television has a real problem. They have no page two.

If people are given quality stuff to watch, they'll watch it.

The ad revenues still go up because nothing dependably delivers the eyeballs that successful series do.

They don't have a lot of appointment viewing. What television depends on, one thing 'Larry King Live' was - whether you liked it, didn't like it - it was appointment viewing.

TV is a level playing field, and you're competing for eyeballs.

I still think what the consumers are looking for is, number one, entertainment. They want to be entertained. It can be a liberal, a libertarian, or a conservative. It can be far-left or far-right. If they are entertained, they are going to tune in.