For "Today," the ratings were about flat.
There was no reason to worry about ratings or whether the show would get renewed for a second season: it couldn't be cancelled, but it might end at any time.
Increasingly, show creators can work without executives' notes, focus groups, concerns about ratings, and anxieties about whether advertisers will resist having their products slotted after a nude scene or one laced with obscenity.
One question that can be asked about these harmony ratings is whether the instructions we gave produced a "demand characteristic" such that participants inferred that they are "supposed" to give the pattern of data that we observed.
"If you exhaust it all in one event, that will cause the ratings agencies to think about whether to downgrade you," Ms. Grandstaff said.
But his recent political difficulties — a protracted battle over raising the national debt limit, sagging approval ratings — have raised questions about whether he will be able to sustain his fund-raising momentum.
The stakes are even higher for Mr. Abe, whose political survival is in doubt after two domestic scandals have sapped his approval ratings and raised questions about whether he will be forced to resign.
The report also recommended that Infrastructure Australia publish information about projects and the Productivity Commission to produce ratings of whether the businesses cases for them had been reliable.
There are questions, too, about how capital should be allocated to match these ratings, and whether the system would give regulators too big a role.
Tilton controls most of the information the ratings agencies see regarding her loan pools, but there is some question about whether the ratings agencies are getting the complete picture.
