After another night of oddly depressed ratings, executives at several networks found themselves scratching their heads, checking their wallets, and wondering if something weird and scary has been taking place this week.
"Their story is that they should be protected by full First Amendment protections, and that would be harder to make in the public arena, in Congress and in the courts," said Lawrence J. White, another professor at New York University's Stern School of Business, who has testified alongside ratings executives before Congress.
On the other hand were dire assessments from Rodney Clark, a ratings executive at Standard & Poor's, who said its A-minus rating for A.I.G. was dependent on "extraordinary government support".
The greater the perceived risk, notes a joyful ratings executive in New York, the greater the demand for ratings.
"If you dug into it, if you had the time, you would see errors that magically favored the banker," said one former ratings executive, who like other former employees, asked not to be identified, given the controversy surrounding the industry.
In an attempt to appease the network and improve ratings, executive producers Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana sought to make subtle changes to give the show a stronger mainstream appeal, while aiming not to compromise its integrity or originality.
The talk show has had tepid ratings, but executives at Warner Brothers say they believe it will grow over time.
With regards to the ratings, Comcast executives credited "The Voice," the singing competition on NBC that has given the network some much-needed momentum.
As well as poor ratings, ABC executives have also had to deal with advertiser defections from the show after the edgy content scared off several major sponsors.
C2 Network Reruns Sink in Ratings Network executives, already facing a sharp falloff in advertising dollars for this fall's programs, are wondering whether the demise of the summer rerun means that the economic model for network television is facing collapse.
Distressed from a long stretch of poor ratings, NBC executives placed pressure on Homicide: Life on the Street producers to improve its viewership and become more popular than its higher-rated time-slot competitor, Nash Bridges.
