Ratings War Quotes

Eric Bischoff wanted to destroy Vince in the ratings, but we wanted them to stay in the game. We wanted it to be neck-and-neck. We didn't want to skunk the other team and spike the football every single time.

We rely on editors of blogs or websites and television stations to supply us these images, and the filter is becoming very thin and very porous. The ratings race for TV and websites is incredibly fierce, and one of the ways of getting people to watch is through graphic violent images.

NBC programs great shows; it just doesn't have the eyeballs CBS does.

There's a lot of politics in television and a lot of in-fighting and all that sort of stuff, but in the end, we are purveyors of entertainment. Viewers are not really bogged down in who's doing what and who hates who and who's doing best in the ratings. They watch television to be entertained.

Now that I'm not running, I can appear on Fox. Let the cabinet members do the low-ratings shows on MSNBC.

There's fierce competition between all the networks to get the guest who can bring the most pertinent information about whatever the story of the moment happens to be.

With the Monday Night Wars, it was almost a pay-per-view every single Monday between the two factions because they were trying to throw everything but the kitchen sink to win the ratings war.

Reality shows always look for the worst people.

The talk show, as a genre, has been in decline for a while. It started with Jerry Springer, when the talk shows suffered a metamorphosis, going from the real and social issues to the hair-raising.

The American television industry is a Darwinian environment where success is usually measured in inches, not yards. That is, for most TV media, audiences have gotten so small that one measures 'victories' in tenths of a point - as in, a 2.2 percent share is a great leap over a 2.1 percent share.

There are some great shows that come and go really fast, either because the network doesn't give them a chance or they just don't grab on to the psyche of the country quickly enough.

TV producers want ratings and are willing to do nearly anything to get them. They gin up artificial conflicts and create an urgency for even the most minor of economic data points.

When a show fails to destroy the competition-and it can fail while attracting 20 million viewers-it is itself destroyed.

What I didn't want to do is get into a ratings race with television because really, for them, it matters. For me, it doesn't.

I honestly believe that TV generally is obsessed with the ratings battle to the point of cutting its own throat.

If rehearsed eye-rolls and sneers and armchair psychology worked, and were interesting, Fox wouldn't be number one.