TV_Vote Official Blog

A Few More Stats

2008-08-18T10:51:00.002-04:00

Number Fans:

Here are a few more stats for our resident statisticians to mull over. We used Google Analytics to track visits and other non-personal data during the last 2+ years of TV_Vote.

According to the Big G, over 427,799 Unique Visitors came to our site between May 2006 and August 2008. In the first full week of tracking - May 13-20 2006 we had 15,890 visits. In the first full month of Google stats - May 9-31 2006 - we had 52,783 visits.

In the final full week of TV_Vote - August 3-9 2008 - we had 66,566 visits and in the final full month - July 1-31 2008 we had 251,787 visits.

If you click on TV_Vote Xtras on the TV_Vote site menu, I've provided an Excel spreadsheet with some details, including a list of 190 visitor countries and another of 5000 cities.

If anybody has stats they'd like to contribute, feel free to post here or send me a spread and I'll make it available on the TV_Vote site.

:o)>

TV_Vote: The Aftermath

2008-08-15T08:38:00.005-04:00

Hi, TV_Voters!

The voting is over and the final totals are posted at http://richlabonte.net/tvvote for all of you and future television and web poll historians.

It was a fine battle and well fought by all! The debate goes on as to whether it was a "good day to die", but the poll ended on a high note as I hoped. Our last week was the most active in the history of the poll - the highest number of recorded visits to our site was 11,123 on August 6th, one week before the final day of voting, with 3,792 visitors.

68,528 visits from August 6th to August 12th (the last full day of voting), with 10,476 "absolutely unique" visitors, 219,881 page views and 10.43% new (first-time) visitors.

Most of our visitors came in directly by the end of the poll, but fan forums and sites sent 12,456 visits (out of 68,528) from 271 different sources in the final week, with the CBS boards sending us 29% of those (thank you, Jericho and Moonlight fans.)

Those 68,528 visits came from 93 countries/territories, with the majority (71%) from the US, followed by Canada, UK, Germany, Australia, France, Poland, Spain, Russia and The Netherlands.

Not bad for a little fan site without corporate sponsors (or a budget, for that matter.)

To paraphrase Raycheetah, here's what I learned from this experience:

Fan Power is a real energy. We proved it and tapped it without help from the television industry or corporate powers that be. Maybe the industry should try doing the same instead of relying on the statistic factories and dubious methods of corporate pollsters who are fighting for their own survival amidst an ever-widening array of entertainment delivery systems.

Internet polls are not scientific, but they can produce a relatively accurate measurement if you get millions of people to vote, demonstrated by the presence of two classic westerns in our Top 5.

TV fans are more passionate about TV dramas than sitcoms or talk or game shows. Look at our results for proof. Even classic comedies like I Love Lucy or hugely popular recent shows like Seinfeld barely scored. Johnny Carson got 100 votes.

Dramas create lasting longtime loyalties with viewers. Out of our Top 5 shows, two left the airwaves over thirty years ago and of the three that produced new episodes in the 21st Century, only one is still on the air and is based on a popular series from thirty years ago.

The infamous 18-34 age demographic touted by corporate pollsters does not apply to television fan loyalty. The number 10 show in our poll, Combat!, has not aired on national television since 1967 and still had enough fans to score 244,131 votes. Although some of those Combat! fans might be DVD buyers, it's probably safe to say that most Combat! fans are over 34 years old.

Modern campaigns to defeat network cancellation misjudgments and bring back popular television series in some form are real and growing. Firefly remains the best recent example of success in this regard - and the Firefly-Whedon fanbase is a mighty and fearful force indeed - but Jericho and Moonlight fanbases show how the trend is escalating. Jericho shot up our list in an impressively short time and by the end of the poll, Moonlight had more individual voters coming in daily than any other single show in the poll's history. Scores of shows in our poll inspired similar large scale fan response when they were cancelled: Blood Ties, Farscape, Angel, Roswell, Babylon 5 and older shows like Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, Dark Shadows. These fans don't forget.

Ultimately, the television audience should have a greater voice in network programming decisions - and TV fans will actively campaign for that voice.

Direct contact between television networks and fans is advisable and the networks should be looking for new ways to communicate with their viewers because the battle for the airwaves has just begun.

Fan Power!

:o)>FLAtRich

New Overall Site Stats - Popularity vs. Big Bads

2008-07-23T10:46:00.000-04:00

Reprinted from the TV_Vote Google Group:

On Jul 23, 8:23 am, judist63 <cjmass...@comcast.net> wrote:> "See just how popular this site is! It will be a shame to close it down."

The growing popularity of TV_Vote is great. In fact, I just checked and we received more weekly visits than ever before from July 13-19, with 56,963 visits. The previous record was March 25-31 with 47,411.

Although the site has always been kind of an fan arts project, time and money have intruded on the TV_Vote universe. Big Bads are lurking...

The main reason that TV_Vote is closing is that I just can't keep up with the work load anymore. What used to be an hour a day now stretches into as much as three hours daily, and I just can't justify the time.

I also made a grevious error trying to switch the site to its own URL (web address) last January with a different provider and paid a year in advance. The provider (Network Solutions) fumbled our live transition to the new site and no one from Europe could get in to vote so I gave up after one week and we went back to the current site (never should have left!) The advance payment was already made, so I was stuck with a pre-paid site I didn't need for a year.

I should point out that I had decided to end the poll one year after the move.

We had Google AdSense ads running here and although we averaged less than $.33 a day from that I could have made up the loss eventually but Google AdSense decided to drop us on June 4, 2008 because (they said) they didn't believe our growing hits fit into their Terms and Conditions (too many repeat hits from the same IPs) They said that wasn't fair to their advertisers and they kept the money we'd made in the previous eight months. I assumed one of their advertisers complained. We had AdSense ads from CBS and Fox and Hillary Clinton, but I doubt any of them blamed us for anything.

One of Google's AdSense advertisers, however, was Hey Nielsen, who I thought of as newbie competition until I finally went in and looked at their site carefully last week.

Turns out I was wrong about Hey Nielsen (Sorry, Jstn!). They are, in fact, owned by the same Nielsen Company that rates TV shows for the television industry (and, therefore, are at least somewhat responsible for getting your favorite shows cancelled.)

Interesting coincidence that Google cancelled our AdSense contract, which featured ads from TV's #1 Big Bad? Or dire plot?

Anyway, I do, as always, thank everybody for making the site a popular success. I used to say that there are always other polls and plug Hey Nielsen as a possible successor, but from what I've seen of that site it appears to be just a bogus front to ward off criticism of the Nielsen Company's inept TV rating methods.

So beware the Powers That Be, future independent pollsters. The Truth Is Out There, but Trust No One!

:o)>FLAtRich

Welcome to the Official TV_Vote Blog

2008-07-22T12:16:00.003-04:00

Hi, TV_Voters!

Welcome to the Official TV_Vote Blog!

As we approach the end of our TV_Vote Poll (about 500,000 more votes to go until we reach the amazing final goal of 10 Million Votes), I thought I'd start this blog as a way for TV_Voters and other interested folks to keep in touch in the poll aftermath and keep up with the latest news about their favorite shows, fan efforts, etc.

The TV_Vote site sought out the most powerful force in the entertainment universe, namely Fan Power, and I think we proved it exists. Maybe now we can figure out how to make it work for the Forces of Good and eventually defeat those Evil Network Executives and their plot to cancel all the Good Stuff on TV!

Or maybe not. What do you think?

:o)>FLAtRich

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