A minor change among the sidebar links

I previously listed the CalendarLive page of the L.A. Times under the "Miscellaneous Links" sidebar section. It was there mainly because I found it of interest to check the site once a week (either very late tuesday night or wednesday) for the Nielsen prime time TV national ratings. It was the only site I ever found which published the "complete" general list (old-fashioned broadcast TV, not cable) instead of just the top ten or twenty shows per week.

So naturally not long after I installed the link the site started having problems with the ratings list. One week the list was incomplete, not going far enough down to include Veronica Mars (which admittedly is pretty far down, unfortunately). The week before last, I couldn't find the list at all. Then last week it was back in full. Now this week it's disappeared again.

If it's there somewhere then they should make it stand out as an obvious clickable link (which they normally do). And if it's not there for some particular reason, either temporarily or permanently, then I wish they would post a simple note of explanation. When I emailed them the week the list was shorted (with the hope that they might actually fix the page and complete the list) all I received from them was a delayed and uninformative general promotional email which didn't address my comment in the least (typical of customer service anywhere these days!).

I believe (based on certain things I've dredged up online) that the Nielsen folks don't like it when their full list is published because they make their money based on selling the list to certain interested parties. However, I also believe that much of that business depends on their being able to break down the numbers into numerous categorized and specifically targeted show demographics, to say nothing of there being a much more complete list which includes cable channels and shows for all hours, not just prime time.

As already noted the list the L.A. Times publishes (-ed?) is just a general overall list for prime time over-the-air broadcast networks, so it's not like it would allow anyone to get around the Nielsen company fees for their service. I don't know if maybe the Nielsen people perhaps have (or had?) some kind of agreement with the L.A. Times to allow them exclusive rights to publish the full general list and perhaps that agreement has lapsed.

Regardless of the underlying reasons for what's going on there, I've removed the sidebar link. I will not re-install it until the L.A. Times gets back to publishing the full weekly list for at least a month or so.

Despite removing that one link, though, the sidebar "Miscellaneous Links" section has not diminished because I also made an addition—Ken Levine's blog. Here is Mr. Levine's "About Me" blurb as quoted directly from his main blog page...

Ken Levine is an Emmy winning writer/director/producer/major league baseball announcer. In a career that has spanned over 30 years Ken has worked on MASH, CHEERS, FRASIER, THE SIMPSONS, WINGS, EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND, BECKER, DHARMA & GREG, and has co-created his own series including ALMOST PERFECT starring Nancy Travis. He and his partner wrote the feature VOLUNTEERS. Ken has also been the radio/TV play-by-play voice of the Baltimore Orioles, Seattle Mariners, San Diego Padres.

This new link is courtesy of Nat's TV or Not TV blog which is already a charter member of the coveted Dimension Skipper sidebar links. Nat's current blog entry points readers to Mark Evanier's blog, which in turn directs folks to Ken Levine's blog where guest-blogger Peter Casey has been recounting some memories of how the TV series Frasier came to take shape. There are three parts to the story...

How FRASIER came to be
More FRASIER
FRASIER starring Lisa Kudrow??

So if you liked Frasier, you might want to check them out if you get a chance.