I LOVE IT – JUST READ THIS – AT 9:14 A.M. ET:  Ah, the television business.  Home of high ethics, dear hearts and gentle people.  From Don Surber: 

Unlike their cable brethren, the broadcast newsers seem to be losing customers. I say seem because we have no way of telling as they have so gamed the ratings system that no honest person can say how many people watch them.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Boosting TV ratings is easy for networks that don’t mind playing dumb.

In a game largely sanctioned by TV-ratings firm Nielsen, television networks try to hide their shows’ poor performances on any given night by forgetting how to spell.

That explains the appearance of “NBC Nitely News,” which apparently aired on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend this year, when a lot of people were away from their TVs. The retitling of “NBC Nightly News” fooled Nielsen’s automated system, which listed “Nitely” as a separate show.

Hiding the May 26 program from Nielsen dramatically improved the show’s average viewership that week. Instead of falling further behind first-place rival “ABC World News Tonight,” NBC news narrowed the gap.

Walt Disney Co.’s ABC declined to comment. The network, though, groused last month when NBC News intentionally misspelled an entire week of “Nightly News” broadcasts. Altogether, NBC, which is ranked second behind ABC in ratings, has played the misspell card 14 times since the start of the 2016-17 television season last fall.

NBC News said it broke no rules. “As is standard industry practice, our broadcast is retitled when there are pre-emptions and inconsistencies or irregularities in the schedule, which can include holiday weekends and special sporting events,” a show spokesman said.

The network needn’t feel defensive. ABC took its own ratings mulligan seven times during the 2016-17 season with “Wrld New Tonite.” CBS misspelled “The CBS Evening News” as the “CBS Evening Nws” 12 times this season.

COMMENT:  How lovely.  These are the people who give us the news.  Or maybe its nws.  Or newz.  CNN may be the most trusted name in nooze.

You've got to be taught to lie.

July 10,  2017