Sweeps Week is here, as in what one would think should be one week of programming designed to lure in advertisers by pumping up ratings with thrilling episodes of television, but what’s actually four weeks of torment. We all know what it is and why it happens, and yet, each year, we find ourselves railing against the sheer transparent grab for viewer attention, especially since it happens in spring, midsummer, and late winter as well. You know what it looks like: An astounding kicker on How to Get Away With Murder, another tear-jerker on Grey’s Anatomy, the latest cliffhangers on a slew of procedurals, an extra hour of programming to make a midseason finale extra juicy for viewers. To make things even worse for viewers, some shows are going into their winter intercession, with a warning that they won’t be returning until January; tune in now or remain forever silent. Get your last dose before it’s too late!
While Fonzie might have literally jumped the shark for sweeps, other shows have been accused the same in a more metaphorical sense. Ellen came out, other shows performed episodes live on air, some stuck to shocking revelations about their beloved characters. This year, weddings, epic parties, changes in relationship status on Facebook, shocking murders, and more, along with the usual ‘is she dead or isn’t she?’ are being used to lure in viewers and keep them glued to the screen throughout the episode. Many networks are using cliffhangers to their advantage; if you watch this week’s episode, you’ll be left panting for more and practically obliged to tune in next week. For viewers, sweeps can feel like being, er, swept into surreality as television shows amp up the absurd and go for plot lines that teeter between ridiculous and unbelievable, often yanking the viewer entirely out of familiar territory and leaving some feeling tricked by creators, characters, and showrunners. Is it really a sweep when viewers get so alienated that they’re turned off?
It’s high stakes: Advertising rates are dependent on sweeps, and ratings, in turn, determine whether shows are going to live or die. While some fall offerings, like #Selfie, have already gone the way of the dodo, others may be ‘on the bubble,’ with sweeps determining their fate. Bubble watchers are already curious to see what’s going to happen during the 2015 season, especially given that many shows have been picked up for early renewals this year, but not all of them…
Nashville, Constantine, Reign, and The 100 may be biting their nails this month, and even CSI, that old television stalwart, may finally be growing stale. While offshoots of the show, and the myriad clones and copycats on other networks, are still chugging along, CSI could be done with its run. More sadly, Gracepoint is unlikely to be picked up for a second run, so fans of the show will have to switch to the UK version — and miss out on the strange blend of Americana, mystery, and peculiar small town quirks on the show, which alas had too niche an audience to thrive.
Sweeps originates from early diaries sent to television viewers by Neilson (yes, that Neilson) in the 1950s. Since it took so long to process all the information collected in a pre-digital era, Neilson settled for doing rolling waves of surveys across the country, one reason why networks had to extend sweeps programming over the course of the month. They didn’t want viewers in New York enjoying the juiciest programming when their ratings data was collected while California got the dregs and expressed corresponding disinterest. Some advertisers, needless to say, don’t appreciate what they see as a bait and switch; why should they pay premier rates based on pumped-up ratings for advertising on middling shows? Networks, however, remain unmoved.
While the internet drools over sweeps and compares notes on the latest stunts, they raise some larger issues, and questions, about how we interact with television in the modern era. Sweeps has shaped the nature of television ever since 1954, when viewers first began filling out their meticulous diaries on their television habits. While numerous forces influence television, one of the most powerful may be ratings; bluntly, networks want to make money, and they can’t make money if they don’t have advertisers. The more those advertisers have to pay, the better, because television networks aren’t just obsessed with making money: They want to make as much as possible.
Relationships to advertisers are mediated not just by sweeps but also by the content of programming, of course, and by public reactions to it, as any number of protest campaigns targeting advertisers illustrate. But sweeps are almost like the gateway, the moment at which networks decide whether their darlings are worth the investment. It’s a tough time for shows with considerable in-house support, as even heartless television executives, it turns out, have the occasional soft spot for a programme they particularly love. Yet, even if a network has internal support from staffers who love a show, it’s not going to make it past the accounting department if it’s not generating money — one reason why cult favourites with loyal followings get the axe even if executives sympathise with their often vocal fans.
The structure of what kind of television people in the US watch, and why, might change radically if we changed the way sweeps are conducted. Abolishing sweeps altogether would be a rather dramatic move, forcing advertising costs to be set according to more mediated ratings averages, rather than those generated by episodes clearly designed to be aggressively provocative. But it might be the way to go; it would give smaller programmes a better chance at survival, and it would give network executives a chance to give such shows a chance, so they’d have an opportunity to fight through the thicket of the competition and establish a foothold for themselves.
Meanwhile, shows that perhaps don’t deserve to be on air as long as they are might be cut down when networks can’t rely on suspense-filled sweeps episodes to inflate their ratings. We could be looking at a world without reality television, endless procedurals, and boringly unfunny half-hour comedies, and that might be even more of a delight to see.