iTunes, DVR Ratings Helped Renew "Gossip Girl"
From Nancy Franklin's piece in the New Yorker about "Gossip Girl," a teen drama on CW.
“Gossip Girl” has indeed become a hit, though not a megahit. It’s now possible—and necessary—for Nielsen to count viewings of shows that people have recorded on their DVRs and watched within seven days, and “Gossip Girl”’s ratings jump from not so hot to respectable when those figures are taken into account. It’s also the top TV show on iTunes at the moment. It was on the basis of these two elements of our brave new multiplatform world that the CW decided recently to order a full season of “Gossip Girl.” Advertisers’ being drawn to a show that sells well on iTunes wasn’t even a concept until a couple of years ago. All the new ways of delivering shows to viewers are starting to pan out for the studios and the networks that own them. That they continue to balk at sharing a larger fraction of their stupendous wealth with writers—the people who make that wealth possible—is as mystifying as it is sensationally wrong.Franklin doesn't say if she confirmed the rationale for the series renewal with CW, but it's not hard to imagine she's correct. (Also, "Advertisers'"? It's in the print edition, too.)
HIGH-SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL [NewYorker.com]
Previously: Daily Show writer explains writers' strike -- if digital content isn't worth anything, how come Viacom is suing YouTube for $1 billion? [Boing Boing]
the latest
latest episodes
(Also, "Advertisers'"? It's in the print edition, too.)
As well it ought to be. It's about their being drawn. "Their" is possessive, as is "advertisers'".
Huh. I get how they're parsing it, but it still doesn't seem right to me. Oh well! It's not like my grammar is awesome. Just struck me as strange.
It seems wrong because it is so incredibly rare to see this particular bit of grammar used correctly. It's the kind of thing the New Yorker and only the New Yorker bothers to get right.
I think it's called the possessive gerund?
It ought to be possessive, but needn't be so unless you slavishly adhere to Fowler's grammatical commandments. Fused participles are perfectly acceptable where they look or sound better unless this leads to ambiguity.
There are plenty of instances in which it is inadvisable or impossible to make the noun possessive (try justifying the phrase "What are the chances of that's happening?" or finding a possessive form of "some of them", for example).
In this instance, no ambiguity is created by removing the apostrophe, and when it comes to grammar I would venture to suggest that less is most definitely more.
Why would advertisers care if a show was popular on iTunes? They don't have commercials on iTunes.
@#5: Well, there's still product placement, but mainly it's of interest to advertisers because it shows that if you're looking to target a certain demographic with disposable income then it wouldn't be the worst idea in the world to stick your commercial alongside this show when it gets broadcast the old-fashioned way.