Skip to main content

Is there life in numbers?

Reading this article on American Idol runner-up finalists, I came across a quote that hits on a subject I've been thinking about as of late. "60 million people watched the finale the year I was on," Idol runner-up Jon Peter Lewis said, "and I think Fantasia sold just over a million. It's a small fraction of the viewers who actually buy the records." So I pose the question: why do we put a lot of faith into numbers that only show a fraction of what's really out there?

Box office receipts, SoundScan numbers, concert ticket sales and ratings are some of the tools used to measure business in the fields of media. I have no beef with these measurements, however, I have a beef with people that are led to believe that something is of value (or not of value) because it sells/earns a certain amount. Are we really that passive with how we measure apparent worth?

Referring back to Kyle's post about Hawthorne Heights, the projected sales figures for the band's second album, If Only You Were Lonely, were "poised to sell upwards of 200,000 copies its debut week." There was a good chance that the record could have debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart, but other than the prestige of having a high-charting album, does that really play into the overall importance of the record's relevance? Not to me.

Between the number of people out there versus the ones that actually buy something, the fraction is almost always incredibly lopsided. Yet what's a frequent discussion the day after results are tallied? "Such-and-such did x-amount of business, so I guess it's _______."

Folks, I've seen blockbuster movies and box office bombs, bought platinum-selling albums and albums that have never charted on a Billboard chart, and have seen highly-rated shows and shows that were canceled after a few episodes. I've experienced a lot in between those figures, but I never think about numbers when I'm enjoying something.

Then there are the people that don't watch these highly-rated TV shows, don't buy these hot-selling records and don't see these blockbuster movies on a regular basis. I know these kinds of people very well: I call them Mom and Dad.

My parents rarely watch TV. Though my dad has recently gotten hooked on 24 reruns and my mom enjoys watching HGTV and the Weather Channel, they've never watched hit shows like American Idol, Survivor, Lost or Desperate Housewives. They saw two movies in a movie theater last year (Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire). The number of CDs they buy in a year is less than a handful and with the exception of the Dixie Chicks, none of these CDs are high on the Billboard charts. In business terms, they probably/most definitely would not be a part of a target demographic, but they shouldn't be ignored. Why? Because life doesn't just exist where the money flows.

I don't blame the marketers or the companies - I blame those that ignore what really is out there. Of course business is a driving force in our world, but it's not the only indicator of life. Imagine how limited a view we would have of history if we only thought of it through what was in movies, TV shows, commercials and on the Billboard charts. I get the feeling the number of people that actually believe in these is larger than I think.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Catherine Wheel

Originally posted: Tuesday, August 29th, 2006 Despite managing to release five proper albums, Catherine Wheel was one of those bands that always seemed to slip past the mainstream rock crowd. Yes, they got some nice airplay in their day, but people seem to have forgotten about them. You may hear “Black Metallic” or “Waydown” on a “classic alternative” show on Sirius or XM or maybe even on terrestrial radio, but that’s about it. For me, they were one of most consistent rock bands of the ’90s, meandering through shoegazer, hard rock, space rock and pop rock, all while eluding mainstream pigeonholing. Led by the smooth, warm pipes of vocalist/guitarist Rob Dickinson (cousin of Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson), Catherine Wheel featured Brian Futter on lead guitar, Dave Hawes on bass and Neil Sims on drums. They weren’t a pretty-boy guitar band, but they weren’t a scuzzy bunch of ragamuffins either. Though the band hailed from England, Catherine Wheel found itself more welcome on American air

Hello, Control

I'm still a big fan of iTunes . I haven't tried Napster , Urge or eMusic as I've been perfectly happy with Apple's program ever since I downloaded it two years ago. However, an annoying new feature has come up with its latest version, 7.0. Whenever you pull up your music library, a sidebar taking up 3/4ths of the screen appears plugging the iTunes Music Store. Why is this an annoyance? Well, first and foremost, since you can't close the sidebar, you can't escape it. I believe a music library is a private collection, a spot away from the music store. So what's the need for constant advertisements and plugs? To provide a better visual, let me describe what I see whenever I pull up a song in my iTunes library. When I listen to "This is a Fire Door Never Leave Open" by the Weakerthans, I see a graphic for Left and Leaving , the album that it comes from (and available in the iTunes Music Store), along with a list of the Weakerthans' other albums,

Politics Shmolitics

Yesterday, the more pleas I saw for people to go out and vote, the more uncomfortable I felt. Plenty of the blogs I hit up everyday said something along the lines of "Vote and if you don't, don't complain." Folks, this is why I find discussing politics so alienating. There are plenty of reasons why I don't discuss politics on here or in my everyday conversations. The biggest reason is because I don't have a lot of interest in politics in the first place. By what I've seen, heard and read for the last eight years, political debates are usually pissing contests. Judging by the views I've processed, it would be easy to think that we're all slowly going downhill either on the left, right or down the middle. Yet I don't think we're going totally downhill or totally uphill. Debating the direction we're going seems futile, especially when adults start screaming at each other like they're in grade school. To my ears, political debates are s