SURVEILLANCE Another key applied area of audience research relevant to the

DEM/GEM is surveillance to satisfy the desire of marketing and advertising to know what audiences watch (Maxwell 1996, 2000). The euphemism for constant surveillance in the industry is “accountability.” That term should refer to corporations and gov- ernments being accountable to popular representation under a democracy, but in TV, it signifies the amount of information about audiences that networks hand to advertisers – what people watched, when, and where, and what that then urged them to pur- chase. Audience surveillance starts with focus groups, which are conducted to see what potential audiences will think of potential

new shows. Focus groups sample the population to find small numbers of people whose identities represent the social formations desired by advertisers. They are shown pilots of programs to judge the likelihood that their cohorts will watch. Focus groups are part of the great unstudied lacuna of television studies, apart from earnest methodologists (Morrison 1998). These groups are neglected because they don’t interest the textualists, narcissogra- phers, political economists, and psy- function mavens of TV Studies

1.0 and 2.0. Only a few businesses undertake focus groups, which

134 TELEVISION STUDIES: THE BASICS are crucial to the life and demise of every US show. The firms are

very small; they routinely work for both producers and networks, thereby creating an outrageous conflict of interest; none of them are Spanish- speaking, unlike public relations or advertising itself; and they veer between being influential and of no significance whatsoever. But they are vital sources of surveillance before programs have begun.

Ratings of broadcast shows are the key to determining success in TV – how many people watched and who they were. The US networks attained their peak viewing numbers in 1976, with 92 percent of the national audience; by 2005, they had 45 percent of it. US cable stations have grown at their expense. More people watched CNN that any network on election night in 2008, and no fewer than thirty- seven cable stations that carry commercials reported their best prime- time viewing figures that year, while CBS, ABC, NBC, and Fox dropped by an average of 11 percent. The numbers are not about raw humans, though – their social identities and consuming practices also matter. Three basic systems of fantasizing about consumers dominate marketing: individual, regional, and global. The first is animated by classifications of race, class, gender, age, and psyche; the second by geopolitical clusters; and the third by a growing cosmopolitanism. In the area of sport, Fox Soccer Channel succeeds not because it commands huge audiences, but because of their composition – men aged 18–34 with household income over US$75,000. A show like Alias (2001–6), which did not rate well, remained on the air due to the youthful- ness of its fans and because it promoted high DVD sales. In the US, low- rating situation comedies that are about elites, like 30 Rock (2006–) and The Office (2005–), are much- loved by affluent viewers. This can enable unpopular series to survive, because

advertisers of costly merchandise are promised ruling- class audiences. At the same time, with overall declines in ratings, broadcast networks are being forced to offer free commercial time to advertisers who have paid for programs that do not attract the right people in terms of commercial desires. Then there is very specific, local targeting, which is seeing broadcast stations following the lead of radio and the airlines, via credit and debit cards articulated to frequent viewing, and a rewards system with local advertisers for redeeming points (Attallah 2007: 330; Flaherty 2008; Hassan et al.

SURVEILLANCE Another key applied area of audience research relevant to the