Monday Night Football

ABC’s decision to drop “Monday Night Football” after 36 years provides a timely example of the First and Second Laws of Media.

The First Law of Media: “The media is a business.”

The Second Law of Media: “The media is an exercise in the power of small numbers.”

The wording of these definitions is mine – I use them in teaching media principles to my students – but they may be found essentially unchanged, though maybe stated differently, in any number of media studies texts.

ABC dropped MNF because it was losing $150 million (it said) a year on the program, and a media, same as any other business, cannot lose too much money and stay open. I think most people understand that, but if they don’t, they should, because a clear understanding of the First Law is vitally important to understanding the current unrest with media, particularly non-narrative, or news, media.

Statistics accompanying the MNF story are illustrative of the Second Law, of which people seem to be much less aware. In fact the public in general is badly unaware of any of the laws, definitions and principles that govern the media business, because they aren’t taught or discussed anywhere, except in journalism and media communications schools. Media professionals go to school to learn these operational laws and principles, that they use every day in their work, in increasingly sophisticated ways.

Consumers, and the media, and the culture, would profit by consumer awareness of these laws and principles. There are television shows, set up as forums, that discuss media, and I get tickled watching them because they are basically media professionals sitting in a circle talking to each other about the media. Never has there been any thought, that I have seen, to address the lay person at home, the viewer, about the laws and principles underlying the knowledgeable insiders’ discussion.

I wish one of them would turn to the camera and say, “The Second Law of Media says that ‘The media is an exercise in the power of small numbers,’ ” and use it to explain the Monday Night Football story.

But they never do, so I will.

People in America think Monday Night Football is a really big deal. And it is. And it is that stature that explains the Second Law of Media. Most people know about Monday Night Football, but not very many people watch it. At the height of its popularity in the 1980s, MNF drew a Nielsen Rating of about 21. A Nielsen Rating Point (NRP) is equal to one percent of all television households in America.

That means at its most popular, 21 percent of all television households were tuned in to MNF, which also means that 79 percent of American television households were doing something else.
A more extreme example is Oprah. Popularity? Some people were disappointed that Oprah wasn’t appointed Pope. Oprah’s popularity, and power as a culture-shaper, is based on a Nielsen Rating (week of April 4) of 6.4. Oprah has gained her fame while 93.6 percent of the country was doing something else.

The Second Law of Media says that 6.4 (Dr. Phil the same week pulled a 5.1) is big enough, because it represents roughly eight million sets of eyeballs. Advertisers weep with gratitude when they think of eight million sets of eyeballs looking at their product all at the same time, and salivate when they think what a three percent return from such an audience will be.

Thus is described the power of small numbers in media. It makes us think everybody must watch Oprah. But we don’t. You would think we all watched “CSI.” In fact the last rating for “CSI” was 16.7, which means 83.3 percent . . . well, you know. In fact, the most misused word by pundits describing the media-public relationship is the word “we.”