🚀 go-pugleaf

I don't know what's replacing Nielsen ratings as the primary way network
shows' revenue is determined, but clearly something has, as the networks
clearly do not give a shit about viewership during sweeps periods anymore.

Witness tonight's "lineup", if I may use that term loosely. CSI:NY is a
rerun, smack dab in the middle of sweeps. One of the top shows on TV. A
rerun. Even a couple of years ago they wouldn't have dared.

And then there's the continuing absence of Grimm on NBC. It disappeared for
Christmas ... and never came back. Rumor has it it has *not* been canceled,
but week after week goes by and no Grimm. Not even a rerun. If this streak
continues for one more week, there won't have been any throughout the
entire February ratings sweep, which a decade ago would have meant Grimm
didn't have any data with which to demand good advertising rates until the
end of May sweeps, by which time it would have ended for the summer. It
would have been suicide for the show, in other words.

Now that doesn't prove that sweeps-based advertising rates aren't
important; the continuing ghettoization of scifi means it's 100% plausible
that NBC has decided to strangle Grimm in the cradle by purposely
sabotaging its profitability, then using that as an excuse to cancel it.
After all they infamously did exactly that with the original Star Trek way
back in the seventies. But they are being awfully blatant about it if so.
They'd ALREADY shuffled it off to Friday nights, ala Star Trek, and then to
yank it completely off the air through an entire sweeps period ON TOP OF
THAT?

The other possibility is that there is another revenue source that's
beginning to eclipse ones that depend on getting good ratings during sweeps
months. I'm not sure what that might be, though, that wouldn't also be hurt
by the show's lengthy absence. Disappearing the show for months at a time
won't exactly drum up DVD sales, for example, and no new episodes for
months means nothing new to sell to streaming services.

Does anybody know what it might be that is making sweeps less relevant? Are
they simply trying to kill Grimm? Could CBS even be trying to kill CSI:NY?