Quotes About Viewership

Some of the greatest shows in history - 'Seinfeld,' 'Everybody Loves Raymond' and 'House' - had puny starts but the benefit of schedule protection, increasingly scarce in today's DVR world. Cable nets can tolerate small ratings, building hits in progress like 'Breaking Bad,' or marathon their way to a 'Duck Dynasty.'

'Tom and Jerry' seemed to be as well liked by adults as by children. 'The Flintstones,' of course, was geared more to adults, but I guess we were just lucky that the kids seemed to enjoy 'The Flintstones,' too.

I watch 'Jeopardy!' every night and 'Wheel of Fortune' follows. And every time I'm like, 'Whoa, it's still on! This is still happening!'

When I fight, people are going to watch me fight. They're not gonna turn the channel to 'Real Housewives of OC' like they will other fighters.

Towards the end, there weren't that many people watching 'Glee.' So I don't know how many people would then watch a spinoff. We're off the air for a reason.

As far as how much you listen to the audience, you listen to them when they really hate something.

What's great about HBO is they just care about quality. They care about the brand. They're not worried about ratings; obviously they want people to buy subscriptions, but they just want people to be into what's on HBO.

'Girls' is a huge show, as far as buzz, and magazine covers, and getting a ton of copy, and awards. And yet I don't think the viewership is huge.

I have friends at home who love 'The Tonight Show' with Jimmy Fallon. They live in the U.K., and they've never seen an episode, but they love it.

I didn't realize how many people watched 'The Tonight Show.'

The challenge is that we live in a time where there's a lot of crap on television.

The Fox News anchors are lovely. They have an incredible combination of brains and beauty. And I think that's one of the reasons people love watching them and listening to them.

The overall effect of the Kid Vid rules has been to force networks to prioritize less popular content. Some of this programming attracts reliable viewership among older children, but younger children largely aren't watching.

I believe that cinema died on the 31 September 1983 when the zapper, or the remote control, was introduced into the living rooms of the world.

We'd all like to be in the business where we don't have to report our numbers, too. You're dealing with a Netflix and an Amazon that don't have to report their viewership. They're not sharing those numbers, so how do you work with a creative entity to renegotiate future seasons when nobody has metrics?

In my opinion, a lot of NFL broadcasts are not fun to watch.

Consumers can choose from hundreds of channels today, including dozens for kids. At a time of dwindling resources, we don't need to be subsidizing PBS. It's time for Big Bird the mooch to compete with 'Dora the Explorer' and 'Bob the Builder.'

Obviously with the Internet and increased access to other means of watching shows, the audience has dispersed and is all over the place and that is a challenge.

The cable TV sex channels don't expand our horizons, don't make us better people, and don't come in clearly enough.

With the TV shows, you get eight zillion people watching you. I was really surprised at the way everything went. I knew television was powerful, but that was just... wow.

The television business is based on managed dissatisfaction. You're watching a great television show you're really wrapped up in? You might get 50 minutes of watching a week and then 18,000 minutes of waiting until the next episode comes along.

I write the kind of stuff I'd like to watch.

But HBO is less interested in how many people are watching than in how much the people who are watching are liking the show. They didn't set up their business model to make writers happy. It's just a nice unintended consequence.

Broadcasting for advertisers is still the best game in town, and they know it. Look, I admire a lot of the shows on cable. I think 'Mad Men' is wonderful. I think 'Breaking Bad' is wonderful. But let's remember they're about one-tenth the audience of NCIS.