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Why folks love
the TV shows they do

Some shows create deep emotional connections

By Diego Vasquez
Sep 25, 2008

CBS’s “Survivor” kicks off its 17th season tonight at 8 p.m. with its highest-rated years well behind it. Yet when it comes to emotional attachment to a program, there’s no show that rates higher. “Survivor” took the top spot in a new study from Marketing Evaluations, The Q Scores Company, which measures viewers’ emotional ties to broadcast TV shows. It found that they are most emotionally attached to “Survivor,” with an EA index of 177. That was well ahead of the No. 2 show, NBC’s “Heroes,” at 153, which was just ahead of Fox’s “House.” A number of top shows among adults 18-49 also made the list, including CBS’s “CSI” and ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy,” both of which also premiere tonight. But there were also a few surprises, like the CW’s low-rated “Supernatural” and NBC’s “Life,” which barely secured a second season, making the top 20. CBS notched five of the top 10 shows overall. Henry Schafer, executive vice president of Marketing Evaluations, talks to Media Life about how emotional attachment is measured, why comedies index relatively low, and why these rankings are relevant to media buyers.

How do you measure the emotional attachment of viewers to a show?

The shows in question we’re talking about are on broadcast networks. It comes from measurement in our TV Q studies, which pretty much take place every three weeks during the TV season, and within that study the emotional attachment is one measure.

It’s a scale where we have viewers rate each show they watched based on how committed they are to continuing to watch, from zero to 10, 10 being extremely committed to watching the show, zero being no commitment whatsoever.

All of these studies are done online with a sample representative of 2,000 TV viewers age 13 and older. And while the studies are done online, because of the size and scope, we make sure that all the information is balanced and weighted very carefully to represent the total population.

We have about nine or 10 strict demographic weightings we apply to the results.

How important is emotional attachment for a program's success?

Well, it’s extremely important.

You don’t have to be highly rated show to be successful anymore. With all the different media platforms available for viewers to watch a TV show, ranging from TV sets to iPods and everything in between, it’s extremely important to monitor the commitment people have to a show, since the average person can now be their own programmer.

We can watch shows any place any time anywhere. So the important thing to monitor, from our perspective, is emotional connection, which is an indicator of if people will follow shows wherever they are. It’s a good indicator of the relationship that viewers develop with a show.

The importance of it for the show varies. At the beginning of the TV season it’s critical for the returning shows to maintain the momentum and motivation that they ended the season with, and for new shows it’s an indicator as to how the show will hold onto its audience the second, third and fourth week, more so than only ratings, which just gives you body counts.

What do the shows that rate highly with viewers have in common?

The shows that tend to have high scores are well-scripted, well-written, and it doesn’t matter how they’re scheduled. The way we measure is what its strength is, not based on its schedule. For scripted shows it has to have characters and stories that hold viewers’ attention and get them involved. They create an appetite to see what happens next.

You’ll see this in a lot of the higher-rated shows. It makes sense for them to have these qualities. But there are others that don’t get high ratings that people have an emotional attachment to.

What about the shows with lower ranks -- what ties them together?

The returning shows that are at the bottom are kind of like borderline shows. They’re just good enough to fit into some spots on a schedule, and they have just enough strength to tie an hour together. But they’re not strong enough to stand alone.

They mostly have average to below average emotional attachment. But because you need a certain amount of shows to put on the air, they make it onto schedules.

The bulk of the top emotional attachment shows are dramas, and yet a reality show, "Survivor," ranks No. 1. Why do viewers feel such an attachment to it?

It’s because CBS, with its good track record in drama development, had the foresight to get a better handle on what was motivating viewers week to week and season to season to stay with a show.

It created high drama with the competition, it picked and chose the right mix of competitors that created a cast of characters, and they picked locations that appealed to viewers as well. So they found the right mix.

There are very few comedies on the list of top emotional attachment shows. Why?

Part of it is that there are simply fewer comedies, we’re kind of in a down cycle. They’re not creating the same kind of week-to-week commitment that “Seinfeld” and “Friends” and “All in the Family” did.

“Two and a Half Men” is probably the strongest one out there in ratings and emotional commitment, and then everything else falls off.

Whether it’s a sign of the well going dry on comedy writers and talent, that could be part of the whole mix.

With cable also getting stronger with its drama development, there’s a whole new wave of drama that’s not just on the broadcast networks. So the whole drama genre is at a peak, it’s the dominant form attracting viewers to TV right now, so you go with the winning hand.

Two relatively low-rated shows, NBC's "Life" and CW's "Supernatural," both made the top 20. Could that mean that they have the potential to grow into bigger hits, or does it just mean they'll maintain a small but loyal audience?

Well, you have to keep in mind the networks they’re on. NBC has a bigger growth opportunity because it’s broader-based. In the case of CW, it’s a smaller network and has a smaller audience base.

But if they can maintain this kind of emotional commitment with an audience, it’s important for both the networks and media buyers. “Supernatural” is an example of a show that may cost less than other networks but it still has a very loyal audience.

TOP 20 PRIME-TIME SHOWS RANKED BY “EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT” Average = 100 index
RANK	ADULTS 18-49 SEASON-TO-DATE AVERAGES	EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT	NETWORK
1	SURVIVOR: MICRONESIA	177	CBS
2	HEROES	153	NBC
3	HOUSE	149	FOX
4	CSI: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION	147	CBS
5	SURVIVOR: CHINA	145	CBS
6	GREY'S ANATOMY	142	ABC
7	CRIMINAL MINDS	138	CBS
8	SUPERNATURAL	135	CW
9	NCIS	132	CBS
10	NBC SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL	132	NBC
11	DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES	130	ABC
12	THE UNIT	128	CBS
13	GHOST WHISPERER	127	CBS
14	WITHOUT A TRACE	125	CBS
15	LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT	124	NBC
16	BROTHERS & SISTERS	124	ABC
17	THE OFFICE	123	NBC
18	PRISON BREAK	122	FOX
19	LIFE	122	NBC
20	ER	120	NBC
Note: Data as of pre-Olympics Source: Marketing Evaluations, Inc., The Q Scores Company.