Splice Now

Somebody has finally done the math. The calculation is simple, but I’ve never seen it in print before. How much a network earns for an hour of primetime — per viewer. Take the total value of the ads run during that hour and divide by the total viewership.

Eduardo Porter has done this for an hour of “Desperate Housewives.” At the iTunes store, such an episode will set you back $2.99. But if you watch it, your attention is worth just 79 cents. Why the difference? Why do I pay more when I’m handing over cold hard cash than when I’m handing over access to my brain?

Read the article here: Television is Not Free and Does Not Want to Be.

This entry was posted on March 10, 2010 at 9:44 am and is filed under Media and Society. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.