Word: nielsens
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...fifth season on NBC, Seinfeld is in its glory days. Last winter, moved to a Thursday-night time slot following Cheers, the show vaulted into the Nielsen Top 10. This fall, without Cheers' help, it's in the Top 5. Against all odds, this hip, insider sitcom about a comedian (Seinfeld playing Seinfeld) and his three Manhattan friends has expanded its appeal beyond a core audience of yuppie tastemakers. It's that rarity -- intelligent comedy that is funny enough for everybody...
...becoming a predominantly black sport, and the audiences the teams and the networks wanted were mainly white. Along came Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, and the N.B.A. started perking up. But it took Michael Jordan to take the sport into the promised land of perpetually full arenas and high Nielsen ratings. Everybody liked Mike. The N.B.A. groomed Jordan just the way his corporate sponsors did. In his nine years as a player in Chicago, the value of the Bulls franchise increased nearly tenfold. In 1984, Jordan's rookie year, only 14% of Bull home games were sold out; last year...
...sudden vogue for stand-up comedians is based on solid Nielsen evidence. First Roseanne and later Seinfeld, Home Improvement and Martin showed that joking at the Improv can be a springboard to prime-time success. Now producers and studio executives are scouring the comedy clubs for the next Tim Allen or Martin Lawrence. "It's a feeding frenzy," says a comedy producer. "A lot of these people you might cast as the second or third lead in an ensemble. But now, the studios want to build shows around them...
...host of LSD parties in New York City in the '80s. "At this point with the current crop of drugs, you're set for the night." Others have a wider perspective. "If you look historically at a large population that has been using a stimulant like cocaine," says James Nielsen, a 26-year veteran with the Drug Enforcement Administration, "they will then go on to a depressant like heroin...
Amazingly, viewers aren't sated. In the latest Nielsen ratings, four magazine shows ranked in the top 10, and seven were in the top 25. Because the networks own these shows outright (unlike most entertainment shows), prime- time magazines are the best thing to happen to network news since Huntley and Brinkley. Says CBS's Andrew Heyward, executive producer of Chung's show: "They have kept the news divisions viable and healthy at a time when economic pressures are enormous...