CBS Television City Research Center

[gsfan85]

Hey everyone,

I recently saw that they have something called the CBS Television City Research Center at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas.

It says you can watch pilots and decide whether or not you like them.  These are all shows not on the air.

Is this a fake attraction, or are people watching real pilots?

Adam

[tvwxman]

The good news...it's not a fake attraction....

The better news, they show pilots and want you to comment on them...

The bad news.....you don't get to pick what show, and i don't think they've ever shown a game show....

I stayed there a few months ago...they were conducting audience research on a talk show...through the windows, I coulda sworn it was "dennis Miller"...but isn't he on CNBC?

They do sell CBS show merchandise though...no TPIR stuff was visible....

[DrBear]

Audience tests of pilots have a long history at CBS dating back to the 1950s when Frank Stanton was running the network under Bill Paley.  They used to use a device called "Little Annie" in which you watch the show with your hand on a dial, turning it one way if they liked a part, the other if they didn't.  The groups in the tests were always shown a Mr. Magoo cartoon first to get a baseline response. I didn't know they were still doing that, or if this uses the same type of testing.

[Jimmy Owen]

About fifteen years ago, I was living in Toledo, Ohio and one Saturday afternoon I happened upon some sitcom pilot on one of the cable access channels.  I later found out that the showing was an audience test and that certain subscribers (not me) were selected to participate.  I don't remember much about the show, so I don't think it made it to series.

[tvrandywest]

[quote name=\'DrBear\' date=\'Dec 5 2004, 06:04 AM\']Audience tests of pilots have a long history at CBS dating back to the 1950s when Frank Stanton was running the network under Bill Paley.  They used to use a device called "Little Annie" in which you watch the show with your hand on a dial, turning it one way if they liked a part, the other if they didn't.  The groups in the tests were always shown a Mr. Magoo cartoon first to get a baseline response. I didn't know they were still doing that, or if this uses the same type of testing.

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Thanks for another intelligent post, DrBear.

Indeed the Vegas center is real; it's purpose is to get a more representative sample of viewers than the research has generated in the past by primarily recruiting people, preferably tourists, from the streets in New York and LA.

The Mr. Magoo and potentiometer setup you describe was in use at Preview Studios in Los Angeles for decades. Preview was an independent firm that several networks, advertisers and distributors contracted with for audience testing. It was usually done with 500+ respondents at a time in their large theater on Sunset Boulevard.  

The earliest research methodology I saw was fairly similar. In the 1960s the networks utilized an outside research firm in New York that recruited participants to watch the network pilots in a movie theater in Manhattan. Every 5 minutes or so, coinciding with commercial breaks or scene changes, a number between 1 and 20 was flashed on the screen and respondents were to check off answers to a few brief questions about the previous segment.

The methodology for the CBS in-house research in the 1970s through the 1990s utililized two buttons, red and green, placed one in each of the participants' hands to record an ongoing record of positive or negative reaction by the viewers. Approximately 20 respondents would participate at a time, and the viewing was followed by several pages of questions concerning what respondents liked and disliked in plot and character. The more thought provoking questions then asked "If this program was on TV at the same time as the following programs, which would you watch?". There were a dozen or so groupings of shows, hits and stiffs, that the pilot would be measured against.

I assume the results were then analyzed and discussed ad nauseum. I can only hope that intuition and gut feeling were liberally added to the mix, as I think programming is an art as much as it is a science.


Randy
tvrandywest.com

[inturnaround]

The CBS preview panel in Vegas are the real thing, but beware of most other "TV preview" invitations. It's a bit of a bait and switch in most communities.

It goes like this. Person gets a postcard in the mail inviting them to participate in helping shape the TV schedule and look at some of the new shows coming up. When they arrive, they're shown very old failed pilots interspersed with commercials. The real objective for the panel is to rate the commercials, not the show. The show, like Communism, was just a red herring.

[SRIV94]

[quote name=\'tvrandywest\' date=\'Dec 5 2004, 11:02 AM\']The methodology for the CBS in-house research in the 1970s through the 1990s utililized two buttons, red and green, placed one in each of the participants' hands to record an ongoing record of positive or negative reaction by the viewers. Approximately 20 respondents would participate at a time, and the viewing was followed by several pages of questions concerning what respondents liked and disliked in plot and character. The more thought provoking questions then asked "If this program was on TV at the same time as the following programs, which would you watch?". There were a dozen or so groupings of shows, hits and stiffs, that the pilot would be measured against.

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I can certainly attest to that.  While on a trip to NYC in 1981, my father and I happened to walk into CBS' NY facility (just playing tourists for a day, even though my father and I are both native New Yorkers) and were asked if we wanted to take part in such a focus group.  We accepted.

The show that we reviewed--FILTHY RICH (a rather nondescript, if not great, program that, if nothing else, help launch the careers of future "designing women" Delta Burke and Dixie Carter).  I guess a few people liked it enough to help get it onto CBS' fall sked a year or so later (I thought it was okay--no worse then anything other hokey sitcom that was on the air at the time, not to say it was great).

Doug

[BrandonFG]

[quote name=\'SRIV94\' date=\'Dec 5 2004, 02:42 PM\']The show that we reviewed--FILTHY RICH (a rather nondescript, if not great, program that, if nothing else, help launch the careers of future "designing women" Delta Burke and Dixie Carter).  I guess a few people liked it enough to help get it onto CBS' fall sked a year or so later (I thought it was okay--no worse then anything other hokey sitcom that was on the air at the time, not to say it was great).

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Is this the one that was more or less a parody of all the nighttime soaps of the 80s, kinda like "Soap"?

To keep this on topic, I had a chance to be in a focus group about 5 years ago (they mailed us a postcard), but we passed. That is all. :-)

[ChuckNet]

Approximately 20 respondents would participate at a time, and the viewing was followed by several pages of questions concerning what respondents liked and disliked in plot and character. The more thought provoking questions then asked "If this program was on TV at the same time as the following programs, which would you watch?". There were a dozen or so groupings of shows, hits and stiffs, that the pilot would be measured against.

I was asked to do the same in 1992, at the tender age of 13, for an ultimately unsold NBC sitcom pilot called "Country Comfort"...it aired on the local access channel, and afterwards, a representative called me and asked me a barrage of questions along the lines of what Mark described.

Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")

[uncamark]

[quote name=\'fostergray82\' date=\'Dec 5 2004, 03:30 PM\'][quote name=\'SRIV94\' date=\'Dec 5 2004, 02:42 PM\']The show that we reviewed--FILTHY RICH (a rather nondescript, if not great, program that, if nothing else, help launch the careers of future "designing women" Delta Burke and Dixie Carter).  I guess a few people liked it enough to help get it onto CBS' fall sked a year or so later (I thought it was okay--no worse then anything other hokey sitcom that was on the air at the time, not to say it was great).

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Is this the one that was more or less a parody of all the nighttime soaps of the 80s, kinda like "Soap"?

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Yep--and like "Designing Women," it was created by Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, who wanted to use Carter and Burke again a few years later for her more successful series.

[Tim L]

[quote name=\'SRIV94\' date=\'Dec 5 2004, 02:42 PM\'][quote name=\'tvrandywest\' date=\'Dec 5 2004, 11:02 AM\']The methodology for the CBS in-house research in the 1970s through the 1990s utililized two buttons, red and green, placed one in each of the participants' hands to record an ongoing record of positive or negative reaction by the viewers. Approximately 20 respondents would participate at a time, and the viewing was followed by several pages of questions concerning what respondents liked and disliked in plot and character. The more thought provoking questions then asked "If this program was on TV at the same time as the following programs, which would you watch?". There were a dozen or so groupings of shows, hits and stiffs, that the pilot would be measured against.

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I can certainly attest to that.  While on a trip to NYC in 1981, my father and I happened to walk into CBS' NY facility (just playing tourists for a day, even though my father and I are both native New Yorkers) and were asked if we wanted to take part in such a focus group.  We accepted.

The show that we reviewed--FILTHY RICH (a rather nondescript, if not great, program that, if nothing else, help launch the careers of future "designing women" Delta Burke and Dixie Carter).  I guess a few people liked it enough to help get it onto CBS' fall sked a year or so later (I thought it was okay--no worse then anything other hokey sitcom that was on the air at the time, not to say it was great).

Doug

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Don't know if this has to do with the subject at hand, but Tine Warner Cable of Akron/Canton, Ohio had shown for years on their cable access channel a show I think called "Comedy Factory" I know Pat Harrington was in it and I think Judy Landers..It was kind of a sketch show..but they only showed the one episode..There was another show about 2 employees of a Pittsburgh TV talk show..Can't remember the name or who was in it..I remember thinking to myself cant they find any other episodes of these?  I think they were probably surveys of some kind..But after awhile it made no sense..showing the same ones constantly

Tim Lones