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Predicting TV Ratings for Theatrical Movies

The recent increase in competition' by the television networks has produced a greater need for accurate prediction of ratings. Program executives who can successfully predict how viewers will respond to different types of programs in different situations can be expected to make fewer development and scheduling mistakes, hold down programming costs and win the ratings game. While the stakes in the ratings game are enormous, unfortunately. little empirical work has been published to aid the programming executive in his task.2 Taylor noted that the ratings success of theatrical movies on television depends on the physical characteristics of the film, when it is scheduled, and its "quality" as measured by awards received in the theatrical pre-market and the past successes of the director.3 This study expands upon the Taylor model but uses more precise data on the "quality" of the movie in the theatrical pre-market as well as more directly capturing the influence of inter-network competition for ratings. The results of this analysis shed some light on the more complex process of predicting ratings for regularly scheduled series.