How Do You Determine Broadcaster Coverage Size?

[Levinux]

So, I've been playing around with game data and such and I'm wondering: how do you determine broadcaster coverage sizes?

 

At first, I was looking up households reached and quickly realized I couldn't use that data as a basis for coverage.

 

Do you use your own judgment or opinion when setting that?

[spiffyone]

So, I've been playing around with game data and such and I'm wondering: how do you determine broadcaster coverage sizes?

 

At first, I was looking up households reached and quickly realized I couldn't use that data as a basis for coverage.

 

Do you use your own judgment or opinion when setting that?

 

A mix of households reached and judgement. It helps to look at the biggest broadcasters in each area and work backwards from there. So in the U.S., we know that the "Big Three" broadcasters (CBS, NBC, ABC) have the most coverage, and anyone who owns an antenna can pick those up (in addition to folks with cable). FOX has increased their coverage over the years, but they still lag slightly behind. TheCW is a mininetwork of sorts, lagging further behind in coverage. Something like MyNetworkTV or other mininetworks lag further behind TheCW.

 

Cable networks would lag a bit behind the broadcast networks (because cable is needed, therefore creating a barrier for consumers). Basic cable networks (like USA or TNT) would have less coverage than the terrestrial broadcast networks. Pay cable networks (HBO, Showtime) would lag behind those.

 

For internet subscription/streaming/"OTT" networks, it's a range. Netflix has a crapload of subscribers. Prime has less, then Disney, Hulu, etc. Helps to look up how they compare to broadcaster and/or cable network sizes.

[D-Lyrium]

Cable networks would lag a bit behind the broadcast networks (because cable is needed, therefore creating a barrier for consumers). Basic cable networks (like USA or TNT) would have less coverage than the terrestrial broadcast networks. Pay cable networks (HBO, Showtime) would lag behind those.

 

Whilst true, I'd be a little careful using this as a big factor because the game already takes this into account to a certain extent.

 

I'd suggest also keeping in mind the size of promotion that would be able to land a show on the network. You'd have to be pretty enormous for ABC or CBS to look at you for instance.

 

A good guide would also probably be simply "if a company the size of X got a show on here right now, would it be weird? If they flat out rejected a company of Y size, would that be weird?"

[Levinux]

I've been taking both of these things into account, good to know I'm at least on the right track!

[Bigpapa42]

What I'm gradually realizing is that there are no absolutes. There is - or was, at least - some modders who do a TON of research into the broadcasters, looking at how many homes a broadcaster is available in, what their audience share is, top rated shows, etc etc. That's not wrong, but its also not going to give you absolute ranges.

 

 

If you haven't already done so, look in the Handbook about Broadcasters. Has some good info, especially talking about range. Its not about how many homes a broadcaster is in or could conceivably reach, but how many they are likely to. PPV is always going to draw fewer numbers than commercial or free to air simply due to an up-front direct cost to the individual viewer, so the range on those should be lower to represent that. Similarly, one could arguably make YouTube Enormous everywhere, because its available to almost anyone with an internet connection, but no wrestling company is getting 40,000,000 live views on a video. Saw doing it that way would create a massive and unrealistic financial imbalance. Making YouTube Very Small or Tiny in range, and limited it regionally, might feel unrealistic in some ways, but its probably the most accurate way to recreate the impact of YT.

 

No matter how much work you put in up-front, expect to have to tweak the broadcaster data based on testing.

 

As well, game-play definitely has to take precedence. Sometimes its better to move a broadcaster up or down in range to create options or to prevent something from being overpowered.