Networks quantified audience attention as inventory sold by gross rating points

Evidence

With the potential dollar value of television’s attention harvest becoming so obvious, any pretenses to a higher purpose that broadcasting once had were eroding quickly. Now it was clear, as an economist put it, that “programs are scheduled interruptions of marketing bulletins.” The trend was exacerbated by another increased quantification. The networks began to consider audience attention their “inventory,” which was sold using metrics like “gross rating points” or GRP, a formula that estimated the likelihood of people seeing the advertising at least once (the cumulative audience), and the frequency with which the advertising played. On popular prime-time television, all but the highest commercial bidders—America’s largest corporations—were priced out of each time slot. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 489

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines GRP/gross rating points and the reframing of audience as inventory
• XREF: Connects to the broader history of audience-as-commodity, echoing Dallas Smythe’s ‘audience commodity’ thesis and later digital advertising metrics. — connects to: Mass media function as banks for the attention economy — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 159; Mass-media profits derive from non-reciprocal attention exchange — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 251; Public attention is a self-reproducing form of value convertible into fame — Michael H. Goldhaber, The Attention Economy and the Net, 6 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Advertising industrialized attention by converting it into a resellable commodity #expands (0.85) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 24
• Measuring attention as data enables treating it as a monetizable resource #expands (0.80)
• Blogs shifted attention harvesting from broadcast to peer sharing #qualifies (0.70) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 911