Unmeasurability of viewership protected advertising from hard scrutiny.

Evidence

Fortunately for the advertising industry, it remained impossible to accurately measure whether people were watching commercials or not, saving the enterprise from a true and full accounting. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 632

Categorization

• SEED: Article angle: the history of how unmeasurable engagement metrics repeatedly shield attention industries from accountability.
• XREF: connects to: Belief in advertising’s power grew from salient successes despite weak proof — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 488; Television devoted roughly one third of broadcast time to advertising — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 888; Nearly perfect callback rates do not translate into booked commercials — Dolores DeLuce, Blow Jobs: A Guide to Making It in Show…, 287