"It's definitely the highest rated pre-school show on Cable. It's difficult to mix markets that way in terms of ratings. It's hard to tell, you know, where channel 12, or Public Television, is"
About this Quote
There is a weirdly adult anxiety tucked inside this very kid-friendly brag: Steve Burns is talking like a performer who can see the spreadsheet behind the puppets. Calling it "the highest rated pre-school show on Cable" sounds triumphant, but the phrasing immediately qualifies itself. It is a win, yes, but a win in a fragmented arena where the scoreboard is always contested. Burns is signaling that success in childrens TV is real, measurable, and still oddly insecure - because the yardsticks keep changing.
The real meat is in his reluctance to "mix markets". He is pointing at a media landscape split between commercial cable, broadcast affiliates, and public television, each with its own audience logic and credibility economy. Ratings crown you on Nickelodeon-style turf; cultural legitimacy is often assumed to live on PBS. Burns is essentially admitting that a hit on cable doesnt automatically translate into a universally agreed-upon "national" phenomenon, especially when public television operates like an alternate universe: less about Nielsen dominance, more about reach, trust, and parental approval.
That last line - "Its hard to tell, you know, where channel 12, or Public Television, is" - is charmingly messy and revealing. It captures the pre-streaming confusion of channel identity, when "PBS" could mean wildly different local stations and slot positions. Subtext: even the people making the show were navigating a shifting map, trying to prove childrens entertainment could be both popular and respectable, even when the metrics refused to speak the same language.
The real meat is in his reluctance to "mix markets". He is pointing at a media landscape split between commercial cable, broadcast affiliates, and public television, each with its own audience logic and credibility economy. Ratings crown you on Nickelodeon-style turf; cultural legitimacy is often assumed to live on PBS. Burns is essentially admitting that a hit on cable doesnt automatically translate into a universally agreed-upon "national" phenomenon, especially when public television operates like an alternate universe: less about Nielsen dominance, more about reach, trust, and parental approval.
That last line - "Its hard to tell, you know, where channel 12, or Public Television, is" - is charmingly messy and revealing. It captures the pre-streaming confusion of channel identity, when "PBS" could mean wildly different local stations and slot positions. Subtext: even the people making the show were navigating a shifting map, trying to prove childrens entertainment could be both popular and respectable, even when the metrics refused to speak the same language.
Quote Details
| Topic | Art |
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