4th Exclusive David Simon Q&A (page 14)
Q: Were you disappointed that HBO couldn't keep the episodes and screeners under control again this year, or was it
just more publicity? Why do you think there were even fewer viewers for this final season? [Doug, Jim](continued from the previous page)
But to read The Sun, we are suddenly below a million and falling like a stone. And the reason? Well, they predicted it. We wrote an evil newspaper arc and viewers responded, yes they did. Except by that reasoning, on our Sunday 9 p.m. viewing on the premiere night of episode one we were already far below the Season Four premiere. Did the viewers know their distaste of the newspaper arc before actually viewing any of the season? Remarkable. I guess it was the power of Dave Zurawik's critique that kept them from ever so much as tuning in for a minute.
Listen, I don't mean to go off on Dave's criticism of the show. He's entitled to dislike what he dislikes and I defend his credibility as a critic in making his own conclusions. He's earned that. And while he apparently feels comfortable attributing much of his critique to my personal psychology, history and proximity to the material -- or his perceptions thereof -- I'm willing to be more generous than that and argue against any ad hominem with regard to his own unique standing in this case. I'll assert that Dave is not compromised by The Sun's proximity to the story arc and that his criticisms are his own, genuinely, unaffected by his status as The Sun's television critic.
But his obsession with the numbers -- and his almost willful lack of sophistication in assessing the changing nature of premium cable -- is, I think, disturbing and awkward, for himself and for The Sun. When you offer the show On-Demand a week in advance of the premiere and you split the premiere night into separate viewings, and then further, when the episodes are leaked to the Internet in advance of broadcast, the means of measuring the audience has to change. If you are trying to be accurate, it does, anyway. On the other hand, if you are trying too hard to prove the validity of your criticism using numbers -- a dubious premise with regard to The Wire in any event; when did we do anything with an eye toward ratings? -- then, yeah, I suppose anything's possible.
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