Popularity Of Poker TV Shows, Based On Forum Posts

Poker After Dark (PAD) recently aired a cash game, a tourney, and a heads-up tournament on consecutive weeks. The World Series of Poker and World Poker Tour were also airing new episodes at the same time. This provided me with an interesting opportunity to compare their popularity.

I don't think viewer satisfaction influences TV ratings much, if at all, in the short run. A typical PAD viewer won't know in advance that the week may have a new format, like cash or heads-up. He may never have seen a televised cash game before, and he won't know till after he's watched it if he likes it or not. Readers of a TV poker forum, on the other hand, are knowledgeable consumers: they know whether they like cash games or tournaments; heads-up, shorthanded, or full ring; and Poker After Dark or the World Poker Tour. It seemed to me that their forum posts and views would be a good measure of their interest in the shows; and that their interest would predict future TV ratings, which would slowly follow. With that in mind, I counted the posts in and views of 2+2 poker TV forum threads about these recent shows:

	Posts	Views
PAD Cash Game	904	94,067
PAD Tourney	420	41,997
PAD Heads-up	298	21,953
WSOP (avg. of 2 eps.)	213	16,189
WPT (avg. of 3 eps.)	36	1,924

2+2 posters' views pretty much match my own: we prefer cash games to tournaments, and find heads-up to be relatively boring. We think Poker After Dark is a good show. I think the World Series of Poker shows are badly made, but it's poker's world championship.

I did a similar exercise in the past: see The Most Popular Poker Shows on TV, Based on Downloads. It also showed cash games to be popular.