NBC games the shit out of Nielsen's poorly thought out rule that allows for the cumulation of ratings of a show aired with the same advertisers during the same calendar week.
What that means is, because Heroes had one big sponsor (Nissan) providing the show with “limited commercial interruptions”, when they re-run the season premiere tomorrow (Saturday night), the ratings numbers will just combine the stats, resulting in NBC’s overall week numbers looking higher, as well as the numbers for Heroes itself.
A lot of people are pissed, but it seems like a pretty ingenious way to take advantage of a really dumb rule that Nielsen has admitted to wanting to change in the near future.
