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Muslims Get Swept in First Week of TV Sweeps
By Ali Asadullah 01/11/2001
It's that time again - Sweeps; well, November Sweeps to be accurate. Just as in February, May and July, television networks are putting forth their best programming in an effort to grab the advertising market share from competitors.
Sweeps is actually a media industry catch phrase, a holdover from the early days of television when media analysts would sweep across the country doing surveys of public viewing habits. Here in the 21st century, however, this polling has become as scientific as one can get with reference to human behavior; and at the top of this science is Nielsen Media Research, which measures viewing habits throughout the year.
Sweeps, however, is a special time. According to Nielsen's website, the company "surveys all 210 local television markets in November, February, May and July. These months are known as sweep months, and the data are used by local stations and cable systems to set local ad rates and to make program decisions."
Being the uncontested authority on viewership, Nielsen's ratings of the networks during this period make or break television ad sales until the next Sweeps period arrives. Put simply, any network worth its salt will come out guns-a-blazing with whatever special programming it can muster.
What audiences can expect, then, from Sweeps, is a solid cavalcade of celebrity guest appearances on sitcoms (e.g. Sean Penn guest-stars on
Friends Nov. 1), series premiers for dramas (e.g. The X-Files opens its new season Nov. 11 & 18 with a two-part spectacular) and any number of eye-catching storylines.
While there are no Muslim sitcoms, sitcom guest appearances or drama premiers in the offing, Muslims should nonetheless expect some attention from shows eager to use various Muslim-related themes as attention-grabbers during Sweeps.
To start the ball rolling, the West Wing aired an episode Wednesday night
- technically one day before the beginning of the November Sweeps - that prominently featured terrorism as part of the plot.
While preparing to attend a formal White House dinner, news hits the Bartlett administration that two Americans have died in a terrorist bombing in Jerusalem. Apparently targeted because they were Americans, the suicide bombers used C4 explosives that American and Israeli intelligence traces back to an infamous, Bin Laden-like character named Abdul Mujeeb.
Trying to stick to the realism for which the West Wing has become know, writers for the show used language that followed prevailing American sentiment towards Muslims when issues of terrorism arise. For instance, in the early stages of the crisis, the President asks, "Is there an Afghan connection? Iran?" - in other words, he invokes the usual suspects, as is too often the case in real life.
Later on, the President finds a solution to the crisis partly by threatening to withhold $100 million in NGO aid from the Palestinians, a strategy not unlike the economic sanctions and pressures currently used against Muslim countries. And just as is the case in contemporary discourse on the Palestinian issue, the Palestinian point of view was largely ignored. So marginalized was the Palestinian perspective that show's writers barely took time to explain why the bombing happened in the first place.
As unfortunate as the West Wing's characterization of the crisis in Palestine was, things promise to worsen when CBS's
The Agency airs its pilot episode Thursday night. Originally scheduled to air shortly after the September 11 attacks, CBS pulled the episode because of the disturbing similarity its plot had to the actual events of that fateful day. Now reworked and edited for the sensitivities of a nation under siege, the episode will finally run.
The crux of the storyline is again terrorism, which the show's website describes as follows:
After the death of a secret agent in the line of duty, the CIA learns of an impending terrorist attack somewhere in Europe.
In an attempt to uncover the planned location of the imminent attack, Matt Callan convinces a Syrian diplomat to divulge critical information about the assault. However, the diplomat will cooperate only if his family is brought safely to the United States, thus creating a challenging race against the clock to save not only the lives of one family but also hundreds of Europeans.
Since the show deals directly with the secretive, cloak-and-dagger world of the CIA, Muslims viewers should expect a decent dose of sensationalism. Although to be fair, the episode has yet to air, and therefore conclusive statements about the episode cannot be made.
The coup de grace for the first week of Sweeps comes Sunday with NBC's airing of
Uprising, a mini-series dedicated to the Jewish resistance fighters who struggled against the Germans in the Warsaw ghettos during World War II. While there is nothing directly Muslim-related about this special movie event, it does however add to the already substantial body of work that permeates in American popular media concerning the plight of the Jewish people. And whether one realizes it or not, such programming helps mold the public's perception of the current Palestinian-Israeli conflict. And although Jews were righteous in their fight against Nazi tyranny, the same cannot be said of their present activities; and those who now most resemble those noble fighters in the Warsaw ghettos are not the Israelis, but the rock throwing Palestinians.
As for the rest of November Sweeps, there will no doubt be other elements of programming that touch on Muslim issues, and Muslims may want keep an eye on their local listings for those shows and may also want to provide feedback to the networks on the way Islam and Muslims are portrayed.
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