May Sweeps Guests Just as April showers bring May flowers, April gives way to the May television ratings “sweeps” period and the talk show guest lists get better and better. Craig Ferguson will welcome a great lineup of guests to The Late Late Show in the next month, including George Lopez, Cedric The Entertainer, Billie Piper, Eddie Izzard, Lyle Lovett, Billy Bob Thornton, Jackie Collins, LL Cool J, Valerie Bertinelli, Rachel Taylor, Cheryl Hines, Elisabeth Moss, Tom Felton, Christina Hendricks, Lisa Kudrow, Kathy Griffin, Regis Philbin, Jeff Foxworthy and many more. Take a look at our Guests page for the most complete listings. Demographics? More or Less Bunk After decades of selling television advertising based on age-based demographics, CBS and the Nielson ratings service appear to be switching gears. Essentially admitting that buying ads based on the age of viewers doesn’t translate into sales, the network may be taking a new approach. In a detailed article by Marty Kaplan at the University of Southern California, he explains the ratings of the future could be based on psychographic data for better accuracy. Rather than going after males 18-34 or females 25-49, advertisers could seek out six groups of viewers based on their behavior. The groups would be called TV companions, media trendsetters, sports enthusiasts, program passionates, surfers and streamers, and TV moderators. If a program rated highly among one or two such groups, advertisers could tailor their ads to better reach those groups, and maybe get more sales as a result. As the RSA’s @RaniVermonty pointed out when sending us the link to this story, the RSA could easily be described as “program passionates.” Given Craig’s long-standing annoyance about trying to target demographic groups for ratings, perhaps the new categories may be more to his liking. HTTYD2 First Five If you just can’t wait until June 13, here are the first five minutes of the DreamWorks animated feature film How To Train Your Dragon 2, featuring the voice of Craig Ferguson. Because it’s the full start of the film, some may consider it a bit spoiler-y, but no major plot points are unveiled. Use your own judgment. Video courtesy: YahooMovies

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