Credit is due here. While your other ratings reports were sniping and defensive, this report lays out concrete facts that deserves analysis.

As I have stated before, I don't think the audience was going to grow any for the Wire regardless of the show's big media push prior to the Season 5 debut. But, as I also said, the audience didn't shrink either. With 1.1 million viewers watching Sunday, and if you count the second viewing, 1.8 million viewers (though I imagine many of these were repeat viewers), it proves the core audience of the Wire has been there through Season 5. The bulk of which were just catching it on-line or On Demand.

Pointing out that less than one percent of the U.S. TV audience is a valid, telling statistic, but I'm wondering if you mean it as a detriment to this season's content, or as a harsh spotlight on American audiences, or if you're just letting the readers make of it what we will (I personally see it as a case study of Americans not understanding that television can also veer into literature, but that's just my opinion.)

If you mean it to be a detriment of this show's content, I would love for you to pull up the ratings of the shows first three seasons for comparison sake. If those ratings are at or lower than this season's numbers, does that make their content any less brilliant or poignant?

Dear Sun Readers and Editors,

As a friend pointed out to me, a large number of people who watch "The Wire" regularly do so in large groups, as opposed to watching the show alone. I know the ratings system brings this into account, as seen during television events like the Super Bowl and Monday Night Football. The Nielson ratings also take into account those viewers who follow the series using OnDemand technology (as mentioned in the article).

However, do the ratings account for the possibility that people may be watching the OnDemand events with more viewers per television set than they would for basic cable, non-OnDemand events?

From my perspective, the number of cable subscribers who have OnDemand is small. (Again, I am looking only at my group of friends, and even closer at those who pay a good deal of money for their personal entertainment, A.K.A. people with HDTV's and digital cable subscriptions.) Additionally, the number of people I know who have OnDemand service with access to "premium" programming is even smaller.

Do the ratings embrace the idea that for shows like the Wire, with cult appeal and limited broadcast availibility, that even larger groups of people are watching it per OnDemand television set than normally?

The show touches on issues that affect the lives of a lot of Americans; however it clearly highlights the plight of certain groups of people. I do not have many friends of my ethnic, socioeconomic, and geographic background who appreciated the series as much as I did. (I am a white kid from Harford County, I am of an upper-class family, and I reside outside the city and state, in a mid-western American city; all of these clearly affect my contacts after I watch a new episode of the show.) Any non-Baltimorean fans of "The Wire" with whom I came into contact were of lower socioeconomic class than myself, and most were black. Many did not have access to OnDemand. These people watched the show in very large groups, with friends at the home of individuals who did have such systems.

Instead of simply dividing its system along demographic lines post-analysis, does the Nielson group ever use ethnic and socioeconomic demographics in tabulating the final number of viewers? Do they expect certain communities to watch the show given other forms of polling, and if so do they bring this into their final work?

Responses from anyone with an insider's knowledge of the ratings system would help to shine some light on this issue --- and more importantly it would help resolve a conversation amongst friends.

I don't really see the point of this article. It seems like a half-assed attempt at deflating the show's praiseworthiness. You compare the Wire's ratings to the most popular cable series of all time and to another canceled after one season, pointing out that the finale's of both surpassed the Wire's finale. Is the implication here that you think the Wire was overrrated and should not have been on for five seasons? Or, that HBO execs are fickle?

The genius behind the Wire has always been in how far it sets itself apart from mainstream television and how much higher it sets the bar for all television dramas. Instead of continually dumbing down America, like 90% of television in general, the Wire exposed America's underbelly on many levels. Moreover it exposed the rest of American television for what it truly is. Brain dead, superficial, and tasteless.

Ratings? Remember that you're talking about the American television audience here, so before you imply that the Wire isn't good enough to garner decent ratings, maybe you should shine a little light on the attention span of most of this country's citizens and ask if they are smart enough for shows with important content.

The HBO execs did the right and smart thing in deciding to let the Wire's creators see the show through. It has given something precious to us that reality couldn't and won't ever be able to deliver: r-e-a-l-i-t-y.

Well thought out television show detailing life in the city the way it really is for some people. We need to do more to help people succeed in a positive way.

"If you mean it to be a detriment of this show's content, I would love for you to pull up the ratings of the shows first three seasons for comparison sake. If those ratings are at or lower than this season's numbers, does that make their content any less brilliant or poignant?"

Maybe you got him with that question GMan? Good one.

I could be wrong, but I believe that Season 2, actually, had the highest ratings of any season. I don't know what, if anything, that this proves (that is IIRC in the first place). Season 2 was the "whitest" of the seasons, so maybe more white people watched? And, maybe many of them did not come back because of some of the reasons GMan outlined above?

Me and the other writers over at Highbrid Nation loved The Wire. Actually, one of our guys just did a post today talking about how important The Wire was to viewers as well as the cast.

I think The Wire is one of those shows that most people won't truly get until years from now. 20 years from now people will look back on the Wire as one of the greatest shows ever created.