Surveys and polls - do they make a difference?

On Reddit -Politics recently, there was a popular survey purporting to be from the O'Reilly Factor, visit it here.

So do you think surveys and polls make a difference? Vote on the poll to the left. Me, I'm thinking that television programming is pretty much immune to public opinion, democracy or the tyranny of the majority. It's probably more like a natural process where the crud floats to the top.

You could always check out Time.com's Top Ten lists of everything.

Or last week's broadcast ratings:

RANK - PROGRAMS - ORIG - HH RATING - # OF PERSONS

1 AMERICAN IDOL-WEDNESDAY- FOX- 13.7- 23,574,000
2 AMERICAN IDOL-TUESDAY- FOX- 13.4- 23,414,000
3 DANCING WITH THE STARS- ABC- 12.6- 20,278,000
4 MENTALIST, THE- CBS- 10.4- 16,678,000
4 NCIS- CBS- 10.4- 16,723,000
6 GREY'S ANATOMY-THU 9PM ABC- 10.3- 15,546,000
7 DANCING W/STARS RESULTS- ABC- 9.4- 14,556,000
8 CSI -CBS- 9.2- 14,912,000
9 CRIMINAL MINDS- CBS- 8.9- 14,128,000
10 CSI: MIAMI- CBS- 8.7- 13,718,000

Anyway, take the survey on the right - Reddit members wield more clout than the Nielsen ratings, right?

[Category - just for fun]
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