I have never fully understood why box office grosses and television ratings came to considered news of any importance outside of those with an actual monetary stake in the success and failure of the enterprises.
Now there are whole websites devoted to analyzing daily box office numbers and television ratings. The comments sections of the sites are filled with commentators who tout the numbers of their favorite movies and shows or denigrate the movies or shows that don't connect with audiences, their egos somehow boosted vicariously through a puerile assigning of "winners" and "losers," like the fans of sporting teams, pathetically needing their own tastes validated through utterly specious evidence of merit.
