Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

by Malcolm Gladwell

In the late 1960s, the screenwriter Norman Lear produced a television sitcom pilot for a show called All in the Family. It was a radical departure from the kind of fare then on television: it was edgy and political, and it tackled social issues that the television of the day avoided. Lear took it to ABC. They had it market-tested before four hundred carefully selected viewers at a theater in Hollywood. Viewers filled out questionnaires and turned a dial marked “very dull,” “dull,” “fair,” “good,” and “very good” as they watched the show, with their responses then translated into a score between 1 and 100. For a drama, a good score was one in the high 60s. For a comedy, the mid-70s. All in the Family scored in the low 40s. ABC said no. Lear took the show to CBS. They ran it through their own market research protocol, called the Program Analyzer, which required audiences to push red and green buttons, recording their impressions of the shows they were watching. The results were unimpressive.