(RUMOR) Rivers Of Light to end in 2020 replaced with new show featuring Disney characters

[ToTBellHop]

Ok...

1. The people polled are not a random sample.

2. The number polled for RoL is way too small to be anywhere significant.

3. Oddly, the average rating within each age subgroup is rounded to the nearest half point, while the aggregate rating isn't.

4. According to those polled the rating of attractions for the parks from best to least is...

1. DHS
2. DAK
3. MK
4. USF
5. DCA
6. Epcot

​

Interesting.

I was thinking all of these things, too, but trying to be nice lol. Not everyone isn't a statistician. My understanding is that Disney's numbers are not nearly as concerning for RoL. People like it and it will do fine in a park with so many nighttime offerings. Especially come May.

Len, it is not a random sample because people are choosing to be members and choosing to participate. I assume you aren't picking at random like Disney does. Also, it isn't a representative sample. Folks on these websites view the parks very differently than the average guest.

Not that you guys have the options that Disney does. And Disney doesn't release its numbers, so we have to work with these.

Are your final averages weighted? And are you using the rounded-to-the-nearest-0.5 numbers? One shouldn't round sometimes but not always.

 

[rle4lunch]

In today's recent episode of @lentesta's of Disney Dish Podcast with Jim Hill titled "Stories We'll Tell in 2018" for Walt Disney World . Jim brought up that Rivers Of Life will run until 2020 at Animal Kingdom. What's also brought up is that a new show featuring Disney characters is set to debut in 2021 in time for Walt Disney World's 50th Anniversary. Not that much is know about this show so far.

It's also reported that Rivers Of Light is doing poorly with preschool aged children which is the key demographic for the company.

Well, it had a good run... Time to put the old girl down.. lol

 

[Seabasealpha1]

Welp, that apparently didn't take long...then again, I take those two with a grain of salt...

 

[MCast]

You would think that Disney would run some focus groups for feedback on ROL (perhaps they have and I just don't know). If there's one takeaway from reviews, it's the show needs a more definitive finale with that extra "WOW Factor."

 

[lentesta]

Len, it is not a random sample because people are choosing to be members and choosing to participate.

I'm not sure I'm following here. All surveys include people who are choosing to participate, right?

Related to membership, do you have the same objection about surveying people who have chosen to spend money visiting a Disney theme park? They seem to have already signaled a predisposition to liking Disney. They've also certainly been exposed to Disney's marketing about the attractions.

ETA: That response may have sounded a little brusque. I'd be interested in how to design a better survey for this question, taking in to account the two points you made above. Let me know what you think a better process would be, that satisfies those points.

 

[MisterPenguin]

You would think that Disney would run some focus groups for feedback on ROL (perhaps they have and I just don't know).

They do indeed, well at least surveyed... people have reported being interviewed about seeing RoL and their thoughts. As far as using focus groups in that they gathered a group together for a personal, indepth feedback session, I don't know if they do that (though, I'm pretty sure they do that for their movies).

I'm not sure I'm following here. All surveys include people who are choosing to participate, right?

In a way, yes. They can't force people to take a survey. Which is the beginning of bias in surveys. You hear from people who are willing to give feedback, and don't hear from people who don't want to give feedback. Usually, strong feelings about the thing being surveyed motivate people to respond, which means you're going to get responses that are generally more enthusiastic for or against the thing you're surveying. And then you miss the majority in the middle who are only mildly for or against it. One way around that is to not let people know what it is your surveying when you ask them to participate.

And then you need to randomize your sample. If your surveyors are standing outside RoL and they get to chose who to survey, their natural human tendency may be to only approach people they regard as approachable whether they're aware they're consciously doing that. And to them, approachable means 'smiling.' And so, they only survey smiling people, which is very likely to skew the survey, because they're only surveying people who liked the show. A true random survey will use a trick like "count people coming out and approach every 17th person whether or not they "look approachable"".

When you take a survey online like at touringplan.com, that is not a random sample of all people who have seen RoL. Those are a subset of people who use that particular website, IOW, they are likely to be Disney enthusiasts. This means they may be 'pixie dusters' who think Disney can do no wrong. Or, they may be 'Disney snobs' who are aware of every little deficiency in the Disney operation and are angry that Disney took a year to get RoL right and are judging it by impossibly high standards. Either way, they do no necessarily represent the group of people who attended RoL so far.

Another way to think of online surveys is when a particular cable news channel with an ideological slant surveys online their viewers. Well, their viewers mostly share their same ideological bent, and then those surveys show "people overwhelming think X is bad!", when if you randomly surveyed the general population, the opposite is true.

 

[lentesta]

They do indeed, well at least surveyed... people have reported being interviewed about seeing RoL and their thoughts. As far as using focus groups in that they gathered a group together for a personal, indepth feedback session, I don't know if they do that (though, I'm pretty sure they do that for their movies).



In a way, yes. They can't force people to take a survey. Which is the beginning of bias in surveys. You hear from people who are willing to give feedback, and don't hear from people who don't want to give feedback. Usually, strong feelings about the thing being surveyed motivate people to respond, which means you're going to get responses that are generally more enthusiastic for or against the thing you're surveying. And then you miss the majority in the middle who are only mildly for or against it. One way around that is to not let people know what it is your surveying when you ask them to participate.

And then you need to randomize your sample. If your surveyors are standing outside RoL and they get to chose who to survey, their natural human tendency may be to only approach people they regard as approachable whether they're aware they're consciously doing that. And to them, approachable means 'smiling.' And so, they only survey smiling people, which is very likely to skew the survey, because they're only surveying people who liked the show. A true random survey will use a trick like "count people coming out and approach every 17th person whether or not they "look approachable"".

When you take a survey online like at touringplan.com, that is not a random sample of all people who have seen RoL. Those are a subset of people who use that particular website, IOW, they are likely to be Disney enthusiasts. This means they may be 'pixie dusters' who think Disney can do no wrong. Or, they may be 'Disney snobs' who are aware of every little deficiency in the Disney operation and are angry that Disney took a year to get RoL right and are judging it by impossibly high standards. Either way, they do no necessarily represent the group of people who attended RoL so far.

Another way to think of online surveys is when a particular cable news channel with an ideological slant surveys online their viewers. Well, their viewers mostly share their same ideological bent, and then those surveys show "people overwhelming think X is bad!", when if you randomly surveyed the general population, the opposite is true.

I appreciate the detailed response.

 

[ToTBellHop]

They do indeed, well at least surveyed... people have reported being interviewed about seeing RoL and their thoughts. As far as using focus groups in that they gathered a group together for a personal, indepth feedback session, I don't know if they do that (though, I'm pretty sure they do that for their movies).



In a way, yes. They can't force people to take a survey. Which is the beginning of bias in surveys. You hear from people who are willing to give feedback, and don't hear from people who don't want to give feedback. Usually, strong feelings about the thing being surveyed motivate people to respond, which means you're going to get responses that are generally more enthusiastic for or against the thing you're surveying. And then you miss the majority in the middle who are only mildly for or against it. One way around that is to not let people know what it is your surveying when you ask them to participate.

And then you need to randomize your sample. If your surveyors are standing outside RoL and they get to chose who to survey, their natural human tendency may be to only approach people they regard as approachable whether they're aware they're consciously doing that. And to them, approachable means 'smiling.' And so, they only survey smiling people, which is very likely to skew the survey, because they're only surveying people who liked the show. A true random survey will use a trick like "count people coming out and approach every 17th person whether or not they "look approachable"".

When you take a survey online like at touringplan.com, that is not a random sample of all people who have seen RoL. Those are a subset of people who use that particular website, IOW, they are likely to be Disney enthusiasts. This means they may be 'pixie dusters' who think Disney can do no wrong. Or, they may be 'Disney snobs' who are aware of every little deficiency in the Disney operation and are angry that Disney took a year to get RoL right and are judging it by impossibly high standards. Either way, they do no necessarily represent the group of people who attended RoL so far.

Another way to think of online surveys is when a particular cable news channel with an ideological slant surveys online their viewers. Well, their viewers mostly share their same ideological bent, and then those surveys show "people overwhelming think X is bad!", when if you randomly surveyed the general population, the opposite is true.

To add to this, while it is impossible to get an ideal sample when working with human opinion, Disney employs folks who use complex statistical models to weight individual groups to be more representative.

Among us mere mortals, an easy way to gauge a group and ignore bias altogether is to merely report changes. Have 1000 people rate every nighttime show and compare averages. As long as it is the same people, we can ignore bias. All we want to know is what people like more or less, not the actual value of their appreciation which is far more challenging to quantity (and not terribly important for what we are considering. No one is suggesting RoL is UNPOPULAR. Just maybe not as popular as Disney's other projects.

 

[Coaster Lover]

They can't force people to take a survey. Which is the beginning of bias in surveys. You hear from people who are willing to give feedback, and don't hear from people who don't want to give feedback.

You can't force people to take a survey, but you can incentivise people to take a survey. I mean, I think something as simple as "take this survey, get a free anytime/anywhere FastPass" would go a long way to getting middle of the road people to take a survey. I mean, I'll be honest to say that Disney survey's (or at least the ones I've taken in the park... where you go to City Hall and they sit you at a computer) are just too long. I mean, unless I had very strong opinions one way or another about something, even if the nicest cast member in the world came up to me again asking me to take a survey, I would likely decline unless there was something in it for me (and even something as simple [and inexpensive to Disney] as a FastPass would be enough).

 

[rushtest4echo]

We're discussing the intricacies of biased/tainted survey/poll methods for Rivers of Light when the nation's best media couldn't construct and conduct an unbiased/untainted survey/poll if the future of the country depended on it.

Oh wait...

 

[Chef Mickey]

Honestly, they can slap three five second clips of Dory, Nemo, and Simba during the We Are One montage, and kids will be flipping out. They wouldn't care less if it was a well crafted show with an elaborate story, or Simba walking across the screen. The problem there is that the main screens don't fully meet a solid 50% of the time, which is far from conducive to that type of show. Overall, one thing to remember is that RoL still has a good reaction, moreso from older, mature audiences.

I feel like they did some slapping of IP up during Happily Ever After. Show could have been better, but the in your face IP seems to be what's working.

"OH, IT'S DORY!!"

"OH, NEMO!!"

"FRRRRRRRRROOOOOZZZZZZZZZZZZENNNNNNNNNNNNNN"

**no need to make sense**

 

[WDWTank]

This is absurd on all levels. The show is already amazing, leave it be.....

 

[larryz]

I think John gets too much credit. The real genius behind pre-buyout Pixar was Joe Ranft and while the rest of the story trust old guard kept making great work, John's just been playing with his Hot Wheels and looking over Disney Feature Animation's shoulder.

Or playing with his toaster... remember his cameo in the "Inside Out" sneak peek video...

 

[larryz]

Are they seriously trying to appeal an entire water show to the preschool demographic? We're talking about kids who sometimes eat their own boogers and take naps, right?

Today's toddlers are tomorrow's teens... and then 24-45 consumers...
If they won't watch the programming, it just won't work. The parents are already brainwashed convinced.

 

[Chef Mickey]

Regarding RoL ratings, as @lentesta said, they are respectable by a large margin, just low compared to other nightime shows. Not to bring the whole Uni debate into this (this is just for a non-Disney industry reference) this show scores realms above Cinematic Spectacular and most others in the industry. No one (well, very few) seems to find RoL to be a bad show, it is just different and a bit underwhelming. It is not the secong coming of (insert your deity of choice) nor the second coming of (insert your devil of choice). As has been said before, this is a long way off, and honestly, the Bobs want their moneys worth on this one instead of cutting their losses (which are too small to be lost). The RoL merch is selling modestly, and unless we see empty shows running, thing look good for the foreseeable future. Esoecially if/when they get those extra few effects working.

How are "ratings" done and normalized? I am actually very curious to know. I know they do some guest surveys, but they seem minimal.

 

[AEfx]

Ugh, I opened this thread thinking this was interesting - and then I was totally deflated when I heard the "source". Just the same throwing of feces on the wall and hoping it sticks - but in this case, so far off and so general, no one will remember by the time we find out.

In any case, I think it's a great idea - and if by some chance it happens, it will be really funny when people ret-con RoL into some beloved show being ruined just because of anti-character bias.

 

[AEfx]

The RoL merch is selling modestly, and unless we see empty shows running, thing look good for the foreseeable future.

They could throw pretty much anything out there and there wouldn't be empty shows running.

 

[Cousin Huet]

Glow Tours? What's that's an interesting idea and concept.

Glow tours are awesome, especially when on a bowfishing rig where you can then shoot fish swimming in the glow

 

[Magicart87]

Good!

Assuming this new show also comes with a new name... maybe now I'll be less likely to call the Avatar boat ride "Rivers of Light" by mistake. Anyone else do this? No! just me... ok.

 

[FigmentJedi]

Ugh, I opened this thread thinking this was interesting - and then I was totally deflated when I heard the "source". Just the same throwing of feces on the wall and hoping it sticks - but in this case, so far off and so general, no one will remember by the time we find out.

In any case, I think it's a great idea - and if by some chance it happens, it will be really funny when people ret-con RoL into some beloved show being ruined just because of anti-character bias.

But Rivers of Light is a loveable and intelligent show that will be ruined by cartoon IP infusion because there's too many braindead morons that want cartoon characters dancing around on waterscreens.