If you love watching prime time TV shows on broadcast and cable, Funeralwise.com wants you for their “TV to Die For” project. Get paid to watch TV!
Funeralwise.com, everything you need to know about funerals, is launching a TV dead body count study. You heard me right. They’re going to count the dead bodies that appear on TV shows and then put out a list ranking TV shows by dead body count. We’re not talking about reality shows, just dramas like CSI, Law & Order, House, etc. So they’re not really dead, just pretending to be.
This Funeralwise.com study will examine the role of death in popular culture. The objective is to create a dialogue contrasting our acceptance of death in the abstract, such as in entertainment programs, vs. how we deal with the reality of our mortality, such as our willingness to make funeral plans in advance.
How the Study will be Conducted
For purposes of this study, Funeralwise has chosen to focus on television because of its popularity with all age groups. The study will determine the presence of death in TV shows by counting dead bodies appearing in the shows.
Forty television series have been selected for analysis. The study will be conducted in the first quarter of 2012 and will analyze the most recent eight original episodes of each series.
The television series selected for the study are those that regularly include portrayals of death in their story lines. This is a subjective selection by the organizers of the study and may not encompass every series that includes portrayals of death.
Funeralwise will retain the assistance of “watchers” to view the most recent eight episodes of each television series. If a series is not running original episodes during the first quarter of 2012, then the most recent eight episodes from 2011 will be included in the study.
Watchers will record the following for each episode viewed:
- Series Name
- Season # / Episode #
- Episode Name
- Dead Body Count
- Funeral Count
To ensure accuracy of the counts, each episode will be viewed by two watchers and the counts will be compared. When there is a discrepancy in the count, a third watcher will view the show and determine the correct count.
Interested in Participating in the Study?
Funeralwise is looking for “watchers” to help view the TV shows and record the body counts. Since some of the episodes have already aired, you’ll need access to the prior original episodes either online or through your television provider. They are paying $60 per TV series watched (8 episodes @ $7.50 per episode).
If you would like to participate in the study as a “watcher,” email tvbodycounts@funeralwise.com. Send your name, age and occupation, and indicate the TV series that you would like to watch from the list at http://www.funeralwise.com/tv-body-count-study.
Funeralwise needs your commitment to watch the most recent eight episodes of the series assigned to you. To participate, you must commit to watching all eight episodes of at least two TV series. They will assign a maximum of five series to a watcher.
Tell them how many series that you will commit to watching (two to five) and list them in order of preference. Since your preferred series may already be taken, you should list more than the number that you are committing to watch.
For more details about this exciting project, visit this page at the Funeralwise.com website: http://www.funeralwise.com/tv-body-count-study
You might also find this Washington Post story to be of interest: Killings in line of duty haunt police officers. Cops shooting bad guys are a mainstay of police television dramas. But in real life, that moment of confrontation is extraordinarily rare. When it does come, the emotional toll can last forever.