Come to think of it, perhaps this inability of traditional metrics to accurately gauge the value of program content is the reason why TV is so much better now than it used to be.

You know, you've got a point there. One of things that's notable about the approach taken by Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu to producing their own content, is that they've returned to the first Golden Age practice of trusting a (hopefully) gifted programming executive with a big pile of money to spend on productions, with instructions to "follow your gut".

We should bear in mind that it may not be a matter of better quality, but a large quantity of shows produced this way, with a greater probability that some of them will work out. Go digging deep in Netflix sometime, and you'll stumble across dozens of "Netflix Originals" you've never heard of, sunk without a trace. But that's to be expected when you let creativity off the leash. Sometimes the muse is a dog.

In contrast, CBS's Star Trek:Discovery seems like the apotheosis of the cold-blooded corporate style of TV programming, one that does cling to "metrics" because that's what corporate drones are taught to do. Safe proven concept, digested through years of focus groups and marketing studies, producing a chaotic production with cast changes before production even starts as focus groups weigh in, a mutating story line as the marketers "fine tune" it, directors coming and going, years-long delays, and a general incoherency. I'm expecting pretty much a dog's breakfast when the unfortunately-monogrammed ST:D finally airs.