--- title: "The word \"actually\" on television" description: "The word \"actually\" on television" --- [![Snapstream](https://blog.snapstream.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Snapstream_Image-Nov-2015/snapstreamCleanLogo.png?width=183&height=34&name=snapstreamCleanLogo.png "Snapstream")](https://www.snapstream.com/) [* Search* ](https://blog.snapstream.com/2008/07/the-word-actually-on-television/#searchModal) × [![SnapStream Blog](https://blog.snapstream.com/hs-fs/hubfs/snapstreamBlogLogo.png?width=541&name=snapstreamBlogLogo.png "SnapStream Blog")](https://blog.snapstream.com/) # The word "actually" on television July 28 2008 by Rakesh [Jeff Jarvis](http://www.buzzmachine.com/) wrote a blog post last week about how he thought the word "actually" was overused on television. Here's the post (he lost a bunch of posts and hasn't restored them all): > **Actually is the new ‘y’know’** > July 19th, 2008, by Jeff Jarvis > > The most overused and unnecessary word on broadcast is “actually.” Start counting how many times it is used by TV people and you’ll hate me for driving you nuts. > > While I’m kvetching, why do TV people introduce a panel of three people and then say, “Mr. Jones, let me start with you.” Just start with him: ask your question. Why this need to warn Mr. Jones? Our [TV search appliance](https://www.snapstream.com/overview) is used by a number of journalism schools for content analysis (like [Emerson College](https://www.snapstream.com/case-study/analyzing-broadcast-journalism) and GWU, so this got me thinking about how we might try and use our product to measure Jeff's assertion about the word actually. So here's what I did. I took **one week **of **national TV recordings **that we had made on a SnapStream Enterprise TV Server and I did some ad-hoc analysis (remember, I'm not expert on content analysis!) on how frequently the word 'actually' appeared **by series **and **by network**. Here are the 20 shows that **use the word 'actually' the most:** | **TV Series** | **'actually' count / hour** | | --- | --- | | House Call With Dr. Sanjay Gupta (CNN) | 19.17 | | Reliable Sources (CNN) | 17.89 | | ABC's World News Sunday (ABC) | 10.7 | | The Tonight Show With Jay Leno (NBC) | 10.4 | | The Newshour With Jim Lehrer (PBS) | 8.68 | | Washington Week (PBS) | 7.61 | | Oprah Winfrey (CBS) | 7.35 | | Fox And Friends Sunday (FNC) | 7.27 | | The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson (CBS) | 7 | | 20/20 (ABC) | 6.82 | | CNN Saturday Morning (CNN) | 6.13 | | American Morning (CNN) | 6 | | Today (NBC) | 5.76 | | CNN Special Investigations Unit (CNN) | 5.63 | | Fox And Friends (FNC) | 5.47 | | The Colbert Report (COMEDY) | 5.4 | | At The Movies With Ebert & Roeper (ABC) | 5.32 | | Dr. Phil (NBC) | 5.26 | | Kudlow & Company (CNBC) | 5.22 | | Studio B With Shepard Smith (FNC) | 5.07 | And here are the 20 shows that use the word 'actually' **the least**: | **TV series** | **'actually' count / hour** | | --- | --- | | Sportscenter (ESPN) | 1.45 | | Geraldo At Large (FNC) | 1.41 | | Nightline (ABC) | 1.39 | | The Tyra Banks Show (FOX) | 1.36 | | Anderson Cooper 360 (CNN) | 1.33 | | The Live Desk (FNC) | 1.17 | | This Week With George Stephanopoulos (ABC) | 0.94 | | Baseball Tonight (ESPN) | 0.94 | | Special Report With Brit Hume (FNC) | 0.89 | | Bulls And Bears (FNC) | 0.89 | | This Week In Politics (CNN) | 0.79 | | Lou Dobbs Tonight (CNN) | 0.68 | | The Beltway Boys (FNC) | 0.59 | | Cnn Student News (CNNH) | 0 | | Fox News Watch (FNC) | 0 | | Forbes On Fox (FNC) | 0 | | Hannity'S America (FNC) | 0 | | Cashin' In (FNC) | 0 | | Face The Nation (CBS) | 0 | | Now On PBS (PBS) | 0 | And here's a summary of the the word 'actually' **by network**: | **Channel** | **'actually' count / hour** | | --- | --- | | PBS | 5.84 | | NBC | 5.1 | | CNBC | 4.55 | | COMEDY | 4.19 | | CBS | 4.18 | | CNN | 3.75 | | ABC | 3.71 | | CNNH | 3.65 | | CSPAN | 3.59 | | FNC | 3.06 | | FOX | 3.02 | | ESPN | 1.4 | So at the higher end, offending shows are using the word 'actually' between **once every 10 minutes **to **once every 3 minutes**. Since I'm not a content analysis expert, what other trends can you draw? How could the test be improved? - [Tweet](https://twitter.com/share) This entry was posted on Monday, July 28, 2008 at 05:37 PM. You can follow any responses to this entry through the [RSS](https://blog.snapstream.com/rss.xml) feed. **What is SnapStream?** There's an unlimited amount of video content out there: 24/7 news channels, breaking news events, sports, talk shows, awards galas, entertainment shows, and so much more. 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