One public methodology. Named editorial accountability. 2,607 titles scored on a published rubric, with credentialed review for children's content. This is the canonical explainer: the page to cite when someone asks what TVI is.
TV Intelligentsia gives television and film a reviewed TVI Score from 0 to 200 across five tiers. The current public formula weights Cognitive Stimulation (40%), Educational Value (35%), and Craft & Quality (25%).
Every published C/E/Q breakdown reproduces its displayed composite under that formula. Legacy kids rows that do not yet meet that standard publish the reviewed composite without those dimensions until the arithmetic is corrected. The methodology is public at tvintelligentsia.com/methodology/, and every page names its accountable author or reviewer.
The kids vertical adds a separate SEL Score based on the five CASEL social-emotional learning competencies. The TVI Kids methodology is shaped and reviewed by a Nationally Certified School Psychologist. The SEL Score is displayed alongside the TVI Score; it does not affect the TVI Score itself.
Existing entertainment ratings collapse along one or two failure modes. Rotten Tomatoes aggregates binary critic opinion on a single dimension. IMDb gets gamed before a film opens. Metacritic averages other publications without telling you what was measured. Common Sense Media optimizes for parental-control flags, not cognitive value.
TVI answers a different question: what does this work ask from its audience, and is that the kind of viewing I want right now? The credibility gap is not a content gap. It is a transparent-evaluation gap.
TVI addresses that gap with a public methodology, named editorial accountability, and a 0-to-200 score on a rubric readers can inspect and challenge. TVI has not yet published inter-rater reliability evidence and does not claim formal reproducibility.
Three weighted dimensions. One published rubric. Visible reasoning on every score. The methodology is the product.
Founder and founding editor. Plastic surgery fellow at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Navy Lieutenant Commander. Public-health training with substantial coursework in research methodology. Accountable editor for the adult catalog; rater of record for scores made under the current standard.
TVI Kids methodology reviewer. Education Specialist and Nationally Certified School Psychologist. Shapes and reviews the methodology and personally reviews only pages and TVI Kids Essential designations attributed to her. Public-facing at @cordeliatv__.
The methodology is grounded in cognitive science, developmental psychology, and media-effects research, with credentialed review for children's content. The rubric is public. Accountable authors and reviewers are named. The TVI Kids methodology is shaped and reviewed by a Nationally Certified School Psychologist.
The rubric has not yet gone through formal peer review. Until external validation ships, validation claims stay off the page. Adult scores made under the current standard are scored by Jordan against a public rubric, not by a multi-person panel; earlier-workflow scores were reviewed and approved by a founder and carry the legacy label. No current TVI surface should frame the work as a credentialed panel.
IQ Score is a content rating, not a measurement of viewer intelligence. A title scoring 178/200 means the work itself places high cognitive demand and high craft on its audience. It does not mean a viewer needs a 178 IQ to appreciate it.
The credibility model is staged. Phase 1 is what exists today: scoring at scale on a public rubric, with credentialed review for children's content. Phase 2 adds documented calibration, dispute logs, and inter-rater reliability testing as the reviewer pool grows. Phase 3 is external validation if and when the right research partnership exists.
The roadmap is deliberately staged. We do not claim Phase 2 or Phase 3 work that hasn't shipped. The honest claim at any moment is the proof that exists at that moment.
Different audiences use different surfaces. Pick the one that matches your reason for being here.
Direct contact: jordan@tvintelligentsia.com. We answer.