Question: What was the reason for Stone and Parker believing that the show's rankings in the show's third season was an estimate of the show's true fan base?
About the article "South Park", section "Ratings".

Candidate passages:
When "South Park" debuted, it was a huge ratings success for Comedy Central and is seen as being largely responsible for the success of the channel, with Herzog crediting it for putting the network "on the map".
The show's first episode, "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe", earned a Nielsen rating of 1.3 (980,000 viewers), at the time considered high for a cable program.
The show instantly generated buzz among television viewers, and mass viewing parties began assembling on college campuses.
By the time the eighth episode "Starvin' Marvin" aired three months after the show debuted, ratings and viewership had tripled, and "South Park" was already the most successful show in Comedy Central's history.
When the tenth episode "Damien" aired the following February, viewership increased another 33 percent.
The episode earned a 6.4 rating, which at the time was over 10 times the average rating earned by a cable show aired in prime time.
The ratings peaked with the second episode of season two, "Cartman's Mom Is Still a Dirty Slut", which aired on April 22, 1998.
The episode earned an 8.2 rating (6.2 million viewers) and, at the time, set a record as the highest-rated non-sports show in basic cable history.
During the spring of 1998, eight of the ten highest-rated shows on basic cable were "South Park" episodes.
The success of "South Park" prompted more cable companies to carry Comedy Central and led it to its becoming one of the fastest-growing cable channels.
The number of households that had Comedy Central jumped from 9.1 million in 1997 to 50 million in June 1998.
When the show debuted, the most Comedy Central had earned for a 30-second commercial was US$7,500.
Within a year, advertisers were paying an average of US$40,000 for 30 seconds of advertising time during airings of "South Park" in its second season, while some paid as much as US$80,000.
By the third season (1999), the series' ratings began to decrease.
The third season premiere episode drew 3.4 million viewers, a dramatic drop from the 5.5 million of the previous season's premiere.
Stone and Parker attributed this drop in the show's ratings to the media hype that surrounded the show in the previous year, adding that the third season ratings reflected the show's "true" fan base.
The show's ratings dropped further in its fourth season (2000), with episodes averaging just above 1.5 million viewers.
The ratings eventually increased, and seasons five through nine consistently averaged about 3 million viewers per episode.
Though its viewership is lower than it was at the height of its popularity in its earliest seasons, "South Park" remains one of the highest-rated series on Comedy Central.
The season 14 (2010) premiere gained 3.7 million viewers, the show's highest-rated season premiere since 1998.
The eighth season of "Scrubs" was written to be the show's last.
As such, the eighth season's finale, ""My Finale"", was written as a true ending for the show, depicting major events that would require the formula of the show to be changed for it to continue as a coherent television series.
Thus when Bill Lawrence, the creator of "Scrubs", agreed to produce an unexpected ninth season for ABC, he and the show's producers substantially revamped the show.
This led to the show's new medical school setting replacing the hospital setting used in the entire previous eight-season run of the show, to the show focusing on students rather than doctors, and to most of the returning main characters becoming professors. 
Many of the show's episodes featured Eric and the rest of the kids in or around Eric's "Aztec Gold" 1969 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser, handed down to Eric by Red.
For the first seven seasons of the show, the show's introduction showed the cast inside the Vista Cruiser.
The show's pronunciation of "Vista Cruiser," with emphasis on "Cruiser", conflicted with the pronunciation of author George Plimpton in the Oldsmobile television advertisement for the 1969 Vista Cruiser, where he pronounced the two words with the emphasis on "Vista.
"That particular station wagon was bought by Wilmer Valderrama at the show's conclusion from Carsey-Warner for US$500.
In August 2009, the show's Vista Cruiser was named third-greatest television car ever by MSN Autos. 
J.H.
Brodie is a fictional character in the television series "".
He appeared in a recurring role in the show's fourth season and was a regular in the show's fifth season, after becoming an official crime scene recorder. 
In 2014, Stan was ranked by IGN at third place on their list of "The Top 25 South Park Characters", commenting that he "often acts as the voice of reason in the midst of the show's insane events, and in many ways he's more mature than his father Randy."
The website concluded that "his history as one of the more stable and thoughtful characters in the series made him the perfect choice for the voice of Trey and Matt's own creative/professional frustrations.
"Stan frequently offers his perspective on religion, and he was at the center of one of the more controversial episodes of the series, "Trapped in the Closet" (season nine, 2005), where he was recognized as the reincarnation of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard before denouncing the church as nothing more than "a big fat global scam".
In the show's sixteen seasons, Stan has addressed other topics such as homosexuality, hate crime legislation, civil liberties, parenting, illegal immigration, voting, alcoholism, and race relations.
His commentary on these issues have been interpreted as statements Parker and Stone are attempting to make to the viewing public, and these opinions have been subject to much critical analysis in the media and literary world.
The book ' includes an essay in which East Carolina University philosophy professor Henry Jacoby compares Stan's actions and reasoning within the show to the philosophical teachings of William Kingdon Clifford, and another essay by Southern Illinois University philosophy professor John S. Gray which references Stan's decision to not vote for either candidate for a school mascot in the season eight (2004) episode "Douche and Turd" when describing political philosophy and the claimed pitfalls of a two-party system.
Essays in the books ', "Blame Canada!
South Park and Contemporary Culture", and "Taking South Park Seriously" have also analyzed Stan's perspectives within the framework of popular philosophical, theological, and political concepts.
Those who share a common political stance with those expressed by Stan and other characters on the show are sometimes described as "South ParkRepublicans, or "South Park" conservatives, terms attributed to political commentator Andrew Sullivan.
Brian C. Anderson describes the group as consisting mostly of teenagers and young adults who favor the messages on "South Park" which often ridicule liberal viewpoints, and prefer to get their news from conservative-leaning news media sources.
Parker and Stone downplay the show's alignment with any particular political affiliation, and deny having a political agenda when creating an episode.
In response to the focus on elements of satire in "South Park", Parker has said that the main goal of the show is to portray Stan and his friends as "kids just being kids" as a means of accurately showcasing "what it's like to be in school in America".