I'm a Nielson Family!

[Mr Light]

Guess what I got in the mail today???

Five crisp $1 bills from the Nielson company, along with a survey to fill out and mail in! It says I may then be selected to fill out a diary of my viewing habits!

I'm going to single-handedly shift national numbers towards sit-coms and sci-fi/fantasy shows

 

[JirinPanthosa]

If I pay you two bucks, will you put down that you watched a show I like?

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Be careful. They actually send out a different amount of money for each person as a trap to lure you out. You may have just blown your chance.

Or I could just be making that up. Good luck

 

[Mr Light]

I'm going to request that they cancel all reality television. We'll see if that finds any purchase.

 

[Melakon]

Isn't even mentioning it a violation of a confidentiality agreement or something?

 

[Mr Light]

I didn't read anything in the letter about not telling anyone

 

[Melakon]

I dunno really, maybe if it's after you're cleared for the diary. It's also likely I'm just confused in my old age.

 

[Mr Light]

also, I'm not definitely going to be a diary dude, it's just asking for a survey and said I may be picked for the diary thing. no mention of the Nielson box, do they not do that anymore?

 

[Aragorn]

also, I'm not definitely going to be a diary dude, it's just asking for a survey and said I may be picked for the diary thing. no mention of the Nielson box, do they not do that anymore?

I got the same thing once upon a time only it was for radio and a one-time thing only, so maybe it's not the box.

If you want to get rid of reality TV, just find a show that airs opposite those programs and say you watch them.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Can you ask them something for me?

Can you ask them, if they really still think people willing to fill out a viewing diary are a representative sample of all TV viewers?

All I'm sayin', the entire NBC Thursday comedy block that included 30 Rock, The Office, Parks & Rec, Community, and various replacements got relatively low ratings, yet I've met five times as many people who watch them as CSI and entire trivia nights devoted to them and these shows plus SNL and the Daily Show seem to have launched every big comedy star in the last ten years.

It's like a cognitive dissonance thing. If all these shows were as unpopular as Nielsen says, why does everybody in the room immediately get all the references I make to them, and why do their actors appear in every single movie even if they aren't particularly talented?

 

[Melakon]

. . .why do their actors appear in every single movie even if they aren't particularly talented?

That's called having a really great agent.

 

[scotpens]

A few years ago I was contacted by the Arbitron company to be a member of their ratings panel for 30 months. They paid me 15 bucks a month plus a 50-dollar bonus at the end of each year.

All I had to do was carry a small meter on my person during waking hours. The meter knows what radio, television and internet programming you're watching or listening to by picking up sound signatures (it won't register if the TV sound is muted or if you're using headphones).

They also give you a data collector that plugs into your phone line, and a recharger that charges the meter every night and sends collected information to the phone gadget via a low-power RF signal. That's it. No keeping a diary, nothing to write or fill out. It's all done electronically.

The Nielsen people really need to drag themselves into the 21st century.

 

[MacLeod]

A few years ago I was contacted by the Arbitron company to be a member of their ratings panel for 30 months. They paid me 15 bucks a month plus a 50-dollar bonus at the end of each year.

All I had to do was carry a small meter on my person during waking hours. The meter knows what radio, television and internet programming you're watching or listening to by picking up sound signatures (it won't register if the TV sound is muted or if you're using headphones).

They also give you a data collector that plugs into your phone line, and a recharger that charges the meter every night and sends collected information to the phone gadget via a low-power RF signal. That's it. No keeping a diary, nothing to write or fill out. It's all done electronically.

The Nielsen people really need to drag themselves into the 21st century.

^Sounds similar to how BARB collects data for UK viewing habits. Which use an audio signature, sometimes one that is in audiable to human ears to know which programme you are watching.

Your only interaction is pressing a button to signify that you are in the room.

And yes you can't disclose that you are part of how BARB monitor the ratings..

 

[Guy Gardener]

Real question: How does this help you pick up chicks?

 

[Mr Light]

I'll put it in my online dating profile and change my screen name to Mister Nielson, obviously

 

[bigdaddy]

I was paid $8 a few years back to fill out one of these for.... radio stations. Got paid $8 to say no one listens to the radio anymore.

 

[Trekker4747]

There's two types they do, they do the log and the box. The box, ultimately, means more since it can provide "real-time" data and it's harder to manipulate the numbers. The log is another process which probably gives them different ideas and different conclusions about viewing habits. I've done the logs a few times, usually pretty fun to do but obviously easily manipulated.

 

[Owain Taggart]

I'm going to request that they cancel all reality television. We'll see if that finds any purchase.

Reality TV cancelled by Mr Light. News at 11!

You know, with American Idol in its last season, I find it ironic that it's cancelled due to it being too expensive to produce when it was originally among that batch of shows originally created to save the network some money. How times change.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Maybe back when there were three networks and all the choices were family oriented, the personality traits that make you more likely to say 'Yes' to Neilson did not correlate with your TV viewing choices. That is clearly no longer the case. People who say 'Yes' have different preferences than people who say 'No' and once advertisers figure that out Neilson goes out of business.

Also that gives Neilson extra incentive to keep their membership private. So nobody can do any statistical analysis and prove that.

 

[Velocity]

I did the log back when Farscape was still on the air. I stuffed that log with science fiction shows.