This Wired article says that there are large drops in certain
shows now that Nielsen
is using their "new" technology instead of simply having their "Nielsen
Families" write down their viewing habits. I had no idea that they still
used the pen & paper method at all. In 1996 and 1997, I was part of a
"Nielsen Family". I was 24, as was my room mate. We had a set-top
box on each TV and VCR in the house that called in our viewing habits at some
unknown late time.
My room mate would often do his part to boost the ratings of certain shows,
but we did it honestly: the meters didn't lie. If the meter said the
living room TV was on and playing "The Waltons", then it was a fact.
Whether or the sound was off and my roomy was playing solitaire in the dining
room is up for debate, though. When the Nielsen rep called the
apartment to verify that their readings were correct, I assurred them that there
was nothing wrong with their equipment and that, yes, the TV in the master bed
room had been on for the last 4 days. Yes, the same
channel. Matt was a big sports fan, he was just doing his part, you
know. He also did his part in other ways, like preventing his
girlfriend from watching Melrose Place. The day he told me about
that I had to make an embarassed admission: there was nothing on during
the day, I was forced to watch Jerry Springer every day and had watched every
day the last week. That week just so happened to be the first week that
Jerry beat Oprah in the ratings. Coincidence? We'll never
know...
So now they are finally rolling the "people meter" out full steam and ratings
are dropping... imagine that... how on Earth did people pretend to believe
that a family would accurately write down their viewing habits? Every
week? For free? I think it was a once-a-week "let's write down our
favorite shows" game more than an accurate viewing journal. There is no
way I could even attempt to document the channel-surfing I used to do when I
watched TV. I remember those late nights (I worked 3:30pm - 1:30 am) where
I watched TV for almost 2 hours after work, rarely resting on a single channel
for more than 5 minutes and never through a commercial break. I
wonder if they even bothered tallying what I watched during those times?
If so, they must have marked it as a vote for "none of the
above".
[UPDATE] I've gotten at least a couple hits via search engines when someone was looking for how much Nielsen Families are paid. When I was part of one, we received no money. However, Nielsen would pay for 50% of the cost of repairs if a TV, VCR, game console, etc broke. We never had that happen so we never found out the exact terms of that. Otherwise, we were given nothing at all other than bragging rights.